EVERYBODY'S BROKEN

"Take a look around, tell me what you see, is who you think you are, who you wanna be?  It's okay to be a little broken, everybody's broken in this life, it's okay to feel a little broken, you're alright." ~ Bon Jovi

Everybody's broken.  No human is exempt from pain and struggle in this life it seems.  Each and everyone of us has a story, and no one's story is more or less important than the other, it is simply our own personal journey.  The thing is, we have a choice to stay broken and make that the story we tell ourselves and others for the rest of our lives, OR, we can use the broken'ness as an opportunity to see ourselves and heal so we can one day tell the story from a less broken place.  

It's been my experience and observation that many humans are afraid or unwilling to really look at where we are broken, and instead put on various masks to face the world, in attempt to hide our broken selves.  Masks can come in the form of self righteousness (hiding inferiority); control (hiding vulnerability); bullying (hiding extreme pain and fear of further pain); humor (hiding sadness); aloof (hiding vulnerability); etc.  When we are willing to be aware and heal from this broken place, we will keep our masks handy for use while our old 'stuff' continues to surface until it eventually works itself out.

It's uncomfortable to make ourselves vulnerable, but that is where we must go in order to let others in past the masks we wear to protect ourselves from what we perceive as judgement from the outside world.  The illusion here is what we think others think of us, is actually a mirror to show us where we judge ourselves.  In my experience I notice if my judgement of another surfaces, that it is simply there to show me that I'm still in judgement of myself in some way.  I notice this with others as well.  When I encounter a person who is constantly looking around and judging others, that they truly are that hard on themselves.  I have compassion for their pain.

When we make a commitment to go within and be aware of ourselves and where our shame, sadness, grief, hatred, judgement, guilt, unforgiveness, etc. lies, then fully accept and love those very human traits that we all have, we are able to shatter the self created chains we keep on ourselves. 

I think we've all been taught in some way that there was no room in our lives to be broken, yet the fact is everyone is broken to some degree and it's there as an opportunity to see our broken selves.  It's from this broken place that we hurt ourselves and others.  If we look at our past hurts and choose to nurture that broken little boy or girl who is a part of us and find compassion, we begin to notice ourselves softening. Then slowly we notice the masks we have worn and walls we've built around our hearts in order to protect ourselves from further pain, fall away, creating more room for freedom, love and joy in our hearts.

If we see or know a child in our lives who have been hurt in some way, we automatically have compassion for that child.  So why not have compassion for our own inner child who has inevitably experienced hurt?  It's good to take a look too, at times when our actions have hurt other people and understand that we were acting from our broken place and it actually had nothing to do with the other person.  The opposite is true, the actions of others we've felt hurt by, also come from their pain.  We have no idea about the pain another has experienced and we have no control or power over their actions or how they choose to live their lives.  We only have power over our own choices and actions.

Going to those broken places within ourselves is not comfortable, but it's necessary if we are tired of feeling broken, continuously hurting others, or attracting relationships with people who will re-create the old pain so we can heal it, and telling the same old story like a broken record even we are tired of listening to.

I've had huge walls my whole life, and my experience has been that they don't all crumble at once.  They fall away one at a time and just when you think the last wall has fallen, another seems to appear until eventually they are few and far between, and life continues to ease up and look and feel different.  It continues to feel more safe to put our true authentic face to the world, no longer feeling like we need to hide the broken to protect ourselves. One day we're able to look back and bless the broken road because it was an opportunity to heal.

Healing doesn't happen overnight, it happens over time and the time is gonna pass anyway so why not use it to heal?  

Leaving you today with a video of Bon Jovi's Everybody's Broken.....enjoy and go easy on yourself ;-)

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