Maybe The Broken Aren’t Actually Broken?

Sometimes the heaviest things we carry are the judgments we make about ourselves. The belief system about who we tell ourselves we really are. The belief system which influences our expectations and shape our experiences, reinforcing the belief system as a result.

If you take notice, life has proven to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. We do tend to experience what we expect to experience, even if at times we don’t really want to experience it. If paradise was within our reach, our arms would never be fully extended to reach for it if on some level we don’t believe we are supposed to experience it. The weight of our self-judgment will keep us where we’ve convinced ourselves we’re supposed to be. Wanting. Wishing. But never moving beyond where we’ve accepted we are supposed to be.

Life at times can certainly leave us to believe we are broken. Flawed. Defective. Not worthy. Too broken to rise above the thoughts of our brokenness. But what if it wasn’t true? Sure, we may feel broken, stuck, and overwhelmed in a particular moment. And if we are, we should accept we feel the way we do. But there is a significant difference in being stuck in a moment and permanently residing there.

What if you’re not actually broken? 

What if you’re being broken open? 

While the heaviness of our self-judgment will weigh us down, the cumulative pressure can crack open the facades, narratives, and beliefs we’ve always known and reveal new possibilities for us to embrace in their place.

As I reflect upon my own defining moments of growth, many grew out of my own moments of perceived brokenness, the times in my life when I was eventually broken open by my own self-inflicted pressures from the unrelenting pain of my own unworthiness. Out of the rubble and debris I was liberated from the weights of my self-judgment and free to create something new in it’s absence. 

I was never truly broken. These thoughts and feelings were a necessary part of my process, of my journey, on the road to getting me through what I needed to get through.

When are we are being broken open? It’s in those moments when we decide what always was is no longer good enough for the life we are finally willing to create for ourselves.

The life we now know we are worthy of living.

Photo by Maksim Loginov on Unsplash