When I teach yoga, as many yoga teachers do, I start with a theme for our practice and I end with a few minutes of guided meditation as my students relax into their final savasana. Given the fact that I primarily teach older adults in either a long term care or assisted living setting, my final savasana is brief, just a few minutes of quiet reflection, tying the movements we’ve just done to a message.

I often find myself using a variation on the theme of “Enough.” I ask the participants to focus on holding the thought that each of us is “enough,” each of us is what we need to be and are meant to be at this particular moment in time. I will use the final moments of breathing exercise to ask them to exhale judgement and inhale acceptance, to exhale frustration and inhale peace and other pairs of words that convey much the same message. It is one of accepting ourselves as we are and appreciating all that we are right here and right now.

It is such an important message that I often wear that word on a bracelet as a reminder and yet I find that no matter how often I say those words, how often I remind myself of their truth, I often find myself wanting. It’s human nature, I know, to think the “if only” thoughts. It’s human nature to find fault with ourselves at a level beyond that which anyone else might find.

I can resurrect and replay so many things I wish I had done differently. I can recreate criticisms and negative comments that have been made over the course of my life far more readily, and with far more precision, than positive ones. It’s a personality trait that, frankly, does not serve me well and one that is far too ingrained.

What would it mean to accept and believe that we are enough? It would mean that we show ourselves the love and care that we show and give to others. It would mean that we look for the good in ourselves and focus on that rather than dwelling on the less than perfect. It would mean that the old tapes become erased and the old messages obliterated. It would mean that we draw a full breath and let go of all that does not serve us today.

Holding ourselves in the same light and with the same love that we show others, looking at ourselves with not just open eyes but open hearts, we can begin to change those messages, we can believe that, indeed, we are enough and that we have always been enough. And in that way we can continue to fill our full hearts.