"Let go of who you think you're supposed to be and embrace who you are."
Brené Brown
In Remembrance of Things Past
Perhaps I'll never really exhaust the subject of brokenness because it's part of understanding who I really am and what the process was of becoming me. I promise, however, not to dwell too long on the broken parts...but rather more often on the good that comes of them. I know that there are people who would prefer not to explore the idea of being broken...let alone admit it out loud. The question for me today is what do we gain by being vulnerable, by acknowledging the broken bits and pieces, by accepting our imperfections?
And for me the answer is authenticity. If I can muster the courage to admit how cracked and broken and mended I am, if I can expose what most would perceive as weakness and allow myself to be vulnerable, then what I gain is the freedom to be truly and authentically myself. I don't have to pretend to be someone else. I don't have to keep trying to be who others expect me to be. For years and years, I was the "rock," the "strong one," the "crisis handler," the "responsible get it all done well" one. I didn't let a soul see how shattered I was at times, how much struggle there was to pretend to a strength I didn't feel.
My own perception of vulnerability was character weakness. My version of relationship was to be the one in control, the giver, the do-er, the rational and seldom emotional spouse or partner or friend. "Big Girls Don't Cry" should have been my theme song...or alternatively, "Lean on Me." I didn't often let anyone offer me a shoulder to cry on. I never admitted that sometimes the burden was just too heavy and I needed someone to share it with me. If I had a problem - or you did - I could analyze it to death coming up with just the right advice or course of action. But I didn't very often acknowledge how I actually FELT about any of it. What I THOUGHT, yes, but what I FELT, no. The brain could be trusted - the heart with its messy feelings could not.
I could, I thought, prove that. When I fell in love late in my life after the death of my husband, I couldn't seem to help myself from opening the door to all those "feelings." Irrationality was the special of the day and for once, my heart ruled my head. And then...I had my heart totally shattered. One would think, wouldn't you, that I'd fall back on old habits - go back to pretense, to rationality, to cover up? But that's not what happened...once the door to a feeling heart was open, I couldn't close it again. And I realized that broken or not, I didn't want to go back to that inauthentic person I'd been. So it is that I learned this most valuable lesson: (I post this for a dear new friend - you'll know who you are!!)
HEARTS WERE MEANT
TO BREAK
Hearts were meant to break
Love…requited…bursts them wide
open
expanding them ever outward
with the
awesome power of the big bang,
photon upon photon of love
light -
an endless grace, that energy
moving toward
the sacred consummation of
intimate union.
And when stars cavort and gaily
pour
the glittering dust of diamonds
into the space that love has
opened
to receive it, a heart so fills
with light
that it must split asunder to
make room
for the more of love, the
overflowing
river of it, the numinous,
luminous constellations
of love light dancing through
the cosmos.
Love…unrequited…breaks it open
wider still…
transforming brokenness into
beatitudes,
slivers of past sorrows that
now sparkle
like shards of glass catching
moonlight.
But the shattered heart
remembers,
with deepening gratitude, its
shattering,
having tried with such
determination
to share its rounded fullness
with another
and found it breaking on the
hard, square edges
of someone’s heart not open
yet.
There is no way to put it back
together.
Now broken, it moves ever
outward
like the universe, which is itself
Love’s energy radiant with
grace.
© 2013 Lianne
Schneider
So, I can say truthfully, that though I'm a mended (or mending) version of who I was, I think I was blessed to be mended with gold as I said the other day. Admitting that I'm always vulnerable now, that I can be hurt, that I feel things not only lets me be authentically who I am without pretense...but strangely enough my vulnerability gives the people I love the courage to be vulnerable too and it's there, in that shared vulnerability, that true and honest and loving and joyful relationships are born.
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