You are whole and other truths

In my life, in my work, there is a quote I keep close to my heart:

"As long as you're breathing, there is more right with you than wrong with you, no matter what is wrong with you." - Kabat-Zinn

What does this mean?  It means that divorce, childhood trauma, parenting an oppositional teen, chronic pain, job loss, panic attacks, depression - there is still more right with you than there is wrong.

No matter our history, our successes and failures, we are already whole.  And the courage to be whole, to look at what inside pains the most, to let it exist alongside what brings the greatest joy, that is moment of the greatest potential.

So often people try to hide the parts of themselves they are ashamed of.  They try to ignore their fear.  Stuff their sadness.  We want to be good.  We want to be happy.

And what does volumes of research over decades show?

You want to be happy?  Accept you won't always be happy.  It is impossible.  Want to stop feeling afraid?  Be willing to feel your fear, get into it, and see what its about.  Fear, shame, sadness, it only grows with neglect. 

Embracing who we are, being open to the good and the ugly in each of us, therein lies the wisdom that there is indeed, more right with us than there is wrong with us.

- Rebecca