The smell of hot sunlight warming the old wooden floorboards carried itself around the circle of women, of which I was one. Sitting in half lotus on my mat, I struggled to align my breath with the flow of those breathing around me. I had never meditated before. To me, yoga was a strength-building exercise that played well into my natural physical flexibility. It had never been this challenging for me, and this was only breathing. I was at a kundalini yoga retreat for International Women’s Day, and the irony of finding it difficult to simply be present was not lost on me. What woman in this world has the privilege to allow herself to be wholly as she is, flaws, strengths, and all, just breathing? We are usually too busy working to earn respect, and fighting to keep what we’ve earned.

After our silent meditation, the women of the circle were invited to share how we felt. I listened with interest as women expressed empowerment and strength they were unused to knowing. The resounding sentiment was that here in this circle, they felt graced with a rare sense of being entirely “enough”. They felt sufficient and accepted for who they were. It was amazing to hear, but I felt oddly separate. I couldn’t relate. The notion of being accepted for who you fully are, yes, that resonated with me as a too-rare occurrence. But among all my insecurities, the feeling of insufficiency seldom crops up. Where was the disconnect between myself and these women, when we shared a feeling of acceptance?

The week that followed the retreat was standard fare. I worked at the bakery and came home covered in various forms of dough and chocolate. I walked my dog. I ate dinner with my husband while watching Sex and the City: those precious stolen moments where it’s perfectly acceptable to let your mind stop racing. And yet, even in those moments, that same question would come back to me.

I think I’ve answered it now. The key is in that word “fully”. It’s true that in the safe space of the meditation circle, I felt fully accepted for who I was. The difference between many of those women and myself is what alterations we make to our full selves day-to-day in our hopes of being accepted. I think the women who finally felt sufficient in the circle fight daily to prove their worth, both to those around them and to themselves. There’s this constant pressure to measure up. I, on the other hand, came to realize that I struggle to keep myself reigned in. To be accepted, for me, has often meant needing to hold a large part of myself back. I’m not afraid that I’ll never measure up, but I have lived in the fear that if I were to allow myself to be fully who I am, I would be too much for others to handle. My opinions come off too strong. My feelings are too intense. My movements take up too much space. I am too hungry. It’s not that I’m not enough; I am too much.

Why the dichotomy? Women came to this retreat from all walks of life, but it seems to me like we were all letting go of the same fear. All any of us needed was a safe space where we were allowed to be ourselves, whatever that meant to each of us. We were given permission to take up as much space as we wanted: whatever was needed to entirely lay out our weaknesses and our strengths together. We aired them out like clean laundry drying in the sun. Why did we need permission to do that?

I shared this revelation with a friend of mine, one of the smartest women I know. I told her that I wanted to write about this dichotomy, this sharp line between feeling not enough or too much. She said, “Well, what do you want to do about it?” That’s really the question I should have been asking myself all along. What do I want to do about it? I want to change it. And I believe that I can.