Broken Open

I saw a beautiful Oprah today about Elizabeh Lesser's book Broken Open and I love how on national television we can be discussing the spiritual aspects of life's toughest kicks, reminding ourselves to look deep into our experiences and find the gifts.

It's a difficult thing to do when you're dealing with things. When you are on a spiritual path, its easy to have the expectation that everything is fine all the time, no matter what's going down, what's going on. What I most appreciated about the program was that place of it being ok to offer yourself space to grieve.

Because change isn't easy; if it was it wouldn't be so painful. But it is - painful and difficult. Sometimes even when you know things are for the best, it is still difficult. You reach inside yourself for new ground to stand on, new legs, new strength and you release the old, the promises and non-promises, the desire to understand, the reasons things should be different. And while you release, you grieve the misunderstanding that you thought you knew how things stood, you thought everything was under control and in good form, that you thought you knew where everything was going and how it was going to get there.

Without the grief it is almost denial, but with the grief, there in that moment, when you are broken open, is the birth of tomorrow. A tomorrow when things will make sense and you will appreciate what has come before for the valuable and precious experiences it gave you and shared with you.

Life is wrought with such bitter tests and lessons. But after the storm, things are clearer and more dear, too. Even when you don't believe the sun will shine again, give the grief it's space, breathe, breathe, breathe, find one thing to be grateful for and before you know it, being broken open won't hurt anymore. Instead you will be filled with the deeper expression of your human spirit.

Blessings.
- Darshan

© 2009 Darshan F Jessop