I read When Things Fall Apart during one of the hardest stretches of my life. I lost something that felt extremely important to me, and then not long after, I lost something much, much more important. I needed something that could hold the weight of that without turning away.
It did not fix me or offer a roadmap to get past what I was feeling. Instead, it taught me how to be with what was happening, and that changed everything.
When I was in the middle of my losses, I kept trying to think my way out. I kept looking ahead to some future moment when I would feel better, when I would have processed everything. What Chödrön helped me see is that my impulse to escape the present moment was itself a form of suffering. I could see how much energy I was putting into making everything make sense, into finding a reason for what had happened, into creating a narrative that would let me feel okay again.
The book invited me to stop doing that—to let the ground be groundless, and to let the story stay messy and incomplete.
That said, not everything resonated. The sections on compassion felt less urgent to me than the core teaching about “being with what is.” I also found the references to her teachers and mentors extraneous; they often pulled me out of the teaching and into someone else’s biography. There were moments where the framework felt like it was asking for something I wasn’t ready to give.
But I am grateful it was recommended it to me. It gave me permission to stop trying to fix myself and start being with myself instead.
Get more of my book recommendations here.
Jack Maguire 