Inner Sufficiency

Driven by vague discomfort, I pick up the phone again. The solution to my problem starts by a thoughtful pause, but stopping doesn’t even cross my mind. I put on my earbuds and hit play on two-hour podcast to bring my mind off the aching void inside.

The above is a reoccurring pattern I should recongize by now, and yet it slips by my mind unnoticed. It’s a state I’ve learned to endure rather than deal with. I know what would fix it, but I don’t have a reliable roadmap for it. More often than not I just flail around aimlessly until something clicks and it’s gone. I call the solution “inner sufficiency.”

I’m sure there’s million names for the state I’m talking about, but I like inner sufficiency the best. It sounds the most what it feels like. It’s the most desirable state, or at least, it is if you ask me. It feels like all the fetters are dropped, and you are complete as you are, and your everyday fears lose their footing. I can’t pinpoint what exactly brings it forth, so this ramble will be incomplete. I’ll try my best to write down something even if it doesn’t quite reach the true core.

• Inner sufficiency is damaged by dependency. Dependency sustains the aching void, and aching void in turn sustains dependency. You live through unconscious assumption that you are lacking.


• Insight to whatever brand of lack there is at the time may help bringing forth inner sufficiency.


• Sedentariness and inacitivity postpones insight. I notice if I literally sit with my thoughts for too long, there won’t be any fruitful developments. Getting out of the house or chatting with a friend freshens the process.


• Meditation can help tremendously depending on what brand of whirlwind is going on up there, but I don’t want to make it sound like a magic cure when your soul is being swallowed by cosmic emptiness and relief needs to be found as soon as possible. It can, however, help bringing your mind to a state where it’s capable of digesting everything else listed.


• Outside sources of insight are a double-edged sword. Sometimes it genuinely helps, sometimes it deepens dependency and perpetuates the futile search for completion.


• Noticing and appreciating the progress you’ve made, skills you have and what you’ve already accomplished. You can’t lie to yourself, though. You can’t play up things more than they’re worth and expect it to change how you feel, but it’s also similarly inauthentic to make things have less value than they do. Try to see the value you truly believe in, and respect it as it is.


• Choose your own contents over that of other’s. This is just a roundabout way to describe a process of being less dependent. Sometimes this is simply not possible nor advisable, but at least try to entertain the thought that you have what it takes to face the challenge before you. You have accumulated enough resources to make it. You don’t have to give into the insecure voice within urging you to check how it’s supposed to be done, or what’s the right way to look at it. Tune in, hear the quiet voice and honor it with your trust.