The Goddess of Being Broken

Some cracks don’t need fixing-- they need to be seen.

I became a life coach to help women navigate life’s unpredictabilities--its challenges, its struggles. I wanted to help them build an emotional safety net that they would feel within themselves, instead of looking outward for it. I wanted to be for them what I was seeking for myself--someone who would understand me, help make sense of the noise in my head, and who would help me give voice to what lay deep within so I could claim the life I actually wanted. Becoming a life coach was becoming what I needed most.

I’ve faced many challenges in my life. By some measures, they might seem small, but in the context of my own journey, they were everything I had to endure and learn from. And yet, how often do we chastise ourselves for feeling the weight of our struggles; comparing ourselves to others whose pain seems greater, wondering who we are to even admit we are hurting? From expectations that left me feeling deeply disconnected from myself, to personal and professional pressures, to health struggles and the intense fear that I wasn’t even allowed to admit I was unhappy for fear of being seen as ungrateful, these were like the emotional Lego building blocks that kept getting stacked higher and higher.

Each expectation, fear, and pressure stacked over time, would eventually collapse under their own weight, leaving me in a heap on my bedroom floor in my flat in London. It was only in that bent-over state, in floods of tears, that the need to hold everything together was outweighed by the force of feelings that refused to be held in. I couldn't hold everything together. Not anymore. The cracks were wide and I had no choice but to seek guidance--a way through, and a way to understand what the pieces left behind were trying to tell me.

It's no surprise I’ve always been drawn to the stories of people and the moments that define their evolution; moments some call failures, moments of being “broken,” but that actually become turning points, shaping them into stronger, more honest versions of themselves. Through them I tried to understand what I was feeling. Through them I was seeking validation that there wasn't anything wrong with me but that this was indeed part of the road map to peace within.

Then one day I came across the story of Akhilandeshvari.

Akhilandeshvari, I came to learn, is the Hindu goddess of being broken. Well, sort of. Literally translated from Sanskrit, her name means Goddess of the Universe. She embodies all of creation, in which being “whole” is never static. Life is always shifting, and what feels whole can fracture. Her wholeness contains all the cracks and breaks; in totality, it includes impermanence and fragility—its transitions, endings, grief, and transformations. Everything she holds is impermanent, and through what breaks, if we see the opportunity in it, she knows we will discover what makes us whole.

According to legend dating as far back from 600BC, Akhilandeshvari rides a crocodile through the rivers of life because of what the crocodile represents: fears and turbulence. A crocodile doesn’t kill with sharp teeth-- it drags its prey under, spins it until disoriented, and drowns it; much like life when it rips the ground from under our feet. Akhilandeshvari’s power was not in avoiding this chaos, but in entering it fully, riding with it to take her where she needed to go. She understood that necessary change would only come from within the shattered pieces. That strength wouldn't come from the constraints of what is but only through rebuilding are we given the chance to see ourselves clearly, to reflect, and to become more honest about who we truly are and how we want to live.

In The Sutra Journal , Laura Amazzone explains Akhilandeshvari's powers this way: "Akhilandeshwari dwells in the space between who we were and who we are becoming. She breaks our rigidity, our calcified habits and thought patters. She is a Goddess of Transitions. Sadness, despair, and grief are some of Her fiercest medicines. Her teachings can feel brutal to our egos, but She truly has our best interest at heart. No matter the loss or sense of devastation we feel, Akhilandeshvari presents us with an opportunity to look at the wild kaleidescopic nature of our Being. She shows us that in the splintered aftermath of any heartbreak, these disowned, disdained, feared, bereft pieces of our self reflect back an essential aspect of who we are. Within that brokenness there is freedom. Everything is not so neatly ordered, controlled and contained nor does it have to be. She is not stuck in one form nor does She want us to be. She demands that we consciously face our fears and losses, without dismissing them, running away or sugarcoating them. She invites us to cultivate the patience of the crocodile. She invites us to see the limitless potential of being and becoming what brokenness holds."

The word 'broken' has a negative connotation. In today's language, broken means bad, failed, weak, faulty, damaged, imperfect. But so much in history and culture has shown us that imperfection and beauty were two of the same. By now, most of us will have heard of 'kintsugi', the Japanese "the art of putting broken pottery pieces back together with gold." It is a way of looking at our flaws and cracks as not only valuable signposts for a moment when strength emerged but also how to rebuild with creativity, with freedom, and with a true appreciation for the pieces being brought together.

Imagine that, embracing the parts of ourselves we see as weak, embracing the parts of ourselves that have shattered to pieces.

In Mesopotamia some 4000 years ago, some of the most beautiful art was created by deliberate piecing together of small pieces to make a bigger picture. The recognition through mosaic that beauty comes together in a different way. Or stained glass in religious buildings. While it was a way to create images on windows that would be illuminated when the sun would shine through, because of the many pieces of glass glued together, the light that is refracted is seen and felt as spiritual.

Even in science, breakthroughs (pun intended) happen when things go wrong. When theories crack, when bodies falter, when certainty collapses, when rule books are thrown out innovation happens. Progress depends on it. Science in of itself is defined this way that nothing is ever “true” beyond doubt — only refutable. Just like life, nothing is fixed or permanent.

So often, when we are in the depths of our grief, our sense of failures, our heartbreaks, we are somehow made to believe there is something wrong with us. When did that happen? When did we start to automatically look at ourselves as wrong when in ancient history there were figures whose power, whose glory, whose entire reason for being, was because of their many cracks and broken pieces? Why do we question ourselves as having been born faulty when any Hollywood drama, any story worth watching or reading is about those characters that rise from the depths of their ashes stronger, wiser, more beautiful than ever? Why is our default setting on self-blame when it should be on self-love, self-support, and an understanding that this is where anything and everything can change?

One of my favourite books that I often refer back to is one that I read many years ago. It appeared to me at an airport bookstore during a transitional and complicated phase in my life. The book is called Broken Open by Elizabeth Lesser. I have mentioned this book before in a previous post and I use it again because I was reminded of the power of it through Akhilandeshvari's story. In the book, Lesser writes, "How strange that the nature of life is change, yet the nature of human beings is to resist change. And how ironic that the difficult times we fear might ruin us are the very ones that can break us open and help us blossom into who we were meant to be.”

In her article for The Elephant Journal Julie JC Peters writes, "In our brokenness, we are unlimited." How wonderful is that to read? In our brokenness, we are unlimited. We are unfinished. Which means we are supposed to grow, to break again, to make mistakes, to fall, to learn, to heal, to take risks, to try, to keep going. In being broken, in having cracks, the beauty of life with all its miracles is given a chance to get in.

Our cracks aren’t proof of weakness but of a life being lived with honesty, with courage, and with a determination to keep growing; breaking the confines of expectation, of perfection, and of fear. For me, the cracks are what make me the coach I needed all those years ago. They are the proof of a life lived with a deep desire to feel deeply and bravely. They are the signs of a life that refuses to settle, a life that leans into its edges, that learns, falters, rises, and keeps pushing toward true, unfiltered connection, and the kind of self-trust that allows others to do the same.

Most of us never see ourselves as the heroine of our own life. We hide our struggles, cover our cracks, and fear being judged. Yet it’s in those cracks that we carry real power—power beyond criticism or judgement.

That’s why the story of Akhilandeshvari, the Hindu Goddess of the Universe, resonated with me. Maybe through her we can create the real comeback story that we all love to watch and read. Not the moment we emerge from the ashes or reach the summit or find that perfect partner or sign that incredible contract, but the courage to face the river, navigate the turbulence, and rise again, stronger and closer to that version of ourselves, that heroine inside us, that has been there all along.

Monita xo