Breaking

Break through, breaking away, break-ups and just plain broke, these are universal terms and experiences.  The excruciating exactness of the emotions these words describe has been an understood element in everyone of our lives at some point.  For evidence, see the thousands of empathic fan interpretations of Taylor Swift's latest album.  

As a coach and moreover, a continuously curious human, I marvel at all the fractures and excavations that occur before the actual breaking points.  Maybe it's the wonderment of the why that draws me to see, to feel, the soft, non-explosive, cracking pieces.  Before they fell or snapped together, what puzzle did they complete within us?  

"Growth and pain feel the same", is a lyric from a song I just listened to this morning AND astonishingly it was not by Mother T.S. (Chandler Leighton, A Letter To Everyone Who's Hurt Me in case you are interested).  I can't think of a better way to articulate  the actual process of incremental human breakage than the confluence of these two words.  I've felt it in myself, the pain so all encompassing emotional becomes physical.  I see it in my beloved friends and coaching clients; the monumental growth paced as a slow burning, fierce fire. 

Growth and pain do indeed feel the same in the breaking. My encouragement to you and myself is to be a compassionate witness to the breaking. There's a real gut-level tangibility to seeing and feeling each element.  It's the building block of skyscraper tall self-trust.  Because once you've been broken, it no longer has the power. . . you do.