Finding Wholeness within a Broken Body & World

I grew up within Reform Judaism. One of the major philosophies of the faith is the idea of “tikkun olam”, or repairing the world. It was taught to me that the world we find ourselves in is broken, and it is up to us to heal it. We can’t do it all, but we have to play our part in doing what we can.

I recently took a class at SVARA, a queer & trans led Jewish learning institution, that was taught by trans disabled scholar Rabbi Elliot Kukla, and he taught that this interpretation of “tikkun olam” is actually a pretty modern take. According to Rabbi Kukla, within classical Judaism, it was taught that the world is a broken place and we are to find wholeness in ourselves within the brokenness.

This really resonates with me. Because let’s face it - the world is broken. When we shift from needing to fix it and feeling solely responsible for fixing it, to instead living from the wholeness always within, we are able to move slower. From a place of regulation and calm, rather than hyper-vigilance and lack. I don’t think for one second that this view abdicates us from the work of making the world a better place, but rather, it shifts us towards viewing the wholeness that already exists. And when we are able to live and work from a place of wholeness, we experience greater joy, connection, and fulfillment, and will ultimately have a greater net positive impact on the world than when we are living only from our brokenness.

Within my body, finding wholeness within the brokenness feels revolutionary to claim. For most of my life, my body and I have been in some sort of battle. In the early years, it was wishing it was more normative and acceptable, and forcibly shapeshifting my body to fit the desires of society. When I experienced sudden onset disability after developing long COVID, it became a battle to get my body to do what society expected it to do — to produce, to achieve, to succeed. I found I could no longer shapeshift — I ran into walls, I crashed. My body’s exhaustion was stronger than any will power I could dream up.

I felt that my body was broken. I felt that I was broken. And for an uncomfortably long period of time, my life was wrapped up in my own need to fix my brokenness. This view of brokenness was reinforced by the medical community, insurance agencies, old friends who were made uncomfortable by my new limitations, and the way my workplace discarded me when I could no longer meet their standards.

As I sought to heal my brokenness, I turned to spirituality. Here, too, my body was seen as a work in progress. The disability and chronic illness were something that was going to be repaired and it was up to me to do so. Spiritual teachers and other spiritual seekers all talked about illness as something to overcome. We were on a healing journey — one with a definite end-point. One where the discomfort of pain and limitations would be left behind. 

In many of the spiritual communities I found myself in, the body was often framed as something to be left behind. Even for those who were able-bodied. The body was impure — true spirituality, true divinity, and true connection could only be found by leaving the body and entering the astral realms beyond. Places the body could not go.

As I’ve continued in my own spiritual practice, I’ve come to deeply believe that we are not meant to leave our bodies behind. It turns out, the body matters. How we feel matters. The body is our home, our deepest tool, and I believe it is key to our liberation.

The body speaks a language with Spirit that I receive as sensations — sight, touch, taste, smell, feelings, and knowings. When I communicate with Spirit, I don’t leave my body behind, I go deeper within my body. I quiet my mind and listen to what the body has to say. And it is through this very deep relationship I have been developing with my body, that I have come to a new way of thinking about my disability and chronic illness.

What if instead of living within a broken world/body and feeling the burden of repairing it, we are living within a broken world/body that is desperately trying to get us to see how whole we already are?

We are the world, and we are whole, within the many ways that we are broken.

I choose to divest from a spirituality that is uncomfortable with brokenness. I choose to divest from a spiritual practice that sees healing as a linear path with an end goal that matches with ableist, capitalist, and racist ways of being. I want to show up as I am and be embraced as whole, as connected to the Divine, as not needing anything about me to be “fixed” or “changed”. And I want to encourage others to show up in the same way. I want to share and integrate the disability wisdom of my disabled body/mind into the spiritual practices I share and the spiritual spaces I exist within. And I want to honor and receive the bodily wisdom of others who have been marginalized and silenced. A spirituality that erases bodily experience is not a spirituality for me.

So much of New Age spirituality and internet spirituality is dominated by white & Western voices. This is starting to change — we have a rise in the demand & appreciation for Black, Indigenous and other global majority voices, leaders, and scholarship. We have a rise in the demand & appreciation of queer and trans voices, leaders, and scholarship. But what about disability? 

Disabled and chronically ill people don’t look, act, or sound in ways that make an ableist society comfortable, and this translates to spiritual and religious spaces. We don’t fit into what is desirable, normative, or productive. And when we dare to love and value ourselves exactly as we are, it brings up all of the shadows others hide from within themselves. And yet — we have so much to offer.

To live within a disabled body/mind is itself a spiritual practice.

We face death — of our friends and loved ones, and of ourselves.

We face impermanence — our changing bodies, our changing access needs, our changing access to disability benefits and insurance.

We wake up from materiality — most disabled folks live within poverty and cannot afford to be hyper-consumerists and hyper-materialistic. We have to focus on what we have, and we gain an appreciation for what we have, and the ability to clearly see the realities of consumerism.

We face grief and loss — of our lost abilities, of our lost dreams.

We embrace adaptation — out of necessity.

We embrace acceptance — of ourselves, of the different access needs of our community members.

We listen to our bodies — we prioritize our bodies needs over capitalism’s demands for productivity. We rest. We move slowly. We move how we need to, not how you need us to.

I don’t know where my body is taking me. I assume there will be fluidity and variation. Greater periods of wellness, remission, and greater periods of flares and illness. Maybe there will be a “total healing” — maybe there won’t be.

What I do know, is I am whole exactly as I am. I am equally whole on a day of complete pain and bed rest as a day of fun out with friends. I am my body, and my body is me. I am more than this body, and yet I am in this body. And it’s unique perspective is one of my greatest teachers in this lifetime. And I’m so excited to keep learning.