The Art of Breaking

“When I feel numb I'll let you know,
I won't become what I was before,
You cannot kill what's not your creation,
This is the Art of Breaking”

I think that too often we fall back into the same patterns when we become hurt. We get numb and cold toward everyone around us, our emotions shut down and we put a plastic expression on our face to get us through the day. Some of us even go on a downward spiral, doing anything to alleviate and thaw the numbness that possesses us. Our past vices, things that we thought we let go of, destructive behaviors—they all come back. We feel the need to drown our sorrows in drink, hurt ourselves physically, or satiate our loneliness with pointless sex. Sometimes we stop eating or stop sleeping, just because they are the only things that we feel that we have control over. The problem though is that we are allowing people and situations to have too much control over us and our feelings.

Hatred and hurt never benefit us, they only tear us apart. They are the seeds that other people plant in us with cruel words that are aimed to destroy who we are. When others are angry, they think of our weaknesses and flaws and aim directly at those sore spots so they can break us. Their sole purpose is to hurt us, and when we hang on to those words and allow them to penetrate into our hearts, we are helping them achieve their goal. What we need to remember is that other people really have no say in our lives; they “cannot kill what’s not their creation.”

We let people into our lives because we trust them to be there through thick and thin, yet this is too high an expectation. In all honesty, there isn’t a single person on this earth that doesn’t have flaws, that doesn’t get angry, that doesn’t say hurtful things when they are upset. We need to be forgiving of this behavior, but we shouldn’t allow them to wound us with what they say. Yes they are important to us, yes it hurts when they are critical and condescending, yes it feels like the world is ending when they are screaming at us, yelling, even hitting. Still, we need to take their power over us away, only we should have that much control over how we think and how we feel.

When we “break” we often feel as though there is nothing for us anymore, but this isn’t true. “The Art of Breaking” is the cycle that we go through. We do get numb and bitter and bottle up our emotions. This is part of healing that is critical to us as humans, but our job is to make sure that we don’t let this process destroy our lives. We need to take control and see that others cannot kill our spirit. We also need to make the promise to ourselves that we will not go back down any of the destructive paths we have taken in the past.

It definitely is a challenge, realizing when the mood we are in isn’t because of things we have done ourselves. It’s very important for us to work through our own emotions and know exactly what we are feeling. If someone has hurt you, I challenge you not to let it affect your life in a negative way, don’t let them win. Instead, use it as an experience to become stronger and move to a brighter stage in your life. When you take away their power over you, you lift a heavy burden off of your own shoulders and begin to feel free. You feel more assertive, more in control, and start to envision new futures, brighter futures, that you never in your life could imagine when you were held down by them.

There is room in our lives for other people, love, and deep friendships, but these things should never control us more than our own dreams and aspirations. We are the champions of our own lives, and we have the power to become whatever it was we had dreamed of becoming as children. Our experiences strengthen us, help us learn more about who we are and help shape us into people who stand up not only for those they love, but themselves as well.