Have you noticed a common theme in books, stories and poems about the inevitable moments in our lives when things simply fall apart?
There is Broken Open by Elizabeth Lesser, the co-founder of The Omega Institute. The subtitle of her book is “How difficult times can help us grow”. Elizabeth and her sister were estranged, but when her sister was diagnosed with cancer and needed a bone marrow transplant, Elizabeth stepped back into the brokenness of their relationship and both were transformed. Elizabeth lovingly refers to this experience and re-shaping of their bond as a “soul marrow transplant.”
If you Google self-help books about breaking up, breaking apart, breakdowns – you will find a plethora of titles that incorporate the operative word “broken”. Each and every one of these books offer the encouragement we need to trust that when things fall apart, we will pick up the pieces and rebuild.
You would think by now that we would have more of an open mind when it comes to inevitable breakups, breakdowns, breaking apart. It is a very common, organic process of de-construction. We have to take apart what is no longer working, or can no longer contain the fullness of who we are, in order to make room to grow.
If ever we needed a new language that would encapsulate “breaking” as a something transformational, it is now. Let’s reframe “breaking” as a growth spurt. And yes — I used the word reframing on purpose and with intention.
Let’s put some new language in play. We are having a “break-through”; we are “breaking new ground”, we are deconstructing and building back better. Not only can we do this, we can begin to see the organic process in a whole new light, with fresh lenses.
I would never want to diminish the pain of a heartbreak or shattered dreams. The pain is real, valid and takes time to process; it takes compassion, tenderness and patience to heal. We need helpers, caregivers and emotional physical therapists to help us recover from life’s breaks.
Over time, we will find ourselves re-building.
Our break-ups and break-downs provide us with introspection and a deeper self-reflection than we could possibly imagine. These painful growing pains helps us build back better by driving home what matters most. We live on the surface of our lives most of the time. Breaking apart in some fashion is a forcing mechanism that reminds us to drill down, go deeper.
The stabilizing roots of who we are and want to become more foundationally relevant.
We put things in perspective and it is with this reframing, that we craft a new blueprint for reconstruction. We will sift through the pieces and choose the ones we cherish the most to begin again. Each time we have a “break” of some sort, we grow a little deeper in who we most authentically are. We live less on the surface and more from our core.
This becomes very evident when you scan the self-help books on being broken. There is a common theme of how much more meaningful life became, the discoveries people made that were often hidden in plain sight, the course corrections they made that catapulted them in extraordinary ways. Oddly enough, many of them found an expansive freedom as a direct result of being broken.
Take some time over the coming week to reflect on your own life timeline. Look back at the moments when things fell apart, when your heart was broken, when you had a break-up that over time actually became an eye-opening breakthrough. Can you plot how low you felt initially and then see how much you actually grew through that painful experience?
When things fall apart, we are being given an opportunity to de-construct and then re-build with greater self-awareness and intentionality. Can you feel your own root system welcoming the opportunity to go deeper and spread wider?
Pay extra close attention to how those breaking experiences helped you gain clarity and gratitude. Most assuredly, you began to live your life less on the shallow surface and more in the richness of the deeper appreciation of what matters most to you.
