Yesterday, I was listening to a speech by the author and New York Times columnist, David Brooks. He was talking about moving beyond the challenges we face in life when he said, “You can be broken. Or you can be broken open.” I loved what he was saying, but I have a slightly different take on it.
It’s likely at some point in your life, you’ve felt broken by life because most of us have. While it can feel absolutely, convincingly true, whatever made you feel that way is of no interest here. Feeling broken, and being broken are vastly different. While you may feel like you’ve been broken, you haven’t been, because you can’t be.
The part of you that defines you, your aliveness, or conscious awareness, is absolutely unbreakable.
Though the feeling of being broken is a lonely, horrible one, it’s also always an invitation for you to see, and experience, your resilience and unbreakability.
Here’s why: feeling as though you’ve been broken is instead an opportunity for you to break open. Breaking open is what happens when you’re able to see the truth where you haven’t seen it before. In other words, you have an insight about something you’ve believed, perhaps for your entire life, that reveals the belief isn’t true, and never was.
Breaking open is what allows you to feel the full force of your aliveness. Surrender is a small price to pay for so enormous a return.
Breaking open is surrendering to the truth and leaving false beliefs behind. This sort of surrender is not capitulation or defeat, it’s an act that puts you in harmony with the truth. Living in harmony with the truth makes for an easier, better-feeling life, and greater mental clarity.
To put it another way, breaking open allows you to taste a life sweeter than anything you could have imagined. Breaking open is not a one-time event. It can happen whenever you’re willing to question your own “brokenness.” Once you really see the difference between being broken, and being broken open, you never again have to endure the illusion that something about you is broken.
Breaking open is what allows you to feel the full force of your aliveness. Surrender is a small price to pay for so enormous a return.
