Can a broken person help others?
In other words, can a “broken” person help others become “unbroken”?
I lived with this question for a long time.
Can I—a “broken” man—help others heal, integrate, and become whole and healthy in body, mind, and spirit?
It wasn’t an easy question to face. For years, I couldn’t bring myself to answer it honestly. The irony is that I didn’t need to answer anyone else. The only person who needed convincing was me. And even then, I struggled to look myself in the eye and say, “Yes, you can.”
Days turned into weeks. Weeks into months. Then years. I kept circling the question, never quite stepping into it, because I wasn’t sure I could meet it with complete honesty. I carried doubts. Apprehensions. A quiet resistance I rarely named.
How could I claim that I could help others overcome their “brokenness”? Who was I to speak to people about changing the direction of their lives? What authority did I have to talk about integration when I was still gathering the scattered pieces of my own?
A timid voice inside my head kept returning, persistent and convincing:
“You’re still rebuilding yourself. I don’t see any reason why anyone should listen to you.”
And I believed it—not because it was necessarily true, but because it sounded reasonable. Logical. Safe.
Time passed. And then, almost without my noticing, something began to shift. Not dramatically. Quietly. A subtle inner movement I might have missed if I hadn’t been paying attention.
I discovered self-love.
It had always been there, in some form—close enough to touch, yet invisible to me. Once I saw it, something loosened inside. And from that point, a new perspective began to take root—
If not me, then who?
If not now, when?
My heart tells me I’m on the right path.
Only someone who has walked through the dark corners of a forest—one that feels dense, disorienting, and indifferent—can truly guide another through it. Not someone who studied maps. Not someone who heard stories. Someone who has felt the ground shift underfoot and wondered, more than once, whether there was a way out at all.
Such a person remembers where the light thins. Where the path disappears without warning. Where fear doesn’t announce itself loudly, but arrives quietly and stays. He knows which steps are deceptive, which turns lead deeper into confusion, and which moments demand stillness rather than movement.
He has been there. Not briefly. Not symbolically. He stayed long enough to be changed by it.
That kind of knowing doesn’t come from authority granted by others. It comes from endurance. From paying attention while lost. From learning—slowly, imperfectly—how to keep moving without certainty.
By contrast, someone who has never been broken, never deeply disappointed or undone, speaks from a distance. Their words may sound reassuring. Sometimes even convincing. But they remain untouched by the weight of the terrain they describe.
At best, they can approximate understanding.
They can read about depression. They can listen to explanations, memorize frameworks, quote research. They can describe the forest in language that sounds accurate. But they will never know what it feels like to be inside it—when direction collapses, when effort feels useless, when even hope grows quiet.
And that difference matters.
Because guidance doesn’t come from knowing about the dark. It comes from having lived there long enough to recognize its patterns—and having survived without denying what it took.
Being Broken and Helping Others Become Unbroken
This is what I want to say to you:
Being broken is often how we learn our deepest lessons. That very “brokenness” can become the starting point of integration. Self-doubt, lack of confidence, and the fear of speaking one’s truth are not detours—they are often necessary passages on the way to becoming a loving, grounded, and resilient individual.
There is a catch, though.
You cannot overcome your brokenness by fighting it.
Transformation begins when you start loving yourself—fully. Not selectively. Not conditionally.
Love your strengths. Love your weaknesses. And yes, embrace your brokenness.
Keep loving yourself, even when nothing seems to be changing, because self-love is the quiet glue that slowly turns fragmentation into wholeness.
I believe you are uniquely qualified to help people who are struggling with their own lack of togetherness. You know what it feels like to be stuck. And you also know—perhaps imperfectly, perhaps slowly—how one begins to find a way out. That knowing matters. It’s what allows you to walk alongside others—not ahead of them.
So if you’ve been holding yourself back from speaking your truth—through a blog, a YouTube channel, or any other medium—perhaps it’s time to pause and reconsider. Not because you are fearless, but because your voice carries the weight of lived experience.
Your job is not to heal others. It never was.
Your only task is to help them remember that they can heal themselves.
Yes, fear will show up. Doubts will surface. Confidence will waver. That’s part of the territory. And perhaps that’s precisely why moving forward matters.
I am scared, too, as I open myself up in front of you. That’s only human. What I’ve learned, though, is that some things must be done regardless of the fear of failure, rejection, or ridicule.
Accept your brokenness. Then add self-love to the equation.
And if you still doubt yourself, return to these questions:
If not you, then who?
If not now, when?