I am broken, different, wrong, and will never be whole.

Have you ever thought of any of that?

It’s hard. I know.

I have often felt the odd person out as I do my best to fit in with the crowd. For many years, I tried to make up for my perceived shortcomings by throwing myself into my studies and then work.

I knew I was different by how I grew up, but I didn’t know what to do about it.

As a teenager, I’d dream of meeting someone, fall in love, and that together with my half and hers would meld into one complete spirit. Kinda shows where my head was at the back in those days.

I never imagined that I was enough. I could not say the words:

“I have always been whole. I am enough.”

Sit with that thought for a few moments.

How do those works make you feel?

Are you laughing because you feel that they’re not true? Are you denigrating yourself because you see what a screwup you think you are? Your faults, quirks, the mistakes you’ve made all along the way?

Back in college I took a world religion course, and our professor taught us about Hinduism. Having grown up Catholic, I found Hinduism foreign but comforting. In one lesson, the professor taught us about that Atman (our soul) and the universal Brahman, which was the Absolute.

He ended his lesson by telling us that the Atman and Brahman were the same. We were creation. Creation was us.

I filed that away in the back of my brain but came back to it a few years ago when starting Deepak Chopra’s 21-day meditation plan. Chopra talked about creation and how our uniqueness makes us complete.

Think of it this way: All of creation is whole. the galaxies, the stars, planets, even every atom is all part of creation. The sum of everything is whole and makes up our universe—from the largest black hole to the smallest sub-atomic particle; everything is part of creation. If the universe is whole and we’re part of the universe, that makes us whole as well.

The trick here is that we allow ourselves to see ourselves as weak, damaged, or broken.

Imagine if we pulled the wool from over our eyes and empowered ourselves to see our true nature. Quirks, mistakes, and all. Wouldn’t that be wonderful.

I have always been whole.

Say that out loud. Sit with that sentence for a moment and think about what it means for you. You might not believe it and can give a laundry list of problems that you have. But what if you turn the switch on within yourself to see outside the shame and fog that we all grew up with in an alcoholic/dysfunctional family?

What if we allowed ourselves to believe the truth:

We have always been whole. We only allow ourselves to be trapped because it’s what we grew up with and how we adapted to survive.

There’s a choice here: We can choose to see ourselves as damaged, whole, or somewhere in-between.

Why not be free and try on the thought:

“I have always been whole.”

Let that sit with you for a bit longer.

Write it down and put it down where you can see it every day.

It might take time to believe but it’s the truth.

It’s your truth.

Like what you’ve read? Be sure to check out my other posts in my Let Go and Be Free blog.