Crawling Out of Love

What heartbreak really is and how we overcome it

Everyone experiences heartbreak. It’s an essential and inevitable part of our existence. Heartbreak is caused by a variety of experiences. Honestly, life is heartbreaking, and its supposed to be. Our existence is rooted in love, because love is the root of everything. Therefore, love is the root of heartbreak. As much power as we have to love each other, we have the same amount of power to break each other, to destroy one another. This is why loving someone is the greatest risk, because in loving someone you’re giving them agency of your heart, of your love. They get to dictate what to do with the love you give them. They can reciprocate — ten fold, they can receive your love and give nothing in return, or they can abuse and manipulate your love.

How others love us is not a derivative of how we love them.

Someone’s capacity and ability to love has nothing to do with your capacity and ability to love, although this is something many of us fail to recognize and realize. Heartbreak arrives in the soul due to the duality of the human heart. Because we can love one another and we can hate one another. We can choose love or we can choose fear. It’s up to us what, how, why, where, and when we love. Heartbreak comes from this. From the complexities of the heart, from the dualities of love.

Heartbreak can come to us in many forms. I’m going to speak more specifically to romantic relationships, as this is my most recent experience. The human heart is a spectrum of emotions, therefore heartbreak is on a spectrum as well, we all experience it in different extremes. It’s true that the more you love, the more you get hurt. I love… a lot. I love hard. Fiercely. Unconditionally. If you’re loved by me, you know it. Loving comes natural for me. I love to love. I’m here to love, everyone. To be love. Because of how much I love people, I have a very hard time losing people. I lost what was once, the love of my life, my confidant, my greatest friend. When you love someone like that, they become a part of you, a part of your identity. When you lose someone who’s a part of you, you lose a part of yourself. My heartbreak brought about immense grief. Losing someone is literally someone no longer being alive in your life. There’s a grieving process that must take place. Most people don’t go through this grieving process, because we’re so afraid of our pain. We block it, suppress it, numb it. We run from our pain, from anything that makes us the slightest bit emotional or uncomfortable.

We’ve been delivered this tragic lie by our society that life is a game of who can care less.

Don’t feel, don’t get hurt. Being emotional has always been labeled as something negative, vulnerability as a sign of weakness — this stigma against emotion goes against our human nature. I am so proud of my ability to feel emotion, to empathize, to connect with anyone that stands in a present moment with me. I lead my life by my emotions. Our emotions are the answers to the questions of our heart and soul. I practice sitting in every emotion that rises to the surface to learn why its here, where it came from, and what its trying to teach me about a certain situation, or person, or thought.

So when I experience heartbreak, I experience it on the deepest of levels, because I feel on the deepest of levels. To love is to be vulnerable. I love with everything, so I’m vulnerable — I’m free to be devastatingly broken. So when my heart breaks, it shatters. It erupts. It goes crazy. Love is all it wants, all it knows. What is this pain? All I did is love them, why do I deserve this? How can you give someone your whole heart and soul and they still choose not to be with you? My heart was so shocked from this pain, so confused, it was desperate for answers. It needed something to justify this darkness I was experiencing, this heart-wrenching, breath-taking pain.

The first step to healing your heartbreak is accepting it.

Stop asking why. Stop searching for answers. Accept. Accept that this is meant to be, for whatever reason. You must have blind faith that this darkness you’re experiencing is meant for you. Stop questioning everything and show up for it all. Sit down with your pain. Listen to the sorrows of your soul. Tend to your wounds by first acknowledging they’re there. Accept what is. Believe that whatever currently is, is meant to be in your life right now. Release your anxieties. Relieve yourself of thoughts of the past. Don’t hold yourself captive of the future. The sooner you stop looking back and questioning and analyzing everything, the sooner you heal. Healing is done in the present. Release, accept, and just be.

In accepting your heartbreak, you’re able to then give purpose to it. This is one of the most crucial elements in overcoming heartbreak. You must generate this strong belief within you that this pain isn’t here to ruin you or to end you. You may not be the one responsible for your pain, but your pain is your responsibility. Take ownership of it. Embrace it. Don’t ignore it. Nurture it. Face the darkness in the mirror. Venture to the corners of your soul. You can’t shine light on darkness until you face it first. Strengthen your resolve. Identify your pain, but don’t identify with it. Speak your heartbreak’s purpose into existence.

The purpose of heartbreak is just that, its meant to break your heart.

It’s meant to be an earthquake of the soul, shaking the very foundation which you stand on.

Heartbreak isn’t meant to end us, it’s meant to transform us. Your heart does break, it breaks open, but only to allow more love to come in. Our hearts are designed to be broken. Just as light is designed to seep through the cracks of darkness, our hearts are architectured the same way. Pain pierces us open. It’s the window which light shines through. There is love in pain. Pain is the path to love. Love is what awaits heartbreak on the other side. Your heartbreak is actually the vehicle that drives you to more love. The deeper we are cut open by the world, and by others, the deeper our ability to feel, therefore the deeper our ability to love. This pain you’re feeling shows the love you were and are capable of. Heartbreak is a testament to love. Begin to perceive your pain through the lens of love. Once you see the love in your pain, you understand pain’s purpose. It’s to guide you back to love.The greater your heartbreak, the greater you loved. You’re shaking, crying on your bedroom floor, feeling like your entire world is crumbling around you? How beautiful. How mighty. You loved someone so much that you’re able to experience such heartache and pain? How brave you were to love someone like that. Our pain doesn’t define our love. Our love defines our pain.

If you truly loved someone, you’re probably still going to love them. You’ll think of them from time to time, wonder about how they are, and ache to be held in their arms again. You’ll wish to hear their laugh just one more time. It’s okay to miss them. This shows your love was real, that it was all real. No matter how hard you try, no matter how much time has passed, you’re still going to have love for them. They’ll hold this place inside your heart that is a space only for them. And you’ll realize that in order to truly move on, you must have this love for this person — no matter what happened or how they hurt you.

Finding healing in heartbreak is finding love in the pain.

We cannot grow in anger, in hate. One does not nourish the heart from an angry place. You cannot grow from a broken place. We grow, in love. Extend love to them. I know it’s hard. Trust me. But you’re not loving them for them, you’re loving them for yourself. Because love is what the heart needs in order to heal. Love heals. To truly move on from them, you must have love for them, wish them well, and send them on their way.

Heartbreak can feel like a prison. Like something you’ll never be able to escape. Love is freedom from the burdens of your heartbreak. Love allows you to let go, accept, to move forward. If you want to be freed of them, extend them love. When you can have love for the ones who have hurt you most, this is the heart truly evolving. What’s more powerful than a heart that gets shattered over and over again to only love even more? Love is your power, and this power is your freedom from the chains of heartbreak.

I know your heart has been seared with the scars of love — these scars are your victories and should be celebrated. Wherever you are on the spectrum of heartbreak, you must know this great ending has a greater beginning. You must blindly believe that this is happening for you, not to you. This is truly all happening for a reason. You’re not going to know why, nothing will make sense, and you’re going to want to continue cursing everyone and everything — but eventually… you’ll rise, from the ashes of love, from the flames of your soul. The moment you begin to see your heartbreak with purpose, is when it gains a purpose. Light begins to come through the cracks. A fog begins to lift. A new day seems to appear on the horizon.

Pain’s lessons unveil themselves to you with time. The higher you shift your perspective, the more you see. Your pain transforms from burdens to lessons. You no longer identify with the darkness of your heartbreak, because you’ve identified it as it’s true purpose, as light. You get to decide what to do with your pain. It’s pretty remarkable when you think about it. We carry within us all the power we need to heal, learn, grow, and love again. This is what heartbreak teaches us. When you have to reconstruct the linings of your heart, you create a strength and resilience unparalleled to anything you’ve ever known or felt before.

Remember, healing isn’t linear.

It lays on a spectrum just like love and heartbreak. Overcoming heartbreak is establishing a sense of grace and kindness for yourself that is so powerful, it gifts you with the patience you need to let your wounds heal. It. Takes. Time. Trust the process. Trust yourself. Have faith in yourself, and have faith that the universe has your back. That in giving your heartbreak purpose, the universe does too. Rise up. Rise above. The universe will rise up to meet you, but you gotta bring yourself to higher ground first. Everything does happens for a reason… if we give reason to everything. Be a champion of your life and your experiences, especially the negative ones. Don’t let your life just happen to you. Don’t let heartbreak happen to you. Give it purpose. Your life is your story. That is your power. You get to narrate the story of your heartbreak, no one else does. You’re the author of your pain. What story will you tell?

Our pain doesn’t define us.

Our love does.

How brave you were to love someone like that.