Stop Trying To Fix Me – I Am Not Broken

I am not broken. As often is the case when we try to “fix” somebody, we inadvertently tell them we think they are broken. Why would something need to be “fixed” if it is not broken? This poem by Jeff Foster is a beautiful Illustration of a person who has the strength and courage to say, “I am not broken!”. I am not a lost cat with a broken leg, a muffler, or a hot water heater. I am a human being who deserves respect, care, affection, and attention. I am not broken. It is not your job to fix me, nor is it wanted or helpful. Love me instead.

Stop Trying To Fix Me - I Am Not Broken - Michael Swerdloff - Providence Holistic Counselor, Coach and Reiki

Stop Trying To Fix Me – I Am Not Broken

Love me instead.

Please, don’t try to fix me. I am not broken. I have not asked for your solutions.

When you try to fix me, you unintentionally activate deep feelings of unworthiness, shame and failure within me. I can’t help it. I feel like I have to change to please you, transform myself just to take away your anxiety, mend myself to end your resistance to the way I am. And I know I can’t do that, not on your urgent timeline anyway. You put me in an impossible bind. I feel so powerless.
I know your intentions are loving! I know you really want to help. You want to serve. You want to take away people’s pain when you see it. You want to uplift, awaken, caretake, educate, inspire. You truly believe that you are a positive, compassionate, unselfish, nice, good, kind, pure, spiritual person.
But I want you to know, honestly, friend, I feel like a steaming pile of shit when you try to ‘love’ me in this old way. It doesn’t feel loving to me at all. Quite the opposite. It feels like you’re trying to relieve your own tension by controlling me. Under the guise of you being ‘kind’ and ‘helpful’ and ‘spiritual’, I feel suffocated, smothered, rejected, shamed, and completely unloved. I feel abandoned in your love! Do you get that? I feel like you don’t actually care about ME, even though on the surface it sure looks like you care! But deep down it feels like you are holding an image of how I should be. Your image. Not mine!
It looks like your love, but it feels like your violence. Do you understand?
Yet as soon as you stop trying to ‘help’ me, you are of the greatest help to me!
I stop trying to change to please you!
I feel safe, respected, seen, honored for what I am.
I can fall back into my own power.
I can trust myself again, the way you are trusting me.
I can relax deeply.
Without your pressure, your demand for me to abandon myself and be different, healed, transformed, enlightened, awakened, mended, ‘better’, I can better see myself.
I can discover my own inner resources.
I can touch my own powerful presence.
I feel safe enough to allow and express my true feelings, thoughts, desires, hold my own perceptions. I no longer feel smothered, a victim, a little child to your expert adult.
The courageous adult in me rises.
I breathe more deeply.
I feel my feet on the ground.
Loving attention drenches my experience, even the uncomfortable parts.
My senses feel less dull. Healing energies emerge from deep within.
I feel light, free, liberated from your fear.
I feel respected, not shamed.
Seen, not compared to an image.
You help me so much when you stop trying to help me, friend!
I need my own answers, my own truth, not yours. I want a friend, present and real, not an expert or a savior.
And do you see, when you are trying to save me, you are actually abandoning yourself?
You are running from your own discomfort, your own unlived potential, and focusing on mine?
I become your ultimate distraction.
I don’t want to be that for you anymore.
Let’s break this cycle together !
Let’s stop trying to fix or save each other.
Let’s love each other instead.
Bow to each other.
Bless each other.
Hold each other.
As we are.
As we actually, actually, actually are.
Jeff Foster, a survivor of suicidal depression and chronic illness, is a beloved writer and spiritual teacher. With humour and compassion, he speaks about non-duality, healing, spiritual awakening, and finding the sacred in the ordinary. His words have been shared by The New York Times, Newsweek, Huffington Post, Esquire, CNN, The Independent, Elephant Journal, Jay Shetty, Ariana Grande… plus therapists and yoga/meditation teachers worldwide. His books are out in 15+ languages.
Stop Trying To Fix Me - I Am Not Broken - Michael Swerdloff - Providence Holistic Counselor, Coach and Reiki
I am curious about what it was like for you to read this piece. How do the words “I Am Not Broken” feel in your body?
Michael Swerdloff
Providence Holistic Counselor, Coach and & Reiki

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