One of my clients told me recently that she felt she was broken at one point in her past.

It struck me how many of us think that we’re broken… we label ourselves as being somehow bad.

We’re too emotional, too weak or just not meeting our potential.

Her words brought me back to a time when I thought I was broken. Virtually everything in my life fell away all at once. I didn’t really even have time to think about it or process what was happening, I had to just keep moving on.

Months later I found myself at a doctors office and all that I’d been through slowly seeped its way out. The doctors response, “you sound broken, you need to find a way to get yourself back together”.

Then she hugged me as if she done me some kind a favor.

I found myself angry as I left the office because I knew I wasn’t broken. I was a highly sensitive giver who had given way too much of myself to other people and found myself in complete emptiness at a time when I needed someone to give back to me.

It did break my spirit for a short time… But I wasn’t broken.

I was a human having a very human experience… I wasn’t bad, faulted, or broken.

I was simply needing time to rebuild.

I don’t think we’re ever broken. I think the universe conspires to put us in circumstances that challenge us to face emotions, feelings, or experiences that we were once deathly afraid of.

We may temporarily freak out and feel unsure of where to go and what to do. We may cry uncontrollably and reach out for help in strange ways, but we aren’t broken.

We are powerful people dealing with things that we have spent our lives trying to outsmart because we’re expected to be perfect.

We have spent years trying to do it right and gain the respect of people who haven’t earned it.

We wasted our energy thinking we had to prove our worthiness by other people telling us we were okay.

You can see how that can break you down after a while.

I walked out that doctors office and told myself I would never let someone disrespect me that way again.

I stepped forward and got all of the help and support I needed. In fact in a matter of a year I finally got a diagnosis and treatment for an autoimmune condition I’d been suffering from for six years. At the same time I was also dealing with a very near and dear family member who was ill.

How did I do this?

I stopped allowing people to tell me that my feelings and experiences were not real.

I wouldn’t accept that my pain level was normal, that I was not trying hard enough, and that it was just anxiety.

I wouldn’t allow my temporary feeling of being broken open to define my future, my health or my relationships.

It started with ending the lies I told myself about being a broken person.

I shared that with my client and she very quickly saw how that “broken” voice was impacting her entire life.

She also realized that she had the control to own her experience and define her feelings and emotions.

Being broken wasn’t reality.

It’s a powerful experience and it’s extremely tough at times; but I wasn’t willing to give up and neither was she.

I don’t want you to give up either, there is so much more on the other side of being “broken”