Perfectly Broken



yellowleafpalmIf there is a perfect storm, the notion of being broken to perfection also rises from the depths of the egoic ocean.  As we study the impact of Environmental Pharmaceutical Persistent Pollutants we realize that we are a pop-pill culture of desperately seeking to sooth Susan.  And why not?  We are designed as compassionate sentient beings to want to help someone who is in pain.  If we are a doctor, we fix their broken bits, if we are a therapist we examine their pain-filled mental processes, if we are a parent we kiss the ouch and bandaid the tears that cut directly into our heart when our children cry.

Ultimately we want to end our own suffering.  And as our tolerance for the natural ebb and flow of emotion grows thin in our fat food society, we begin our obsession with fixing everything around us.  Have a headache?  Pop a pill.  Bored? Eat a pint of ice-cream (or drink a pint of lager.)  Feeling blue?  Do all of the above, rinse and repeat.  Or repent if your religion steers you to do so.

In my practice, I am a master of managing pain by all means.  Which actually means I make a mess out of it most of the time.  Because when we are still addicted to our meandering mind we will always find a means to suffer.  We may think it is the object that is directly before our eyes – the incorrigible co-worker, the out-of-touch parent, the politician who is the epitome of everything we are against – but really if we look back at the longer now we see that there was always something offending our “I” and that our perception of angst and injustice has always been.  Alas, we didn’t start the fire.

When I am asked my opinion, (or unsolicited as I tend to offer it at the most unwelcomed moments)  how can I help someone with XY or the proverb Z … I am apt to say you can not fix another person.  Which most people find frustrating, or perhaps dimwitted as they hold on to their steadfast belief that they are somehow one of the chosen or gifted bipedals who can turn water into wine or perhaps swine, though I should think that would be a mixed biblical metaphor.  Nonetheless most often the conversation stops dead in its tracks because it feels like a dead-end blind ally and that somehow I have given up hope.  Which is an unbearable thought for those who see the future as a long drive along the coast of torment, which for me is a well worn road indeed.

But for the brave few who ask a follow up question (or fail to escape my proximity and endure more gratuitous gumption) they will hear that I do in fact believe in healing in so much that I know Change is the one Truth I can trust.  But healing for me, may not look like what I thought (or hoped) that it would.

One of the greatest gifts that my children give me, is to not see me as broken.  Clearly from the outside looking in, its easy to see that I am in fact a mess of sharp edges and loose if not completely missing quintessential parts.  My body doesn’t work, my mental miasma is a toxic landmind and the prospect of any of that getting any better would be a crack-pipe-dream.  But my kids don’t treat me as broken.  They don’t look upon me as something that needs fixing.  To them .. I’m “Mom”.  Never mind that I don’t leave the house for them it translates to me always being around.  No matter that I can’t always walk to the kitchen, there is always someone around who can bring me something to eat, or a hot pack for the aching parts that scream for attention.  Each of them have unique insight into what it means to be “normal” in the wide spectrum of sense.  And they each see me through a rainbow full of light and compassion.

When we see someone as perfect despite their breakdown of circumstances, the desperate need to circle the wagons and try to fix them falls away.  We can instead simply enjoy the experience of Being that rises when we are with them.  We can hold the mirror up for them and help them to see that they don’t need to change a thing about who they are, where they came from or where they end up tomorrow in order for us to love them … just as they are today.  When we stop believing we can fix someone, that they need fixing, that they can be fixed … we give them permission to love themselves fully in this moment just as it is, just as they are.

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