Reflections after reading “Broken Open” by Elizabeth Lesser
Some stories don’t just live on the page—they live in your body.
This reflection on Broken Open by Elizabeth Lesser isn’t just a book review.
It’s a confession, a witnessing, a walk through the fire with a guide who never planned to lead.
If you’ve ever loved someone who cracked you open… if you’ve ever had to choose truth over comfort… this one is for you.
There are books that speak to your mind.
And then there are books that rearrange the furniture in your soul.
Elizabeth Lesser’s Broken Open didn’t ask for permission.
It walked in, sat down next to my shadows, and whispered, “I see you.”
It met me in the places I thought I had to hide to be loved.
In the secrets I still judged.
In the stories I told myself to survive.
And then I met him—the Shaman Lover.
Not mine. Hers. But also… somehow mine, too.
She doesn’t name him. She calls him that because he wasn’t just a man—
He was her initiator.
The one who didn’t just break her heart, but broke her open.
He didn’t save her.
He set fire to everything she thought was solid.
He was magnetic, primal, wild.
And she—a wife, a mother, a leader—fell into him like a woman who’d been starving.
Not because she was reckless.
But because something ancient inside her whispered, “This is the beginning of the end of who you’re pretending to be.”
I felt that. Maybe you have too. That impossible pull toward something that makes no sense on paper—but feels like home, like awakening, like risking your life to finally live.
That’s what the Shaman Lover is. Not a man.But a mirror. A storm. A sacred fire.And fire doesn’t knock. It consumes.
Their affair?
Tender and terrifying.
It gave her her body back. Her breath. Her voice.
And it also dragged her through betrayal, secrecy, and the unbearable cost of truth.
There’s this moment in the book where she’s sitting on a wobbly bench in her kitchen.
Everything is crumbling. The affair. The marriage. Her curated life.
And the question rises:
What does my soul want?
The answer wasn’t comfort.
It was truth.
And love, that moment—that—I felt in my bones. Because I know that bench.
The one where your world goes quiet. Where the lie gets too loud.
Where the Phoenix presses its wing to your shoulder and says,
“It’s time.”
She ends both relationships in one day.
She doesn’t float up, she falls down.
Into grief. Chaos. Financial mess.
Motherhood heartbreak. Work fallout.
But also—
Peace.
A different kind.
The kind that only comes when you’ve let the fire do its work.
When you stop trying to save a life you’ve already outgrown.
When you choose wholeness over safety.
Later, she meets someone new. Not a savior.
But another soul who has died and come back.
And together, they don’t build a perfect life—
They build a true one.
What the Shaman Lover Taught Me
This chapter didn’t just resonate.
It reflected back a piece of my own story.
It reminded me:
- Some people enter your life to awaken you—not to stay.
- The most unforgettable loves aren’t always meant to last—but they leave you more alive.
- Truth will break things. But it will never break you.
- You can survive the fire. In fact, you can rise from it.
For so long I thought my job was to be good. Loyal. Safe.
Now I know—
The real work is to be whole.
Final Thought
Maybe your Phoenix Process doesn’t look like hers.
Maybe it wasn’t a Shaman Lover.
Maybe it was divorce. Loss. Burnout.
Or just a quiet knowing that something in your life is no longer true.
Whatever it is—
Don’t fear the fire.
It’s not your punishment.
It’s your passage.
And even if you only ever love wildly once, Even if you only ever tell the truth once, Even if you only break open once—
Once is enough.
Clarity Cookies 
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