Wholehearted

Brene Brown, researcher storyteller found in TED talks, speaks of the discovery that vulnerability is necessary to experience real joy, a whole heart. Does a heart need to be completely shattered to piece it back into wholeness. Is it the depths of shame, fear, loss and despair that get us in touch with ourselves, all that we truly only have - ourselves?

Is that the gift in my divorce? Being left for another person pushing the shame of me to the forefront of the world. Despite being so completely humiliated, rejected, betrayed and afraid, some people still loved me. I so clearly remember asking God for an answer, trying to understand why I had to experience such pain. What was it that kept me curious? I must have believed that there was some greater good to come from all that was happening; that somehow it must have some meaning that I could not see.

Here it is, a few years later and this curiosity has continued. When a new betrayal or rejection confronts me, and I move toward resentment, I see how I am letting the 'I am not enough' thoughts permeate my being. Resentment reflecting a need to defend myself. Sure, I am feeling hurt, but I am the one giving the action the meaning that it was because of ME. I am now certain it is not about me at all. "If the child asks for bread and none is forth coming, has not the father answered." I choose to be happy, not right. I choose to honour my own values and work on not judging the actions of others, after all, have I not also committed selfish acts?

So, I sit in stillness and get to know me. I have eventually begun to believe that I am enough no matter what. Sure the feeling of 'not enough' still comes and goes, and I am still influenced by the pull of others at times, but now I have had a glimpse of the truth, and I have tools to revisit the essence of who I am. I consider myself very fortunate to have gotten an answer from the Divine.