If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It

I was sitting at my computer staring at the screen with tears running down my face. I was watching a young man with a sweet face as he said, seemingly staring right back at me through the magic of the Internet, "You're not broken. There is nothing to fix. You are whole and complete just the way you are. You are loved, every part of you, even the parts you're not proud of." I had to sit there for a long time after the Google Hangout was over to let those words sink in: "You're not broken. There is nothing to fix."

The young man in question is Spiritual Teacher Panache Desai, and if you haven't had an opportunity to see him on YouTube or OWN, listen to his live podcasts or read his book, Soul Signature, I highly recommend that you do all three. For all of the spiritual and transformational teachers and authors whose words I have studied, for some reason these particular words resonated deeply with me and I think I am pretty safe in saying that they would resonate with a great many other people as well. Women especially need to hear these words.

I can't speak for the younger generations coming up behind us, but for women our age the message of not being enough started when we were old enough to understand language and hasn't stopped since. It was always all about pleasing others, be it our parents, our teachers, our peers, our husbands, our bosses, our children, etc, etc, etc. It was about how we looked, what we wore, where we lived, what we drove, who we married (or didn't marry). If we fell short in any of these areas, there was something wrong with us. Somehow something inside was broken and if we wanted to be accepted, we had to find what it was and fix it.

Imagine how it would feel if we accepted ourselves just the way we were? Not only that, but how would our lives change if we decided that we didn't have to "be" or "do" anything? If we could just be ourselves and know that it was enough? For example, I love to write. Writing is my passion. However, I don't have to be Ernest Hemingway. I don't have to be Emily Dickinson. I don't even have to be Dr. Seuss. I just have to be me, Barb (aka Flower Bear), who loves to write because words have the power to change and heal people's lives. What if that was enough? What if living in a sweet little apartment out in the country with my two cats and all of nature as my neighbors were enough? What if learning new ways to cook tofu, re-learning how to bake, and mastering a new crochet pattern was enough? The sights and sounds of an ordinary life, and it's all perfectly okay.

Maybe what is okay for you is starting a new career, or traveling, or going back to school. It's all okay, anything and everything, because there is nothing to fix so that someone else will find you acceptable. You are perfect, whole and complete just as you are. So if it ain't broke, stop trying to fix it. Just love it. Enjoy it. Embrace it.

And so it is.