When Is Being You Enough?

WWhen I first moved to Los Angeles, I often babysat for the Meier family.

The father was a hands-on, deeply attentive parent.
He was also quietly perceptive.

One evening, as he drove me home, he asked me a question I didn’t understand at the time:

“When will being Dvora be enough?”

I was confused.

How could I be “enough”
when my life was filled with unfinished to-do lists
and no clear end in sight?

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I have always been oriented toward growth.

At 19, I entered a program to address binge eating.
In my early 20s, I built a home and family.
In my late 20s, I began graduate school—a path that took 16 years to complete while raising a large family.

Even now, decades later, the lists continue.
In my head. On paper. Digitally.

There is always more to do.
More to become.

Somewhere underneath that drive is a quieter question:

Am I enough as I am?

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The Idea of “Good Enough”

The psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott introduced the idea of the “good enough mother.”

Not perfect.
But present, responsive, and willing to repair.

A “good enough” parent:

• meets essential needs
• makes mistakes
• and then returns to reconnect

It is precisely this imperfection that allows a child to develop resilience.

The child learns:

• things don’t always go smoothly
• frustration can be tolerated
• repair is possible

Over time, this builds the capacity to live in the real world—not an ideal one.

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Becoming “Good Enough” to Ourselves

As adults, we take on that role internally.

We become responsible for how we relate to ourselves.

And yet, many of us continue to operate with a different standard:

• perfection
• constant self-evaluation
• a sense that we must earn our place

For me, that has often shown up as an ongoing effort to prove—
to myself and to the world—that I deserve to be here.

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A Different Way of Relating

In recent years, I’ve found a different kind of support through mindful self-compassion.

At first, it can sound self-focused.

In practice, it does the opposite.

It softens the internal pressure
and allows for a more stable, humane way of living.

Simple phrases, repeated with intention:

• May I be safe
• May I be healthy
• May I accept myself as I am
• May I find peace

And then extending that outward:
to loved ones, to strangers, to the wider world.

This practice doesn’t remove responsibility.
It changes the tone in which we live our lives.

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Returning to the Question

The father who asked me that question—Rabbi Levi Meier—later became Director of Chaplaincy at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

He spent years accompanying people through illness, uncertainty, and the end of life.

Looking back, I understand his question differently.

Not as a challenge to stop growing—
but as a challenge to stop withholding acceptance until some imagined future point.

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Closing Thought

“When will being you be enough?”

Not when everything is finished.
Not when nothing is left undone.

But alongside the striving.

We continue to grow.
We repair what we can.
We do what is right.

And at the same time,
we learn to live without the constant condition
that we are not yet enough.

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Update (April 2026):

I wrote this years ago, but the question has stayed with me.

Over time, I’ve come to see that the tension between striving and self-acceptance doesn’t resolve once and for all.

It becomes something we learn to hold.

Growth and acceptance are not opposites.
They are meant to exist together.