Broken Open.....

I've just started reading "Broken Open" by Elizabeth Lesser. It seems that I have dog eared every page because so much that she writes is speaking to me. I've always been a massive reader but lately I feel like I have been guided to certain books when I'm in book shops. Perhaps my angels or guides or someone is looking out for me and sending me in the direction of books that will help me through this stage of life. Here are some of my favourite snippets so far:

• And the time came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was even more painful than the risk it took to blossom - Anais Nin. Your heart is like the flower. Let it break open. What you want is waiting for you in your own heart. The time has come.


• To be human is to be lost in the woods. None of us arrives here with clear directions on how to get from Point A to Point B without stumbling into the forest of confusion or wrongdoing. Although they are dark and dangerous, it is in the woods that we discover our strengths. We all know people who say their cancer or divorce or bankruptcy was the greatest gift of a lifetime - that until the body, or the heart or the bank was broken, they didn't know who they were, what they felt, or what they wanted. Before their descent into the darkness, they took more than they gave, or they were numb, or full of fear or blame or self pity. In their most broken moments they were brought to their knees; they were humbled; they were opened. And later, as they pulled their lives back together, they discovered a clearer sense of purpose and a new passion for life.


• We can go back to sleep in order to resist the forces of change or we can stay awake and be broken open. Both ways are difficult, but one way brings with it the gift of a lifetime. If we can stay awake when our lives are changing, secrets will be revealed to us - secrets about ourselves, about the nature of life, and about the eternal source of happiness and peace that is always available, always renewable, already within us.


• Albert Einstein warned 'No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it'. In other words, don't try to solve a problem using the same mixed up thinking that got you into the mess in the first place. You will just keep swimming around in tight little circles of indecision and fear.


• Something told me I would not find my way out of this quandary using the same old arguments, but I didn't know where to look for a new perspective. It was as if I was under water, swimming around and around in the darkness. Far above me, beyond the weight of an ocean of worries, a ray of light was pointing in a luminous, new direction, but I was to distracted to notice. I was caught in waves of conflicting questions: Would I ruin my children's lives by getting divorced? Or was it worse for them to live with unhappy parents? Was I a dreamer, looking for an elusive happiness that real life could never deliver? Or were we meant to know the rapture of being alive, even at the cost of breaking the rules?


• How was i to break out of my tight circle of fear into a new consciousness? How did Einstein do it? How did he quiet the admonishing, skeptical voices in his head - the ones barking bad directions - long enough to hear the steady whispers of the universe? How was he able to peer beyond himself and follow the light to more lucid answers?


• The soul comes to earth to learn lessons, not to get married or stay married or to take this job or that job. You have been asking the wrong question. The question is what lesson does your soul want to learn? Do you know?


• Only those who love themselves can love others, and only people who claim their own voice can hear the true song of another.


• The philosopher William James wrote that there are two kinds of people in this world - the Once Born and Twice Born. Once born people do not stray from the familiar territory of who they think they are and what they think is expected of them. If fate pushes them to the edge of Dante's famous dark woods - where the straight way is lost - they turn back. They don't want to learn something new from life's darker lessons. They stay with what seems safe, and what is acceptable to their family and society. They stick to what they already know but don't necessarily want. Once born people may go through life and never even know what lies beyond the woods - or that there are woods at all. A Twice born person pays attention when the soul pokes its head through the clouds of a half lived life. Whether through choice or calamity, the Twice born person goes into the woods, loses the straight way, makes mistakes, suffers loss and confronts that which needs to change within himself in order to live a more genuine and radiant life.


• The journey from Once born to Twice born brings us to a crossroads where the old ways of doing things are no longer working but a better way lies somewhere at the far edge of the woods. We are afraid to step into those woods but even more afraid to turn back. To turn back is one kind of death; to go forward is another. The first kind of death ends in ashes; the second leads to rebirth.


• Twice born people trade the safety of the known for the power of the unknown. Something calls them into the woods, where the straight path vanishes, and there is no turning back, only going through. This is not easy. It is very real and very difficult. To face our shadow - the dragons and hags we have spent a lifetime running away from - is perhaps the most difficult journey we will ever take. But it is there, in the shadows, that we retrieve our hidden parts, learn our lessons, and give birth to the wise and mature self. From my personal experience and from the work I have done with men and women in my workshops, I know the difficulty of the dark journey is matched only by its rewards.