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Broken Open

How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow

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Broken Open

By: Elizabeth Lesser
Narrated by: Susan Denaker
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About this listen

 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • This inspiring guide to healing and growth illuminates the richness and potential of every life, even in the face of loss and adversity.

In the more than twenty-five years since she co-founded Omega Institute—now the world’s largest center for spiritual retreat and personal growth—Elizabeth Lesser has been an intimate witness to the ways in which people weather change and transition. In a beautifully crafted blend of moving stories, humorous insights, practical guidance, and personal memoir, she offers tools to help us make the choice we all face in times of challenge: Will we be broken down and defeated, or broken open and transformed? Lesser shares tales of ordinary people who have risen from the ashes of illness, divorce, loss of a job or a loved one—stronger, wiser, and more in touch with their purpose and passion. And she draws on the world’s great spiritual and psychological traditions to support us as we too learn to break open and blossom into who we were meant to be.©2004 Villard; (P)2008 Random House Personal Development Personal Success Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Spirituality Meditation Witty

Critic Reviews

"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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Where does Broken Open rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Beautiful story & narrator -- thank you. Highly recommended --- even if you are NOT Broken

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Defintiley!!!!!

How difficult times help you grow

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Covers a broad area of lived experience

Our lives get cracked open at one stage or another

How to lean in and get through is quite an adventure

This book will help
Hopefully in a big way for you

Really useful insights for self understanding and self acceptance

Well written and well read 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Right on point - excellent

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Sorry, I have no doubt the author means to provide light and growth to our lives but the information provided in this book is lacking in depth and is cheesy.
The narrator has zero empathy in her voice.
I could not get through the second chapter.
Much apologies to the author for this review, I'm sure she meant well but if you are considering spending money on this book, don't. You will be wasting your money.

Don't waste your money. Lacks depth.

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I am struggling to finish this book or to evaluate its content fairly because I am finding the narration (or 'performance') so very intrusive and misjudged. While the narrator has a lovely voice, she uses it as if reading an extended instructive fairy tale to children. It is truly awful, particularly given that the content is largely the relating of deeply personal, intimate and consequential true life events which do not need a dramatised overlay by the narrator. I am vision-impaired and thus unable to read the book myself but would recommend that those who are interested in this book and can do so opt for reading it rather than listenibng to this version.

It is as if the narrator (along with an increasing number of Audible narrators) wants to be the 'star of the show' rather than allowing the book to be that. This tendency seems to be encouraged by Audible asking listeners to rate 'Performance' rather than 'Naration'. At least with non-fiction, I am finding that the best books to listen to are those narrated by their authors who seem moptivated more to have what they have written speak and shine rather than to show off their acting/oratory skills.

Intrusive narration

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In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.