March 11: Are you enough? (That's the real question, isn't it?)

I posted a prompt yesterday that got a really thoughtful response and I want to share it with you, because it sparked something I've been trying to put into words for a while.

The prompt:

"If your current relationship ended tomorrow, would you feel like you had shown up as your best self?"

Someone sat with that and came back with something real. The concept of "your best self" bothered them.

Not the prompt itself, but the phrase.

Because if we're always growing and changing, what does "best self" even mean? And does framing it that way imply that when something doesn't work out, it's because you weren't enough?

They pointed to the "come to this relationship healed" crowd and the armchair psychology of self-help culture that sounds like growth but often translates to: don't bring me anything I'll have to help you carry.

They’re right right.

Nobody heals in a vacuum.

You don't learn to trust again without having that trust tested.

You don't learn to repair conflict if conflict is never allowed.

I loved where they went with it. And honestly? I agree with them.

I have this thought framework that I’ve been developing for a while that I find challenging to articulate, so please bear with me.

When I ask those prompts or write about relationships, I'm talking to you, about your experience.

I'm not handing you a measuring stick.

I have zero measurements for your "best."

Only you do.

What I'm really asking is: are you living the life you want to live, as authentically as you can, within the reality you're actually in?

If yes, great. If no, now you have a starting point.

That's it.

That's the whole thing.

What I'm not doing is giving you a weapon to aim at your partner, or for your partner to aim at you.

The second "Nookie says you need to communicate better" enters your relationship as an argument, we've lost the plot entirely.

We can only change ourselves.

We can only watch how our world shifts when we do.

At the end of the day, my whole thing is this:

Relationships work better when they're collaborative instead of combative.

All of them.

And that starts with the most important relationship you'll ever have:

The one with yourself.

If that's something you want to actually dig into—what that looks like for you, in your actual life—that's what a free 15-minute Big Ask consultation is for.

Just you and me, figuring out where you are and what might be possible.

https://my.curiouser.life/15-minutes-big-ask

Rev Heather, aka Nookie, LUQ
https://my.curiouser.life
+1-855-712-5433 (toll-free)

P.S. What does "showing up as your best self" actually mean to you? Or does the phrase make you want to throw your phone?

Hit reply. I genuinely want to know.