Wholeness
631 Words
Wholeness did not arrive the way I imagined it would.
I thought it would feel like certainty.
Like clarity.
Like waking up one morning and knowing exactly who I was and where I was going.
Instead, wholeness felt quiet.
Almost unnoticeable.
Like a soft exhale after holding my breath for too long.
I used to believe being whole meant having nothing broken inside me.
No lingering pain.
No doubts.
No parts that still flinched at old memories.
But that version of wholeness was never real.
It was a fantasy built on perfection, not truth.
Wholeness, I learned, is not the absence of wounds.
It is the presence of compassion for them.
It is learning to sit with yourself without needing to escape.
To look at your reflection without listing everything that needs fixing.
To stop treating healing like a destination and start treating it like a relationship.
I didn’t wake up one day feeling complete.
I noticed it slowly, in small moments.
In the way I stopped explaining my boundaries.
In the way I rested without guilt.
In the way I no longer rushed to fill silence with noise or people.
Wholeness showed up when I stopped abandoning myself in conversations.
When I listened to discomfort instead of overriding it.
When I trusted my body to tell me when something was wrong.
I realised that I wasn’t missing pieces anymore.
I was learning how to hold them.
The parts of me that once felt fragmented began to soften.
Not because they disappeared, but because they felt safe enough to exist.
I stopped asking myself, What’s wrong with me?
And started asking, What happened to me?
That question changed everything.
It allowed tenderness where there used to be shame.
Understanding where there used to be judgment.
Patience where there used to be pressure.
Wholeness meant forgiving myself for the ways I survived.
For the choices I made when I didn’t know better.
For staying when leaving felt impossible.
For shrinking when it felt safer than standing tall.
I learned that wholeness does not demand strength all the time.
Sometimes it looks like rest.
Sometimes it looks like tears.
Sometimes it looks like choosing to pause instead of pushing forward.
There are still days I feel unsure.
Days old fears resurface.
Days I feel the pull of familiar patterns.
But wholeness means those moments no longer define me.
They pass through me instead of consuming me.
I am no longer trying to be healed.
I am trying to be honest.
Honest about what I need.
Honest about what hurts.
Honest about what no longer fits.
And in that honesty, I feel more complete than I ever did pretending to be fine.
Wholeness does not mean I have it all figured out.
It means I trust myself enough to figure it out as I go.
It means I no longer measure my worth by productivity, approval, or comparison.
I no longer wait for permission to feel at peace.
I no longer confuse chaos with passion or exhaustion with purpose.
I am learning to let life be softer.
To let myself be human without apology.
To exist without constantly proving my value.
To take up space without shrinking back.
Wholeness is not loud.
It doesn’t announce itself.
It settles in quietly, like relief.
It feels like coming home to yourself and realizing you were never truly lost,
only learning how to listen.
I am still becoming.
Still healing.
Still growing.
But now, I do it from a place of gentleness instead of force.
From trust instead of fear.
From self-respect instead of self-abandonment.
And maybe that’s what wholeness really is.
Not being untouched by life,
but being able to hold all of yourself,
the healed, the healing, and the still-tender parts,
without needing to disappear.
- Writer
