How we notice our holes and start to heal.

When I was a kid, my Dad and I used to sing the song “There’s a Hole in my Bucket” every night before I went to bed.

Do you know the song?

My Dad would pretend that he was Henry, and I was always Liza.

It went like this;

“There’s a hole in my bucket Dear Henry Dear Henry, there’s a hole in my bucket Dear Henry, a hole. Well fix it Dear Liza Dear Liza Dear Liza, well fix it Dear Liza Dear Liza, fix it.”

The song goes on and on in a literal circle. They explore all the ways Henry can fix Liza’s bucket, only to find that in the end they need said bucket to fetch the water to finally fix it.

Because of the hole, it is rendered useless and they end up right where they started, with an unfixable hole at the bottom of Liza’s bucket.

Well shit! Now what Liza?

It got me thinking about holes and buckets.

How I too have metaphorical holes in my bucket that have gotten there throughout my life.

Even if I can’t see them, they are still there.

If I really pay attention though, I can feel the holes.

Energetically, they range from a feeling of hopelessness to an anxious need to do, do, do. This then translates into an invisible driving force that pushes me away from my present moment. It takes me from my place of hurt inside the holes, to a desperate need to escape the hurt by any means possible.

To avoid the holes, numb the holes or to distract me from them entirely.

As I reflect I can see that I was constantly trying to fill my bucket and mend my holes using outside means.

The answer must be out there;

“I need more blank, that will make me feel better, I deserve that, yup I’ll do that”

My mind would cajole.

And off I’d go unsuccessfully fetching water into my hole-y bucket.

The wine, the clothes, the makeup, the million different skincare products (ok, I still do that), the constant need for external validation, the shitty/non-existent boundaries, the people pleasing, the busy constantly doing, the perfect house, the perfect body…you get the drift. 

But here’s the thing, just like Liza’s bucket, because of the holes, no matter how many things I tried, I never truly got filled up. I’d have a momentary sense of satisfaction that would inevitably be replaced by guilt and I was exhausted.

If I stopped to pay attention I could feel when I trying to fill myself up from that place.

I thought the answer lied outside of me.

That if I kept doing all the things, I would be happy. But it wasn’t working.

So, I turned inward.

I realized that only if I was willing to look inside my bucket, would I ever feel a real sense of fulfillment.

Without healing my holes, all I was doing was constantly refilling an empty container. That even today, if I’m not paying attention, I am right back to that artificial fill.

Healing for me happened when I started to look inside my bucket.

I started to notice what my body was feeling.

I noticed the hollow feeling in my chest, or the nauseous pang in my tummy.

Slowly, just by noticing, that empty feeling started to subside. I went to and still go to a counsellor, I was honest with myself, and I started to give myself space to learn what I really liked and who I really was.

I learned how to define myself separately from what others thought of me.

I played.

I journaled.

Instead of reflexively reaching for that glass of wine or compulsively shopping online, I stopped to notice what the driving force was.

Was it my hole? If so, sometimes I still went for it, sometimes I didn’t, but the key was each time I let myself be exactly where I was. I tried hard not to shame myself. I could feel that the shame only added more holes, like a corrosive agent that I added to the water. The shame was my choice and so I worked hard to let myself be.

To just notice.

I started to heal.

The energy behind my actions changed. I slowed down. I went from being frantic and busy to calmer and quieter.

So that I could listen, feel, and notice.

I started to know myself, to really love myself.

Filling my bucket now feels more intentional. I am viscerally aware of all my holes. The big ones, the little ones, the ones that have partly healed and the ones that still need some extra attention.

I can experience real fullFILLment. Ha!

So today, I’d say to Liza, go own your own bucket, Henry can’t fix anything. 

That inside that bucket lies the answers and the truth to your true fullfillment.

That life doesn’t become easier, but with less holes and a better understanding of what the lining of our buckets looks like, we can be free.

Free from the urgency, free from the emptiness, and free from the endless refill.

We can carry more water and know exactly how heavy our buckets are. We know when to put them down and when to simply dump out the water that is no longer serving us.

Most of all, we learn to love our entire buckets, even with the holes.

Now go show your hole-y bucket some love.

xo