HOW BREAKING DOWN CAN BE BUILDING YOU UP

Breaks suck. 
BreakUPs especially suck. 

But I want to tell you that every time --- every single breakup or breakdown in your life, love or relationships --- is building you up. 

Breaks come in many different guises. The big ones often look like this:

Ending a relationship.

Getting laid off from a job.

Moving house or moving to a new city. 

An illness or injury. 

But there can be little breaks that feel just as powerful.

Patterns, people or things that have been there, holding us or supporting us in a way we've come to count on (whether or not we are happy in them), which suddenly leave us. 

Strongly-held assumptions of outcomes, opportunities or meanings, which turn out to be completely different than those assumptions.

Anything that surprises us --- that comes either when we feel we're "not looking" or when we simply don't want it --- can feel like a sharp break. 

And even when they're really small things, they can totally rock our worlds. 

As an example, here's the teeny-tiny, but HUGELY impactful 'break' that happened for me this weekend. 

For a long, long time -- over 15 years -- I've had a nameplate necklace. 

Y'know like the one that Carrie wore constantly in Sex and the City? 
One of those. 

And my nameplate and I were just as inseparable. 

I never took it off -- with the exception of a massage, surgery, or other physical experience which required its removal. 

Otherwise, it was always on. 

I slept in it. Showered in it. Worked out in it. Had sex in it (sometimes getting in the way of kissing my man, but I didn't take it off).

"Heather."

It was me. 
It was constant.
It shone bright gold, reflecting on the walls or on the car dashboard when the sun hit it just right. 

It started conversations. 
It allowed for personal interactions with strangers. 
It sat there, forever resting on my collarbones, a light and reassuring weight. 

And this weekend, while I was shooting a wedding, it broke. 

And I'm talking, BROKE. 
Not the chain, but the nameplate --- cleanly in two pieces. 

"Heath."

"Er."

It honest to God took me 2 minutes of staring into my hand to register that it had really broken.

It was ME --- my nameplate necklace, this thing that had (as far as I was concerned, even if it sounds over-dramatic) represented who I was for basically half of my life --- broken in two. 

Normally, a few years ago, I would have either frantically found someone to repair it as soon as humanly possible, or even more frantically ordered a replacement and had it rush-shipped to my door.

But somehow, I'm different. 

Life is different. 

There are MANY more significant and momentous "breaks" I've already been moving confidently through:

• I have left the comfort of a 9-to-5 job for the insecurity, uncertainty, and unknown of entrepreneurship. 
• ...and an uncommon and "weird" entrepreneurial venture, at that.
• I have dropped protections and pretenses that made me feel safe, and I've opened my heart, and continually work on opening my soul (that stuff that always feels so scary to share), to a man who never fails to (pleasantly) surprise me with his ability to see them, hold them, and help them feel safe. 
• I have abandoned the 30-year security blanket of birth control to open my life, my heart, my body and my soul to create a family.

Still, this seemingly small 'break' felt HUGE to me. 

I texted a handful of my closest, most magical ladies in my Tribe and asked: 
"I know this necklace breaking is meaningful somehow... But I need someone to mirror this one for me." 

I couldn't quite put words to what I knew was staring back at me from this broken, golden pendant in my hand. 

And my Tribe didn't disappoint --- I had immediate, supportive, reflective and beautiful NEW truths wrapped around me immediately:

Let go. You're not alone anymore. It's not just you now. YOU'RE not just you now.
You no longer need to be told who you are -- you know. You've fully found yourself.
Later, Heather. Hello Goddess. 
 

And from the second I read the first text, I was sobbing. 
Big, ugly, gasping, gulping, can't-breathe, can-hardly-see, something-coming-up-from-DEEP-within-me sobs. 

Something big was shifting in me. A new truth. 

My new truth. 
It wasn't just about the nameplate necklace. 

And I'm not just about me anymore. 

I'm about love. 
I'm about my partnership.
I'm about creating my family. 
I'm about holding and guiding others in the service of Love. 
I'm about sharing this message so others can realize THEIR truths.

It's much, much bigger than just me. 

I breathed deeeeeeeply into this new truth, and focused on bringing in the new, releasing the old, with each breath.

AND THAT MEANS IT'S TIME FOR A NEW NECKLACE.

>>> <<< 

What are your breaks --- big or super-small --- what are they showing you? What are they helping to move you into? 

What are you having to let go of right now? Where are you feeling pain, resistance or discomfort?

Where are you being confronted with a reaffirming, reassuring or even uncomfortable truth of who you are and your path right now?

Where are you feeling called to shed previous assumptions, thoughts, feelings, ways of being, lifestyles, patterns or people --- and move confidently into who you know you are, what you know is right for you, for your greatest joy?

And how can I help you mirror and support your breakthroughs, your new truths for you? 

I'd love to hear from you!! 
Hit reply, and share what you're taking away from this message! :)