So often we hear of a breaking down - in relationships, motivation, health and wellbeing. However, there is an increasing focus on viewing this breaking as an opportunity for deep reflection, alignment with core values, and transformation - a breaking through, rather than a breaking down. As the researcher Sarah Lewis explains, “after the deep pain of coming close, of failures of all kinds, we break open enough to contain, invite, and triumph over more” (Lewis, 2014, p.88).

In the artwork and short story “Breaking Through” I explore the experience of breaking as one of courage, growth, and expansiveness. Brene Brown describes this journey of loving-kindness and “becoming real” as the ultimate act of bravery, where “vulnerability is the path and courage is the light” (Brown, p.110). The researcher and psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi explains how such a journey can create feelings of immense enjoyment when we have gone beyond what we have been “programmed to do and achieved something unexpected, perhaps something even unimagined before . . . we know that we have changed, that our self has grown: in some respect, we have become more complex as a result of it” (2002, p.46).

As Pema Chodron guides us to accept, breaking is an experience that will repeat throughout our lives as things “come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again . . . the healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen” - including the joy (2017, p.14).

So why make art about such things? The experience of breaking can be isolating and frightening despite its potential. Brene Brown reminds us that, “Art has the power to render sorrow beautiful, make loneliness a shared experience, and transform despair into hope . . . the transformative power of art is in this sharing . . . it is this sharing of art that whispers, ‘You are not alone’” (Brown, 2017, p.42).

Breaking Through

She does not know how long she sits. Time does not exist without light. Eventually she rouses. It does not matter that the low ceiling prevents her from standing; her legs feel too weak to hold even her emaciated weight. So, she crawls. She creeps, her hip tearing against the unfeeling earth. She ignores the bruising flesh – it is nothing compared to the pain of being lost. There is only her hunger to be free.

She smells it first. Cool, but not the cold of earth. Moist, but not the damp of decay. She sees it faint in the distance, a glow, a flicker. Although she has never seen light, she knows it. Slowly, gradually, the ceiling rises. Instinctively, she rises with it. Her stride lengthens, she holds her head high. Every movement calls out her courage, though no-one else shall see it. She knows.

Suddenly - she breaks through. She is in a garden. In the gloaming, she becomes aware. The caress of air awakens her. Delicate foliage brushes against her face, aromatic warmth released from velvet flesh. Ripples of water electric against her skin erode the cold death of earth. She stands a woman stained and scarred yet flecked in gold dust.

She sees colour build in intensity. Her skin gleams bright in a dawn that warms her. Time exists with light.

Haddleton, Elise. 2024. Breaking Through. Vulnerability Collection.

Brown, Brene. 2015. Daring Greatly (p.110). Penguin Books.

Brown, Brene. 2017. Braving the Wilderness (p.42). Vermillion Publishers.

Chodron, Pema. 2017. When Things Fall Apart. Harper Collins Publishers.

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. 2002. Flow. Rider Publishing.

Lewis, Sarah. 2014. The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery (p.88). HarperCollins Publishers.