What if we call a mental breakdown, a mental break-open?

When feeling at a climax of accumulated emotions, life seems to put you down to your knees and feel it all at once. There is no way but to surrender to feeling your feelings. You cry, feel anger, anxiety, and so on. In society, we sometimes refer to this as: a mental breakdown. 

But what if exactly this is breaking you open? It's this moment where the truth is revealed. It's the cracking of the eggshell, while the chick has its first breath of life. 

By feeling your feelings, an old layer is shed: left behind. This inevitably puts you in an uncomfortable situation of transition. You're still attached to the old, where the new is not yet integrated. It's the birthing that hurts, but 'life' that follows.

It's the seed that pops open and becomes a flower. Leading you to an unknown but always more beautiful, fresh and new chapter. 

Let's hold and help each other in these moments of breaking open. It can be terrifying, so doing it together is how we truly support each other. Having this paradigm helps: you or someone you are supporting might be breaking open, not breaking down.