On Being Whole

I am learning that being whole means being with all the parts of me, all of the experiences I’ve had, all of the joy and all of the sadness. This also means bringing all of these experiences to light, which is part of why I write about my journey so openly. Maybe if I “heal out loud” someone else will feel a bit more permission to do the same. To share that insane amount of love welling up from within, rather than withholding it — to be expressed, fully. To feel free to be in the depths of their sadness and grief, knowing it’s safe — and oh so human! — to do so.

To be whole is not for the faint of heart, because it means letting all things be. What is, is here and it is real. It’s no longer shoved into some corner, and only what’s socially acceptable is allowed out into the open. To be whole means to be kind of messy and feral and chaotic in a way. With all of the anger, the fear, the love, the joy. All of it.

We’ve done this weird, and I think harmful thing, where we have assigned some sort of morality to our emotional experiences. Happiness = good, Grief = bad. But the thing is, I have become more free than I ever have been in this last year because I’ve learned to let the grief be a part of me. Not something to fix, or to get rid of. It can exist there as long as it does, just as those moments of joy come and sometimes go. Letting it all be the waves of what it means to be alive, as big and as expansive as the ocean.

Letting myself experience total sadness days, has expanded my heart to be able to hold more, see more, love more. I had one yesterday, as the grief from the reality of my life experience of not having relationships with my family came to the surface. It just wanted to be felt, it just wanted me to acknowledge it versus numb it away. People, myself included, would rather say “it’s ok! it’s ok!” than sit with you in the discomfort. I am learning to sit in discomfort.

And sometimes on these days, when they show up, I feel like I am about to jump off a cliff into the abyss. Like I’ll never survive this — it feels too scary to actually jump into. And it’s the most painful and most beautiful thing I’ve ever witnessed. And on the other side, which always comes, I feel complete in a way. I’m not sure I fully understand it in my mind, but my heart knows this is what it means to be whole.