I’ve talked about wholeness before. But I want to look at being whole from a different perspective. I grew up in an alcoholic/dysfunctional home and for a long time I felt broken and that something was wrong with me. I didn’t seem to have the same type of life as others, and I knew that my family life was different from my friends’.

Through therapy, self-help books like Healing the Child Within, and attending Adult Children of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, I found a way to become whole and realized my potential.

What do you need to do to be whole?

What exercises, studies, meditations, or books do you need to read to achieve this elusive goal?

Nothing.

You are complete and whole as you are.

You are complete and whole as you are.

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.