I read a Washington Post article on Sinead O’Connor yesterday that stuck with me. If you’re not familiar with the Irish singer, she became famous with her hit “Nothing Compares 2 U.” (Prince wrote the song and O’Connor’s rendition is heartbreaking.) But her stardom took a turn in 1992 when she sang on Saturday Night Live, and on live television, she tore up a photo of the Pope and said, “Fight the real enemy.”

Many years now have passed, and O’Connor has struggled with depression and medical problems that sometimes swirl up in the news. The Post article allows her to tell her story, and she opens up about the abuse that her devout Irish Catholic mother inflicted on her. Her mother would physically beat her while she was naked, and the trauma has stayed with O’Connor for decades after her mother died.

And yet through all the pain, suffering, and anger, O’Connor has made some amazing music. Yet it seems that only recently has she come to terms with how to find healing. The author of the Post article writes: “[O’Connor] learned an important concept, which has become her mantra: radical acceptance. As a girl, she suffered abuse from her deeply religious mother that remains with her decades after her mother’s death. In the past, she’s tried to fight and deflect it, sometimes by lashing out at others. She’s learned that this doesn’t help. ‘Because that kind of pain doesn’t go away,’ O’Connor says. ‘You only learn to live with it. Music is where I can manage it.’”

The more we try to exorcise the trauma we experienced in growing up in an alcoholic or dysfunctional family, the more we become like those who hurt us.

Self-acceptance and self-love are key.

We can try to run from our past, repress it, try to cut it out, remove it with a surgical knife, or numb it with food, drugs, drink, adrenaline, but we are only fooling ourselves.

“Radical acceptance” is what O’Connor recently discovered.

We are all whole, no matter what we struggle and try to run from. Our pasts are part of who makes us who we are today. Just like a grain of sand cannot pretend that it’s not a part of the beach, we can not distance ourselves from our past.

The power of wholeness is that we become stronger when we shine a light on our pasts.

We are whole not because of anything that we do or say, but because it’s the underlining truth. We are part of the world as the world is part of the solar system, and our galaxy is a part of creation. The metaphysical oneness of creation can help us see the bigger picture.

When we embrace all of who we are and work on loving ourselves, that’s when our real strength and power come to light.

We are whole because we always have been.

We just usually can’t see it.

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