Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow - Hardcover

"Elizabeth Lesser bravely and beautifully explores one of the most compelling questions of life: how do we emerge from suffering and challenge with real, encompassing wisdom and love. Broken Open is personal, pragmatic and enlightening."
--Sharon Salzberg, author of Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience"
""Never again will a painful experience wipe me out. This book shows how you can transform any difficult transition into a time of great strength and awakening."
--Jane Fonda
"There's more food for philosophical mastication--and more sparkling good sense--in one lucid chapter of Broken Open than in a library of ordinary books on similar subjects."
--Tom Robbins
"Elizabeth Lesser has written a most extraordinary book that examines our relationship to the changing nature of life. Lesser, a brilliantly gifted writer, has created a treasure chest of personal stories that bring wisdom, insight, compassion, and common sense to the experiences familiar to so many of us as the years of our lives unfold within their immortal cycle of endings and new beginnings."
--CAROLINE MYSS, author of Sacred Contracts and Anatomy of the Spirit"
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"From the Hardcover edition."

" Elizabeth Lesser bravely and beautifully explores one of the most compelling questions of life: how do we emerge from suffering and challenge with real, encompassing wisdom and love. Broken Open is personal, pragmatic and enlightening."
-- Sharon Salzberg, author of Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience"
"" Never again will a painful experience wipe me out. This book shows how you can transform any difficult transition into a time of great strength and awakening."
-- Jane Fonda
" There's more food for philosophical mastication--and more sparkling good sense--in one lucid chapter of Broken Open than in a library of ordinary books on similar subjects."
-- Tom Robbins
" Elizabeth Lesser has written a most extraordinary book that examines our relationship to the changing nature of life. Lesser, a brilliantly gifted writer, has created a treasure chest of personal stories that bring wisdom, insight, compassion, and common sense to the experiences familiar to so many of us as the years of our lives unfold within their immortal cycle of endings and new beginnings."
-- CAROLINE MYSS, author of Sacred Contracts and Anatomy of the Spirit"
"

"From the Hardcover edition."

"A most extraordinary book...Lesser is a brilliantly gifted writer."
--Caroline Myss, author of Sacred Contracts and Anatomy of the Spirit

"Elizabeth Lesser bravely and beautifully explores one of the most compelling questions of life: How do we emerge from suffering and challenge with real, encompassing wisdom and love? Broken Open is personal, pragmatic, and enlightening."
--Sharon Salzberg, author of Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience

"Rich in food for philosophical mastication, and sparkling in their stylistic clarity, the true-life stories in Broken Open are both entertaining and enlightening."
--Tom Robbins, author of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Still Life with Woodpecker, and Villa Incognito

"Insightful reflections...Reminiscent of Rachel Naomi Remen's books (e.g. Kitchen Table Wisdom), the book is gentle in tone without falling into sentimentality an clear without being dogmatic or simplistic."
--Library Journal

"Never again will a painful experience break me down. Instead, I'll use Elizabeth's book to help me bread open into greater strength, acceptance, and awakening."
--Jane Fonda, actress, activist, and author of My Life So Far

For anyone who has ever faced a crisis, Broken Open shows how to grow, change and retrieve a natural sense of joy and passion in life