Broken. I guess I truly can only speak for myself. I believed myself to be broken for as long as I can remember. Broken in nearly every sense of the word.
I was too skinny, too flat chested, not smart enough, even fragile. I was shy when I was supposed to be outspoken. I was not good enough at sports. My stomach didn’t work right. I wasn’t as smart as everyone else.
As I got older, this messaging didn’t go away. It’s focus changed. The focus became my health. My stomach issues, the cellulite on my thighs, the trouble sleeping, my hip pain.
I was led to believe that each of these things are problems that must be fixed AND I wouldn’t be okay, until they were gone.
So, I did as I believed and worked hard to correct these problems. I spent so much time scouring the internet for solutions to stomach issues, cellulite, sleeping. As a physical therapist, I knew so many ways to help hip pain, so I did what I knew.
All of my problems, would ebb and flow. They’d get better, then worse. I’d take supplements, go on special diets, practice evening routines, and take dramatic shifts in habits around ayurveda, yoga, and meditation.
And here’s the truth for me.
It only kind of helped.
Oftentimes, it actually made my life a lot less enjoyable and fun. It may have even made some of my problems worse. I previously believed that “the problems” were what caused my disconnection with life, my unhappiness, discontent, lack of joy.
However, I realized that I was living with this belief: once I could solve all these “problems”, then I could finally start enjoying life.
I wasn’t actually living my life. But I was definitely stressed pretty much all of the time.
My head was FILLED with thinking. Constant thinking that looked something like this:
Was I doing the right thing? Was I taking the right supplements? Was I eating the right diet? Was I communicating with my partner in the best way? Was I doing the optimal exercises to ease my hip pain? Will I be able to get back on track with meditation when I missed a day? How do I stop from overeating? I shouldn’t have eaten so many corn chips. On and on and on and on and on.
All of this thinking continued the belief that I was broken and needed to be fixed. But none of this thinking actually created real, sustainable, or lasting change in my health or life.
Maybe this is true for you.
This is the way I have come to see it. Maybe it’s helpful for you.
The only real problem is that we think we are broken. We think we need to be fixed
So we focus our time and energy on that….OR maybe you do the opposite, and feel hopeless and helpless. Maybe you do NOTHING in response to the “problems” you have.
Either way, you we are missing out on the beauty, depth, and joy that life has to offer NOW.
Truly, regardless of all the reasons you think you can’t be happy, joyful, or grateful. They aren’t true.
If you are even a tiny bit curious if this is true.
Let’s have a conversation.