On October 15, 2010, Deirdre Arato turned 41 on her back deck in Ewing, New Jersey. Cardinals and blue jays were at the feeder. She and her husband were back together after three and a half years apart. She loved her new job teaching special education and was finishing her master’s degree. For once, money wasn’t tight.
“For the first time, I believe I’m free,” she writes in Beauty in the Brokenness, published by Writers of the West.
Four days later, at 10 p.m., she was fluffing pillows when the evening news reported that a TSA supervisor from Newark Airport had been arrested by the FBI. It was her husband, and his picture was on the screen.
Her kids ran in. The phone rang. She waited all night for someone from either family to call, and nobody did. At 6 a.m. she looked in the mirror and saw “the abandoned little girl I thought I’d buried long ago.” She spoke to her reflection: “Good morning, heartache. Sit down.”
What happened next is the part many readers will recognize. She didn’t fall apart, at least not on the outside. She worked three jobs during his three-year sentence and went back to school to become a counselor. She cared for her mother through Alzheimer’s and put her kids through college. From the outside, she was holding everything up.
On the inside, the trauma from her Brooklyn childhood was catching up with her. “Achievement had long been my drug of choice; productivity, my anesthetic.” The book opens at her lowest point, in a hospital bed, and then goes back to show how she got there.
The lesson she draws is short: “But survival isn’t the same as healing.”
Today Arato is a licensed professional counselor and the founder of Blue Lotus Garden of Healing. Beauty in the Brokenness is her story and the toolkit she now uses with clients, with reflection prompts and body-based practices you can start using right away. If you look fine on the outside and feel like you’re barely holding on, start here.
Get Beauty in the Brokenness on Amazon →
If you’re struggling, you don’t have to carry it alone. In the US, you can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at any time.
Book Details
Title: Beauty in the Brokenness: A Journey Back to the Soul
Author: Deirdre Arato, M.Ed., LPC, NCC
Publisher: Writers of the West
Release Date: September 23, 2026
ASIN: B0HKT6XDPB
Print Length: 163 pages
Language: English
Genre: Memoir / Self-Help: Trauma Recovery, Addiction & Recovery, Spiritual Healing
Formats: Kindle (free with Kindle Unlimited), Paperback, Hardcover
Available on: Amazon
John’s the resident literary connoisseur. He dissects classics and uncovers hidden gems. Expect his insights to enrich your reading journey, one page at a time.