Inspiring The Broken Body

This talk is a supportive tool to assist you with pain, illness, not-enoughness, and suffering. How can we change our relationship to our suffering to live a more balanced and peaceful life? We go into the heart of acceptance. Gratitude. And holding our wounds in a space of love. We contemplate the definition of what it means to feel complete and whole.

Music: 432 Water Crystals by 369
Photo: Tony Ross

Transcript

Do you ever feel broken?

Not whole,

Not complete?

Could be chronic pain,

Illness,

Injury,

Mental health,

Or just not feeling good enough.

Like you're never enough.

I feel those things all the time.

They come and they go and sometimes I get tangled in them really deeply.

And I can't seem to find my way out.

Feels really dark and lonely in this place.

A feeling broken.

A feeling like I just can't get it right.

I just can't be healthy and whole and feel complete.

I just can't feel happy.

I can't let this anxiety go and feel at peace.

You know,

Whatever it is,

We all have those things that make us feel incomplete.

Incomplete.

Are we looking to feel complete?

What does that look like?

What is our definition of complete?

Whole.

Abundant.

Thriving.

Well.

Is it possible that living our best life as our best self,

Is it possible that living our best life includes some things that are out of our control?

Like mental or physical health or just that feeling of not being enough.

Can we still feel complete while feeling these other feelings?

Of course.

Complete is whatever we define it to be.

So by the definition we create,

The thriving or the suffering we feel is based on our definition.

So why don't we change the definition?

That's in our control.

That's in our power.

That's up for nobody to create for us.

I know we can feel like society has created that for us or social media and seeing people thriving,

Happy,

Healthy,

Whole,

Shining like a radiant light.

That looks complete.

Yes,

I want that.

That is what I want.

That's how I want to live my life.

Every day,

Every moment.

The thing is they're not always shining.

No one is.

Suffering is here.

It's a part of everyone's life.

Sadness,

Anger.

There's no person who can escape that reality.

That's part of the vast conditions of being a human.

We get to feel the spectrum.

We get to see the spectrum,

The whole spectrum.

So when we're radiant and shining and when we're in a ball feeling really heavy,

Really dark,

Struggling,

All of that is a part of that complete picture.

Can we define it like that?

Can we say my completeness is the light and the dark,

The love and the fear,

The happiness,

The sadness,

The peacefulness,

The unhealthy parts of me,

The healthy parts of me?

Can that be our definition of complete to encompass all of your experiences?

What would happen if we changed that definition of complete,

Of wholeness to I am whole and I am complete as I am?

I am whole and I am complete in this moment.

I am whole and I am complete when I'm struggling,

When I'm down,

When I'm being really hard on myself,

And I'm whole and I'm complete when I'm grateful and I'm thriving and I'm laughing.

What would happen to our lives if we shifted that definition to encompass all experiences,

All of our emotions?

Instead of being meticulously restrictive in defining what complete and whole means to us.

What would that feel like to just let go of all that pressure,

All that pressure that we put on ourselves to be better,

To do better,

To be healthier,

To be different,

To be perfect?

What would happen if we let go of that?

Can we just allow ourselves to be?

Just curious.

I want you to be playful with this.

Really playful.

Think of something really heavy for you right now that's hard for you to accept.

That's a part of your life,

For your being.

Just picture if you granted yourself permission to accept this fully as it is,

Meaning it's cool that it's here.

I don't have to change it.

I'm just going to let it be here.

I'm not telling it where to go or what to do or how to be different.

I'm just sitting with it,

Making some space for it,

Letting it be a part of my picture,

My view of feeling whole.

How do you think you would shift?

Would some tension on your shoulders be lifted,

Would some pressure in your mind disappear?

Of course,

It doesn't shift the situation,

The unhealthy aspect of self or the part of you that's struggling,

But it completely shifts the relationship to it,

Which is usually 90% of the problem is how we're judging it.

We are judging it hard,

Really hard.

What if that was gone?

The judgment piece,

The shame,

The guilt,

The fear of it being there forever and just sat with it in the moment,

Just accepted it and said,

Okay,

The reality is this is here right now,

This feeling or this experience.

Okay,

I'm okay with this.

I'm choosing to mentally and consciously say,

It's okay that you're here.

Notice how the heart shifts.

Notice how your emotions shift around it,

How softness can come into the chest.

It's like the resistance piece is gone and we allow it to be what it truly is because honestly everything has usually a reason or a right to be there or a gift or a purpose.

That can be a big part of it too.

Can always find some gratitude in our experiences.

Maybe it's making us stronger and more resilient or making us step into a greater space of love and acceptance,

Self-love.

But when we're feeling it,

It's so hard to connect to the gifts.

We can be triggered and pulled and twisted and turned and our mind is taken on this ride,

Right,

The victim ride,

The pain ride,

The this sucks,

Life sucks,

I'm not happy about this ride.

The best thing about that ride is we're driving it.

We are in total control of where we want to go and how we want to handle the situation,

How we want to receive the situation because there's a situation.

Emotions are a situation,

Right?

How we feel about something,

Our thoughts are a situation.

But we think about something,

That's a situation that we get to be a part of.

We are a teammate with our mind and with our heart and often the heart will follow the thoughts of the mind.

So let's take control of the thoughts that we can and say,

You know,

When we're feeling broken or not whole or not enough,

What happens when we flip the script and say,

I am whole,

I am enough.

This is okay.

I accept this.

I accept myself.

Suddenly we've just infused love into a dark room,

Into a shadowy,

Fiery,

Fierce energy that creates this cyclic pattern with our suffering and feeds it and continues it.

It like continues the storyline.

Even suffering is temporary or can be.

And we just kind of throw some gasoline on the fire with our thoughts,

Right?

We're like,

I'm not good enough.

I wish this was better.

And we just drag it out as long as we can.

And what happens when we consciously,

Mindfully infuse some loving,

Compassionate words of this is okay.

I am uncomfortable.

I'm struggling.

I'm still in the blank,

Right?

But what are you grateful for right now?

If this is what you're struggling with,

That's okay.

You're struggling with this,

But there's also other areas you're not struggling with.

If you've just torn your MCL like I did,

You know,

I can sit and I can wallow in that and say,

I can't bike and ski and get outside and be in my joy.

This sucks.

And I feed it and I wallow.

And I extend my suffering.

I feel it more deeply.

Or I see those thoughts and I say,

I don't think this is helping.

I don't think this is coming from love.

What would love say?

Hmm,

Could say,

Well,

Carrie,

Your knee is making you incapable of being active right now.

And it seems like you're really relying on your joy from these activities.

Is that true?

Is that a truth that I know that joy only comes from these activities?

No,

I know joy is internal.

I know joy is always accessible through gratitude.

And this knee injury is giving me this beautiful gift to find gratitude and joy while I'm struggling and suffering with this piece to show myself that joy is not external,

It's internal.

So what a gift that I'm getting through this injury.

What a gift.

Now,

This is a really small example and I don't want to compare it to anyone's situation.

But I encourage you,

If you haven't already,

To ask these pieces of you that feel broken or not whole,

To ask them,

What is your gift?

I mean,

It's really you asking yourself,

But asking yourself,

What is the gift from this?

If I was writing my life script and I wrote this in,

This thing that I really struggle with accepting and I wrote that in my life script,

Why would I do that?

What would be the gift I would receive through this?

Once you sit with that and discover the gift or the many gifts that come from it,

It's clear to see this isn't a hindrance.

This isn't you at 80% or 10%.

This is you at 100% in this moment as you are.

That it really is the highest potential right now.

Being on the earth,

Being born as a human,

I don't think being whole means we're living heaven on earth.

Everything unfolds perfectly and smoothly and everyone loves you and you love everyone and you love yourself.

All you do is thrive.

Everything's abundant.

You never get sick or harmed.

You never get challenged.

That just simply isn't the planet we were born onto.

It's not the dimension or the reality that we're in.

We can try and train ourselves to think and believe that way,

But our experiences will prove differently.

There will be struggles.

There will be challenges and it can be naive to think otherwise,

But we don't have to define struggles and challenges as this negative thing.

As this event saying,

I'm not being a good human,

I'm not enough,

But we can see them as this gift of I'm being very human and I am enough.

Look at me thriving while struggling.

Look at me choosing love when I'm being confronted with something really difficult.

Yes,

That feels great.

That's the life I want to create.

That's the life I want to live and I'm living it.

When you change your perspective on things,

Things change.

They literally change.

Your situation changes.

Your health may change.

Your mindset may totally change.

You as a person may change.

As you navigate this creation of a human that you are,

The question is,

How do you want to show up in this world?

Because we can't control the world.

We can't even control our own emotions,

But we can control how we show up,

How we perceive,

How we react,

How we take on these pieces that feel broken and we can judge or we can accept them.

That's a part of how we show up.

How do you want to show up in this world?

How do you want to show up for your suffering?

How do you want to embrace it?

Do you want to continue rejecting it?

Or do you want to accept it?

Accepting doesn't mean we're saying that we like it and it brings us joy.

It's just saying,

I'm choosing love in this situation and compassion for myself as I am.

I'm no longer rejecting this piece or this part of me and I'm telling it that it's okay that it's here.

And this little tiny action,

Thought,

Will change your life.

It will change how you show up in the world.

If you can show up for yourself in this way with acceptance,

Oh,

You can accept everyone,

Everything,

Surrendering judgment and holding that space of love.

And that is a beautiful place to be because from love,

From that place of open-hearted living stems joy and peace.

The joy comes from seeing the gifts in each situation.

That's what the heart does through love.

It says,

It's okay that this is here and I'm grateful that I'm here or that this is going on right now and that brings joy,

Which is pretty special.

And the peace that comes after love is the peace of the mind.

We're saying,

I'm surrendering to the things that I cannot control.

Wow,

That's a lot of peace to give that beautiful mind.

And the peace also flows into the heart and allows the emotions that you feel to just be the emotions that you feel and not a continued story,

Not a subsequent emotion from that emotion.

So say you're feeling sad while coming from acceptance and love.

It's suddenly,

It's okay that I'm sad.

I allow myself to be sad.

And you feel that sadness and it passes when it passes as everything does.

Or you reject it with that judgment and you say,

I'm sad.

I'm always sad.

Something's wrong with me.

Why can't life be better?

Why can't I be happier?

Just create a whole other story instead of just being with that sadness and letting it be honored,

Letting it have its space.

I feel like on our journeys here on earth,

We're going to be struggling while we're here.

There's going to be hard times and challenges and why not make the best of it that we can?

And that's taking our conscious control or creative control and saying,

It's okay.

Letting go of the judgment piece,

Bringing in the acceptance piece and living our best life.

I think living our best life is appreciating the dark and the light that we experience.

We're not in a gray scaled reality.

It's a rainbow of colors and we can use the terminology of this color is bad and that color is good for our experiences,

But we've created that.

We've projected that onto our experiences.

So let's release those projections and just see the rainbow for what it is.

I hope this helps you in shining your light and also letting your darkness sit in your light and be held in it,

Be hugged by it,

Be loved by it.

Sending you so much love.

Have a nice day.

Reviews

Wonderful delivery, exactly what I needed to hear this morning. Thank you for helping me get out of my own way and into gratitude in this moment.

This talk was so genuine and grounded in emotions and the body, not spiritual bypassing or smoothing over hard times with lofty hopes for bliss and joy. We don't have to love our depression, but we can accept it and hold it with love, and be curious what lessons or pathways hard times can open us to. Much appreciation!!

Thank you Carrie for your authenticity, this talk, your caring, positive heart and soul.
✨💜✨

Beautiful and inspirational meditation to rebuild my confidence with love and gratitude. Thanks a lot!

Beautiful. Just what I needed this morning. Thank you so much.

Such a wonderful message. Thank you so much for this!!!

Love your easy, genuine, and conversational style. Plus, your laugh is charming!

Thank you so kindly✨️💗
for your lovely meditations
An visualizations✨️💜🌹.
Namaste🙏🏽✨️🤍🕯🕊

Excellent. Just what I needed to hear and really understand.

What would love say💗 🙏🏻ty

Thank you! I Lov the way the universe brings us exactly what we need at the moment, if we are receiving. You are my gift today and right on point for me with the acceptance and holding close of our whole experience. Thank you thank you thank you! 🙏🙏❤️❤️✌🏼🌈🤗💗🙏

Perfect 🌸 acceptance meditation🌸 we all need this in this world where only positivity is accepted✨ It not only need sunshine to make a rainbow, never forget the rain 🌦🌈

This is a very inspiring meditation! Thank you so much🙏🏼 I really needed it today ❤️

Very comforting, thank you.

That was beautiful and inspirational. Thank you 🙏 💙

Really love this messaging. It has helped me with a new definition🙏🙏 Blessings to you Carrie😘🌸

thank you 🙏
Very helpful 🧡🧡🧡🧡

Just what I needed to hear right now.. Thankyou.. I really appreciated your insight.. Namaste 🙏

So great to listen to this - thank you 🙏🏼
Such a calming and genuine, comforting message.

Really helpful thank you 🙏