Hey Friends!

There’s a great song called, “Sum of Our Parts” by Mary Lambert that I’ve recently fallen in love with. (You can listen to it here.) The melody is great and she has a beautiful voice but more than that, the lyrics of the song are powerful. The song speaks to the truth that we are more than the sum of our parts.

Here is an excerpt that I’d like to share:

I want to know who ever broke you
I want to know how you can grow bigger
Don’t go looking for some kind of rescue
You are the only one who can save you

We are, who we are more than our scars
We are, who we are more than the sum of our parts
We are, who we are more than our scars
We are, who we are more than the sum of our parts
More than the sum of our parts

Look how bright we are
Look at all the things we have come from
Sometimes it hurts when you become them
Sometimes I bury myself in my own wreckage and
Don’t want to come out
Which part of you is still in the wreckage?
Which part of you clipped your own wings?
Which part of you will begin at your own end?
Which part of you will you let live again?

Why am I sharing this with you today? Well, because it’s the last day of February, a month that many of us spent focused on the theme of self-love and I believe that this song speaks to the biggest act of self-love that one can offer; to embrace the entirety of who we are and bring that to the world with courage and vulnerability.

This past month my personal mantra has been, “Be the rainbow.” The full significance of this I will save for another time, but the essence of this mantra is really about embracing and embodying all of who we are and showing up fully in our lives.

All our gifts, abilities, talents, faults, curiosities and quirks – bring it all to the table. Show up fully and be the fullness of ourselves. Because ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.’
Our unique beauty and power as individuals lies in the full spectrum of who we are, not in an individual talent or capability, but the whole picture. To be truly powerful requires that you get in touch with the entire range of yourself … all shades of the rainbow of your being.

For many of us, there are those parts of ourselves that we have hidden away either because they’ve been ridiculed or shamed in the past. It takes true courage and vulnerability to show up and be seen by others and to bring those parts of ourselves that we have kept hidden into the light.

But it is imperative that we do. Because until we do, we are not whole.

No one else can give us permission to do this. “You are the only one who can save you.”
The key is finding the courage to give ourselves permission to get out of our own way.

So, I ask you:

Which part of you is hidden?

Which part of you will you let live again?

It’s never too late to bring it into the light and let it shine.

To be whole.

To be the rainbow.

xo, M