How to Reach the Breakthrough after a Breakdown

I remember standing outside a trendy vegan restaurant in Denver with a good friend and her partner who were in town waiting for a table. 

They seemed so happy, so chipper, so in love with each other and with life. 

On the other hand, I was feeling pretty terrible emotionally. My partner and I had recently moved to Denver with high hopes and brilliant dreams. The change was so refreshing at first.

But the change also brought up crises for both of us. Out of the blue, he started having mental health issues, which triggered a barrage of emotional junk for me, too.

I felt like we’d failed. We were supposed to be creating a bright, sparkling new life in a new city, but instead, we were struggling to stay afloat all the childhood traumas and repressed emotions that were gushing out all over what was supposed to be our happy new life.

Standing outside next to them, the juxtaposition just made me feel worse.

Trying not to cry and not having told many people, I explained the heartbreaking reality of our new life. 

My friend just looked at me and said something so incredible– Suzie, the breakthrough comes after the breakdown.

And she was totally right. 

An Essential Part of the Human Experience

Why do we have to go through hell just to get to the other side where we emerge as a more wise, weathered version of ourselves?

This phenomena is an essential part of our human experience on Earth.

We see countless analogies in nature. Diamonds are made under extreme pressure. Rocks become smooth and curved by raging rivers and flowing water over countless years. Pearls are made because oysters or clams get irritated from sand and secrete a fluid to ease the irritation.

In The Synchronicity Code, David Wilcock identifies this specific journey as the hero’s journey. He notes that this journey from naivety through challenge to transformation on the other side is the story arc of every successful movie and television show, ancient mythological stories and even historical cycles. 

I’m reminded of the Greek mythological story where we borrow the saying “a phoenix rising from the ashes.”

Martha Beck uses Dante’s Divine Comedy as the analogy of this transformation through fire that weaves through her recent book The Way of Integrity. She uses the story of Dante journeying through the depths of hell and purgatory until he reaches paradise as an analogy of the journey we have to take into the shadows of our psyche when we reach rock bottom in order to rise from the ashes on the other side to a more illuminating place.

Once we can recognize this phenomena in our own lives and the incredibly transformative effect it has on us, we can learn to look for the lesson and integrate it, faster. 

This helps us move through the crisis with more grace, gratitude and speed.

Embracing the Gifts found in the Breakthroughs

After the moment outside the vegan restaurant, it took me another full year to heal and do deep inner work. It was hard. I grieved a lot. I had to open up and make peace with childhood memories that I wanted to keep locked up forever. 

But I healed from codependent tendencies. I took responsibility for my own happiness and my own emotions. I also handed back the responsibility to make others happy and placated. I learned now to make boundaries and stop getting my self-worth outside of myself.

The breakthroughs I had were HUGE. I finally started seeing that the Universe sent my partner and I into a shit storm to become the people we needed to be to have the beautiful life we dream of.

When I had really integrated my lessons, I realized I’d made it through the other side with more compassion, acceptance, flexibility, strength and a centeredness in myself instead of other people.

Look Around– This Phenomena is Happening to Everyone!

Once I understood this phenomena of human transformation, I started seeing it in everyone around me.

I saw it with my partner who has completely transformed and grown up with me. And as we’ve integrated more compassion, empathy and inner peace, our relationship has miraculously transformed, too.

I see it with my friends who are also starting their own heart-centered businesses. All our obstacles, fears and self-doubt are coming up to be reckoned with, and eventually, discarded in exchange for courage and greatness.

I see it with my clients– I can see and feel their struggles. I intuitively know that their emotional and mental struggles are going to catapult them into the person they need to be to have the life they dream of. And I always communicate this to bring them some light in a dark place.

In a healing clinic last week, I healed a woman in her early 40s who was experiencing mysterious chronic pain and numerous health issues. Despite countless medical tests and doctors, she’s gotten no answers from traditional western medicine. 

She’s frustrated. She’s desperate. She’s in pain. She can’t do things she once could, like run marathons and enjoy a whole day out of the house.

And yet, she’s determined to find healing from alternative medicine and holistic healing. She’s exploring more subtle forms of healing that heal the emotional, mental and spiritual levels that she never bat an eyelash at before.

I intuitively felt like this was going to be the biggest blessing of her life somehow. I told her, “I’m so sorry that you’re in this situation. But I know that when you make it to the other side and you find the right healing solution for you that will bring you physical healing, you’ll hold that wisdom and be able to guide others who are in your situation now.”

I think in her difficult predicament, she had relief from this knowledge. That the breakthrough and her transformation will somehow have made the pain all worth it.

Now I ask you…

What breakthroughs have you gotten out of the lowest points of your life? 

How valuable were they? Do you still apply the wisdom you got out of it today?

In my experience, the intensity of dark situations offers beautiful diamonds in similar proportions.

If you’re ever in a dark pit of negative emotions surrounding a situation, like a crisis, low point or disaster plaguing your life, use these steps to access and integrate the breakthrough faster so you can get out of hell and into the light with ease and grace.

1. Take some time in silence in a peaceful place. Take a few deep breaths and get present in your body. 

2. Ask yourself: What is this trying to teach me? What qualities or messages or truths lie in the darkness?

It may not come right away. It’s hard to get perspective when you’re smack dab in the middle of storm. If that’s the case, just let it be. Just by asking the question, it’ll be floating in the back of your mind until the answers pops into your head when you least expect it.

3. When you get the answer, really take it in and acknowledge it. 

This is an essential step– if you don’t fully take in the lesson and integrate it, this crisis will come around again, with more intensity, until you finally integrate it into your being.

4. Ask yourself: How can I start implementing this into my life? What do I need to do differently from now on?

5. Start making the changes and do the necessary healing to make your way to the other side as a different person. 

Even though you’ve learned the lesson and you’re making your way out of the darkness to the other side, this part can be emotionally difficult.

This is often the part of the journey where emotions start coming up to finally be released. Grief is finally acknowledged and released as you leave behind old parts of yourself that don’t align with the person you’ve become.

This is where Pranic Healing and my energetic tools really served me. The energy healing helped me release faster and with less pain. I’m grateful that I got to the other side faster because of these incredible tools for emotional and mental healing. I feel so passionate about them, that, voila, here I am sharing these gifts as a living.

Self-care, self-love, slowing down, journaling, showing gentleness to yourself– these are all super important because you’ll feel emotionally sensitive as you release all the emotions from the present and past that were brought up from your crisis.

Give it time and treat yourself with the utmost love and care as you navigate the healing process.

6. When you’ve made it to the other side, ask yourself: How can I gift this wisdom to others who are in the situation I was in?

This step is extremely healing and heart-warming. It gives you the full insight, wisdom and understanding of the crisis you went through.

A lot of women I know have used their journey out of their depression, out of their OCD, out of their ill health to coach and inspire others in their own practices.

I’ve used my journey through unworthiness, self-doubt, insecurities and fear holding me back from living my dream life to create the transformational program, Heal & Feel Confident to Live Your Dream Life in 6 Weeks. I want to share Pranic Healing and the energetic tools I used to empower women just like me with the confidence, belief in themselves and freedom to move forward, accomplish their goals and start living the lives they dream of.

Some people start organizations. A woman I know is a survivor of domestic violence. Now she has a dream vision of opening up a women’s shelter to help others in the darkness she was in.

It doesn’t have to be so dramatic, either. Maybe in a random conversation someone expresses that they’re in a similar situation to where you were. You can offer your story and your wisdom to plant the seed of the breakthrough in them and be a guiding light.

The Universe tends to test you a few times after you’ve learned a lesson, just to make sure you’ve fully integrated it. 

By sharing your wisdom with others, the lesson of the breakthrough gets more deeply etched into you. So, you probably won’t find yourself in that dark place again. (Maybe another one with another lesson– but never this one!)

You’ll Carry the Gold with You Forever

Okay, if you made it this far in the post, I’m gonna get spiritual on you because that’s my modus operandi…

Your soul will take the wisdom of the breakthrough with it when it leaves the body at the end of this incarnation. You’ll carry this lesson/wisdom/knowledge through your many future lives. 

That breakthrough delivered gold that your soul will carry with it forever. At the end of this life, you won’t take your money. You won’t take your material things. You won’t even take your mind. But you will take the lessons you learned. If that isn’t gold, I don’t know what is.

How freaking beautiful is that??

And that’s why you came here– to experience life and it’s infinite perspectives, and gain the knowledge and wisdom that you didn’t have before. And the infinite journey of evolution continues for all of us just like this.

With the New Year Approaching…

I wish you so much joy, happiness, prosperity and good health!

I also wish you incredible breakthroughs full of wisdom and lessons that will transform yourself and others!

And I wish you so much ease, love, comfort and rapid progression through any breakdowns or crises you have that challenge you at your core.

In the thick of it, just remember what my friend told me– The breakthrough comes after the breakdown!

So much love, light and blessings to you, thank you so much for reading this!!

Suzie