I’ll be broken til I’m dead…

When I was 18 and in my partying prime, I’d been at a party in the bush all night. When it was time to leave I felt this annoying weird thing on my neck, I showed my friend and we concluded it was some kind of scab or something that I had scratched the shit out of during the night. When I got home I put a band aid on it, had a 10 minute nap and went to work, like a proper 18 year old. While I was at work my hands were swelling up and I felt a bit dizzy…I figured it was alcohol poisoning from the horrific amount of goon I’d drunk.

After I finished work I went to see another friend and she wanted to see the disgusting scab that was under the band-aid. I pulled off the band-aid to show her and she was freakin’ disgusted to realize a tick was burying himself in my neck. Gnarly and gross, I know.

I had put a band-aid over the tick and encouraged it to go deeper.

Just as I have done in the past, when I’ve found myself feeling scared or lonely or hurt, I’ve put a band-aid on it and allowed it to bury deeper.

In the context of issues or shit coming up for us if we come from a place of frustration, of resistance we don’t get far. It is when we can ACCEPT our issues, our mistakes and our imperfections as part of our growth that we can CHOOSE how we would prefer to feel.

See, there is this Hindu Goddess, Akhilandeshvari. Her name translates to ‘never not broken’.

My interpretation of the Goddess may be a little different to some. But you know what draws me to her, why I see myself in her and her in me? It’s the fact that admitting that you are never not broken is kind of a no fucks given attitude.

Understanding and believing that we are never not broken is a freakin’ relief. At times we will feel less than joyful, and those moments, those feelings, those days give us the power to face our fears and chase our dreams.

It is from that incredible, exposed, open and vulnerable place that we can chose to elegantly navigate our way through the shitstorm and over to the sunshine. We don’t have to strive for enlightenment! Fuck that, I’ll be enlightened when I’m dead, thank you! All we need is the tools, the vulnerability and the grace to navigate our way through our deepest fears and darkest thoughts.

When something comes up for us, when we feel shitty, putting a band-aid over it and pretending it isn’t there allows the tick to bury deeper. Then you go from having a tick to having swollen hands and dizzy spells. You need to get the tweezers out and pluck that little fucker out of your neck before he has the opportunity to affect the rest of your life. You’ve gotta cultivate the freakin’ courage within to face the issue as soon as you recognize it.

It is when I am reminded that I am never not broken that I find relief. I am never not broken, it is never done, I’ll never be enlightened, forever a work in progress. Forever navigating my way through the shitstorm. Feeling out the cluster fuck that is in my mind. Feeling it because I know it brings immediate relief while knowing I don’t need to be fixed. Akhilandeshvari.

I know my issues are popping up, the beliefs that no longer serve me are beginning to stand out, rearing their ugly yet strikingly beautiful heads, but I am not afraid run into the shitstorm. I am not afraid to face the little cunts and win a stare off. I am not afraid to grab the tweezers and go for it. And while I’m calling them cunts I have a ferocious love for those little fuckers, for if they weren’t there this wouldn’t be life. If they weren’t popping up now I would be living my life with them burying deeper, dancing in my subconscious, poisoning my mind as the tick was poisoning my body.

What a fucking beautiful way to live. Waiting for the fuckers to pop up so I can dive into the issue and feel my way out and onto the next.

When you are broken, you are powerful. Forget about fixing yourself and focus on accepting. And when you fail to accept, accept that.

Never not broken, kind of baddass right?