A Hidden Wholeness

“The divided life may be endemic, but wholeness is always a choice.  Once I have seen my dividedness, do I continue to live a contradiction—or do I try to bring my inner and outer worlds back into harmony?”  --Parker J. Palmer, “A Hidden Wholeness”

When my friend Bentley found out that I was going to Brazil for work, he decided I needed to read a book called “A Hidden Wholeness” by Palmer Parker.  Not because it was a book I should read (although he had recommended it before), but because his copy of the book had traveled with other friends to Europe and Africa and he decided that it needed to go to South America with me.

Well, he is right.  I do need to read it.  It really is the step BEFORE Brene Brown’s book.  It’s about why we are not whole so that we can’t live whole-heartedly.  It’s all about how we learn as children to shield off who we really are at our soul’s level to protect our self.  And that it is our life’s journey to return to that wholeness.

He talks a lot about integrity, which has always been a favorite word of mine.  I like to think of someone who lives with integrity and strives for more integrity.  But what is that word?  It is all about integer (a whole number, if my math memory serves me right) and integral (being whole).  It is about being whole with ourselves.

I thought I was whole.  But the more layers I uncover, the more unwhole I realize I have been.  That’s the thing about therapy and becoming healthier—is that you can’t unsee what you find.  In a way, I wish I could go back to being more naïve.  But, I can’t—and I don’t really want to. 

Parker cites some examples of us living a divided life:

• We refuse to invest ourselves in our work, diminishing its quality and distancing ourselves from those it is meant to serve.
• We make our living at jobs that violate our basic values, even when survival does not absolutely demand it.
• We remain in settings or relationships that steadily kill off our spirits.
• We harbor secrets to achieve personal gain at the expense of other people.
• We hide our beliefs from those who disagree with us to avoid conflict, challenge and change.
• We conceal our true identities for fear of being criticized, shunned or attacked. 

I have been most guilty of three and five. 

I’m coming up on one year since I left my marriage—December 6^th.  It was a TERRIBLE time to leave—seriously, 3 weeks before Christmas?  All I knew was that I HAD to leave.  My soul was screaming.  I had to get OUT.  Because I’m me, I had a goal of the separation period—to find Christine.  What I found was that Christine was alive, but buried—and she didn’t want to be.  I was not whole—and I wanted to be.  I take some comfort that, even when my head didn’t know what it wanted, my soul was screaming for it and compelling me to do it. 

So I’m taking a detour, via Brazil, to read “A Hidden Wholeness.”  And to continue my journey to becoming more whole.  Thank you for being with me on the journey.