Beautifully Broken

www.jerichochambers.com

When I started this blog, I tried hard to publish something at least every other week...I think because I had so much to say, and sharing it felt so urgent. Clearly, I have gotten away from that level of frequency, and it's not that I haven't had anything to write about...it's more that I haven't been able to find the most effective way to write about what has been going on for me. I feel as though I need a degree of separation from things in order to write about them clearly, and that separation hasn't happened yet, so the words haven't come. I say this not as an apology for not writing, but more as an explanation as to why I haven't been on the blog as much lately.





But then, last weekend happened, and words started to come.

I had the privilege of attending a workshop led by the amazing Laura McKowen, whom I have raved about quite a bit on this blog, and Holly Whitaker, whom I have talked about less but who is no less fabulous. These two women do incredibly important work in the recovery world; both are in sobriety and are also in recovery from eating disorders. They are impassioned writers, speakers, and yoga people, and I am a little bit (or a lot) of a groupie, so I took my yoga-ambivalent self to a yoga studio and practiced yoga for four hours, just to learn from them. (Okay, there was writing involved, too, which is more my jam.)

The title of the workshop was, "Never Not Broken," and it centered on the premise that we have each been broken open by various life situations, and we will bear those cracks for the rest of our lives...but instead of weakening us, our brokenness makes us stronger and wiser. I was attracted to this idea because I view my life into very clearly divided "before" and "after" segments: "before," being before I developed an eating disorder my freshman year in college, and "after," being everything after my last hospitalization in 2007 (I call the in-between years, "the mess").  I visualize "before" and "after" through two photographs that sit on my parents' coffee table--one of me as a senior in high school, the other of me graduating from college. When I look at my high school senior self, I see her smile as genuine, the gleam in her eyes as a sign of her full life and endless hope, for she has no idea what's coming. The photo of me as a college senior, I hate. I look at that version of myself and I know my smile is fake; my eyes masking how trapped I felt in my body, in my mind, in my misery. For most of my time in recovery, I have wanted desperately to get back to the way I was "before." Why can I not be happy anymore? I often wonder. Instead, I'm stuck being this broken thing. Put back together, yes, but still cracked in ways that I haven't figured out how to repair.

Before the workshop started, I anticipated that I would spend most of it brooding over all the broken, shattered parts of me, and maybe I would even cry, which would be a huge breach of my "no public displays of emotion" rule. But somewhere around hour three, a weird thing happened. We were journaling in response to the prompt, "What do You Want?" and I realized that although there are still some things I desire but have yet to achieve, I actually have a lot of good things in my life. I have the most fulfilling job I could ask for; I get to do what I love and I know I am making a difference. My "work family" is close-knit and supportive. Through my Jewish education, I have made dear friends in Israel who nurture me in ways that no one else does. My parents and I have great relationships with each other. I am living on my own and paying my own bills, driving around in a car that I own, with enough money saved to allow me to plan for a future child. All told, I am actually not doing too badly. And admitting this was new to me, because my usual line of thinking is to focus on the negative...but sitting there in that workshop, I was able to really see all the vitality I have built into my life, and that I have achieved successes that were absolutely not possible a decade ago.

I pondered this as I lay on my mat, listening to Laura's calm voice easing us into the final restorative pose. Then, from the speakers, I heard familiar tune begin to play...the lyrics came:

I heard there was a sacred chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord...

Yup. She played Hallelujah. She played LEONARD COHEN.

There I was on my mat, with a big old grin on my face, because THIS WAS A WORKSHOP ABOUT BROKENNESS AND SHE'S PLAYING LEONARD F**KING COHEN (no disrespect intended).

Leonard Cohen, the iconic Jewish singer and songwriter, penned the following lyrics about human brokenness:

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in.

We are all broken in some ways, some of us more than others, but we all bear at least a few cracks bequeathed upon us by the world and our own psyches. The challenge, as with any perceived weakness, is to learn how to leverage it to one's advantage. I know that I, personally, have gained enormous insight into myself and others from having gone through everything I've endured, much of which was excruciatingly painful while it was happening. I might not ever return to that innocent teenager I was before the eating disorder, the one who grins out from that high school senior photo. But I am damn sure more in tune with my emotions, more able to empathize with others, and more able to manage the demands of the world than she ever was. It was a trade I was never asked if I wanted to make; I was never given the choice of opting out.  Brokenness can't work that way, because who would ever elect to be split open? Not I. But there were lessons I needed to learn, that I am still learning, and so I was given the pain and the blessing of being broken to my core.

At the end of the workshop, Laura and Holly herded all 50 of us into a circle, and we did the "go-around": say your name, where you're from, and one thing you're taking away from today. Every single person in the room had been touched by addiction, and many were in the beginning stages of recovery. Some people shared from a place of strength, others from a place of insecurity, but the underlying current was vulnerability.

Vulnerability sounded like the man who had just begun sobriety and said, "I'm on day 28."

It was the woman who ventured, "I'm an alcoholic. I've never actually said that before."

It came through in the voice of a young woman who shared about her suicide attempt.

It was the person who admitted, "I don't actually know anyone in recovery."

And as I sat there listening and waiting for my turn, I could see my self of ten years ago mirrored back to me in my fellow participants' words. I remembered the first time I ever said, "I am anorexic," and how exhilarating was that release, and how terrifying the admission. I remembered my "day one" in my first treatment program, where I finally found comfort among other people who understood the way my brain functioned and the twisted logic by which I lived my life. I remembered meeting my first recovered person, and how powerful that encounter was. I remembered all the times I had gone to bed, wishing that I would sleep forever. And I knew, sitting in that circle, that I wasn't there anymore. I had done the work and was still doing it. And I had a lot to be proud of.

The truth is, I still go through periods of depression, where I feel like I honestly might not make it through the day. I sometimes still find that when I am stressed or in periods of transition, my first instinct is to micro-manage my food as a release. I am socially anxious, extremely introverted, and yet often feel starved for genuine connection. All of those cracks are real. But I know how to navigate them and to avoid the traps they set. I prefer to view my current self as one who has been made stronger for having been broken.

The Japanese have a practice of putting broken pottery back together by sealing the cracks with lacquer mixed with gold dust. The artist Barbara Bloom explains:

www.simplyblessed.heartsdesire.com

"When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold. They believe that when something's suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful." 

That's us, lovelies. Never not broken. And growing more beautiful all the time.