Written by: Natalie Rotin, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Have you ever been out walking and realised you’ve been looking down the entire time? And when you finally look up you wonder; why didn’t I do this sooner?
You notice how blue the sky is, the bright green leaves on the trees, the myriad of people walking by. Life is happening all around you and for a while, you didn’t even notice.
Almost instantly, life feels better; physically, emotionally, mentally. It’s like all the unnecessary strain and stress has cleared out and made room for you to breathe.
This is how I felt 18 months ago. When we were forced to retreat into stillness. Everything stripped back to the bare essentials. Four reasons to leave home. Long walks replace the gym. Grocery shopping is an adventure (in some cases a game of roulette). And when you’re sick, you MUST stay home and rest.
No after school sports or manic train rides to and from work. No getting stuck in traffic or rushing to events that you don’t really feel like attending. Pandemic was difficult for a lot of reasons, and yet it completely changed how we play the game. A realisation slowly emerged that many of us had been centring our lives around the hard and heavy stuff that we regarded as normal day to day living. Other people’s opinions, satisfying the needs of our kids, the accumulation of stuff, choosing noise over silence. We’d forgotten what it was like to be still and show up as our genuine, enough-filled selves. I realised pretty quickly that I didn’t know myself as well as I thought. In fact, I’d barely scratched the surface.
My identity was so wrapped around making others happy; focusing on how I could do more and be more, I was missing the not so big picture standing before me.
I’d forgotten that I was enough without all the bells and whistles.
Success was my goal post and it was all about more. More stuff, more work, more doing, more reaching for the stars.
All the basics had been left behind generations ago; home-cooked meals and baking from scratch, dirt-filled adventures in the yard, puzzles that took weeks to complete, the gratification that took time and energy. What was this life that I was now being forced to live? Why did I feel so uncomfortable…and yet also so happy?
The truth was simple and yet hard to reckon with. What I had been yearning for this entire time was the type of success that already existed. A life where simply being able to breathe means I’m already enough. I beat the 1 in 4 trillion odds that I would even be conceived. I’ve made it through a ridiculous amount of struggle. I’ve made it through 41 years’ worth of a very privileged life. And now it was time to take it back to basics.
To be happy with what I had. To be comfortable with who I was. To be fully connected with the people around me.
What the world identifies as success had tricked me into thinking I wasn’t enough.
Over the course of many months, the terms of which I choose to live my life have begun to slowly change. I began by shedding my life of physical clutter. Working with my therapist on the mental and emotional baggage. Getting uncomfortable with the stuff inside of me that I no longer wanted to hold onto. Recycling what was broken but not yet dead. Stripping back my endless list of goals and focusing on the power of one.
I know there's always a place in our life for effort, energy, getting stuff done. It's not always about stillness. It ebbs and flows like the global pandemic that freed me from more in the first place. But even with ambition and our innate sense that to live is to grow, I wonder if the truth of success is as basic as to say; I am enough right now in this very moment.
I don’t claim to have created the perfect ‘how to’ handbook for living in the now. Or redefining success. I’m nowhere even finished with the decluttering and discovery of what makes me happy.
I don’t know what a simple more than enough life looks like for anyone because I’m not anyone else. I’m me. Our worthiness, our sense of enough, hinges on our ability to be completely ourselves. We must unpack and rebuild our own unique version of success. Of how that success makes us enough.
What is this life we’ve been forced to live? Why do we feel so uncomfortable…and yet also so happy? We’re all discovering this together.
What I can say is this. When I stop running towards the goal post with my head down oblivious to the wonder of life, and instead move forward at a pace that is speaking to me, acknowledging that I’m enough with each step I take, I feel free.
I feel light, I feel inspired, I feel excited to move forward. I’m free of the expectation that to be enough, to be successful, I must have more. I’m able to admire the wonder, stand in humble awe of the life I live.
When I embrace the stillness, the quietness, the basics of day to day living, success can no longer trick me into thinking I’m not enough. Success is me being enough when I look up and show up just as I am.
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Natalie Rotin, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Natalie is a leading speaker, writer, and goal-setting extraordinaire. Her degree in Health Science and experience as a Behaviour Change Coach led to her current role as mental health and continuous improvement expert in the Emergency Service sector. While by day she supports the wellbeing of frontline workers, by night she is a budding entrepreneur inspiring change and wholehearted living.
After many years of people-pleasing and struggling with her identity as a single parent, Nat established Made for Greatness; a business that fosters community and connection while helping ambitious women to build resilience, set healthy boundaries, and live an adventurous yet simple life.
Nat continues to inspire and empower others through her unique storytelling abilities and the creation of personal development tools and resources. She believes our circumstances don’t define us and that what we tend to see as failures has the potential to drive our success. Her mission: If we dare to be vulnerable, accepting that we are a work in progress, happiness and freedom can be found in the process of living, not just enjoyed as an end goal.
