the willingness to fall apart

Hey, fellow human.

There’s something I notice a LOT in my coaching practice. I see it happening with friends and family and people around me. Even more importantly, I’ve experienced it myself.

It’s the fear of falling apart.

At some point or other, we all need and want help…because we’re human and shit happens in life, and that makes life difficult. But we don’t want to fall apart, be vulnerable, and share our deepest, most painful feelings.

And the tension between suffering and not wanting to fall apart means we avoid, postpone, or put off reaching out for help.

I want to make a case for being willing to fall apart…because real relief and healing can’t truly start until we slow down and acknowledge where we are.

Let me share my story.

In my late 30s I went through a divorce. All things considered, it was amicable. We used a mediator, so we avoided expensive attorneys. My ex and I didn’t have kids, so there were no custody issues. And because over the course of our 12-year marriage we’d become two very different people, splitting up our stuff didn’t take us long and was without acrimony.

Still, our divorce marked the end of an 18-year relationship that we’d started as undergrads at the same small college. I initiated the split. My ex didn’t want to divorce. Despite the guilt and sadness I felt in seeing his hurt, I felt clear in my decision. I was excited to start my life over, but I also felt extremely defensive. I felt the need to justify my decision to friends and family.

I received nothing but support from my family. Friends were split down party lines…I lost the friends that were closest to him, and kept the ones who were closest to me. As would be expected.

Despite my newfound empowerment, I felt terribly guilty. I avoided any interaction in which I might be challenged on my decision to leave the marriage.

I can’t remember whether anyone advised me to get therapy at that time. If they had, I wouldn’t have listened. There was a hidden river of pain flowing under the surface of my life….and it was so strong that it seemed I’d die if I slowed down long enough to feel it.

So instead of facing the guilt and sadness, I kept myself busy building my new life. It felt like my only option.

Fast forward a couple of years. While I’d built a pretty solid existence for myself…a nice apartment, a genuine circle of friends and a thriving career, I still felt a hollow ache at my core. Getting divorced had never felt like a mistake…but the way I left the relationship left a lot to be desired.

There was a lot between my ex and I that was unprocessed. I felt sadness for dreams that had never materialized and friendships lost. I felt a general sense of failure.

When I wasn’t thinking about it, I was OK…sometimes I was even happy. But then something would remind me of the past, and the pain and grief would flood in.

So a couple of years after my divorce, I was in a not-so-healthy place. I was desperately dating with the hope of finding someone special, settling down, and enjoying the kind of partnership that I’d always wanted. After all, my biological clock was ticking.

There was a problem though: I kept dating the wrong people. And I was unbalanced…needy one minute, bitchy the next. I’d experience big emotional swings at the drop of a hat.

Seriously…I feel bad for the people who dated me during this time. I was a hot mess. I was nowhere near being the kind of partner that I was hoping to find.

It began to dawn on me that I’d never actually shared my deep feelings of grief and guilt with anyone. Instead, I’d tucked them away and hoped that being busy and social and working harder would make the pain go away.

But the pain didn’t go away…in fact, it festered and grew like an infection.

It wasn’t until 2 years after my divorce that I finally sought help. I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I needed to share my pain. My guilt. My fears. My sadness and shame.

I didn’t land on the perfect practitioner right away. It took some time and experimentation to find someone who I felt comfortable and safe with. But I did find her. And from our first conversation I knew that she could really listen. She could hear me without judgment. What’s more, she gently helped me explore what I could learn from my divorce…with a lot of self-compassion.

After my work was complete with this practitioner, I found another. And then eventually another. All of the people who’ve helped me have been women, but that wasn’t necessarily intentional…these women just happened to come along for me at the right time. I felt so comfortable with them.

My first three practitioners weren’t therapists…they were coaches and alternative mental health practitioners. They did amazing work. My current practitioner is a therapist and she’s incredible as well.

Initially, it was scary to open up to a stranger. It was hard to share my feelings and my deepest, darkest worries and fears.

But almost immediately, I felt a huge wave of relief…like a gigantic pressure valve had been opened.

When I held it all inside, I was a mess. I felt like I was the worst person in the world.

When I shared what I was feeling, I felt heard and validated. I felt witnessed. I was no longer alone.

Releasing all of that pressure inside of me created an internal calm that hadn’t been there in a long time. It gave me some space. I felt clearer and more coherent.

I’m not saying that one conversation solved all of my issues…but showing up for those conversations week after week felt good. I became healthier. I was less desperate to grasp for things outside of myself to feel better.

Honestly, I became ME again.

Ever since I sought help, I’ve understood that everyone needs someone…a professional, a practitioner, whether a therapist or coach, energy healer or shaman.

We all have stuff, and that stuff needs to be witnessed. A compassionate witness helps us look at it and move it through us. And honestly, though we may be surrounded by good listeners in the form of friends and family, I think it’s important to have someone to talk with who is NOT your friend or family member. Someone who is caring but also neutral.

So that’s my argument for having a mental health professional who you trust. In fact, I make this statement frequently on social media and lots of people chime in in agreement.

But in reality, here’s what I see:

People are buried under the weight of their own pain, and although they want to feel better, something keeps them from actually working through it with someone.

Most of the time it’s not about money or cost. A lot of insurances cover therapy sessions. And therapists and coaches range widely in price. Working with someone, even if you’re paying out of pocket, doesn’t have to be expensive.

I also don’t think it’s a lack of good practitioners that keeps people from getting the help they need and deserve.

I think it’s the fear of falling apart that keeps most people from making a connection and starting the work.

I think that a lot of us are maintaining a facade of busy-ness, work, achievement, and social interaction, but underneath is a raging river of grief, guilt, sadness and loneliness.

Our culture encourages us to have it all together, to only tell the happy stories, to only show the shiniest parts of our lives. Not having it together can feel isolating and shameful…

even though not having it together is a part of the human condition.

And even though mental and emotional health care is more accessible than ever, we have a long way to go to truly normalize care for every person.

I think a lot of people who are suffering think they need to ‘figure it out for themselves.’

But it doesn’t work that way. When you break a bone you don’t stay home and ‘figure it out for yourself.’ You go get treatment so it will heal. Because until that bone is set and the healing process is started, it’s going to keep you from fully living.

As a coach in private practice, people regularly reach out and connect with me. They share their story and their desire to feel better. They even decide that this work is right for them and make plans to start…and then they suddenly disappear.

Why is this? Because deciding to get help is only the first step. You have to be willing to show up and face what’s in you. And sometimes that feels scary and overwhelming.

Committing to show up for yourself is the difficult part.

When I finally began working on my own healing, I fell apart. Over and over again. In the presence of a practitioner who was there to catch me.

Falling apart wasn’t fun, but there was always relief on the other side. Making a commitment to show up and fall apart was necessary. Because it wasn’t until I’d fallen apart completely that I could rebuild. And when I started rebuilding, it was true and strong. I was rebuilding on a solid foundation. It wasn’t graspy or needy. It was organic.

When I look back on my journey, learning how to fall apart was the best thing I did for myself. It cleared the space for my new life to come into focus. I still fall apart on a semi regular basis. I actually kind of enjoy it now! To fall apart sometimes is to be a healthy human.

I want to say it again: falling apart is human…and normal.

It’s the way we release the built-up internal pressure and deactivate our old, hurtful stories. So that we can breathe again. So we can move forward feeling like ourselves.