Heartbreak can save your life — How you can use pain to become powerful
Don’t want to read the whole article? Scroll to the bottom for a summary (tldr).
There is no barrier to progress.
Not when it comes to the process of becoming a better person. There are simply leaps and bounds to be made that change us from one version of ourselves into one we hardly recognise.
Today, I looked back at the person I used to be and compared her to the one I am today and felt fear where pride should have been. I was so afraid that there was a derailment in the wings waiting to pounce that I forgot to consider how I got to where I was in the first place.
It takes time.
It was no easy feat seeing myself wholly as a flawed, occasionally toxic, self-absorbed, anger-honing girl… who merely needed to become a woman of grace (some younger version of me is scoffing at the use of the word merely here, but we trod on.)
And it certainly was more difficult to start that process. But I’m glad that the rug was pulled from under my feet and set me down a different path.
You know those movie scenes where someone’s cut the brakes on a car and the driver is barrelling down the highway with no way to stop? You can feel their panic… their fear. It reaches out to you and draws you in as a viewer. That palpable, inescabale dread and knowing that something horrible is about to happen and there’s nothing you can do about it.
That was me in that relationship but a few things saved me
- A good friend
- God answering my prayer
Now those two are tied together.
I was talking with a friend of mine who I consider to be an older brother, whining about how miserable I was in my life and he’d given me one simple instruction with a very clear warning.
The instruction was to pray and ask God to remove that person from my life if they weren’t for me. The warning was not to say that prayer unless I meant it.
You already know what happens next, I said that prayer and I meant it with a capital M. Furthermore, I put a deadline on it, year end. To absolutely no ones surprise: a few months, a big fight and couple conversations later, by Dec 27–29 or so that year, it was over.
Crazy right? It still gives me the chills to think about.
That was the end of something I was dreading of letting go of for years, and the beginning of my healing and happiness. And it was only until I got on the outside of it that everything became clear to me.
When you’re in it, you can’t see how wrong it is…
Even with all the stop signs uprooting themselves and flying straight into your head…
You see, I had loved another human so much that I lost myself in them. I’d chalk this up to low self-esteem, age (I was 13) and lack of experience. With age comes wisdom and my school guidance counselors wisdom still haunts me till this day. (One thing I will add here is to never get hung up on past mistakes you know you’re never going to make again.)
She’d had us girls sit in her office one afternoon for a session about life and relationships. I honestly can’t tell you most of what Ms WhatsHerFace (I can’t remember her name) said, partly because I wasn’t one to pay much attention if there wasn’t going to be a test and partly because come on, it was well over a decade ago.
So, at 14 years old I sat there, comfortably uncomfortable, sitting on the throne of youthful arrogance and waiting for this moment of insignificance to pass. Partially listening with ¾ of my mind of my boyfriend at the time, and ⅛ on her (don’t ask me where the rest of my mind was, probably food if I was to guess).
Until she said something that pierced my mind in such a way, it still stings some region of the wrinkly thinking muscle inside my skull.
“You’re too young to have a boyfriend.”
Too young? What does she know? My agitated arrogance erupted in me.
Little did I know that sweet girl was right, bless her heart. And God save mine that suffered years at the hands of my own foolishness. I crashed and burned, hard, I mean it was a blockbuster film, because, of course, my life is a movie and nothing less would be fitting.
But everyone who’s anyone will tell you failing is a good thing, and I’m sure that heartbreak saved my life. Because the truth is, I had no idea who I was and I was on the track to never figuring it out and dying in someone else’s shadow, in a husk of some other version of myself they had crafted.
When I was broken, though, it allowed me to rebuild my life with God, the way I should’ve done it the first time around.
I’ve said countless times (to myself) that my life is a masterclass of failing, and while that might be partially true, the only thing I’ve really failed to do is try. I’ve neglected countless opportunities to put in the effort and remain consistent with the things I should be doing to be and become a better version of myself.
When you really hit rock bottom, it puts everything into perspective. And if you’re lucky enough to have people in your corner and smart enough to listen to them, you get to start over.
After everything has crashed and burned and there’s nothing to rebuild with it might seem like all hope it lost, but consider this, if you were to rebuild with sick, rotting, termite infested wood that would absolutely ruin the rest of your house after you built it, I’m sure you would’ve wished there was nothing left.
The break, the shatter, the absolute shredding that I avoided positioned me to (eventually) realise I knew absolutely nothing about love, life and being a healthy person and so I intentionally saught out that information and took it to heart.
Heartbreak taught me that there is no barrier to progress, only opportunities to: listen, pray, try and wait. Because the Lord’s timing is perfect.
Can you recall a time when a significant setback ultimately led to positive personal growth? How did that experience shape who you are today?”
I want to hear all about it in the comments!
TLDR
- There is no barrier to progress.
- The first step to improving was truly seeing myself for the flawed imperfect person I am.
- I think there really is such a thing as being too young for a serious relationship, regardless of how committed you are to that person
- In the quiet stillness of your pain, listen to the ones who love you.
- Pray without ceasing to the one who died for you.
- Try without concern for the outcome.
- Wait and know that there are few things more important than patience.
- Embrace failures. They can change your life… if you let them.
