I am Enough

From Resolutions To Self-Trust: Choosing Inner Desire Over External Pressure

• Lyn Man at Earthaconter

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Ever notice how the word should sneaks into your goals and steals the joy? 

We sat down with Scott Plate, Alex Papworth, and Mark Henderson to unravel the pressure to optimise our lives for status, speed, and approval—and to replace it with a gentler standard: moving from inner desire, not external demand.

We start with a vivid metaphor: learning to drive a manual on a hill. Finding the friction point between clutch and gas mirrors the balance between listening to the world and listening to ourselves. From there we tackle childhood scripts—“What will you be?”—and the labels that make others comfortable but leave us small. Alex gets honest about belonging and taboo during messy career transitions. Scott reflects on the courage to stop explaining choices and to let people be wrong about you while you follow what you know. Mark explores meaning through service, sustainability, and the reality that purpose can change shape as life unfolds.

The conversation journeys through mountain zigzags, sailing tacks, and the mesmerising flow of a starling murmuration. Each image reminds us that growth is rarely a straight line. Sometimes the truest path looks like leaving a promotion, changing tribes, or walking away from an impressive label when meaning evaporates. We talk about slowing down enough to hear the quiet signal beneath the noise, choosing communities that make space for your nature, and becoming an instrument for the work that wants to move through you. Practical? Yes. Romantic? No. Worth it? Absolutely.

If you’re tired of chasing goals that don’t feel like yours, this is a warm, clear invitation to trust your inner gravity. Subscribe, share with someone who needs a kinder compass, and leave a review telling us: what should are you ready to release?

Thank you for listening and taking the time to explore our podcast.

Earthaconter: Connection, Exploration and Expansion
www.earthaconter.org

Framing Enoughness And External Pressure

Lyn Man

Welcome to I Am Enough, the space where we explore journeys back to our forgotten birthright of enoughness, to draw a natural wisdom along with awareness, acceptance, and compassion. To support each of us on that journey and embrace our wholeness. Despite what society tells us, each one of us is enough exactly as we are. My name is Lin Mann, and I'd like to welcome you to this space where we explore enoughness, people's journeys along the path to feeling I am enough, and look at what can support each of us on that journey. Hello and welcome to another episode of I Am Enough, the space where we embrace our wholeness. So today I have with me Scott Plate, Alex Papworth, and Mark Henderson. And they've joined me to talk about society's pressure to be constantly wanting to be something other than who we are, what we are, what we have. And this was driven partly by a conversation about New Year's resolutions and how they are always about something we feel we should be changed. And please note the emphasis on the word should. It's not necessarily what we internally want change to grow. The focus here is very much on the external pressure and looking at things like, oh, we should be smarter, we should be prettier, we should have this, we should have a better car, a better job title, more money, all those kind of pressures, rather than that in a knowing that we want to evolve and grow. So it's definitely not about making sure you stay in your comfort zone, which links back to the conversation that we had last time when we were all together. So yes, it's about getting uncomfortable, but it's about doing it from your own inner spark, your own inner desires rather than society's pressures. So I just want to open the floor and just see what's coming up for everybody after saying all that.

Scott Plate

Thanks for that framing. I, you know, what was running through my mind as you were speaking is how eyes can trick you into thinking there's something out there. So from the very beginning, how I actually see the world almost trains me to chase what's outside of me. I was thinking when I learned to drive, I learned on a standard transmission of clutch, which my father insisted on doing because he thought, you know, I have to be ready for every. And there's this funny little balance where you press the gas and release the clutch, and you hit this, what he called a friction point where the transmission would engage. But he, of course, because he was my father, took me to these impossible hills and you know. So it was just, we're gonna learn on a hill. So I remember how important that liminal space you were talking about was that space where I allow with the clutch by releasing it, and I apply with the gas, and I failed miserably many times because my impulse was just to push the gas and go and try to engage and realizing that I needed to be able to release at the same time as I accelerated. And it didn't occur to me until much later how powerful a lesson that was for seeing, because my eyes make me want to go after what's in air quotes out there, but I don't necessarily have a parallel capacity to check with my inner resources to find out A, if it's what I really want, and B, if I have an affinity with what I'm going after, or am I judging by everybody else going after this thing, which gets back to society piece? So that friction point is interesting to me, is that balance. So if my attention is pulled out of me because I live on this spinning planet and centrifugal force, we'd all fly onto outer space if we didn't have gravity to keep us here. So, what would be gravity within me? What would be that force of gravity inside? Could I pull all the little fragments of my attention back to this magnet, you know, so that I know that when I give it away, there's an appropriate amount of resistance tethering that desire to me and my own wish for myself, I guess. So that's what's going through my mind as you're speaking that kind of balance point between responding to what uh what's outside of us, but having a real strong sense of what's necessary within us to go.

Belonging, Labels, And Childhood Expectations

Alex Papworth

It's a great uh launching off coin, Scott. There's a lot in there. I I really like the idea of you know not gonna see to see your feet. So there's that that sense of inner you know, and and I I remember well I remember. I still drive, so uh car with a club, so that that sense of knowing, and there's no you know, getting the balance right, there's no uh you don't look. Looking doesn't make any difference whatsoever. So it has it is a very good parallel for that inner sense of rightness. So I like that as a good starty off point. That said, I was uh I think e even in this moment actually, I'm I'm recognising myself being I prefer to be a little bit more energized to be part of this conversation. But I'm I'm fine, but you know, I'm gonna have to pay attention and focus because uh I'm not even gonna complain about having an excessively busy day, but enough to make me feel slightly tired and not where I'd like to be, and and that that in itself, I guess, is an example of that what what's expected of me here. Well I've decided I need to be in this sort of you know emotional mental state of preparedness and energized and um hopefully provide an example of uh being honest about that and and demonstrating how that you know can manifest like you know day to day, minute to minute almost that constant I don't know, it's like it's like a conscience but not a good one, sitting on your shoulder telling you what's what is required. But but the thing that yeah, I mean the thing and it's it's quite crude actually, but the thing that came to mind when you first introduced the topic was the questions you get asked when you're when you're a child and and the classic w what always for me would be, you know, what are you gonna be when you grow up? Which is lots of issues with that question, I think. Uh much more than even perhaps the obvious, but you know, that's no, I f I feel like it would instill I'm not sure it instilling a sense of panic, but there's that knowing there's that I suppose is that first knowing that you need to be able to answer this question. This is required to participate is to have an answer to this question. So the sooner you get going in finding an answer to that, and I remember being quite relieved when I've just fallen for this default, I'm gonna do this computer science degree. Thank God I can just move on now. I've answered that question, I can relax. You know, uh a sort of a friend at the time with his five-year plan, I didn't need to compare myself to him and find myself lacking. I think it was quite unusual in that way, to be fair. But uh that that's what reminds me of um, well that's what comes somewhere when we talk about that external um that pressure. I suppose coming back to Scott's example it makes me think of, and yet we do need to be very aware of the environment around us. We can't be just entirely externally focused, sorry, internally focused in that car scenario. You know, you're gonna crash if you're not really paying attention, and there's there's maybe almost like another balance of the inner the inner and the outside making sure they're in balance in the same way as the clutch was being balanced to decide you know when you could start moving off safely. And I think I'm just leaving it there for the moment.

Tuning Out Noise To Hear Inner Knowing

Mark Henderson

Yeah, I love that, Alex. And what what came to me when you were speaking was that there's the sensitivity. And from Scott's example, you know, that it requires that we when we learn to drive, we develop that sensitivity of where is that point that I let go of the clutch and I and I accelerate. And if we can develop that sensitivity in life to to to look inwards first and what is real for me, and use that as a compass rather than the the external prompts and figures and pressures. And then the when you were speaking, Alex, about the that horrible question, I'd so identify with that, being asked that by uncles and aunts, you know, when I was twelve or thirteen or something, you know. It's it's that it's it's such a good example of that sort of conformity that that we as as adolescents particularly, it's very hard to to sort of stand back from that. You just get swept along. But it's very damaging, I think. And it's it's tends to be that question is about earning a living. It's not about who you want to be, who you want to become as a as a f you know, fully balanced human that maybe contributes something positive to other humans. It it well certainly mostly. Um the the the question comes from a point of view of, you know, how are you going to earn a living? And I'm also thinking that you know, in this this question, it it um for me it just highlights the fact that we're we don't actually value ourselves or each other for the unique beings and that we are. And that's a societal lacking for me that we don't focus on and identify and celebrate the full range of human qualities that each of us has and each of us contributes to to to life here on planet Earth. Yeah, so those are my initial initial thoughts.

Lyn Man

I love your reference there to the sensitivity, um, drawing back on what both uh Scott's analogy and Alex's b expansion of it because it is that sensitivity of tuning in inside. And it's that shutting out the noise so the societal pressures, the external expectations are are the noise that you should be doing this, or you should be doing that. And actually by being able to silence those, it really becomes an ongoing practice to be able to step out of that and say, actually this isn't you know, these don't matter to me. What matters to me is this, is being this whole balanced human, whatever it may be. And it's not something we can do overnight, and it's certainly not something that we're trained to do, but it's something or taught to do. We have to almost awaken to it or be prompted, you know, something happens that makes us suddenly think, hold on a minute, you know, why is this driving me or why am I not listening to myself? Actually, what does myself say? And and I think it's that comes back to that trusting ourselves. And that is, I think, is one of the biggest challenges we all face is that trusting that quiet voice inside, not the loud voice that's been trained by society.

Why Am I Here And The Murmuration Image

Scott Plate

Yeah, I the question that's coming to me is why am I here? Why am I here? What but is it was funny is as uh Mark was speaking, I had this image in my head of this murmuration of starlings, which is this stunning thing that feels like a symphony in movement. There's there's a pattern of this, oh, it's it's hard to describe, but it's this beautiful pulsing cloud of movement that feels like it has its own logic. It doesn't follow any particular pattern, although it's absolutely beautiful to watch unfold. And my question was like, how do they know who they are in this with respect to each other? How do they know? Or a school of fish or a massive herd of wildebeests who perceives a threat and then something electric goes through them and then they move as one to stay safe or or to maintain their identity as a herd. But I think for me, the the question is why am I here to do what and in relation to whom? And what can I bring that's that's aware of that question to my relationships? And I don't know, I've gotten a little closer to the answer over time, but it's it's a question that doesn't leave me and came back in this conversation again. Just like, why am I here right now with you, answering this question or addressing myself to this question? Because I'm aware that people will hear this podcast and have no idea what they're going to think, you know, or how they're going to put themselves in this conversation. But there's a movement to it that could invite integration or reflection. Like I keep looking at what how my heart feels when I watch the Starlings. It's just, I would love to be a part of that because there's something that's resonating in me. Has nothing to do with I want to be that because I can't. I'm not a bird. I don't, you know. But I feel the I feel an affinity with that beauty in some way. So that felt like that sensitivity point that Mark and Alex were referring to. It's just I want to be that. Maybe because I was a kid, I wanted to be a bird, and that's the you know the nostalgia for wings.

Mark Henderson

I sometimes have dreams where I fly, but never in a murmuration score. So that's that's uh something that I I can develop dreams where I've got a whole uh a whole flock of of others with me.

Scott Plate

The seed has been planted.

Mark Henderson

Yeah. But I think what what you're speaking to is is uh two things really. I think it's a it's a lifelong journey, isn't it? It's it's the the journey of as Lynn said, you know, you you come to a point where you realize, ah, okay, so I can choose to go my own way and and step out of all those societal pressures. And then it's uh yeah, there's there's a lot that happens and a lot that's reflection and one becomes more and more sort of self-aware and and trusts oneself more and more. And uh the other thought was that I don't know if if it's uh if there's one thing. I've I've often thought, yeah, well, you know, what is my one purpose? But I think it changes. But I think for others it's or or maybe it's uh something that becomes clearer and clearer and develops uh more and more focused. I don't know.

Zigzag Paths, Tacking, And Nonlinear Lives

Lyn Man

It's interesting. You're when you're talking there, Mark, about the path and if it's it's clear. And I have uh a picture in my bookcase back there, and it's um it's Montblan, and you can see the zigzag of the winter of the climbers, and I think I can't remember what time of view it was taken, but I think it was still winter period, and they were you've got them going up and climbing and zigzagging across, working out the the best routes to get up there. And for me, the mountains are always a wonderful analogy because it may seem like the quickest way up is straight up, and yet it never is, and it's always that we go one way and then the path goes another way, and I think for me that really represents how we work our ways through life in that we're taking a path, and then some maybe something will block that one, or it it turns a different way, or we get to a point where we have a choice, but it's never a straight path, and life is never a straight path. But for some reason, I think when you're little, you almost think it's going to be, you know, there are these things you have to you you go to school, you go to secondary school, you get your exams, you go to university or whatever, you get a job, you eventually get to retire. And there is this thing, this kind of set thing that you believe or you're led to believe that you do, but I was certainly never, you know, when I went through university, it was then like, okay, get the job, and then expecting to be in that profession for the rest of my life, and it's like, oh no, that's not the way life works. Yeah, actually, I want to do something different now, or I'm drawn, really drawn to do something different, or explore, or whatever it is. And I think it's going back to what you were saying about it's that uniqueness in our in ourselves and us seeing the uniqueness and embracing it as well as that uniqueness in in others. But going back to what you were both saying about you know that kind of that reason for being here or your own journey, I I would love to hear what uh your what sparked you, what made you suddenly think, well, hold on a minute, I'm gonna do what I'm gonna listen to myself. I'm gonna listen or learn to listen to what's going on inside. This doesn't s this message I'm getting here actually isn't supporting me, it doesn't seem right, or whatever it was.

Mark Henderson

I remember feeling a sense of relief that we would leave the social circle that we were in. I mean n not I mean some of them were a lot of them were great great friends, but there was that for me that feeling of having to conform to a lot of things around status. And I I always really struggled with that. So so and for for me what has played out, or or maybe it's just my perception as a as a foreigner is different. I don't know, maybe I don't tap into those cultural things in the same way, but it feels like certainly the life that I l live here, I I don't um I don't have any of those pressures like like I like I felt. And maybe that's immaturity, it's probably more complex than I'm making out. But that was certainly a moment when I um uh I became aware of those societal pressures and uh wanted to look forward to stepping out of that.

Belonging Versus Authenticity And The Cost Of Conformity

Alex Papworth

I wanted to pick up on there as well, because that was that was a theme that I was reflect reflecting earlier about. There's almost I don't know it's like a counter pressure, but there's a desire to belong. So so when you make nurse disease, I I don't know if you know something in my age consciously, but I need to have a good answer for this question because uh what I'm gonna do when I grow up. Because that's why six I know that I don't need to I wouldn't have maybe consciously s stated that. But I think that's it feels like that's an interesting perspective or or factor in this whole story. Because I mean, you know, Mark, you're talking about that's that status pressure, if you like, it's a different or particular perspective on it. So so it feels I don't think I need to be into opposition as such, but it feels like that is that's a need. It is a need to belong, you know. You know, so exile is is possibly the worst punishment anyone could ever suffer, even though it's worse than death. So that need to that need to belong is quite significant. But in terms of going back to your question, Lynn, I was thinking about I I keep, you know, I'm sort of leaking seeking for the profound moment when suddenly all became clear to me, but I think there's lots of adjustments along the way, even and and the sort of signal is just well, either loss of joy, if you like, or or or even actually not being very much good at something. That's good enough feedback. It's just like and um the the the two probably very much come together. But just realising this track I've been going down is at work and um what the the other aspects, so that's just really just changing career or changing profession, or at least an adjacent profession in the 90s, and when I stopped being a programmer when I realised I probably wasn't that good at it and I didn't actually enjoy it as much as I thought I thought I was supposed to. I also remember the transition from working in employment into contracting, and there's an interesting belonging angle to that for me. Again, not particularly a conscious-made decision, but I chose not to be part of that what felt like a set of rules that I didn't really want to be part of, wasn't going to be much good at. And this gave me a like a sense of freedom to perhaps in the same way as Mark's talking about, it's like I can leave that behind the corporate world, and in this contracting world, it's you know, my naive mind was uh gave me some ability to to let right on my own rules. Not really particularly true, but it's that maybe changing tribe or or breaking free breaking free from that particular group was was perhaps part of my uh my decision making at that point in time. Um but yeah, those are I could go on, but I think I'll need it at those points.

Scott Plate

I think those are really valuable. It's funny, Lynn, when you were talking about Mont Blanc and the ascent and the zigzag, I remember learning to sail, and if you wanted to go somewhere where the wind was facing the opposite direction, you had to do this thing called tacking, which is zigzagging back and forth. And I remember being really struck by the fact that you could actually go against a prevailing energy source if you were simply intentional and strategic about your path. And if I think about times in my own life where I've gone against what the prevailing notion was, it always involved an initial resistance that I either felt within myself or felt from outside me. You know, my own family, you know, you know, my father, God rest his soul, was like, it's okay to be different, but not different than me. So it was just an interesting lesson. When I came out as a gay man, for example, that was definitely a step outside the paradigm in my own family. But it was an inevitable byproduct of who I was. But the funny part was there was so much resistance within me to get back to Alex's question about belonging, to risk losing my belonging to this family of origin. And I, the weird part was I had been so conditioned, as Mark said earlier, to conform to the culture of my family that I simply couldn't imagine being accepted. I couldn't imagine. So I felt like if I'm gonna do this, I'm really alone. So that fear is part of the resistance. And, you know, I'll could also, as Alex had said, I could cite different instances along the career path where doing something that went against the zeitgeist was I imagined it to be just like I couldn't imagine the result. The the part that happened over time with maturing was I didn't always have the information about what the outcome would be once I resisted, but I knew this is what I had to do. The information came later. The wisdom about it found its language, but then I learned that meaning doesn't really use language at first. It it just comes in a sense of knowing, and then the words that I need, the icing on the cake is fine. So for me, a word person, it was difficult to let go of the need to explain it, even to myself, because explaining to other people, you know, is the is the comfort is the conformity piece. Well, I'm doing this because I feel as though, and then I have to justify and I'm like, I have to explain this, I just need to do it. And and at some point the words will come, but until then, it's okay for all of you to be wrong about me, and I'm gonna go on about my business. And learning that it was okay to let everyone be what I imagined to be wrong about me while I figured this out was one of the most freeing things. Just like, I don't need to let you know because I honestly couldn't if I tried tell you what this is. So bear with me, think well of me, think better of me than you are in this current moment. Give me some credit and let me figure it out. And I promise you I'll get back to you if there's a relationship there worth preserving, and if there isn't, I probably won't.

Mark Henderson

Brilliant, Sko. Thanks for sharing. Thanks.

Taboo, Shame, And The Urge To Explain

Lyn Man

Yeah, I do, I do love that. And that but going back to what you were saying, it's that that inner knowing and just that knowing that actually this is this is it, and this is what I have to do, and not having the words. I think that's going back to you know, our whole society is really driven around words and communication. And actually coming back from that, actually I don't have to explain this to myself. I don't have to explain it to anybody else. Because I just know is having that trust to do that is a really big thing because it's something I was certainly trained out of when I was young, because I there would be times I would just know and then it'd be be like, but why? Well, I don't know why. No, no, you have to be able to tell me why before that whatever. And so then coming almost taking peeling all that back and going, actually, no, I just know and and that's it, and be okay with it is is a real, I think, big step for most people.

Alex Papworth

This is this is like really profound, I think, in my view. I mean it's it's it's it's it's well it's reminded me of of the idea of taboo and shame, actually, and I feel there's something in there about is taboo not to be able to explain what you are, coming back to the question of what you're gonna be when you grow up. Well, I've got a label now, so and and not having well and so I'm gonna tie this back to you know experiences for the last few years where I left that sort of contracting role and I've been in the in the wilderness for a few years. It's you know, it's it's been pretty difficult to label me, and I worked quite hard earlier in my career to be unlabelled. Well never never to be able to explain what I was doing, actually. But um I I've noticed having secured some acceptable form of contract in the last few months, the responses from some of my friends, you know, bless them, were you know very supportive and congratulatory. But I think there's an element of that being taboo. I was in the wilderness not being successful financially. And I remember thinking at points, why does no one ask me about what's going on here? Why is no one, you know, we can talk about our working day and your job and your job, but what I'm doing, which is messy and unclear, and I really am not sure about it myself, to be honest with you. So possibly best not to ask me a question anyway. But it's it's that whole territory of um, you know, it feels like there's the the words taboo and shame room that feel appropriate, and then there is that's only for me the element of I can't really, you know, coming back to your point where it's got I can't explain myself now. And actually I'm uncomfortable not being able to explain myself or want to be able to present something clean and clear and tell it as tell it tell a sort of coherent story. But yeah, I'm just I'm working out, and then you're gonna fall back into um it's not it's easy to come well. I'm probably I'm probably just finding myself, oh my god. And you're done for, you know. That's probably the best description. That's a landing with you.

Scott Plate

Explaining is part of the conformity impulse, isn't it? It's it's I feel like I owe you something, even though I don't know when that debt was written or the contract actually drafted. I just imagine because of my social contract that I owe you an explanation about who I am. And I'm not sure how that came to be. I wish there were a moment, but you know, I think the moment I was told to pay attention and look at this person because they're an authority, it began to form. But yeah, I'd hear you. And I remember the knowing you at the I didn't know you as well, Alex, at the time when you began to make this transition, and I never asked you either. You know, I was did you would come and to our sessions, and I just was I knew that there was a transition going on, but you know, and maybe I just didn't give myself the license to be curious about how you felt. Yeah. Yeah. Awkward would have been the answer. Yeah.

Meaning, Purpose, And Being An Instrument Of Nature

Lyn Man

But actually I want to go back to what you were saying about taboo and shame. And I think that it and and labels and fitting in a box. And and I think that is the the big thing when we go back to, you know, that society wanting us to be something more than we are. It is so that we can fit in a box and be seen to be successful, you know, striving to be successful or whatever. Because if we're not seen to be doing that externally, then they're kind of judging, well, why aren't you? And as you say, it doesn't it doesn't make people comfortable. So just looking at those those he those emotions, those heavier emotions and and even the word taboo you know what I guess what does that come up in you that actually it's okay to talk about this and make it not taboo?

Mark Henderson

Again, how you know what uh uh is it is it society that defines what is taboo? And so so in a way it circles back round to self-trust and courage to listen to that knowing that you were talking about Lynn and and following that, you know, following that inner inner compass regardless, which takes a lot because we've been so educated into conformity. But I you know, I think of a number of occasions in my life when things that I've done haven't made any sense whatsoever, but you know, I've just known that it was the right thing and probably because it created more meaning for me, more you know, it was my my compass has been around sort of meaning and and purpose and so when I feel something goes too too far off that bearing, um there's a correction that needs to happen. Um but for other people looking at it, you know, it would be like crazy. And for example, my wife and I worked in in the London area for for four or five years, and you know, we were on the property ladder, and we suddenly decided that we were going to go traveling for at least a year, and many people just could not grasp it at all. And and I was in my my late twenties, I was 29, so you know, people just couldn't go, oh that's so brave, or you know, oh are you sure? You know, you're just on the property ladder and all that. But you know, we just knew it was what we wanted to do. And then, you know, moving to to Sweden and a year later deciding to start a business in Scotland, again, absolutely mad. But it was just some very strong drive in me that knew that was my journey and I had to do it.

Scott Plate

I love that you were 29. Uh, it's your Saturday return. It was this, this, it's all about per I love that that happened at that age. It was similar to me as well, 27 to 29, there's massive shifts. I had a job, my my four my final job as a university professor, and I was up for my final step of promotion at the same time we were, you know, considering moving to New Mexico, and I didn't apply. And sometimes the decisions you make that go against what would make absolute sense to everybody else. I remember sitting in front of a colleague who chaired the promotion and tenure committee, and she was a dear friend and a mentor, and she simply couldn't understand. It made no sense to her why I was not applying for a promotion. I was leaving all this money on the table. And I just, I remember thinking, if I tell you what I really think, I'm going to hurt your feelings because I know this is important to you. So I had to be selective because in my heart I'm thinking, I'm going to go through a six-month process creating a digital promotion and tenure portfolio to convince people who don't understand what I do that I'm actually already doing the job I'm doing. It made literally no sense to me to put all that time in. And so, but this was someone who really invested a lot of time and energy in creating a welcoming space for someone going through this process. But I recognized that as much as I loved her and as much as I cared about the work, I no longer cared about that process. And it would have it involved separating a relationship. I remember her just looking at me in absolute bewilderment, like, why would you do this? And I don't think she was judging, she just didn't understand. Didn't get it. No. And and I thought, okay, this is where these paths diverge in the wood, and I will, you know, and I just said, I said, just trust me, this is not where I need to be spending my time. I I don't have the time to give to this right now. There's other other things that are tapping me on the shoulder. And but it the knowing is so much larger than any words I could possibly ascribe to explaining it. And that needed to learn. I needed to learn for that to be enough. It's like I just trust me on this, I know. And when I come to words that would have value, then I'll I'll do that. But just let me be and support me and please blow on this spark. I need you to help me blow on this spark. I don't need you to drive for that because I'm having a hard enough time keeping it alive myself. You know. Yeah.

Lyn Man

Yeah, I just want to uh and I really like what you're all sharing here. And I want to go back to that. So we've you know, we've been talking about the knowing and the purpose. Mark mentioned meaning. I just want to come back to that because it is almost that searching for that meaning in our lives. You know, what what is actually giving us meaning? And I think a lot of the time when we're doing what things uh things that we should we feel we should be doing or going to those pressures, we're not actually creating something with true meaning. So I just wondered for you how has meaning in creating meaning for yourself or for others actually influenced what you do?

Mark Henderson

Yeah, for me. Um from uh quite an early age and reconnecting that in my business life and wanting to contribute in some way. That's what gave me meaning and why I wanted to market green roofs or architects who were pushing the boundaries in terms of green building and then getting into renewable energy. So so that was where how I, you know, found meaning in in what I was doing. And interestingly, that that meaning in the in the renewable energy business evaporated quite quickly when I realized that you know, and part of the the meaning was also the hope that I could save uh that normal people could save money on their their heating bills. And and then what we were doing tended to be, which was you know installing heat pumps, tended to be led by people who were building new houses and their their sort of their dream homes. So then I had to find a new meaning within the confines of the business. And that was about sharing sharing the business opportunity and in and creating a franchise opportunity in the hopes that the market would catch up and that I'm I'm exaggerating a bit because it did did address field poverty to some extent, but not to the extent that that I had hoped in the time that I was involved.

Alex Papworth

Okay, I'm gonna speak. I was looking at Scott for King, you definitely have something to say, Scott.

Scott Plate

I did, but I'm gonna wait, I'm gonna wait for you. I'm just sort of making sense in my head.

Alex Papworth

Okay. Yeah, well, I mean I obviously took a lot of uh reflection to answer that question, but I think that the truest thing for me is I've always I've I found work important, you know, not unusually, um, as a source of meaning, you know. And but but actually what that it doesn't really boil down to much more than it needs to be useful or I need to be, you know, useful, I need to be contributing. So that's sort of that's the thread and that continues through things. And so as that ties into my insatiable curiosity. So I'm always you know asking the question why and and in that context is you know, is what I'm doing useful? Why is it useful, or is it useful? So that's that had led to probably a point certainly when 2019 when I realised that this the whole box idea became much more visible to me in a way that I wasn't really aware of, or more importantly, the fact that you fit into a box doesn't make things more effective necessarily, which was uh something of a surprise, a bit of a betrayal moment as well. So uh so I've been compliant with this thing, whether consciously or not, and it's not even very effective, was you know, was a challenge. So so that was it's just a well, it's a search for being useful. It's about, you know, what's what am I here for, or what's my purpose? How can I be of use? And then that really made me question, yeah, where I was and what I was doing and and what's what sort of being useful actually means and really has led me to to change a you know a number of different views. Whereas now it's more about I'm more interested in what is my nature. You know, that's a more interesting question to me. And and is this am I acting in harmony with my nature? Am I expressing my own nature, these sorts of things? Yeah.

Scott Plate

Everything's useful if you've uh Oh yeah, I thank you for for such a good question, Lynn. And I I as I approached it, I kept losing words, which was kind of interesting because I realized that that's the process I've gone through in my life. I used to try to I used to think that meaning was something that needed to be described or discussed or defined. Like this is what this means. And you know, and then my fr my lens widened to this is what this means to me. And then I realized that the meaning already existed. And my work was to make myself available to it as an instrument. So to become, as Mark and Alex said, an instrument of nature, or an instrument of my own nature, or an instrument of the meaning that I sense is larger than me that needs to come through me as my work, as my calling, as my purpose. And there have been moments along the way where I know that is what happens when I'm actually connected to what I'm doing. I am not dictating or driving or even trying to figure out the gas and the clutch. I'm simply just opening and letting what I know exists move through me. And if I'm lucky, I will be present and find the words. It's the closest I can get to what it must feel like in my imagination to be part of the flock of starlings, where it's they kind of know collectively, and there's this beautiful shape and this pattern that they all respond to, and they get they get to be with each other as they experience this movement. And it's no, I don't sense a need to be with each other as they do this, but the moments where I felt most connected to meaning was when I couldn't really describe it. And I was just kind of allowing it to come through me. I remember being an actor and being in a play, Angels in America, and having a moment where I just, okay, my job is to let this play come through me and stay open and stay out of the way and just move my mouth when it's my line and trust that it's all been designed for me to participate in this way. There's nothing I can add that doesn't already exist. And it was such a relief because all of a sudden there was nothing I needed to do, nothing I had to invent, nothing I needed to fabricate or keep up with. Only my own presence, really. But that's enough of a job. That's enough of a job. Everybody else has a fringe benefit if I can keep up with them. But when that when the focus shifts, there's a lot more to do that has to do with belonging than we even really acknowledge because we already belong. You know, we're here.

Lyn Man

So thank you all for that. I've just noticed the time. This has gone so quickly. I'm just gonna say very quick, one sentence from each of you. What are you taking away, or what would you like others to take away from this conversation?

Alex Papworth

I'm just gonna pick up on Scott's last point, which really resonated with me, and something we we could have talked or I could have talked about, the need to belong and to find new groups such as this where permission to express and you know be uh on your own nature is very much at the heart of things. However, Scott has reminded me that we are we do belong and I've certainly experienced that sense of being are something greater, and that's what I would that gives that you know, it's as a platform of foundation, but it I think that gives the courage or the belief in in making changes and finding your own path. Um so that's what I would in encourage others to do is just spend time in the leather and uh see the beauty and that's that's when you really know you will sometimes only experience that sense of belonging, which I think is is the truth that is so often invisible, but it then encourages you to transcend, if you like, this sort of received expectation. So just a small small invitation.

Lyn Man

Thanks, Alex.

Mark Henderson

Yeah, I I I was going to say something similar, Alex, in terms of spending time in nature becoming present and being reminded that uh we belong here. And that ties into you know being enough that uh we are enough. We do belong, otherwise we wouldn't be here. That is probably the easiest way to remind us of that is when we're we slow down and become still and present in nature.

Scott Plate

I love that. I love both of those framings. To that I can add just become an instrument of nature and you'll hear your own in there.

Lyn Man

Beautiful. Well, thank you all so much for your insights and conversation today.

Scott Plate

Thank you.

Lyn Man

Thank you for listening to this episode of I Am Enough. We hope you enjoyed it and are inspired to see yourself as enough and create possibilities. If you would like to discover more, please visit earthaconta.org.