We Are Never Not Broken, Episode 41
In our work as integral development coaches, we draw on stories, metaphors, characters and myths to open up worlds of possibility with our clients. This week we explore a narrative that is deeply aligned with both Turning Towards Life and thirdspace coaching and which expresses the the invitation present in our work.
In this episode - the possibilities of knowing ourselves both as perfect, and always unfinished, broken, incomplete. We consider the life-giving possibilities of owning up to our messiness, and the opportunities for deepened contact with ourselves and with others when we do so. And we explore the way our attempts to look as if we have it all together (does anyone, really, have it all together?) add unnecessary suffering and difficulty to our lives.
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And you can find our more about our work as thirdspace coaching here.
Never Not Broken
Akhilandeshvari, The Goddess of Never Not Broken, represents the kind of things that people shy away from. You may have bumped into her occasionally hidden in the dark alleyways of life, but turned your gaze away. You've likely fallen into her embrace once or twice: in hospitals, at work, watching the news, or in your car, but broke away as quickly as possible.
She's the kind of goddess you don't want to take home to meet your mother -- she'd give your mother nightmares. But her power is unparalleled.
Pronounced ah-kee-LAN-desh-va-ree, "Akhilandeshvari" translates as "Never Not Broken." She shows us the power and opportunity of being broken into pieces by heartache, disaster, great fortune, and other life changes and traumas.
However she takes this to the furthest extreme, purposefully keeping herself broken wide open, allowing herself to flow with every current, creating and fragmenting and recreating herself endlessly. She steadfastly refuses to paste herself together into a stable form, shunning the limitations that she'd have to abide and the false identities that would hide reality.
She rides on a crocodile: the very survival-fear that keep most of us chained to the known and routine is her flying carpet!
She is not controlled by the need to keep her identity consistent, or even alive.
She dances and spins and breaks herself into shards of light, tossing out new possibilities for herself like flower petals from a cherry tree.
The goddess Never-Not-Broken promises that the greatest magic is in the transformative moments: the heartbreak, the uncertainties, the pause before we hit the ground... and what we do with ourselves after we land.
She is the goddess of Surrendering to Change, and we are getting to know her well these days.
It's normal to fear and resist change, but Akhilandeshvari whispers to us also of freedom — liberation from the past, from habits and wounds, from stifling routines, from everything that once was good but has become a burden or a prison.
Liberation, indeed, from all the illusions of the ego.
She is, in the same instant, the personification of destruction and rebirth. But not like Kali the Destroyer who levels us all with her sword. Akhilandeshvari yields to the destruction of herself, her ego and self-identity, so that she can remain in contact with truth -- the Divine Source that is manifesting Itself as one individual”.**
**Edited for the purpose of our Turning Towards Life Sunday morning broadcast from this website where you can read more.
Photo by Scott Rodgerson on Unsplash