being broken

The actual title of the blog post i ran across is, :"why being broken in a pile on your bedroom floor is a good idea."  I thought that might be terribly misleading incorporated into the title of a post on my blog, since it really has nothing to do with anything BDSM or even bedroomish. 

The post, which you can link over to a few times for free and after that you are asked to pay to become a member, talks about change, big change that shakes us up, breaks us apart, reduces us to a pile on our bedroom floor.  The post is long and has a lot of words, but is really worth the time; the words are put together nicely and the ideas are, for me at least, a good challenge to my thinking.

Everyone says they hate change.  Changes, big and small, good and bad, are the items always listed on those stress inventories.  People rarely complain about being stressed out by predictability, even keeledness or stability.  Certainly the males i am most closely related to and surrounded by in my life make a big big stink about change.  Times of transition around our house are palpably tenser and the boys just plain get weird.

I have a personal theory that women in general are more open to change, maybe because we adapt to more cycles in our physiology than men do; unpredictability is more inherent in our beings.  But there are types and magnitues of change that level us.  There are changes that bring loss, uncertainty, fear, terror, and even psychic paralysis.  Many women i think can relate to the image of lying broken on the floor under the crush of that kind of change.  Perhaps men can as well, although the men i know well react very differently, outwardly in any case. 

The post i refer to above talks about the power that is found in that state of brokeness.  It refers to a Hindu goddess whose name translates as "never not broken" or "always broken goddess."    This goddess derives her power from change - from the implications of change - from not being stuck in one path, one routine, one way.  Those same stress inventories that emphasize the toll of life changes should probably address the stress of being stuck, of feeling helpless, of loss of control or hope.  The whole point is that, when we are stuck in a job or relationship or situation that is bad for us, toxic, or dangerous, our power lies in breaking out of that - even if that requires being broken, which often it does.  

This goddess is always depicted riding a crocodile - the significance being that crocs live in a river which is always flowing, always changing.  Also they grab and pull their prey into the river - then spin and spin until it is disoriented and drowns.  The goddess uses this flowing and spinning to her use and her advantage.  Read the post - she explains so much better than i can.  It is so easy to see as true from the outside or in hindsight, but so very hard to see the use in spinning or the power and the potential in being broken from within the moment. 

My marriage - our marriage - wasn't broken.  But something compelled us to change anyhow.   Those changes did involve breaking apart, breaking down, and re-building.  I hope that we can keep ahold of that power, and not be afraid of change.