You are so much more than enough

​My (not so) little Ian recently tried out for a higher intensity lacrosse team than he'd been playing on before. The team is designed to push young lacrosse players who may want to play the game beyond high school.

Ian has that as a goal.

I can still feel Ian's excitement when he told me he'd made the team. I could hear the "I've made it" in his voice. Yesterday the team had its first practice and Ian discovered "I've made it" is really "it's only just begun."

On the way home, Ian told me he knew the other players were going to be more skilled than the players he'd previously been playing with. He said he knew SOME of them would be more skilled than him. But, he said, I didn't know how MANY of them would be.

The excitement I heard in his voice weeks ago when he told me he made the team was now replaced with doubt. It was now questions. Ian said, I know this is good, it will push me to get better.

Sometimes we say things we want to believe without believing them, we say them as consolation. I could hear that in Ian's proclamation.

I told Ian this is where he has to be careful. Because the dark side of our minds will start telling us lies. The side that senses when we are down and sees an opportunity to pile on.

The dark side of our mind is always looking for the opportunity to sell us two life defeating lies: you are no one and you have no one. Because the day you start believing those two lies is the day you stop chasing anything in life.

Sometimes it convinces us to stop desiring life at all.

I told Ian that dark side uses comparison as it's biggest weapon. It has us looking around at others and deciding I'm not them, so I am no one. And the moment you start believing you are no one, you'll start believing you aren't worthy of HAVING anyone.

I challenged Ian to compare Ian to Ian. I challenged him to compare himself to the awkward and completely non-athletic child he was just six or seven years ago. The child who is now a young man on a team he never could have dreamed of being on back then.

I know I sure didn't see it coming.

But you did dream it, Ian. You did decide it. And you DID become it.

Our brains have a dark side; they also have a light side. A light side with a switch we control. Because every day we get to decide I am someone and I will continue to be someone. And that someone will always look like me even as that dark side tries to convince me the goal is to look like you.

And that me - that me will always be enough.

Yesterday was national suicide prevention day. It's a day that has deep and sorrowful meaning to so many of my friends. It has deep and challenging meaning to me as well.

Because if I'm honest, I've spent a lot of my life battling that war between the dark side and the light side. That battle between 'you are no one' and 'you are you and that is so much more than enough'.

I am thankful that although I'm not sure I'll ever fully win that battle, it no longer has the control over me it once did. Because I see the dark side for the liar it is.

We all have some people in our lives who need us to help them expose that lie in their own lives. People who need reminded that you aren't them, and I'm thankful for that. Because who you are to me is so much more than enough.

Who you are to me is all that I need.

You will never have the chance to be someone else. But you will always have the chance to be the most beautiful you that you can be.

What a beautiful day today is to discover that.

And to become that.