Have you ever had the sense of feeling broken? As though something is damaged within you or was broken at some point and just can’t be repaired or has healed but always stayed a bit misplaced and out of line. I have always felt this way, like I was damaged goods in some way, less than other people due to some inexplainable fault, a problem that couldn't be pinpointed or explained but was very certainly there. I have spent my entire life believing I had to hide these broken parts or faults, believing that the only way to be acceptable, loveable or worthy was to play pretend and cover up the parts of me that weren't deemed to be enough. I wholeheartedly believed that because of these broken parts of me, I was less than and had to do all I could to keep them hidden and put out into the world a person and image that didn’t include them so that I could even try and measure up against others.
I've experienced first-hand how if you tell yourself something or others say it to you often enough, it will work its way deep inside your mind and make itself a home there. Once an idea has taken root it becomes part of the foundations you build everything else up from. Then because you have built everything from this central root or base point everything stems from it or is entangled with it in some way. For me feeling like I am broken and it being a negative thing is one of these core roots that runs through all of my experiences, It runs so deep that I built the foundations of my life and principle of self upon it. It was one of the roots that everything stemmed from and so I could connect everything back to it, I therefore felt like I had all this proof as to my brokenness and how rotten and bad being broken made me. I could explain away every trauma I had been through as a consequence of how broken I was. I could wholeheartedly believe I deserved to go through everything that I had gone through and that every negative aspect of my personality or coping mechanisms were due to me being broken and less than everyone else. I never questioned that being broken was a bad and rotten thing, it just felt like a core truth that my life was based on. The traumas, experiences and pain all just added to it, making it more dark and painful in nature and even more deserving of being hidden away. I never believed it could be anything other than something I needed to go to painstaking lengths to hide from the world.
For me this knowledge felt almost like a non-negotiable, I couldn't possibly comprehend how I would ever not be broken or not have parts of myself that needed to be hidden, buried or disguised. It was so deeply rooted within my mind that it touched every area of my life, memories and being, It felt like every move I made or thought I had were always framed around trying to hide or appear less broken. I had built every element of myself and my life around the core belief that I had to keep my true self hidden and wear a mask because the real me, the whole of me was not acceptable. When you have told yourself this your entire life and believed it for as long as you can remember it seems impossible to be able to understand that it could ever be different. How can you understand something you have so much evidence against and no evidence or experience supporting it? I couldn't comprehend not letting this sense of being broken dictate my life let alone bringing any of the areas or experiences I had locked away under the 'broken' file in my mind out into the light. The concept of being able to be acceptable and broken just seemed and felt like a bit of a joke. It felt like if people believed that you could put your flaws or broken pieces out there into the world and it all be okay then they were being fooled or trying to fool me. And if they did truly believe this to be the truth then they must not at all understand how bad and wrong my broken pieces were because I was so sure that if I let the parts of me that I had always been taught to keep hidden away, out into the world it would lead to more pain and trauma or some form of punishment or retribution. After all, I really was that bad, broken and rotten.
I found it really very difficult when anything challenged this. My default in life and healing was a thought process of 'Well that’s great for you but it isn’t true for me'. I could look at others that had come through traumas and healed or had been through worse than me and go on to create a wonderful healed life for themselves and instead of seeing inspiration or hope. I just became more certain that they had been given some gift that I wasn’t worthy of, they had something special within them that was missing in me. This allowed them to move forward, to heal, to accept their broken pieces and to form a new beautiful whole encompassing them. Over time I realised that by allowing this to be my internal and external narrative I wasn’t even allowing any chance or possibility for any other storyline to be true for me. I was limiting myself, my healing and my experiencing purely because I couldn't believe it could be any different. Within the therapeutic space, I experienced unconditional care, empathy and compassion for the first time in my life in such a profound way. Through this, I started to understand that maybe it took having a little faith first. What if it took putting a little trust in myself and the world first to then be able to believe that an alternative might be possible? It required bravery, trust and faith, in myself, my therapist and the world to even be able to consider moving away from this belief because it was so deeply ingrained within my mind and sense of self. These are three things that didn’t come easily to me, after years of trauma and living in fear of myself and the world they seemed almost impossible. But over time things started to shift and seem more possible, with intention and support I was able to start moving towards them.
I truly had to become open to trusting myself and the world and to begin to accept that perhaps things could be broken without them being bad or rotten or terrible and that this applied to me just as much as it applied to others. I began to explore the idea that you can carry pain, wounds and scars without them being the only thing that defines you. To learn and accept that there are multiple layers to all of us and that none of them no matter how we have been treated, what we have been through or what we have done to survive, solely define who we are. They are all just pieces of the puzzle or small pieces of the large whole. Although it sounds very simple to understand and accept, for me it was really difficult and sticky to work through and to think about let alone try to accept. It meant releasing and letting go of principles and knowledge that I had believed for my entire life. It meant challenging the beliefs that I had lived my entire life by and had been reinforced over and over again. It meant beginning to doubt and question the narrative I had given myself and others had given to me for as long as I could remember. To be able to do this and to find comfort I began to seek out other places where this might be true. I began to look for ways to make sense of accepting and welcoming the broken pieces just as much as you do for the whole, shiny acceptable pieces. I began to try and make sense that you could be broken and yet see beauty in that brokenness. A process of accepting that things didn’t need to be perfect and never broken or without struggle to be beautiful or to hold beauty.
Once I started to try to process and accept this idea as a concept that could be, relevant things kept coming to mind that for me felt like they sat within this bracket. Things that were perhaps not conventionally beautiful or good and got swept away with negative connotations or associations but they actually hold incredible beauty in themselves or highlight and help us to appreciate the good and beauty in other aspects. One of these that always comes to mind for me is lightning and thunderstorms. Lightning and thunderstorms can be destructive, loud and turbulent, they can cause all sorts of threat and destruction. But if we take the time to sit and watch a storm, if we can find safety in the middle of the turbulent weather they can be truly stunning and awe striking in their unique and powerful beauty. Lighting is an intricate and unique phenomenon that wouldn’t exist if we didn’t have the turbulent and sometimes violent storm that comes with it. A single strike of lightning can be greatly destructive but it can also be incredibly beautiful and wonderous in and of itself. And then there is also the moment when a storm has passed, we can remember the beauty of the lighting, but we also know how overwhelming and consuming the storm was and this allows us to appreciate the beauty, light and freedom of the clouds parting and the sun breaking through afterwards. All of this is true for us too. Anything that might feel broken within us can have come from a single destructive moment maybe a trauma or an experience or something we had to do for survival. But that doesn’t mean that incredible beauty and power can't come from that same moment. And with time and healing, we can move out of the eye of the storm and into the sunshine. It doesn’t mean the storms don’t come or aren't a part of us or our experience anymore but we don’t have to solely live in the storm forever either.
Another concept I came across in the process of trying to accept the parts of me that felt broken or messy was the Japanese process called 'Kintsugi' or 'Kintsukuroi' which roughly translates to joining with gold. It is a centuries-old repair technique which uses gold lacquer to repair broken objects. It is based on the belief that there is power and beauty in repairs and that the life or journey of an object is not over just because it has been broken. It is a practice that comes from the belief and serves as a reminder that items and us as well are stronger and more beautiful for having been broken and repaired. These breaks form a part of the story and giving time for repairs and to pour gold into the fractures or breaks allows transformation, growth and healing. This creates a new whole that is equally if not more beautiful in its new form than it was before. This is again a concept that spoke to me for my own healing and the journey of others around me. It allowed me to start thinking about my broken parts in a slightly different way. Yes, it felt like these breaks in me had sharp and jagged edges, they made me stand out and made me different. I had always thought that these all meant they made me less than, less worthy and less whole. But this concept helped me to hold that the broken parts are nothing for me to be ashamed of, nothing for me to hide. They are a part of shaping me into who I truly am and they are part of what makes me uniquely me and maybe just maybe there is nothing wrong in being me or unique or having once become a little bit broken. Maybe these breaks and cracks are not only beautiful in themselves, but with time, healing and by filling them with love and care that forms the gold to hold them together I can become stronger and more beautiful for having been broken.
A final and really powerful way that this showed up for me was in finding ways to express and embrace my creativity during my healing journey. Creating cross-stitch pieces became a really visual way for me to express and accept both the perfected controlled image and the brokenness behind it. It was a way of me seeing and holding that each has its place, power and nature but you need to allow space for both and combine both to form a whole. This for me was demonstrated clearly through the cross-stitch pieces I was creating. The front of a cross-stitch is beautiful and it shows a perfectly curated image. This side allowed me to be creative while allowing my perfectionism and controlling nature to come into play. I could be exacting and precise, I could lay out a plan and follow it with diligence and dedication to create a beautiful exterior. But flip it over and look at it from a different perspective and you can still make out what it is and the overall image or shape. However, from this way, you can see all the knots, pain, and tangles. It's more disjointed and messy, it is far less controlled and perfect, and some sections might not even be visible from this side, but without this side, none of the pretty, perfected front would exist at all. Both sides are a form of art, both sides are a form of expression and creation. Both sides tell a different story and hold their own beauty, but combined into one piece they form a wonderful, beautiful and enchanting whole that would not be able to exist without the other.
Through these examples and many more that I have come across while trying to accept and make sense of myself and my experiences, I have truly started to learn that repressing, controlling or trying to hide parts of myself prevents me from ever being whole. I’ve started to understand that just because you believed things to be bad or in need of hiding or have been given that message for a long time doesn’t make it true or right. Just because it’s how things are or have been doesn’t mean it’s how things need to be from here. I’ve begun to accept that things don’t have to be perfect to be beautiful, acceptable or to be a part of me. If I take the time to look upon the parts of me that have always felt judged for or broken there is beauty there, Sometimes I might have to search for it or look a little deeper or from a different perspective but there is beauty. Just because I have been taught not to look for it doesn’t mean it’s not there. I’ve learnt that even if I can’t see beauty in a coping mechanism itself or a traumatic experience there is still beauty and power in what they allowed me to survive, cope with or live through. There is beauty in the healing from things that have wounded me. Scars and broken parts don’t have to be seen as negative parts to hide away, they can be beautiful and unique. They can be parts we learn to cherish and welcome into ourselves because they are now a part of us and our story. With time, love and healing they can be parts that add to our beauty not detract from it like I was led to believe. They can be parts that make us uniquely us, they can shine and hold wealth, strength and beauty because we took the time to embrace them and pour in our own mix of gold. I can't say that I have managed to do this in whole yet. It’s certainly still a work in progress for me to see and accept that there can be beauty in the broken. I am still learning to embrace and accept all of me, the bits that have been accepted and the bits I’ve been taught to hide. But slowly I can see that there is hope and truth in all of this. I do truly now believe that there is nothing shameful or wrong about broken pieces and that they do truly hold beauty, even if I can’t quite always see it.