Sometimes you meet a woman and know in an instant that you’ve met a soul sister, a kindred spirit. That’s exactly how I felt the moment I met Mal Duane eight years ago. Today I’m blessed to call her a dear friend, travel buddy, and to be her publisher.
I sat down with Mal recently to talk about her book, Broken Open: Embracing Heartache & Betrayal as Gateways to Unconditional Love, which invites us to reclaimour self-worth and bring forward the potential that lies beneath our scars.Her story and journeyare a true testament that heartache and betrayal can be gateways to unconditional love.
What does being Broken Open mean?
Broken Open is about finding wholeness, forgiveness, and unconditional love for yourself and others after your heart has been wounded by betrayal.
What led you to write Broken Open?
After suffering a profound betrayal, I started my healing by attending a variety of support groups. Being with others who felt as raw as I did helped me.
Over time though, I noticed that many women remained caught in their pain after their relationships ended, leaving their hearts broken and unhealed. Months, years, even decades later, they still lived as victims to their past relationships, mired in fear, disconnected from love, and filled with poisonous anger and pain that ate them away from the inside.
What impact did this have on them?
In a quest to understand, I interviewed close to fifty women from various walks of life. The thread of victimization showed up over and over. These feelings caused them to reject getting involved again or opening their hearts. Witnessing their pain and stuckness inspired me to look deeper into why stories kept some women reliving their betrayal.
How did seeing these women’s stuckness affect you?
I realized that I needed to examine what happened to me as deeply as I could, using my trauma and experience to guide me through the healing process. I chose to look at MYSELF—not my husband or the story of what happened. Betrayal was a wake–up call to heal my broken heart.
Was working on yourself what shifted everything for you?
Yes, and with it the realization that I will ever only know my side of the story, what I can control. I won’t ever know, truly, what somebody else’s intentions or plans are.
Women are half of their relationship’s equation. What our partners do or not shouldn’t control our healing process. We own it. That’s the only way to freedom.
What happened when you decided to focus on yourself and healing your wounds?
Once I made that decision, a deep sense of peace settled over me. The anxiety I carried which came from my attachment to saving my marriage and fixing my husband evaporated. A seed was planted that I didn’t want another woman to feel the way I felt, to lose faith, and close down her heart forever.
Your book’s subtitle is “Embracing Heartache and Betrayal as Gateways to Unconditional Love.” What’s on the other side of that gateway?
First, courage is required to go through the passage. On one side is pain, victimhood, and resentment and on the other is living life as a whole divine feminine being. There’s no way around—you have to go through and accept what you’ve experienced, feel it deeply, and know that the pain offers an opportunity to learn.
Looking back to before the betrayal, what do you see?
When I looked deep within myself, I saw that I had denied my intuition, and I had overlooked red flags. I had dismissed them because I didn’t want to upset the apple cart. I’m sure many women reading this can relate. From the conversations I’ve had this was a common thread.
Was part of your healing process forgiveness of and having compassion for your ex-husband?
Yes, I understood my ex-husband was also in pain. Men who cheat on or betray their wives don’t look elsewhere for companionship, love, or sex because of the woman. They act out because there’s a void within themselves. If they were healthy and whole, they wouldn’t betray anyone.
You’re not condoning anyone’s behavior, but rather looking at it from a spiritual perspective and seeing that his wounds are his. What happened as you acknowledged your grief?
From my deep grief followed by intense healing came an understanding that there was another way to view and experience all of this. I became aware of my choices, of how I wanted to deal with betrayal, and how I wanted to feel a year or two out.
What happens when you don’t deal with the anger and bitterness?
The anger and bitterness become terrible poisons within your soul and permeate every relationship, not just the next partner, but the rest of your family, your happiness, and your joy, until you’re so disconnected from yourself.
You dedicated your book to your ex-husband, and that may surprise a lot of women. Why did you make this choice?
I believe that through our shared experience, he became my greatest teacher, so far. Yes, he has caused me heartbreak, but through that pain, I was forced to look within and dig deep into the unhealed parts of myself. This churned up residue from childhood, from past relationships, and the stories that made up my ‘love story’ and the distorted filter that I viewed love through.
I never would have uncovered and healed that story if I hadn’t been broken open. I felt that I had to dedicate the book to him because of the growth, powerful healing, and transformation that I experienced from having a broken heart.
What was his reaction?
We are on wonderful terms now, and when he read the dedication, he cried. He said, “I shudder for the pain that I have caused with my unconscious behavior for a woman that was and continues to be nothing but love and light to my family and me.”
When you embraced your wounded core, your deepest fears came to light. Within that, you found a woman who stands in the truth and whose greatest source of love is her own brilliant heart. What were some of the fears that you had to face on this journey?
I faced the fear of being alone at my age, of having made a terrible mistake, and of not honoring myself in the marriage. I had this terrible gut feeling that I had brought this on myself like many women feel after a betrayal. We ask ourselves, what did I do to deserve this? What was in me that wasn’t good enough for my partner?
What happened when you changed the script?
The story changed. When I changed what I was telling myself, then the whole story changed, and obviously, the outcome was very different than probably either one of us expected.
You wrote in Broken Open that a broken heart is actually a badge of courage. Can you explain this a little more?
All those women that I met and interviewed felt that they had been rejected in some way. They compared themselves in some cases to their husband’s new partners, diminishing their own worth.
One day, after listening to these stories during a support group, I spoke up, and said, “My friend, you went through a pretty tough battle, but you’re still standing. That makes you a survivor, a warrior, a hero. You were willing to love, and loved with all your heart. A lot of people are afraid to go that far. That, to me, is a badge of courage.”
What is wabi-sabi and how does it tie into the cover of your book?
Wabi-sabi is the Japanese term for the art of imperfection. I wanted my book’s cover to show a golden light coming from a wounded heart because that’s where wisdom is. The cover expresses everything that I held as a vision for how I wanted women to feel when they read my book. It’s not a book about darkness; instead, it’s a beautiful golden reflection of healing.
What wisdom do you want a woman who is in pain right now and reading your book to grasp?
The crack in your heart has meaning and purpose. It allows for a golden light to come through to reveal all that you have been hiding, ignoring, or running from. That light will guide you to release old, negative emotions like fear, judgment, and resentment that have kept you living life like a victim. When you see these feelings, honor them and let them go, you can replace them with love.
