Broken Open--My Messy Beautiful

This essay and the Honest Mom Project are part of the Messy, Beautiful Warrior Project — To learn more and join us, CLICK HERE! And to learn about the New York Times Bestselling Memoir Carry On Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life, just released in paperback, CLICK HERE!

For many of us, this has been a seemingly endless winter. As April spreads its sunny weeks before me, I start to see, and feel, the fringes of a season change. Light fills the room of my evening yoga classes a little longer each day, the sun creating criss-cross patterns across my mat. 

About a month ago I was taking one of these classes with one of my favorite teachers who tapped her practice into the season change, describing the coming of spring as a time of “breaking open”—winter “breaking open” to spring, spring to summer, and the visual struck me as both violent and kind. 

A woman about seven months pregnant was practicing a few rows ahead of me. At the end of class I overheard my teacher asking her when it would be time for her “breaking open.” Fifteen or sixteen weeks pregnant at the time and not quite showing yet, I thought silently about her question. In six-month time, I too, would be broken open, the visual both violent and (after nine months of lending your body to another being) kind. 

Our lives, dictated by the seasons, are built upon a foundation of “broken open” moments, some painful, some of which bring with them immense joy. After a decade of battling breast cancer, after a decade of persevering and refusing to allow herself to ever be defeated by the disease, a time came when my mother got really sick, and would not recover. Those dark days in brightly lit hospital hallways were endless and raw. My husband described that time as the wound wide open, broken open, red and angry and untouchable. In the days after my mother passed, he described it as a time in which that wound could now slowly close, a stitch for every year that passes. I still think about his beautiful analogy often, and how right he was in understanding how we heal, and our capacity to feel whole again after pieces of ourselves have been broken open. 

In September, there is a new “breaking open” waiting for us. But instead of a wound, it’s a broken open body, a broken open heart, as we make space for new life. I think about how everything will change, be rearranged and turned upside down. I think about how grateful I am for this opportunity to be vulnerable, and frightened, and joyful, and scared, all at once. 

I’ve carried my teacher’s words with me these past few weeks, unable to let them go. I think about the cherry blossoms in downtown Washington, D.C., a mile away from my home, blooming now after a stalled “breaking open,” their pink-pedaled glory peaking for a fleeting few days, their short window a violent show of color, a kind reminder that spring, and change, and new life, are finally here.

Springtime blossoms in Washington, D.C.

   -Yaz
We're giving a way a free copy of Glennon's book, Carry On, Warrior. To enter to win, share this blog on your social media pages and tag @thehonestmomproject.