Weaving Together the Pieces – It’s What Makes You Unique

Forces outside of us lead us to cast away real and valid parts of ourselves, yet to know deep fulfillment and satisfaction in the outer world, we must first know wholeness in our inner world. We must weave together those lost threads of ourselves, coming back to wholeness, creating a beautiful tapestry of our unique being.

We live in a world that benefits from us being who they want us to be rather than who we truly are. From the time we first enter this world, we’re told who to be. What it looks like to be good or bad, what it looks like to be successful, and molded into a practical, responsible adults.

We live in a world that benefits from us specializing, niching ourselves down, so we can join the procession of workers that keep the corporate machine going, blending in and losing our sovereignty, fitting into the mold of a good, civilized, pliable human being.

Likely unintentionally so, we end up severing parts of ourselves that are considered bad, less valuable, or unnecessary. In an attempt to belong as part of the larger whole, more and more slices of our being are sectioned off.

A world too small for beauty

Slice off sections to mere bones

Sever the bad, is our duty

Mold us into sun-bleached drones

It isn’t only our society and culture that shape us into something other than who we are. 

We can feel that there are fragments missing. We may choose to embark on a journey of self-discovery as we seek to reclaim those missing pieces.

Even in the well-meaning and self-aware process of rediscovering ourselves, we may end up over-editing ourselves, cutting out the pieces that don’t seem to fit, that are contradictory to the other pieces, that don’t make sense as part of the whole, or that are simply too hard to accept based on how we’ve been programmed to be.

Forward we march, numb and blind

Until we feel we’ve lost our way

Dig around, what will we find?

Some we claim, some we wish decay

Eventually, we may come to a point where we feel like we’ve finally found ourselves, or so it seems. This persona is likely only one version of ourselves, an idealized slice of who we are, rather than our whole self, pieces still missing.

All of these parts, those claimed and those cast away, are a beautiful part of the whole of who we are. It’s all a part of us. All the pieces, together, are what make us beautifully unique.

We get to reweave together these pieces of ourselves, taking a thread from who we once were, taking a thread from who we are now, and taking a thread of who we’re becoming, weaving together the tapestry of our being. 

Cast away but not gone

They too belong

Weaving the pieces together, weaving

The new tapestry of your being

It’s impossible for us to find perfection because what we are has never existed before. How can something so new, so unique, ever know perfection? No, we get to let it all come together imperfectly, just as it’s meant to be.

Since this is our very first creation, within these constraints, our soul, this body, this place, this moment in time, we get to build ourselves into a beautiful creation of our own imagination. 

When we look at each piece individually, they may feel ordinary, like nothing stands out. Yet when we weave together all of these ordinary parts, we create something extraordinary.

It’s like putting paint to paper, weaving yarn on the loom, stringing together musical notes. Maybe it doesn’t start out very unique or special. Maybe you’re given similar materials as everyone else. But the way that you combine them, the vision you see, well, that’s where the magic comes in. That’s where it becomes your unique creation. This is the beautiful tapestry that makes up our inner home, your inner being. 

Tend to each thread of soul

Woven together to make whole

A homemaker you become

Making your own inner home

Each and every one of us contains wondrous paradoxes. Of course we do. There are so many rules around what is good and what is bad, what is desirable and what is undesirable, and a lack of awareness of all the nuance that exists in the world. For everything that lies in between, for all the things that cannot be so cleanly classified, so clearly divided.

We hold this within ourselves as well. We are not but one simple being but a being of complexity. When all the pieces come together, there will certainly be ones that seemingly contradict each other. Yet, what if we practiced welcoming them in? Accepting them as they are? Once we begin to see and hold our own complexity, we can see and hold the complexity of the world.

So then too, it’s only natural that you will not express all parts of yourself all at once. Some situations, places, times will demand one thread of your being, and another situation, place, time will demand another thread of your being. Some threads are highlighted in one phase of life, and some in another. They all get a place in your life, just maybe not all at once.

A wonder at how they’ll fuse

Worn, dark, then illumination

Upon completion is your muse

A source of fascination 

Through every stage of life we’ve experienced, we have been a different person. We will continue to become different people. Yet there are aspects that remain true, while there are other aspects that will evolve. We needn’t worry about pegging ourselves down to one box. What’s the point? Someday, that box will shift and change into something new. Invite in each stage and each evolution.

Just the same, why regret who you’ve once been? You continue to carry a part of that version of yourself. That phase of your life had something to teach you, and there’s no way to separate yourself from it. The wisdom of that lesson is with you to this day, and you continue to carry with you some aspect of that past version of you.

And so it must be said. Everyone you once were, who you are now, and who you are not yet – they are all a part of you and a part of who you’re becoming.

This is the niche of you. Who you really are. Not the one that was self-edited to make sense, but the one that makes space for all of you. All of your pieces, all of your experiences, all of your wisdom – it all comes together into a beautiful niche of your own.

What stunning complexity

From fragments once rejected

Reweaving your tapestry

Whole again, reclaimed

When we weave back together all of the parts of ourselves, we land on who we really are. We expand into the boldest expression of who we are and what we have to offer the world. We can know true wholeness. We can know deep fulfillment. Because no longer are we hiding, neglecting, or shunning parts of ourselves, fighting the inner battle of self-editing and berating our contradictions. When we know and accept all the pieces of ourselves, we can take them out to play, in our work, in our relationships, in our life. It starts within. And from there, the external pieces can come together too.

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