Remembering Wholeness

Tonight, I sat with friends I hadn’t seen in six months.

We hugged, laughed, and began the easy rhythm of catching up — until one of them tilted their head, studying me, and said,

“You seem… different.”

There was warmth in their voice, but also a thread of concern — the kind you hear when someone senses a change and can’t yet decide if it’s good or bad.

They told me I seemed lighter. More in my own life. Less like I was leaning toward others to take care of them.

And they were right. But the truth behind it wasn’t about boundaries or self-care.

It was deeper.

And, if I’m honest, less flattering to the person I used to be.

For much of my life, I saw people as broken.

Not just hurting — broken.

In need of saving.

And somewhere along the way, I decided it was my job to save them.

It wasn’t conscious arrogance — it was a survival strategy.

Because I couldn’t be with myself.

My own discomfort, my own unhealed places, felt too big to sit in.

So I poured myself into others, seeking personal validation through “fixing” them.

If I could help someone else heal, maybe it meant I was worth something.

If I could help someone else feel whole, maybe I didn’t have to face the ways I didn’t.

Helping was never purely selfless. It was how I avoided the mirror.

Then, years ago, I had a shift.

As I began to learn how to love myself, I stopped consciously seeing others as broken.

I could finally say, “We are all perfect, whole, and complete,” and mean it.

But if I’m honest, there was still a quiet but at the end of that sentence.

But… there are barriers to your wholeness.

But… you’re stuck and need help.

But… I can see what’s missing and help you find it.

That subtle lens stayed with me for years — invisible at times, but still shaping how I met people.

What has shifted since March of this year is that even that quiet but is gone.

I no longer look at people and see something missing that needs to be restored.

I no longer feel it’s my job to help anyone get somewhere “better.”

I see now that each of us is sovereign in our own life.

Our choices, our timing, our struggles, and our breakthroughs are ours to carry — not because we have to do it alone, but because they are part of our path.

And here’s what I’ve been discovering:

Not doing it alone matters — deeply. But the key is not someone stepping in to fix you.

The key is having people who can hold space for you to remember your own wholeness.

It’s the power of sitting in a circle where no one is trying to make you different, yet every heart in the room is holding you in the truth of who you are.

That is what community makes possible — not dependency, but remembrance.

This remembering has changed how love flows through me.

When I was trying to fix, even in the most loving way, there was a condition hidden inside my care:

I will help you move toward something better.

It was love filtered through the belief that you weren’t already whole.

Now, the love is cleaner.

It’s not trying to move you anywhere.

It’s not pulling you forward or pushing you from behind.

It’s simply here, as you are.

It trusts you.

It honours your sovereignty.

And it also knows that part of that sovereignty is choosing the people and spaces that help you remember — because we are not meant to do this life alone.

This shift has freed so much energy.

Energy I can now bring into my own joy, my own creation, my own life — without guilt.

And it’s changed the quality of my presence.

I listen more deeply.

I assume less.

I can stand beside someone in their pain without needing to make it go away.

Because when you stop scanning for what’s missing, you start seeing what’s already here.

This is what my friends sensed tonight.

Not a pulling away from others, but a laying down of the need to save them.

A deeper trust in their wholeness.

A recognition of the role community plays in holding us there when we forget.

And a willingness to sit fully in my own.

There’s nothing missing here.

Not in them.

Not in me.

And that, I’ve found, is more than enough.