Still broken...but authentically me

"Let go of who you think you're supposed to be and embrace who you are."

Brené Brown

In Remembrance of Things Past

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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. 

 

You've got a friend...

       “I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light.”

Helen Keller

 Peace of Country Living

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/peace-of-country-living-lianne-schneider.html

Naming friendship as one of the heroic virtues seems such an obvious thing that you probably wonder what I could have to say about it that you don’t already know. And the answer is…probably nothing. But as Sam Keen, author of “Fire in the Belly” says, “…these days friendship is an endangered species. Friendship doesn’t thrive in a social ecology that stresses speed, constant preoccupation and competition…It requires slow time. Like great whiskey, it must be seasoned in wood, steeped in patience, and long simmered. No instant intimacy or one night stands. The cadence of friendship is measured in decades’ long rhythms.”

 

Social media often deceives us into believing that a friendship exists when the only relationship is a common activity or political stance. We feel that our Facebook “friends” know us, understand us and could be relied on to be there for us in difficult times.  To some degree that is true – or it can be true – but the reality also exists that people can be whomever they wish to be online. There’s also a false sense of intimacy that comes from publicly sharing some aspects of our personal lives while keeping other aspects hidden.

 

Still that may say more about our deep longing for a real friend than it does about the superficial nature of social media relationships. The criticism of electronic communications may be overly harsh. In fact, I am blessed to have met several of my truly dearest friends online originally…although those relationships are “real” now in the sense of frequent communications by phone, occasional visits and the like. There is a growing body of evidence as well that some very successful marriages begin online too, so who is to say that a friendship cannot begin there as well. Perhaps, after all, it’s irrelevant how or where a friendship begins – what matters is whether that friendship endures through all the good times and bad because someone “knows” who you are at the core and loves you anyway.

I wrote this poem a number of years ago for two friends who have stood with me through everything life could throw at me and who shared both the best of times and the worst of times. Both love me enough to tell me the truth – particularly when I don’t want to hear it. And I love them both though I fail to say it often enough. My life would be far less fulfilling if they were not a part of it. For L. R. and A. G. – you know why: 

 

Friendship’s Grace *

Some kinds of love are inexplicable,
like love for the dearest of friends -

one who walks some of life’s journey with you,

who holds your hand through the valleys

and anchors the rappelling line while

you scale the rock-strewn spiritual mountains

you thought you had to climb alone.

Connections between such kindred souls,

part of the great mystery of the universe,

are gifts without price that we have

done nothing whatever to merit.

Such love extends and expands beyond
knowing and knowable boundaries of spirit –

the acceptance and freedom of friendship

is a mystery of pure grace unfolding,

an “agape” of sharing unfettered

by the passions and arrows of Eros.

Describing such boundless generous love -

That is so freely given and received -

is beyond the scope of our limited lexis.

A beacon of light in the darkness 

is the incomparable love for a friend. 

                   

                          © Lianne Schneider 2010

James Lecesne, American actor, Academy Award winner and author of the book “Absolute Brightness,” explains exactly what a true friend does for another:

“This is how it works. I love the people in my life, and I do for my friends whatever they need me to do for them, again and again, as many times as is necessary. For example, in your case you always forgot who you are and how much you're loved. So what I do for you as your friend is remind you who you are and tell you how much I love you. And this isn't any kind of burden for me, because I love who you are very much. Every time I remind you, I get to remember with you, which is my pleasure.”

 

For those of you who are “old” friends, I treasure you as I have always done even if I haven’t spoken to you in years. For those of you who are “new” friends or online friends, those whom I am just beginning to know and value, and those who, like me, felt some kind of true connection, let’s consider that like good whiskey, we are aging in fine casks to bring out the best flavor. As the great essayist, Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, not the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.”

 

Reference: 

Keen, Sam. (1992, April). Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man. Bantam Books, New York, NY