Episode 111 - Stop Saying ‘You’re Not Broken’ — Here’s Why It Hurts More Than It Helps

We challenge the phrase you’re not broken and explore a more honest path that holds both human pain and divine wholeness. We show how spiritual bypassing delays growth and offer a practice to integrate hurt with presence.

• the limits of reassuring slogans and why they can dismiss pain
• the two lenses of human experience and divine awareness
• how spiritual bypassing hides discomfort and stalls healing
• pain as feedback and direction rather than failure
• adaptive trauma patterns that once protected us
• self love coexisting with change and accountability
• a body based practice to feel and witness at once
• reframing brokenness as invitation and signal

Awesome podcast : Mel Robbins Podcast: The Truth about Obesity, Ozempic, and Dieting

Related episodes:

Episode 59 - Discovering the Facets of the Heart and Their Healing Wisdom

Episode 67 - Integrating the Essential Truth We Are Both Human and Divine

Episode 108 - You’re Not Doing It Wrong: The Uncomfortable Signs of Real Growth

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Chapters

• 0:05 The Problem With “You’re Not Broken”
• 5:03 Pain As Inner Feedback
• 16:45 A Simple Integration Practice

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:05

Has someone ever told you you're not broken and every part of you wanted to scream. Yes I am. If so, this episode is for you. We're talking about why that phrase, while well-intentioned, can actually disconnect us from divine feelings. And how we're feeling beginning and stop trying to choose between being human and being divine. Welcome to Roots of the Rise with me, Sarah Hope, where spiritual wisdom means practical tools in short episodes. Each one is a taster, not a deep dive, meant to spark curiosity and guide you toward authentic alignment. Someone recently asked me if there are any phrases I think should be banned from MySpace. At first I couldn't come up with much besides let it go because A, I really don't want that song stuck in my head again. And B, it oversimplifies a very real, very difficult process. If it were as easy as just let it go, don't you think we'd all have done that by now? I mean, regardless of circumstance. Anyway, that's not the one I want to talk about today. What came to mind, of course, as I was falling asleep later that night was you're not broken. Turns out I cannot stand that phrase. And it's actually a perfect example of what I talked about back in episode 67. That we are both human and divine, and we have to stop pretending it's one or the other. Because the truth is that there are different rules, different realities, depending on which lens you're looking through. From the divine perspective, yes, you are whole, light-filled, unbreakable. But from the human perspective, you are broken sometimes. You hurt, you fall apart, you carry scars and stories and trauma. And pretending otherwise just cuts us off from the real work of healing. That got to me a little bit talking about it. Because, you know, I think so often we think we're supposed to just transcend all of that, which I'll talk about more in a minute. But I what I see every day in my office is people who feel deeply broken, who are sitting there looking at me, begging me to help them fix the part of themselves that are so hard to look at, the part of themselves that, you know, are like shards of glass digging into them day after day after day. And if I were to sit there and look at them and say, oh, don't worry, sweetie, you're not broken. You're whole. It just feels so dismissive, which is which is why it bothers me so much. I've been that person. I've been that person sitting in that chair, having someone tell me that I am perfect just as I am. And all I can think is, you clearly don't know anything about me. Obviously, you don't know anything about my experience and what I've been through. Because if you did, you would never say that I'm perfect or that I am whole. Because that is so far from my reality. And the therapists, the mentors, the spiritual gurus who sit there and say that with such sincerity, you know, it's coming from a very real place. It's coming from a deep knowledge that we are divine beings. And there is a part of us that is completely unbreakable and completely perfect. But before I knew that truth myself, before I had deeply integrated it, it made those people completely lose all credibility for me. It made me feel like they had no way of really understanding what I was experiencing if that was their answer to my pain. You know, the truth is that we are meant to hold both the divinity that never wavers and the humanity that cracks open to let that light through. If we hold too tightly to the idea that we are divine and unbroken, we can end up ignoring or pushing away any experience that doesn't fit that narrative. And that is where spiritual bypassing comes in. Spiritual bypassing happens when we use spiritual ideas or practices to avoid dealing with our very real, very human pain. We intellectualize it, we deny it, we shift our attention toward higher truths to escape what's uncomfortable. The problem is this actually slows down our inner development. It's sneaky because it gives us this illusion of being above our pain when in reality we're just denying it. Feeling broken as awful as it feels isn't actually a bad thing. It's a signal. It's part of an inner feedback system designed to show us where healing is needed. It is your soul's way of saying, hey, something here needs attention. When we pretend we don't have pain, or when we repress discomfort, we cut off that feedback and lose connection to our inner guidance system. And that's when things can get really messy, because when pain has no outlet, it tends to find one, often in ways that hurt us or the people around us. I was reading a Carissa Broadbent book recently, fantasy fiction, but there was a line that grabbed me. He was just as broken as the rest of us, and he was so determined not to acknowledge it that he flayed you alive with those sharp edges and then berated you for having skin instead of steel. Does that ring a bell for anyone else? Do you know someone who's in so much pain, so broken by their own trauma, that they lash out at others, leaving even more devastation in their wake? Sounds a lot like my childhood. That's what denial does. It ignores the feedback that says something here needs help. And in doing so, it sets us up for even more suffering. So maybe take a breath right now and think about something in your life that feels broken. What if, instead of rushing to fix it or deny it, you could simply listen to what it's trying to tell you. Now, of course, it's understandable that we want out of pain. The pull towards transcendence is natural. No one wants to sit in suffering. And transcendence has its place, absolutely. Meditation retreats, plant medicine, breath work, past life regression, soul retrievals, all of those can be powerful spiritual tools. They can give us a glimpse of the divine, a reminder of our true nature. But those experiences are meant to help us come back, to return to our everyday lives with new perspective. When we use them just to escape or to convince ourselves we're perfect, we're not broken, even when deep down we feel otherwise, we actually do more harm than good. Phrases like that might sound comforting, but they often invalidate pain and skip over the most necessary part of being human, the part that hurts, that lives and therefore has challenging moments. Like I talked about in episode 108, the real goal of inner development isn't to never feel pain. Because as long as you are human, as long as you are opening yourself up to connection, pain is inevitable. It's the suffering that's optional. And the real goal of healing isn't to pretend you're not suffering when you are. Admitting we're broken can actually open doors to deeper healing than we ever imagined, to real compassion both for ourselves and for others. It softens us, it helps us connect, it teaches us how to ask for help and how to receive it. Being okay with ourselves doesn't mean we stop striving to grow and heal. For example, I'm overweight right now. I've really been struggling with it. Do I still love myself? Yes. Do I know I'm divine? Absolutely. But is there something about my current state that's broken? Also, yes. Brief tangent here. I just listened to a fantastic Mel Robbins episode on obesity and Ozempic, where the guest doctor she had on explained that five main factors impact our body's ability to maintain a healthy weight. And those five factors are lifestyle, environment, like food, genetics, hormones, and aging. And only one, maybe two, of those are really within our control. I found that so comforting because here I am, someone who knows a lot about how to stay healthy and has done all of the things, and nothing has worked. And here's my explanation because I am getting older. I am in perimenopause. I do have multiple genetic factors that predispose me to have difficulty with my weight. I am doing my best to navigate our very broken, there's that word, uh, food industry the best I can, but you know, buying all organic is really expensive. You know, lifestyle is the one area I can really influence. But when you're weighing one factor against four others, it is an uphill climb. Still, I'm not going to sit back and say, I'm not broken, I'm perfect as I am. That's not true. That's not true. There is something not right about my current state. And acknowledging that is what empowers me. It gives me the energy and clarity and the motivation to go out and to continue to make changes, to continue trying to figure out what the root cause is and what I can do to shift this part of me that is broken. You know, what's so wrong with having something you want to fix about yourself? It's only bad if you believe perfection is a requirement, that being perfect is the only way to be lovable. Broken isn't bad. It's an invitation, it's a place to grow, a place to heal. And here's the thing: many of the patterns we call broken aren't actually broken at all. They're adaptive. The trauma response, for example, is a sign of strength. It's your neurobiology's way of protecting you, of adapting to threat. It's not evidence that you're damaged, it's proof that you survived. But the same protective mechanisms that kept you safe back then can show up in messy ways now. Maybe you shut down emotionally when conflict arises, or you people please to keep the peace, or you try to control everything so nothing catches you off guard again. Those responses were brilliant survival strategies once, but in your current life, they can create the very pain you're trying to avoid. It's kind of like a toddler trying to help, well-intentioned, but usually making a mess. Your nervous system is doing its best to help you stay safe. It just doesn't realize you're not in danger anymore. You may simply be becoming more aware that the ways you once learned to stay safe aren't serving you anymore. Or that the threat is gone now, and it's time to let the adaptation go too. I believe it was Mark Hack who said, let someone love you just the way you are, as flawed as you might be, as unattractive as you feel sometimes, and as unaccomplished as you think you are. To believe that you must hide all the parts of you that are broken out of fear that someone else is incapable of loving what is less than perfect is to believe that sunlight is incapable of entering a broken window and illuminating a dark room. And where does love like that begin? With you, with loving yourself. Not in some abstract, self-helpy, ooe-gooey kind of way, but by seeing yourself clearly and still choosing kindness, by recognizing that you might have a system that's a little off, that's broken. Maybe it's how you relate to anger, your lack of confidence, your fear of intimacy, your weight, your anxiety, and loving yourself through it while you work on changing it. Loving yourself and wanting to change are not in opposition to one another. They can coexist. And when we hate ourselves, when we deny our pain and hate that we are human for having it, that creates a real problem because we don't take good care of things we hate. So ask yourself, is the problem really that you see patterns you want to shift, that you see how broken you are, or is it that you don't believe you can shift those patterns? Unfixable is very different from broken. So is it that you believe you're broken or that you believe you're unfixable? Jeff Foster says, you do not heal from trauma, and nobody heals you either. You simply reconnect with that sacred place in yourself that was never traumatized, never broken, never damaged in the first place. Your true self, absolute and ever present, innocent and free. It is not a destination, it is you, alive and awake in the moment. Know yourself as the absolute and let all thoughts and feelings move through you, however intense or uncomfortable. The forms pass, they always pass, and you remain. You are not broken, you are unbreakable. He's speaking from that divine perspective, reminding us of the part of us that was never touched by pain, never damaged, never broken. That truth can bring comfort and perspective. It helps us remember who we are beyond our wounds. But as my mentor says, we need to create such fullness of heart and such a strength of presence that you are not phased by it, but can be fully present to your pain. With a heart fulfilled and full of love, you can be fully present to the emotion, the situation, or the relationship, and meet it with full awareness. This presence will transform and heal it rather than avoiding or bypassing it. This is the way of integrating the spiritual level into life rather than trying to get out of life. This is the path of love. This is integration rather than transcendence. He's pointing to the bridge between divine knowing and human experience. It's one thing to know intellectually you are unbreakable. It's another to live that truth while your heart still aches, your nervous system still flares, and your patterns still pull you back into fear. The work isn't to deny either side, but to integrate them, to bring divine awareness into the very places that hurt. Because that's where real healing happens. When the part of you that knows your whole meets the part of you that feels broken and stays with it long enough for love to do its thing. So, how do we live with the awareness that yes, we are sometimes hurting, reactive, and afraid, and we are also timeless, whole, and free? So here's a simple practice to start. Take a moment when something feels hard, a wave of sadness, anxiety, self-doubt, frustration, overwhelm. And instead of trying to fix or spiritualize it away, just pause. Notice it in your body. Where do you feel it? What does it feel like? Notice the subtle sensations. Is it big or small, hard or soft, hot or cold? Is there a color? Is it moving or does it feel stuck? Name this part of yourself. Say, this is my human self. I lovingly accept this part of me. Then take a breath, place your hand on your heart, and feel for the part of you that's watching, that's witnessing this experience, the awareness that notices without judgment. That's your divine self. Let both be here. The one who aches and the one who witnesses. The one who's learning and the one who already knows. The one who breaks and the one who cannot be broken. That's integration. Not choosing one over the other, but letting both live inside you in the same breath. That's the path of love. So maybe healing isn't about fixing what's broken or denying what hurts. It's about holding both truths, the divine and the human, at once. Remembering that you are unbreakable even as you tend to the parts of you that are broken. When love meets the wound, not to erase it, but to include it, that's where wholeness is finally found. Thanks so much for joining me today. If someone came to mind as you listened to this episode, please share it with them. And remember to follow or subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. Have a wonderful rest of your day, and remember, know who you are, love who you've been, and be willing to do the work to become who you're meant to be. Just a quick reminder this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. I am not a licensed therapist, and nothing shared here is meant to replace the guidance of a physician, therapist, or any other qualified provider. That said, I hope it inspires you to grow, heal, and seek the support you need to thrive.