how many times have you fallen apart in your life? have you ever thought about it?
have you ever taken stock of all of the trials you’ve been through, but like almost…from an analytical/scientific perspective?
honoring how far you’ve come goes so much deeper than just patting yourself on the back because you made it through something. it’s so much more than loving yourself through trials and bad times. and i’m starting to realize that i should do a better job of honoring myself after i get through shit because these trials are initiations.
i started going back to try to mentally list out a timeline of all the BIG shit that’s happened to me. i plotted it on an invisible graph in my mind. it was…a LOT lmao. a bit overwhelming, honestly.
but then i mentally asked after each major pain point and trial, “who was i after that happened to me?”
who was i after i picked up the pieces?
what did i change?
who did i let go of?
what did i give up?
and after i ran through those questions for each major breaking point in my life, i realized that i came away fundamentally different. equipped with new knowledge. it was like i beat that part of the game and then moved along in life until the next inevitable crushing scenario.
after each falling apart, i realized that the way i was put back together was more meticulous, more intentional. smarter. wiser. more loving (mostly towards myself). i was bigger, expanded. brighter.
and then after i did this little exercise, i sat with it for awhile. i thought deep about just what all of this means. and then i realized that i only really started to grow when i allowed myself to fully fall apart.
i went back to my timeline analysis and looked at some examples of times where i bypassed the “fully falling apart” aspect. and without fail, it always wound up coming back as even BIGGER shit down the road. not only that, but sometimes they’d even compound on each other so that my breaking point du jour would actually be multiple issues and THOSE were just…not fun at all.
i only really grew from the times i was completely taken out. completely broken. and for a long time, i’d let myself get so carried away with things until the universe forced a breaking on me. dramatic, academy award-winning breakings. physical ailments. insanely fucked up situations. metaphorical TKOs.
i feared these situations after my last really big, dramatic one. even though i grew, i knew it was only a matter of time before my next lesson was served up. and that fucking made me cringe. it’s still cringe.
yet, something definitely changed over the last couple of years. after i realized that i was on the awakening path, i learned that every time we shatter, we’re initiated into a higher version of ourselves. each time we undergo a radical change in life, the old needs to be cleared away so we can embody the next level. so we can continue to develop our soul according to plan.
and understanding this has definitely started to take the drama out of falling apart. it takes away the fear. the stigma. the shame. falling apart is so incredibly human AND divine. all at once. it hurts like hell, but when you know why it’s happening, you can hold yourself with such compassion and respect. it lessens the blow. it feels more like the common cold than a mystery mental illness.
i’ve fallen apart a few times this past year - i think we all have to some degree. the environment we’re in is just so…falling apart-y. it’s like a cruel taskmaster that kicking everyone’s ass at the same time so that maybe, if enough of us fall apart and shake the old off, we can start building the new.
let yourself fall apart. see what’s underneath. the shells that we all wear have so many layers that needed to come off yesterday.
look at your falling apart as an initiation. a making space for a new part of you that your soul wants to experience. a chance to let go of what’s no longer working so you can clearly map out the path to what will.
a ticket to the next level.
a completion of a lesson you’re ready to stop learning.
a chance to keep getting closer to home.