Inner Practice: Beautifully Broken

We have all been broken before and the feeling sucks. A death, an accident, a break up, a betrayal, a loss, a disappointment, a failure, a misjudgment. And when it happens, we feel like the world is an evil place to be in and we just want out. Any possible way. Just out.

And as we move forward in life, we carry the scars from the deep slashes we sustained and we thread through life with self-protecting strategies, formulated since evolution by our genius human body to keep us alive even after being crippled by life, time and again. Some of us take on the survival scheme of numbness, being immune to any emotions, bad or good, sad or happy. Some of us become closed up, not welcoming any new experiences for the sake of self preservation. We close off to people, to experiences, to memories, to pain, to happiness, to love. We take on the cold mental façade of “I’d rather have peace than to be hurt again.”

We work really hard, get ourselves really exhausted to mask off the sensations of the actual searing pain. With time, the traumas are buried deep down. Well hidden. But not healed. We seem functional on the outside, yet we are rotting and screaming inside. We smile and laugh, yet we are tearing and bleeding within.

We look for ways to get better, again and again, only to keep falling back to the old ingrained states of numbness, pain, rejection, depression.

Then we start to question: “Am I ever to get better?”

And the self hatred begins.

A wise one once told me, “Take a walk in the forest. Find me a tree that has all the branches still intact, all the leaves not fallen, all the roots not rotten.”

The result is there exists no such tree. Yet the forest thrives and grow in the most naturally beautiful manner, where every tree, as broken as they are, is beautiful in their own way. Even at the parts of the tree where the branches fall off, the leaves fallen, the roots rotten, animals make those areas their home and shelter, microorganisms get their nutrients from the decomposed, new life grows. So even in your brokenness, you unknowingly become a support for many others, and others find comfort in your presence, in your very own way.

Because you are broken, that makes you special, unique and one in the world. Just like no two trees in the forest are the same. So do you.
Because you are broken, your beauty shines naturally from within.
Because you are broken, your existence becomes support for many others without you being aware of.