When you feel as though you’ve shattered apart at the very core of your being, it’s difficult to believe that there’s any upside to that experience.
Everything hurts, you can barely tell up from down, you may not be eating or sleeping, and all you thought you could rely on forever is suddenly gone.
Believe it or not, it’s precisely an experience like this that can pave the way to a different, but beautiful life the likes of which you cannot even imagine.
Here are nine very tangible ways that can happen:
1. Breaking down is often a means of breaking through.
Many years ago, I found myself having a complete breakdown in my hotel room about 1,000 miles away from home.
I was in another country on a work trip, and contributing factors such as lack of sleep and sensory overwhelm from the event I had been working at for days finally left me on the floor in a hysterical, sobbing heap.
I’d known for a long time that I wasn’t happy with my job, but it wasn’t until that exact moment that I was able to recognize just how much it had been damaging me.
The masks I’d been wearing had become unbearable. I’d been lying to myself about how much I enjoyed my career in PR, rather than acknowledging how awful it was for a neurodivergent introvert to have to pretend to be bubbly and extroverted all the time.
For me, that breakdown, though hard, was a breakthrough that allowed me to accept the truth of my situation so I could make healthier life choices from that day onwards.
2. Experiencing loss or pain can help you to focus on living authentically.
Sometimes, experiencing intense pain can put our lives into perspective. A terrible illness can prod us into action to do the things we’ve been setting aside for later, while a devastating loss can encourage us to pour energy into a direction that means a lot to us.
For example, a person who loses a loved one to illness may start a non-profit organization that helps to alleviate medical debt, prioritize a trip around the world, or finish their degree to achieve an important goal while they still have time to do so.
These actions don’t erase the loss we’ve experienced, and we shouldn’t minimize our suffering by forcing ourselves to find a “silver lining.” But many people find that pain, when it’s processed effectively, can be a powerful motivator that drives authentic living.
3. You learn a great deal from every difficulty you experience.
When you think about every awful thing you’ve experienced up until now, chances are you’ve learned something important from all of them, even if you’d much rather you hadn’t had to learn it that way.
For example, you may now be able to spot a covert narcissist from 100 yards away, or you know how to put together a nourishing meal from items you’ve foraged from the woods.
Much like when you’re playing a computer game, the experiences you accrue in life via battling opponents or getting through other challenges make you level up. Only without the cool sound effects.
Quite simply, a person who hasn’t experienced intense pain and hardship will have a difficult time reaching the same level as a Gandalf type who battled a Balrog and came back for more.
4. Shattered illusions bring immense, if painful, clarity.
One of the main reasons why having your life fall apart around you can be so painful is because you have to come to terms with the fact that you’ve been clinging to illusions of happiness for a really long time.
It’s agonizing to have to face the reality of real unhappiness when you’ve been putting a ton of effort into trying to make things work and convince yourself that you’re fulfilled.
For example, I once held a friend as he sobbed in my arms, asking how he was going to tell his wife and kids that he had always been gay and couldn’t continue the charade of their happy family life anymore.
It was by no means easy for him to do, or easy for his family to deal with, but they’re all living far more authentically now and have a healthy, supportive rapport with one another.
The same goes for the shattering of illusions when toxic relationship dynamics become clear, whether those are romantic, platonic, or familial.
When you begin to see a relationship for what it is, it can feel like your entire world is shattering.
But that clarity offers you the opportunity to have better relationships with people who are truly good to you. And what’s more, it allows you to have a better relationship with yourself, free from someone else’s harm.
5. Pain can be a powerful motivator for positive forward momentum.
For many people, experiencing deep pain such as grief from loss can help to propel them towards something positive, in time.
As an example, I know a woman who lost her home and her dogs in a wildfire that tore through the area where she lived. She was, of course, sad about the loss of her house, but losing her dogs broke something inside her.
After grieving the loss for a couple of years, she used the insurance payout for her home to buy a small farm and some land in another state.
Now she runs an animal rescue, where she saves dogs from high-kill shelters, as well as horses, goats, and many other animals. She’s still grieving her dogs, nearly seven years on, but she has made their memory a blessing and an inspiration to help vulnerable beings in need.
6. Breaking down includes destroying old habits that might have been holding you back.
In her book When Things Fall Apart, Tibetan Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön suggests that when we’re struggling with breakdowns and negativity, we do the following: “Rather than letting our negativity get the better of us, we could acknowledge that right now we feel like a piece of s**t and not be squeamish about taking a good look.”
That is, we should accept our feelings, but not let that prevent us from examining why we feel that way, and how we got to this point.
As such, when I look back upon some of the worst, most painful things I have gone through in my life, I can now recognize how I contributed to them rather than simply being a bystander.
To be clear, this isn’t about victim blaming. If someone has hurt you, that is absolutely on them, not you.
But in situations where we do have control, we sometimes contribute to our own suffering because we can’t always see the possible long-term consequences of our actions when we’re in the thick of it. Hindsight has a way of clarifying things for us, though.
It’s only by being able to recognize unhealthy habits or behavioral patterns that we can begin to stop repeating them. And for some people, experiencing difficulty is a powerful driver contributor to developing such self-awareness.
7. By cracking open, you may rediscover aspects of yourself to reconnect with.
There’s a certain magic to be found in time capsules that have been long buried — especially if you’ve filled and buried them yourself.
I remember finding a box of my childhood belongings in my dad’s closet after he died, and the memories that each little toy or drawing evoked. They reminded me of the child I had been, including the dreams and priorities I had at that young age.
When something inside you snaps, and you break open, the part of you that’s been a sealed time capsule for years often gets cracked open as well.
You may discover that the parts of you that you packed away or walled off are now illuminated for you to re-examine.
As a result, you may remember all the things repressed about yourself to keep others happy, and now want to embrace rather than hide away.
This may lead to a new hobby, career path, overseas move, or simply a degree of peace with yourself that you never thought possible.
8. When you’re near the bottom, the only direction that makes sense is up.
It may sound trite, but it’s quite true that when you’ve broken apart and are more mired in the muck than you could have ever thought possible, you can’t sink much further. Once you’ve gotten pretty low, there’s more up available than there is down.
As such, every slow step you take moves you further from that bog, and the newfound awareness that your experience has given you can keep you from sliding back there.
Pain and loss can grant you a new foundation to build upon, even if you would have preferred it wasn’t so hard-won.
Rather than being a clean slate, however, it’s an alloy of life experience, hard-won lessons, and pain that you’ve overcome in order to forge this new path forward.
Final thoughts…
Many people forget that it’s only by cracking apart that life can truly thrive. A fertilized egg has to break its own protective membrane in order to grow, and baby birds need to break their shells open in order to survive.
Pain will crack us and break us apart over and over again as we go through life, and we may feel like we’re being annihilated to the core. It’s often only by this process, however, that we can tap into our indestructible nature, find our true strength, and learn to fly.
