No. 9 — You Are Not BROKEN

Please stop telling yourself that.

And apologizing for it.

It breaks my heart to see girls on my feed ALL.OF.THE.TIME. titling themselves as “broken”.

I know how “broken” feels. I do.

I don’t know how yours feels. But I know what it’s like to feel like you will never be whole, or perfectly okay. To feel like because of all that you have gone through you will never be as you could be.

And so you grieve that potential other-you.

But that person doesn’t exist. And you’ve got to stop telling yourself that you ARE broken. You can FEEL broken. But you ARE NOT BROKEN.

Why? How is that so?

• You’re not defined by what has happened TO you. If you’ve been abused, mistreated, misunderstood, and thrown challenge after challenge–you are NOT the remains that are left. You are the spirit that endures, and grows. Resilient. Still HERE. You are whole although you may be battered and bruised. You are a warrior.

• The difference between claiming yourself as broken, and healing is self acceptance. You have to choose softness instead of beating yourself up. You have to believe that no matter what has happened in the past, you are destined for a beautiful future. When you can make peace with the past and accept who you are, you will naturally start taking better care of yourself. You have limitless potential babe. There is nothing to ‘fix’ about you.

• Labeling yourself as broken doesn’t help. Your mind can’t distinguish what is true if you keep repeating that to yourself. Give yourself credit. You are doing the best that you can. Take all of that fear and worry and channel it into a belief that empowers you. When I’m feeling overwhelmed and like my life isn’t where it ‘should’ be, I remind myself that “I am improving my life in small steps at a time.” and it gives me more peace.

• “You’re not doing life wrong; you’re doing it right. If there’s any secret you’re missing, it’s that doing it right is just really hard. Feeling all your feelings is hard, but that’s what they’re for. Feelings are for feeling. All of them. Even the hard ones. The secret is that you’re doing it right, and that doing it right hurts sometimes.” – Glennon Doyle, Untamed.

• Trust yourself. I believe that each of us has an inner knowing (if you haven’t read Untamed yet, you must), and that if we follow that inner knowing it will lead us on our true path. The little voice that asks you why you haven’t started that business, or left that relationship. The one that you know is true. You know what you need more than anyone else does. So trust that knowing. Follow it to find a way out of that feeling and into more peace.

If you’re trying to change things about you,

I want you to know that you are BRAVE.

But that you can change softly, without tearing yourself down.

Xoxo,

Melody