S02 EP01 | You Are Wholeness: Returning to the Ground Beneath All Growth

What if you're not broken? In this series premiere, Debs Thorpe introduces a radical idea: you don't need fixing, you need to remember the wholeness that's been there all along. Discover why wellness culture keeps you stuck in "not enough," the difference between wholeness and wellness, and how to begin the practice of arriving in your body and your life.

What You'll Learn:

• Why you're not broken (you're disconnected from wholeness)
• The difference between wholeness and wellness culture
• How trauma and conditioning made you forget your completeness
• The paradox: recognising wholeness enables real transformation
• What nature teaches about seasons, roots, and inherent completeness
• The "Arriving" practice: a simple daily return to your body
• Introduction to the 8-stage WholeHearted Technique

Perfect for: Anyone feeling "not enough," people exhausted by self-improvement, seekers ready to come home to themselves

Key Topics: wholeness, self-worth, healing, trauma recovery, embodiment, grounding, self-acceptance, wellness culture, personal growth, authenticity, coming home

The 8 Stages: Radical Honesty | Trauma Response | Cultivating Compassion | Aligned Boundaries | Inner Landscape | Choosing Self | Authenticity | Future Vision

Practice This Week:

• The "Arriving" practice (60 seconds daily)
• Feel your body and the ground beneath you
• Place hand on heart
• Say: "I am here. I am in my body. I am whole."

Key Quote: "Wholeness is not something you achieve. It's something you remember."

Resources: Free "Rooted in Wholeness" companion guide with journal prompts, practices, and integration tools at whlinstitute.com

Transcript

Welcome to the WholeHearted Living podcast. I'm Debs Thorpe.

If you're here, I'm guessing something brought you. Maybe you're exhausted. Maybe you're searching. Maybe you're successful on the outside but feeling empty on the inside. Maybe you're just tired of pretending everything is fine when it's not.

Maybe you're ready to come home.

I want to start by telling you something that might sound strange, especially if you've spent years in therapy, self-help, or personal development:

You are not broken.

I know. I know you've been told you need fixing. I know you've been sold the idea that you're not enough, that you need to improve, optimise, upgrade, transform into someone better.

I know because I believed it too. For years.

I built an award-winning wellness business. I helped hundreds of people. I was the one everyone came to for support. And on the outside, I looked like I had it all together.

But inside? I was running on empty. Burned out. Disconnected. Lost.

And I kept thinking: "If I just work harder, if I just do more, if I just fix this one more thing about myself, then I'll finally feel whole."

But here's what I discovered, and it changed everything:

Wholeness is not something you achieve. It's something you remember.

You are not broken. You never were. You've just forgotten who you are beneath all the survival patterns, the conditioning, the performance, the armour you've built to keep yourself safe.

And this podcast? This series? It's an invitation to remember.

To come home to yourself. To return to the ground beneath all the growth, all the striving, all the trying to be someone you think you should be.

Welcome to Series 2: The Earth Element. Welcome to your journey back to wholeness.

Let's begin.

Let's talk about the story we've all been sold.

From the moment we're born, we're taught—implicitly and explicitly—that we're not enough as we are.

We need to be:

Smarter

Prettier

More successful

More productive

More likeable

More spiritual

More healed

More... everything

And the self-help industry? The wellness world? They've built empires on this story.

They tell us:

"You're broken, but we can fix you"

"You're incomplete, but we have the missing piece"

"You're not enough, but if you buy this program, read this book, take this course, you can finally become whole"

And we believe it. Because we feel the pain. We feel the disconnection. We feel like something's missing.

So we chase wholeness like it's something outside of us. Something we have to earn. Something we have to become worthy of.

We collect certifications, read books, attend workshops, try every modality, every practice, every technique.

And sometimes we feel better for a while. But then the feeling fades, and we're back to feeling incomplete. So we chase the next thing. And the next. And the next.

We become addicted to fixing ourselves.

My Story

I lived this for years.

I was a therapist, a coach, a healer. I had all the tools. I knew all the techniques. I helped other people transform their lives.

But I couldn't see that I was running myself into the ground.

I was performing wellness while dying inside.

I was teaching people about self-care while ignoring every signal my body was sending me.

I was helping others find themselves while completely losing myself.

And then I burned out. Completely. Utterly. Couldn't-get-out-of-bed burned out.

And in that breakdown, I had a breakthrough.

I realised: I wasn't broken. I was just disconnected.

Disconnected from my body. From my truth. From my needs. From the wholeness that had been there all along, buried beneath layers of survival patterns and conditioning.

I didn't need to fix myself. I needed to remember myself.

And that's when everything changed.

Here's the truth that the wellness industry doesn't want you to know, because if you knew it, you'd stop buying their products:

You are already whole.

Not "you will be whole when..."  

Not "you can become whole if..."  

Not "you're broken but healable..."

You ARE whole. Right now. As you are.

Wholeness is your natural state. It's who you are beneath all the layers of trauma, conditioning, survival patterns, and performance.

You didn't lose your wholeness. You just forgot it was there.

And everything you've been through, all the pain, all the trauma, all the survival, it didn't break you. It just covered over your wholeness with protective layers.

Like a seed buried under soil. The seed is whole. It's always been whole. The soil doesn't make it broken—it's just the environment it's in until it's ready to grow.

You are that seed. And you are whole.

So what do I mean when I say "wholeness"?

Wholeness is not perfection. It's not having it all together. It's not being healed from everything or never struggling.

Wholeness is the recognition that you are complete as you are, even while you're still growing, still healing, still becoming.

It's the understanding that:

You can be whole and still have work to do

You can be whole and still have wounds

You can be whole and still be in process

You can be whole and still be learning

Wholeness doesn't mean you're finished. It means you're not fundamentally lacking.

Think of it this way: a tree in winter is still a whole tree, even though it has no leaves. It's not broken. It's not incomplete. It's whole, and it's in a particular season.

You are like that tree. You are whole, and you're in a particular season of your life.

Now, I want to make a distinction here, because I think it's important.

Wellness culture often focuses on optimisation: being the best version of yourself, maximising your potential, achieving peak performance.

And there's nothing wrong with growth. I'm all for it.

But wholeness is different.

Wellness says: "You're good, but you could be better."  

Wholeness says: "You're already complete, and you can still grow."

Wellness is about addition: adding practices, habits, knowledge, skills.  

Wholeness is about subtraction: removing the layers that cover your essential self.

Wellness is about becoming.  

Wholeness is about remembering.

Do you feel the difference?

Wellness can become another form of striving, another way to prove you're enough.

But wholeness? Wholeness is the ground you stand on while you grow. It's the foundation. It's the knowing that no matter what happens, no matter what you achieve or don't achieve, you are fundamentally, essentially, completely whole.

Here's the beautiful paradox:

When you recognise you're already whole, that's when real transformation becomes possible.

Because you're no longer transforming from a place of "I'm broken and need fixing."

You're transforming from a place of "I'm whole, and I'm choosing to grow."

Can you feel how different that is?

When you're trying to fix yourself, you're operating from lack, from fear, from "not enough."

But when you're growing from wholeness, you're operating from abundance, from curiosity, from "I'm already complete, and I'm exploring what else is possible."

One is driven by shame. The other is driven by love.

One is exhausting. The other is energising.

One keeps you stuck. The other sets you free.

So if we're born whole, and I believe we are, why do we forget?

Why do so many of us spend our lives feeling broken, incomplete, not enough?

Because we learned to disconnect from our wholeness in order to survive.

Let me explain.

When you're a child, you're completely dependent on your caregivers for survival. And you learn very quickly what's acceptable and what's not.

You learn:

Which emotions are okay to express and which ones get you rejected

Which parts of yourself are loveable and which parts need to be hidden

Which needs are okay to have and which ones are too much

And if certain parts of you, your anger, your sadness, your needs, your authentic self, aren't welcomed, you learn to bury them.

You learn to perform. To please. To be who others need you to be instead of who you actually are.

And in that process, you disconnect from your wholeness.

You fragment yourself.

You split off the parts that aren't acceptable. You hide the parts that feel too vulnerable. You perform the parts that get you love and approval.

And over time, you forget that there's a whole self underneath all of that.

And then there's trauma.

Trauma, whether it's big T trauma (abuse, violence, loss) or little t trauma (chronic stress, emotional neglect, feeling unseen), teaches your nervous system that the world is not safe.

And when you don't feel safe, you go into survival mode.

Your nervous system has four primary survival responses:

Fight: aggression, control, pushing through

Flight: anxiety, restlessness, constant doing

Freeze: numbness, dissociation, shutdown

Fawn: people-pleasing, over-accommodating, losing yourself

These responses are adaptive. They kept you alive. They helped you survive situations where you had no other choice.

But here's what happens: you start to believe that your survival patterns ARE who you are.

You think:

"I'm just an anxious person"

"I'm just a people-pleaser"

"I'm just someone who doesn't feel things deeply"

"I'm just controlling"

But those aren't you. Those are survival strategies. They're what you learned to do to stay safe.

Your wholeness is still there, underneath the survival patterns.

And then there's the culture we live in.

We live in a culture that:

Values productivity over presence

Rewards performance over authenticity

Celebrates achievement over being

Teaches us to disconnect from our bodies

Tells us our worth is tied to what we do, not who we are

So we learn to:

Ignore our body's signals

Push through exhaustion

Prioritise everyone else's needs over our own

Measure our value by external metrics

Constantly strive to be more, do more, achieve more

And in that process, we move further and further away from our wholeness.

We become human doings instead of human beings.

We forget that we are enough, just as we are.

So here's the invitation of this series, and really, the invitation of wholehearted living:

To come home to yourself.

To return to the wholeness that's been there all along, waiting for you beneath the survival patterns, beneath the performance, beneath the disconnection.

This isn't about becoming someone new. It's about remembering who you've always been.

It's about:

Reconnecting with your body

Reclaiming your authentic feelings

Releasing the patterns that no longer serve you

Remembering your inherent worth

Returning to the ground of your being

And this is why we're starting with the Earth element.

Earth represents:

Grounding

Stability

Presence

The body

The here and now

Foundation

Wholeness

Before you can flow like water, burn like fire, expand like air, or connect like spirit, you need ground to stand on.

You need to come back to your body. Back to this moment. Back to the earth.

You need to remember that you are whole.

That's the foundation. Everything else builds from there.

Over the course of this series, we're going to explore the eight stages of the WholeHearted Technique- the framework I developed through my own journey and through working with hundreds of clients.

These eight stages are:

Radical Honesty – Telling yourself the truth

Trauma Response – Understanding your survival patterns

Cultivating Compassion – Meeting yourself with kindness

Aligned Boundaries – Protecting your energy

Your Inner Landscape – Mapping your internal world

Choosing Self – Prioritising your needs

Authenticity – Living unmasked

Future Vision – Creating from wholeness

Each stage is a return. A remembering. A coming home.

And it all starts with this recognition: You are already whole.

I want to take a moment to talk about what the earth, literal earth, nature, can teach us about wholeness.

Because nature doesn't have the same hangups we do. Nature doesn't question its worth. Nature doesn't try to be anything other than what it is.

A tree doesn't apologise for taking up space.  

A mountain doesn't worry if it's enough.  

The ocean doesn't perform its waves.  

The earth doesn't question its wholeness.

Nature simply is. And in that being, there's a completeness, a wholeness, that we've forgotten how to access.

The earth also teaches us about seasons.

In winter, the trees are bare. The ground looks dead. Nothing is growing.

But the tree isn't broken. The earth isn't incomplete. They're in winter. They're resting. They're gathering energy for the next season of growth.

And then spring comes. Not because the tree tried harder or the earth became more worthy. But because that's the natural cycle.

You are like this too.

You have seasons. Seasons of growth and seasons of rest. Seasons of expansion and seasons of turning inward.

And in every season, even the difficult ones, even the ones that feel like nothing is happening, you are whole.

You are not broken in winter. You're just in winter.

And here's what the earth teaches us about roots:

You cannot grow upward until you're rooted downward.

A tree with shallow roots will topple in the first storm. But a tree with deep roots? That tree can weather anything.

Your wholeness is your root system. It's what holds you steady when life gets stormy. It's what nourishes you from below the surface.

And the deeper you root into your wholeness, into the knowing that you are fundamentally, essentially complete, the more you can grow, expand, reach, and weather whatever comes.

This series is about deepening your roots.

A Simple Practice: Arriving

So let's begin with a simple practice. Something you can do right now, wherever you are.

I call this practice "Arriving." Because most of us are living our lives while not actually being present in them.

We're thinking about yesterday or worrying about tomorrow. We're in our heads, disconnected from our bodies, floating somewhere above our actual lived experience.

So this practice is about arriving. Coming back. Landing in this moment, in your body, on the earth.

Here's how to do it:

First, if it's safe to do so, close your eyes or soften your gaze.

Take a deep breath in through your nose... and out through your mouth.

Now, feel your body. Whatever you're sitting or standing on, feel the contact. Feel your weight being held.

Notice your feet. Can you feel them? Wiggle your toes if that helps. Feel the ground beneath your feet, even if you're wearing shoes.

Take another breath. Feel your chest rise and fall.

Now, place one or both hands on your heart. Feel the warmth of your hand. Feel your heartbeat if you can.

And as you breathe, say to yourself, silently or out loud

"I am here."

Breathe.

"I am in my body."

Breathe.

"I am whole."

Just sit with that for a moment. You don't have to believe it yet. You don't have to feel it fully. Just let the words land.

"I am whole."

Not "I will be whole when..."  

Not "I'm working toward wholeness..."  

But "I am whole." Right now. In this moment. As you are.

Take one more deep breath.

And when you're ready, open your eyes.

That's it. That's the practice.

It's simple, but it's profound. Because every time you arrive, every time you come back to your body, to this moment, to the recognition of your wholeness, you're creating a pathway home.

You're remembering.

I invite you to practice "Arriving" every day this week.

It doesn't have to be long. Even 60 seconds counts.

You can do it:

First thing in the morning, before you check your phone

Before meals

In transition moments (getting in your car, walking through a doorway)

Before bed

Just pause. Breathe. Feel your body. Remember:

"I am here. I am in my body. I am whole."

The more you practice, the more you'll start to feel it. The more you'll start to believe it. The more you'll start to live from it.

I want to be honest with you about what's ahead.

This journey back to wholeness? It's not always comfortable.

Because to remember your wholeness, you have to face the things that made you forget it in the first place.

You have to look at:

The trauma you've been avoiding

The truths you've been denying

The patterns you've been running

The parts of yourself you've been hiding

The pain you've been numbing

And that's hard. It's vulnerable. It can be scary.

But here's what I promise you: it's worth it.

On the other side of that discomfort is freedom. Is authenticity. Is aliveness. Is you, the real you, the whole you, the you that's been waiting beneath all the armour.

And you don't have to do this alone.

I'll be here with you every week, guiding you through the eight stages of the WholeHearted Technique.

I'll share practices, tools, reflections, and stories from my own journey.

And if you want to go deeper, I've created a free companion guide for this series called "Rooted in Wholeness." It includes journal prompts, grounding practices, and tools to help you integrate everything we're exploring. You can download it at whlinstitute.com.

But most importantly, you have yourself. Your body. Your wisdom. Your wholeness.

Everything you need is already within you.

My job is just to remind you of that. To help you remember. To guide you home.

One more thing: this work is not linear.

You won't do Stage 1, check it off, and move on forever. You won't "complete" wholeness and be done.

This is a spiral. You'll come back to these stages again and again, each time going deeper, each time discovering new layers.

And that's okay. That's actually how it's supposed to work.

Wholeness is not a destination. It's a practice. It's a return. It's a remembering.

So be patient with yourself. Be gentle. Trust the process.

You're exactly where you need to be.

So here's my invitation to you:

Will you come home?

Will you come home to your body?  

Will you come home to this moment?  

Will you come home to the truth of who you are beneath all the performance, all the survival, all the striving?

Will you remember that you are whole?

Not someday. Not when you've healed enough or achieved enough or become enough.

Now. Today. As you are.

You are whole.

And everything we're going to explore in this series, all the practices, all the stages, all the work, it's not about making you whole.

It's about helping you remember that you always have been.

So welcome. Welcome to this series. Welcome to this journey. Welcome home to yourself.

I'm so glad you're here.

In next week's episode, we're going to explore what it means to truly ground yourself, to come back to your body, to find the solid earth beneath the chaos, and to begin connecting with your true self underneath all the survival patterns.

But for now, just be here. Just breathe. Just arrive.

And remember:

You are not broken.  

You never were.  

You are whole.  

You always have been.

Welcome home.