Broken and Afraid

Broken and Afraid

braces to hold our head up

Oh, the torn flesh of ripping denim, such tough exterior blindly protects the inner child’s broken ego, painfully awaiting self-judgment, with an airing song. Self-inflicted written with the coded DNA, sloth around slowly tackling wounded soldiers and tattered souls, fire in the belly rising to mountain tops, forest fires burn wildly cleansing all in its path.

Three-year-old playing stuck in the mud, the first run-in with a weakened skeletal system, broken clavicle, collar bone if you choose, or paralleled universe singing through. Unknowing of the self-infliction, psycho-somatic response playing out in daily routine, swollen gastro-intestinal unable to process the filth, hot air balloon ready for takeoff, the only thing left is to lay down and hope for its passing.

Broken or magnificent, time will tell, but not until a lifetime of achievements, great lessons, life mishaps, and more broken bones hitting one over the head. Maybe the broken was a telltale sign one was not in proper placement, wrong time, situation ill-advised, matters not but awareness of such is key.

The elders say to the young lad, your lifetime blindly leading ways, catch up, rewriting accordingly, and allow healing of another. Through our own experiences, taught transgressions, transmuting thoughts forth written upon our Canvas, internal and external forces creatively collide, magically, miraculously changing constructs from the smallest of quarks to cosmic proportions.

Quick fix, call upon the west, listening to others preach what should be done-no longer. Listen to the east, alternative medicine, tried and true, not all sentient the same, similar reacting in time and space-no longer, winds’ song playing healing tune. Looking within, gazing without, and holding sacred union of inner and outer souls, dancing the universal truth, creation speaking song transmitted through.

Do nothing, not at all, listen to the oceans, waters flowing through our veins, hear the voice within our own Gulliver’s travels, accepting a towline if needed. Not every sniffle is death’s door knocking, physical or headstrong written tune, sitting with darkened shadows of self or painful, freshly opened wounds.

Pause. Sit with self in all its disfiguring faces. Torn flesh literal, the disembodiment of psyche self-illusion creative sight, melting into the backdrop, Mother Gaia comforting hold. Breath of life, pain comes and goes, a hard lesson of truth, life itself rendering, if not for the pain would we not know how alive we are?

~ Ani Po


Photo by MI PHAM on Unsplash

It was my first encounter with a broken bone. At the age of three, playing stuck in the mud, I broke my first bone. Every two or three months, for the next eighteen years, breaking another doing something that should not have yielded a broken bone but did!

I never really understood my broken bones, for they were as strong as could be, according to the medical community. At a young age, trying to transmute negative vibes around me, often getting sick and bloated, unable to pass the energies quick enough -maybe the broken bones alerting me to avoid these areas of play?

Were the broken collarbones a message to young self, demanding letting go of trying to take on everyone else’s burden? Arguably indeed, but that is not the point to make. These broken bones, torn ligaments, flesh ripped open, often sutured for repair, and the uncommon viruses were attacking the body in attempts to knock us down instead of allowing the miraculous body to do its magic.

Do we ever really understand how it works? How the body does what it does? We can use scientific wording, labels, and such, but do we truly understand? Can we admire the magnificence of this body, temple of inner galaxies creating, re-creating foundations and realities of inner and outer possibilities?

We can listen to the others fusing their words with ours, changing our course to recovery, or remaining true to ourselves. Self-discovery at its innermost details of recovery, we are all healers from the inside out, trusting, believing, and knowing it to be true. As it is written, so shall it be.

If I had a dime for every time I listened to the medical communities’ advice, I would be richer than Gates or Musk. Instead, I gave their words back, finding my inner knowing, returning their dime for personal healing time to give birth to self-healing. This is my story, not for anyone else. Disclaimer here indeed, read and write your own as one sees fit.

Now fifty, almost elder status, the wounds taking longer to heal, or am I not paying attention enough to the wounds of flesh tearing at my psyche? I do not know but would like to say I have all the answers. Reality still dictates I know very little to what remains possible.

Over my lifetime, the medical community told me to have at least a dozen surgeries. Unnecessary or needed remains uncertain. However, seeing that I can run freely without having the surgeries, maybe they were unnecessary, and the body would do what it does best-heal thyself. I did have a few corrective, but knowing what I know now would reconsider those options.

Would we live our lives broken and afraid, relying on castings, braces to hold our heads up, or charge with vigor and mighty knowing the whole fucking universe flows through our every vein, cellular level understanding, cosmically staring off for translated and transmuted energies to enter our field of being, energetic flow, auric clearings, mind, body, and soul?


The self is broken because we are told we are broken. What if we accepted ourselves as whole, holy as we are? Becoming whole, holy, we are healed.


Much gratitude for those who take time to read, ponder and allow the inner workings of self to come forward. Grateful for the feedback, love shared, and more importantly the Dance with Inspiration. Deep Peace.

Joseph Lieungh

Photo by Javardh on Unsplash