A few weeks ago, Mark and I had a discussion at one of my Daily Kind Quotes that inspired me to write this post. It was this part that triggered something in me: “we have broken us”. I thought about how the process of physical pain and healing is similar to inner pain and its healing.

Over time – years or even decades – we begin to build a shell around us made of beliefs, experiences, and decisions that we put in context to each other. Also, we try to protect ourselves from others touching our sore spots. The shell becomes thicker, and we lose more and more touch with that part of ourselves that still lives behind it. Against better judgment, we disconnect ourselves from our own wisdom, which is the reason why we cannot heal. Because what we need to heal lies beyond the shell. The longer it takes and the thicker the shell grows, the more effort and pain may be necessary to break through it again. Since we don’t know that there is more or because we forgot what is behind that shell, we tend to ignore the signs that would lead us to healing. Some even think everything is so hard because others don’t conform to their attitude. So, they try to break them and adjust them to their needs to feel better. But that doesn’t work. Instead, the frustration only grows since no one can run from themselves. Everyone needs to break their own shell to heal and find peace.

As Mark said: “we have broken us, and we have dared to go into its path and heal it”. When this moment comes, when everything seems to break down around us, or when we think that whatever we believed in runs like sand through our fingers, then we feel broken. We are down on our knees and maybe at our lowest point. But that is only the pain that goes along with breaking that shell – even though we are not aware of it at that moment. It is exhausting, and we are called to create a different view since the old one no longer works. That is when healing begins to take place.

If we want to break a nut to get to its tasty kernel, we need to make an effort. We know that there is something fantastic behind that nutshell, which makes it worth the effort. The problem with our own shell is that we have built it up so successfully thick that we think there is nothing behind it anymore, or at least nothing worthwhile. We may think the shell is the end. Although there is this feeling that there is more, the mind says there isn’t. That is why we feel like prisoners in ourselves sometimes. Just as the blue sky is not the end of the universe, the shell is not the end of ourselves, even though we can neither grasp the whole universe nor our own depth. We need to break to reach into our own universe and let our light dawn again.

Cracking ourselves is painful, but also the most healing measure.
Behind the shell is that part of us that makes us feel alive.
Behind that shell lies who we really are.
Don’t be afraid to start that journey.
Through pain we were born – through pain, we renew ourselves.

In Love and Light