You become whole when you embrace all parts of yourself,
As you seek to heal these parts,
And to live as the highest examples of authenticity and kindness and love.
What parts of you do you keep hidden away,
Afraid to reveal these aspects or traits at an inopportune moment,
Perhaps when you have let your guard down or feel too comfortable,
Of your secrets,
Of what you may say or do that you dislike or self-loathe?
What is this dark side and the part of our self that we must vanquish?
I asked Donovan to read his list of criminal charges aloud.
He claimed that he had no memory of his actions the night of the arrest.
The list of charges read long.
I pressed him to tell me what each of these meant.
As he continued,
Some faded memories began to return,
But not fully.
He was relying more on what others told him about that night with shock and shame.
Polite from police officer arrest.
Mischief damage property arrest.
Impaired operation.
Alcohol or drugs arrest.
Failure or refusal to comply with demand arrest.
Assault,
Peace or public officer arrest.
And uttering threats,
Death or bodily harm arrest.
He remembers waking in a holding cell in jail and ever so fearful of what he had done.
Eventually my point stuck and he expressed exactly why I needed him to remember,
To know as much as possible all that he had done.
In his words,
Donovan said,
If I remember,
If I know what I did,
I won't ever want to do that again.
When we face our inner demon,
I call it our dark side,
We can bring it into the light of day.
Donovan was not an abusive nor hostile person.
He went on a binge of hard liquor and fentanyl.
After being rejected by a woman he loved,
His child's mother,
And the same woman that introduced him to this drug months earlier.
Part of our work in therapy would be to get to the heart of how Donovan could allow someone to decide if he was lovable,
To overcome the hurt and rejection he felt,
And to learn to love himself.
Donovan needed to become whole,
To reclaim his wholeness,
To never put himself in a position where he had no control over his actions and reactions.
And no memory,
He also needed to rely on himself for feeling loved and good enough.
Your dark side is the part of you that you have disavowed and neglected.
It is the fragmented part of you that has been hurt,
Neglected,
Abused,
Unloved.
And it is the part of you that has veered from what you truly are and have always been – goodness,
Kind,
Honorable,
Love.
In this episode,
I share the stories of my clients,
Donovan and James.
Their names have been changed to protect their privacy,
But their stories are real.
Each client that I see that chooses to begin their inner journey is also on a path of wholeness.
One of the first,
Most important steps to reclaim wholeness is your willingness to be completely honest and truthful with yourself,
Because to do so is to see everything with clarity and in the full expression of what is.
You will see how these two clients made the conscious choice to no longer live in the untruths that they had convincingly told themselves.
Wholeness is living in the pure and certain knowledge that who and what you are is complete and more than enough and capable to be all that you desire,
And that you are already perfect.
You must also believe this of yourself.
If there is a pandemic of the human condition,
It is the suffering that we experience when we feel parts of ourselves to be broken,
Damaged,
Unloved,
And as we continue in the silence of that experience.
You are whole.
You have always been whole.
If there are parts of you that you are unhappy with,
That you acknowledge are not true examples of your worth and goodness,
And if there are parts of you that you disavow and ignore in hopes that you can carry on without them,
They will continue to impact you.
To heal is to reclaim these parts,
To embrace them as the parts of your greater whole,
In the presence of what love and nurturing,
Forgiveness and certain change you give them.
I write about this because it is something that affects us all.
It is not enough to continue on without examining what aspects and traits and mannerisms do not serve you because of what you have learned and how you have adapted to what you were exposed to as a child.
You have the power to be whole,
Your best self,
Your truth.
To live feeling whole is to live happy and confident,
In the richness of knowing yourself best and loving all of you.
Being whole does not mean that you won't make a mistake or at times lose your ability to manage your emotions.
However,
You no longer need to sweep under the carpet mistakes,
Bad behavior,
And choices that are really meant to be looked at.
To see everything with eyes wide open is to have the awareness and the ability to choose to be different in the very next moment.
Donovan would never say such atrocious and horrifying words to anyone as he said to that police officer when he threatened his life.
There is no excuse for his behavior,
Only the seeking of greater understanding so that he will never repeat these actions.
When we are hurt,
When we are suffering,
We have the propensity to hurt others.
When we are whole,
We can live as our highest self.
When you live in the certain knowing that you are whole,
You are invincible.
You no longer compare yourself to others and feel inadequate or undeserving.
Instead,
Others become a muse of inspiration and a reminder of what is possible.
In living in the knowledge that you are already whole,
You can choose to focus on how to bring your inherent gifts into the world by means of pursuing all that you enjoy and all that holds meaning.
You can also work on the aspects of yourself that need attention,
Corrections,
And desire change,
Love,
And approval.
You can give this to yourself.
You are the best one to do so,
As well as to seek the right guidance and help as you pursue a life of wholeness.
Wholeness is what you already are.
As you embrace your wholeness,
You acknowledge your perfection.
Contraction is not the absence of human error,
But to be all that you are capable of as your unique self.
This is a conscious choice.
We call this living as your best self,
And it is something that if we seek and strive for,
Our effort is worth it.
To know that you are capable of all that you desire begins with a conscious choice.
If you need to hold greater belief in who and what you are,
This too is possible,
But you must begin with a willingness to do so.
You need to expend effort towards change,
But positive change is always going to serve you in all of the ways that you deem best,
And as you witness your accomplishments and growth founded in authenticity and self-honesty,
This will encourage and propel you forward to realize your ability to excel and succeed in the world as you live aligned with your truth,
That is,
Your infinite greatness,
Not as ego but as pure goodness.
For some clients,
I use the analogy of shedding.
Shedding the parts of yourself that you no longer need after first acknowledging these parts is also a path to becoming whole,
Because in place of what you no longer choose to be,
You give yourself choice in how you will be and become.
And here's a spiritual perspective of wholeness.
Wholeness is also an awareness of your non-physical nature,
That you are more than your mind and body,
Your thoughts and actions,
And the sum total of your lived experiences.
To embrace the non-physical part of you is important to reclaim all that you are.
For whatever religion or spiritual beliefs you hold,
Consider including the non-physical aspects of you,
As what contributes to your wholeness and perfection.
As you embrace your spiritual self,
As you acknowledge a path and a plan that is intuitively guided,
You walk with freedom to honor yourself,
To witness all that you are as unique and special,
Just as you are able to witness the unique perfection of others.
If we are all a part of the God source,
Then we are all capable of divine goodness.
Will you decide to live the rest of your life as the perfection of what you are,
Even as you may always seek to become more?
Remember you just need to always do the right thing,
To live honorable and true,
In order to be your best self.
My client James was grieving the loss of his wife,
Who died months earlier from a brain aneurysm.
Her death was peaceful.
She died in her sleep whilst he was out of town visiting his ailing mother.
James's entry into therapy was to help him reconcile his lack of honesty with his wife,
His ongoing affair with a co-worker and the horrible suffering he was experiencing as he realized how he had been living inauthentic,
Dishonest,
And self-centered,
Without real thought about the consequences of his actions.
James and every other child that grows up in a home where they witness firsthand dishonesty,
Infidelity,
A lack of respect in the treatment of others,
And the absence of remorse,
Learns what is incorrigible.
We are a product of our environment,
And as much as we cannot change some of our inherited attributes,
Such as the color of our eyes or our body type,
We are largely malleable to our desire to be what we have always been,
That is,
Good,
Honorable,
Godlike,
Loving,
And of course,
Whole.
My work with James was far-reaching beyond his guilt and shame for the betrayal in his marital relationship,
The even bigger parcel of work that we also began was for James to examine all that he was taught,
Whether directly or as a result of being raised in a home where there was a lack of love and the presence of emotional,
Physical,
And sexual abuse.
What we do as children in self-preservation is adapt.
We figure out how we can have our needs met,
How we can best survive and hopefully thrive as much as possible when love,
Honesty,
And honorable behaviors are largely absent.
Yes,
It is true.
Children can become a parent and have what I deem to be one of the most important roles in the world,
To raise another human being,
And yet fail to do this in the best possible way because they themselves have not chosen to make time and effort to heal themselves and to live whole and of their highest self.
This is actually a huge topic.
Its scope expands far beyond how one raises and treats their children.
For how you are is what you emulate and teach,
Whether directly or as a result of your child observing and gleaning what they see.
Even as we know right from wrong,
Children are impressionable.
They take to heart what their caregivers say and do,
Including what words and actions cause them to believe that they are in some way not good enough,
Not lovable,
Not intelligent enough,
Not worthy,
And the like.
I should also mention that this is not about finger-pointing.
We all have the responsibility to examine ourselves with honesty and to decide what we have learned that has never served us,
That is untrue and a false belief that we have carried up to now.
To be whole is to first examine,
As James did,
All of the aspects of yourself that are not truly how you want to be.
This is for many a point of awakening.
The idea that we get to decide the kind of person that we will become is self-empowerment.
This idea is not new,
Yet change is not always straightforward.
It can take months,
Even years of effort to make a desired change,
To break an unhealthy habit or addiction,
And of course to relinquish an aspect of learned behavior that one has carried forward throughout life,
Perhaps thinking nothing of this and its impact on their self or others.
To awaken is to observe yourself as you are,
To see your actions and words and the impact of your thoughts and beliefs as significant.
Change can happen only when you are first willing to see yourself as you are.
It is akin to holding a mirror up to yourself and being willing to examine with complete honesty what you observe.
How many of us do that on a regular basis,
And yet to be whole is to no longer disavow,
Disregard and dislike the parts of you that are less than positive?
For James and Donovan and any client that is seeking to improve,
To release the damaging impact of what they have been taught,
And to take full responsibility for how they will choose to live the rest of their life,
This requires the willingness to be awake,
To be honorable,
To no longer make excuses or blame others,
Or to tell yourself that you are excused from personal growth,
Because in truth none of us are.
One of the biggest responsibilities of your life is to make the conscious choice of how you want to be,
What morals and values you will uphold and why.
This is to guide you through the rest of your life.
It is to question what you have been taught,
Especially if your behavior causes conflict in your relationships,
Or if you feel self-doubt in your abilities,
Or unlovable,
Or not good enough.
These problematic behaviors and core beliefs shape how you think and feel,
And they can be corrected with a little help.
This is what we do together,
You and I.
I also want to acknowledge the caregivers and parents that recognized what damage was caused for them,
And the conscious choice they made to be different,
And to apply these enlightened and evolved views and beliefs to ensure that their children would have the right guidance,
Care,
And confidence.
If we all were taught to live in the wholeness of our perfection,
In what we are,
Then the joy of this may be our deepest strength and resilience,
And to live of our light.
Wholeness is perfect oneness.
It is a reminder that as you are of your individual nature,
You are also aware that you are a part of the greater whole.
You are complete.
You are more than good enough and lovable.
And where you find and live this is in your journey inward,
Rather than outside of yourself.
Finally,
A question to ask yourself is a journal writing prompt,
And as you allow the answers into your conscious mind,
And of which originate in your heart.
What would make me whole?
Take a few moments right here as you say these words aloud.
What would make me whole?
What would make me whole?
It's a question that you feel the answer to,
And that you listen inward as your inner wisdom speaks.
And then,
For what answer you receive,
Could you offer this to yourself?
Could you begin now to live as whole and in the perfection of what you already are?
And finally,
I offer a therapeutic and also sacred practice to anchor this wisdom in the expression of what you are,
To repeat your own mantra,
To say the words aloud,
I am whole.
I am wholeness.
I am worthy.
I am love.
Pay attention to what sensations you witness felt within your body.
Wholeness is to imply that you are more than enough as you are,
That there is nothing you need to be whole.
If you lived from this premise,
What would change in your life and within you?
I share this message of what I hope will be inspired consciousness for you to experience yourself in the space and time of what matters most.
If we all live from a place of wholeness,
If you did so for an entire day,
What would be different?
What would your thoughts need to be?
Drop me a note of what your path and your life begins to look like as you live in the certainty that you are already whole.
As you embrace all parts of you and to live as your true self in wholeness and in all places in your life with all people.
No longer fragmented,
Be all of who you are.
One version,
One wholeness,
One you.
That is healing.
Thank you so much.
This is Dorothy.
Namaste.
Thank you so much for joining me in this episode of the Wisdom Podcast.
To hear more,
Please check out the other episodes here as well as my guided meditations,
Including my signature prose meditations and I am mantras and as well the meditations to guide you into a deep and restorative sleep.
Please also visit me on social media and say hello and a special thank you to Insight Timer for this beautiful space to share all of my love.
Allow yourself to go within,
To access your inner wisdom and to live this.
Awaken your authentic power,
Live your truth and be love.
Namaste.
