Not broken, just broken open

“Our lives ask us to die and to be reborn every time we confront change—change within ourselves and change in our world. When we descend all the way down to the bottom of a loss, and dwell patiently, with an open heart, in the darkness and pain, we can bring back up with us the sweetness of life and the exhilaration of inner growth. When there is nothing left to lose, we find the true self—the self that is whole, the self that is enough, the self that no longer looks to others for definition, or completion, or anything but companionship on the journey.”

— Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow by Elizabeth Lesser
https://a.co/a0xyhkq

I’m reading this book right now, and I think it’s exactly what I didn’t know I needed.

I had been slowly making my way through different one for the last couple of weeks— “Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples,” by Harville Hendrix Ph.D. and Helen LaKelly Hunt PhD. It felt like it would be helpful insight for what’s going on in my life. Practical, even. But in reading it, I only felt more hopeless, more sad, more unsure.

Broken Open is having the complete opposite effect. Paradoxically, it’s reminding me that nothing about me, or my husband, or our kids, or our marriage is broken at all. It just IS.

That whatever is happening right now, it’s exactly what’s supposed to be happening. That there’s learning and meaning in what we’re working through.

It’s a strange mindset shift.

I was texing with a friend this morning, one of the only two people in my life who really know what’s been going on (three, if you count my husband). She knows about my own self-discovery journey these past few years, too. We’ve both experienced profound losses, although in different ways. And some of the conversations I cherish the most with her get into deep philosophical conversations about life, spirituality, and meaning.

When she asked me how I’m feeling right now, I answered:

I’m in a very strange place. I’m completely content with work. Not itching to be or do anything else.

For context, I’ve been at my current agency for 4+ years, and I typically get itchy every 2 years, so this kind of professional peacefulness is new territory for me. Or maybe I’m just in the calm part of my cyclical itchiness. Who knows? Either way, I’ll take it.

Home is a jumble, though, between stuff with [my husband], and [my son’s] stomach issues, and [my daughter’s] vision and anxiety and ADHD challenges. It’s like all the work I’ve been doing on myself over these past 3 years is now my toolkit for helping them. In some ways, I’m like, “What the fuck? When do I get to rest? Who’s helping or holding space for ME?” And in other ways, it feels like maybe there’s a bigger purpose in some of this.

I stand by my belief that I need to follow my knowing. And maybe all of this is the path to figuring out what my knowing is actually trying to tell me.

There are times when I think I can hear it and see it clearly. Like the universe is sending me signs—a podcast about finding yourself in a better place after a hard breakup; a song I’ve known the lyrics to for years, but only recently really heard its message about realizing you can’t change someone who doesn’t want to be changed; an inner acceptance that I will be fine no matter what happens.

But what I can’t figure out yet is if those are all really messages from my knowing, or if they’re just products of “frequency illusion,” a cognitive bias in which, after noticing something for the first time, there is a tendency to notice it more often, leading someone to believe that it has an increased frequency of occurrence. (Thank you wikipedia for that definition.)

Am I more likely to notice these things more often, like the podcast and the song lyrics, simply because I’m looking for them?

Am I attaching greater meaning to them because my subconscious-self is trying to make sense of what my conscious-self is grappling with?

And is meaning-making actually part of my inner knowing, anyway?

I have so many questions.

This journey of being broken open sucks, I can tell you that. But for the first time in a while (and only for the last 24 hours or so), I am not fighting it. I feel like I’m settling into the uncertainty, at least a little bit. Getting more curious. Remembering that I am not the “problem,” and neither is anyone else. All of this is happening, but nothing is happening TO me. I’m not a victim of my life or my circumstance. I’m the main character who will crash and get back up, get angry and apologize, keep reading and learning and trying to do better, and ultimately, figure all this shit out, even if it hurts.

I am on my way to becoming “the self that is whole, the self that is enough, the self that no longer looks to others for definition, or completion, or anything but companionship on the journey.”

Maybe THAT’S my knowing.

Maybe it’s be less about trying to figure out what actions to take, or picking up on signs from the universe, and more about acceptance and wonder and growth and trying to find the beauty in this somewhere.

Today is day 15 of my self-identity script-writing course.

I think my script might be different today.