Being Benedictine

The Harvest Moon and Autumn Equinox this week, combined with a free Sunday afternoon, have ripened my desire for SoulCollage creativity and reflection. As often happens, intuitively the card comes together with images I am drawn to. Words follow upon reflection and using the “I am one who…” prompt. (See HERE for more info about How to SoulCollage.)

I am one who has an appetite for knowledge that is never quenched.

I am one who loves to learn. I want to know more. I want to understand.

I am one who grows weary from my own desire to learn more and more and more.

I never want to be as uninformed as I used to be—about politics, about the suffering of others, about racism or poverty.

I can learn just a little bit more. More knowledge (of good and evil?) seems just a book, podcast, documentary, news article, or Facebook post away.

I am one who creates my own stress, anxiety and overwhelm because I never know enough.

When will I know ENOUGH, I wonder?

I know that I cannot know it all. I need to settle into that knowing.

Knowing is not all or none, one or the other. Authentic knowing is not a spectrum of “knowing nothing” on one end and “knowing it all” on the other. I can let go of dualistic thinking and rest in the balance of enough.

I can take a break, stop seeking, and let what I do know move through me into a new kind of knowing.

There is no deadline for which I need to know more. I can give myself some breathing space, a letting go of the pursuit of more, a gentle moving from one season of knowing to another.

I can take a time out with a dose of self-compassion, knowing I will never know it all. I can love learning without letting it consume me.

Yes, that’s it—I give myself permission to not know it all, to not exhaust every source of information that promises more knowing. I can say ENOUGH.

I welcome a new season of unknowing, of revealing, of growing, of I don’t know, of enough.

Written by Jodi Blazek Gehr ©