Breakthrough or Break-ing?

Do we get a choice?

How do we turn our breaking moments, our broken feelings, into a life changing or life-affirming breakthrough? Is this something in our power to do or, like a bull lead by a ring in the nose, are we powerless in life's clutches?

In the oppressive systems that steer the ship we live in, we feel powerless, by design and by their nature. How can a breakthrough be possible we faced with poverty or homelessness due to late-stage capitalism and lack of personal resources? How can a life-affirming change take place when engulfed in the grief of the likelihood of developing a killer disease that will rob you of your dreams and life too soon? Can a breakthrough change everything when forced to carry an unwanted or dangerous pregnancy to term because life-saving procedures are banned in your state? Is it selfish or self-centered to want to breakthrough in your personal life, your personal loneliness or fear, when people in Sudan or Gaza are afraid for their actual lives?

I believe YES AND.

Reflecting back to my previous post on grief, I believe this is our next step. Learning how to experience a breakthrough in the breaking, finding the resources, support, and personal resilience.

Breakthroughs often come when we are broken, but it takes time, support, and intention to get there. My favorite astrologer, Chani, released a new course called breakthrough. Designed to support us we try to support ourselves, and each other, through life's current personal, community, and world events. Some of the questions she asks as we hone our attention in where we are trying to turn out breaking into breakthrough are these:

What am I most afraid of never having?

What am I most afraid of never being or becoming?

What am I most afraid of never receiving?

She wraps up the exercise with creating a mantra or "mission statement": With this course, I will have a breakthrough around __________ so I will manifest the ___________ I need.

I wonder about using this statement in therapy, if it would be helpful for clients to have this statement as they focus on their own breaking and breakthroughs. In therapy, I will have a breakthrough around...

...grieving a loss (personal, community, world) that will then allow me to live and love again.

...radical acceptance (of circumstances past or present, what I can and can't control, the feelings related to that)

...feeling my feelings, not avoiding them, knowing how to handle them.

...staying in a relationship or leaving, allowing me to make the best choice for now to live my life.

...my traumatic experiences in life, however big or small they may be, so that I can live my life without reminders.

What is breaking you? How do you want to make it a breakthrough?

You can access the Chani course here: Barriers be gone: Your Breakthrough is about to begin.