BECOMING BROKEN!

Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

And all the King’s horses and all the King’s men

Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again!

I first heard the term “being broken” from Mark Nepo in an interview he did with Oprah.  He explained that in his struggles with cancer he had become “broken”. As he shared his life experience, I realized that he had come up against something that was greater than him. He realized that he was powerless to overcome his difficulties with the resources at his disposal. Admitting one is powerless over their problems can be a real wake-up call. And this wake-up call is happening all around us.

Admitting our powerlessness changes everything. The roadmap we have been using to run our daily life is no longer relevant. The skills and tools we have previously developed are admittedly not enough. And the things we used before to solve our problems now falls short. For some, this realization can come slowly. For others, this admission takes place in an instant like walking through a door into a different room or picking up the phone and receiving news we were not prepared to hear.

It can come to us in a 1000 different ways and often more than once in our lives. However it happens, this I am convinced of, it happens to all of us. We all become broken. When that awareness finally dawns on us, Mark’s the next observation becomes a powerful insight. That is, “just because one is broken is no reason to see the world as broken.”

So, where does that lead us? I guess we could cling to our old beliefs in choosing to be resilient and say to ourselves “I was handed a lemon therefore I will make lemonade!” Or “Humpty Dumpty is broken therefore I will make an omelet!” I am not convinced that that is an admission of our powerlessness and trusting that there is a force at work in our lives that we can rely on that is beyond our understanding. This is where grace and hope and faith appear and lead us on a new adventure of compassion for everyone we meet today and gratitude for everything that we see all around us.

But I think there is a different direction that leads to a new awakening. By acknowledging our ego and mind cannot overcome our difficulties, we can become “broken open” and allow our heart to lead and direct. The heart becomes our compass and points in what direction we would walk. And the mind then takes its lead from the heart and maps out how we can achieve what the heart can see.

And with the heart listening, we are touched by the songs we hear. And with the heart watching, we see beauty all around us. And with the heart alive, we wake up today realizing that “this” is one incredible moment!

Fighting The Instrument

Often the instruments of change
are not kind or just
and the hardest openness
of all might be
to embrace the change

while not wasting your heart
fighting the instrument.

The storm is not as important
as the path it opens.

The mistreatment in one life
never as crucial as the clearing
it makes in your heart.

This is very difficult to accept.
The hammer or cruel one
is always short-lived
compared to the jewel
in the center of the stone.

By Mark Nepo