Challenge 9, Part 3: Wholeness

This quote pretty much speaks for itself.  

What I would give to fill the empty places in my being with love, with caring, with kindness, with compassion....

Maybe then I would know what wholeness truly feels like.

I do know, though, that the only person who can fill those voids is me.

Sometimes that's an invigorating realization, but most of the time, it's a rather frightening one.

Challenge 9, Part 2: Wholeness

I love this quote.  I think it fits in this weeks topic of wholeness, too.  If you think about it, we have to do a lot of "stuff" without knowing the end result, without knowing the whole picture.  For me, that is terrifying.  I like to know what the outcome will be.  I like to know what the whole picture looks like before I start a task - even recovery.  What will the process look like?  What will the end result look like?  How will I feel once I'm through the whole process?

Unfortunately, there are very few instances in life where we get to see the whole picture before we take that first step.  It feels counter-intuitive to my teacherly organized brain - as I tend to picture where I need my students to be at the end of a project, unit, or even the school year, and then put things in place to ensure their success along the way (backwards design for you fellow teachers.)

But that's not how life works.  There's a quote somewhere that says something along the lines of in school you get the lesson before the test, but in life you get the test before the lesson.  That's how I feel about a lot of things.  Which is why I wish I could order the WHOLE manual before moving forward in life!

Challenge 9, Part 1: Wholeness

Sometimes, I believe that in order to truly be a whole person, you are required to fall to bits first.  That's what gives you the chance to discover all your shadows and corners of, so you can clean out the things that aren't serving you, and put yourself back together so you're an even better, more complete, version of you.

For me, that falling apart bit has been somewhat easy, and all to common.  This time, though, I've got a great team helping me put the pieces back together. Wouldn't be able to do it without them!