Today is my birthday. As of 7:35 this morning, I turned 53 and lest I forget, my mother calls me every year at this very time to relay the details of my birth. “Do you know where I was 53 years ago today?”. I get to hear about how she drank castor oil and stood on her head to “encourage” my arrival, how my dad drove too slow to the hospital, how my Aunt Weezy helped deliver me and more. It’s an integral part of my birthday ritual.
I love my age and I love aging. Don’t get me wrong, gravity has planted itself firmly in my physicality, my brain struggles to remember as acutely as I like to think it once did, I am now known to double up on my glasses and I don’t think I can call the creases on my face “smile lines” anymore.
But I know I am not old and have many chapters still left in me and I know I’m no longer a spring chicken . . . and I certainly bear the experiences and scars to prove it. Still though, I relish this time in my life and appreciate the operating instructions I’ve acquired through the years.
For instance, and while not always, I operate best with:
✨Tenderness over Shame
✨Surrender over Resistance
✨Curiosity over Judgment
✨Flow over Striving
✨Rest over Hustle
✨My Inside Voice over my Inner Critic
✨Authenticity over Expectation
✨Sunscreen over Baby Oil
✨Walks in Nature over ½ Marathons
✨Morning Rituals over late night wine
✨And despite being a recent Swiftie, I am always and forever U2.
But most importantly and despite much perceived evidence to the contrary, I now know that:
I am not broken.
YOU are not broken.
WE are not broken.
Sure, there are patterns of behavior that don’t serve me and choices I’ve made that certainly could point to “brokenness”. There is incomprehensible pain and suffering that leave me feeling powerless enough to break me and there are systems that are broken. But we are not.
We have been operating under the misconception that we are broken and need fixing. In fact there is a billion-dollar self-development industry banking on us believing it. But the truth is that there is nothing to fix and all the time, energy and bandwidth we give to chasing the lure of this “wholeness” is exhausting.
And I think that the sooner we realize this misnomer, the sooner we can turn our hurt (disguised as shame, stuck-ness, fear and anger) into grace, compassion, ease and love. And the sooner we can reduce our suffering and that of the world.
So as a gift to me in this 53rd year of mine, will you please consider that you are actually whole? Will you consider that the “Brokenness” that you may feel has been appointed to you by outside sources and is a cloak that only serves to dim your wholeness? Will you please consider that any mindsets, stories and behaviors that feel broken are simply inoperable operating instructions that are no longer needed? Will you, for me, consider that you are whole?
Oh, and I love chocolate too!
In grace, love and sunscreen, cheers to the next 50