Do you have enough? I mean, really enough of what you need to survive and thrive?

We go through our day telling ourselves that we don’t have enough. We wake up in the morning thinking we didn’t get enough sleep. We don’t have enough time to get ready for work. We don’t have enough food in the house in case company stops by. We don’t have enough friends or daylight or hair or money.

The truth is, we’ve programmed ourselves to think in terms of never having enough and that, if we had more, only then would we be truly happy.

The Global Sufficiency Network is a movement that calls us to break free from living in a context of “scarcity” – of never feeling like we have enough. By living in scarcity, we over consume, chase money and material things and still never feel like we have enough. It erodes our relationships, our job satisfaction and our sense of self-worth.

According to Lynne Twist, special advisor to the Global Sufficiency Network, “If you let go of trying to get more of what you don’t really need it frees up oceans of energy to pay attention to and make a difference with what you already have. When you make a difference with what you have, it expands.”

The mission of the Network, therefore, goes beyond self-actualization. Broadly, the practice of sufficiency would have a positive impact on our environment, spirituality and peace and justice issues by allowing us to make better use of our resources through a realignment of our priorities.

Shakti Gawain, in her classic book “Creative Visualization,” explains our misplaced priorities in this way:

“Often people attempt to live their lives backward: They try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so that they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want. “

As you prepare for the holidays, consider ways to avoid the seduction of “abundance” and instead focus on sufficiency. Concentrate less on having to do it all and buy it all and bake it all and wrap it all and replace it by being there for others – and for yourself. It just might be the most satisfying holiday you’ve ever had.

- LuAnne Speeter