Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love

by Jonathan Van Ness

Imperfection is beautiful. To anyone who has ever felt broken beyond repair, this is for you. If you’ve ever been excluded, or told you were not enough, know that you are enough, and beautifully complete.

According to him, we were all born as a centered self, who is perfect and whole and can handle anything. But as we experience trauma in life, the centered self doesn’t know quite how to deal with it, so it develops pieces of ourselves that we can call upon based on the situations we find ourselves in.

Being able to entertain yourself is a valuable skill, especially if you’re in a prolonged dark space.

Joyful accomplishments exist next to painful memories. I found a lot of my healing when I realized that my suffering didn’t undo my joy. So much of my childhood was painful, but there was also a lot of it that was beautiful and fulfilling and happened exactly as it was meant to happen. Survivors deserve to have self-expression, self-confidence, self-acceptance, and an unstigmatized view from society. Pervasive abuse continues to happen because there is a feeling that you can’t talk about it because it is hard and uncomfortable to do so. But just like joy and pain coexist, so can discomfort and humor. Which is why you gotta buckle up, buttercup, because I can go from comedy to tragedy in three seconds flat. And that’s not damaged or not normal. I hope culturally we can continue to normalize the idea that being a survivor is so much more common than anyone realizes and we all deserve to be heard, but more importantly are deserving of a recovery full of love, laughter, and light.

Healing can be imperfect.

At the end of the day, the people we let in our space affect our ability to get to where we want to go, so if they’re in the way of realizing your potential, it’s okay to disconnect because you must choose yourself. I used to think that was selfish but really it’s just healthy.