I just heard author adrienne maree brown say the following in a podcast:
“In my life, I had been steeped in:
‘I am not enough. I do not have enough. I do not do enough.’
And so then, inside of that, to decide that maybe that decidability thing is something that I could access:
I could be enough. Maybe I already AM enough.
….
So some of it is even sitting with it and considering the question:
Could you be enough? Could you consider that you’re already enough? That there’s nothing to fix about you. That there might be places that want to grow but that’s different from there’s something fundamentally wrong with you that you need to purchase a way of out.”
This struck me because I resonate with it. Deeply.
This is a byproduct of trauma, the shame, the inner fear that I am not enough, that I am fundamentally broken.
I also understand from my Ennegream reading that I also am one who holds this deep-seeded and unceded fear:
I am broken. I want desperately to be understood because I fear that something is deeply wrong with me.
I know why—I was raised in a dysfunctional home, working poor, the child of an alcoholic, a loving but damaged mother who was a hoarder, and I always felt the need to mask. I learned that role very very well. I also adapted the hero role and I became a fabulous actor and performer, undoubtedly why I majored in that in college.
These wounds of my inner child became further compounded after suicide number one of my father, then my mother’s mental and emotional break, then my brother’s suicide.
So, with all of this complex trauma, after so many losses, with no time to grapple with it all and to reset, further contributed to the inability to process all that had happened.
In just trying to survive, I also needed—obviously—to tend to my own mental health. I started with newsletter in hopes of grappling with it all and writing to process, as therapy, as catharsis. Discussing what worked and what I tried.
All of that is good. I’m proud of that. I needed to set about on a serious journey toward healing.
I have. I am.
And yet, what does it mean to hold space for both that as well as I am not broken?
Frequently I feel very very broken. I think that even when I don’t feel broken, I don’t feel whole, unified.
I feel…stitched together. By way of a lot of tape and glue. Duct tape and masking tape—none of this petty scotch shit. Superglue, rubber cement and elmer’s wouldn’t hold my breaks.
—I am one full unit but I am also held together and bear my points of weakness—which paradoxically, I also see as my greatest strengths—
But…
I also believe, nay, I want to believe that I don’t have to fix myself anymore. I can simply grow. I am not broken.
I guess now, putting this together, considering the words, since I am a Rhetorician, what I am grappling with is this:
I understand the definition of healing to be one that is required because there is something or someone that is broken.
I want to embrace the paradox that we are all fundamentally works in process, healing, and whole.
If you asked me, I would believe that in theory, certainly. And for you, my dear reader. I would extend that understanding and grace to you. Without a beat.
Consequently, my inner work, it would seem then, is to accept this about myself. Those two seemingly contradictory truths.
I am healing and growing. But I am not broken and I don’t need to be fixed.
I guess that will be my new affirmation.