When a Broken Heart is a Gift
Coping With Pain, Loss, and Grief
“You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens” ~ Rumi
What does this beautiful saying of Rumi mean?
How would you break your own heart?
Well, a lonely heart can ache.
My heart has ached from loneliness, from shame, from guilt, from feeling like I do not belong. But in these cases, it hurts more than breaks.
Aching is a deep emotional pain, that is dragging and heavy and hurts.
The physical pain over my heart space reminds me that I emotionally hurt.
This is what the ache tells me.
You ache for connection due to loneliness and you need to find points of connection both within yourself and with others to dissipate this.
You need to open your spiritual eyes and heart and let the light in and see all the ways that you connect to your body, your soul, nature, the earth, other creatures, the stars, other people — everything.
“The wound is the place where the light enters you.” ~ Rumi
If I had to list the times that I physically felt like my real heart broke they are at all times associated with significant loss of someone or something.
Loss
When my nana died, I felt a pain in my heart so acute it felt like my heart cleaved in two and parted and waves of pain and sadness erupted from the middle. The eruption of pain felt like water being released from a dam, cascading through a narrow chasm in a torrent down into a valley.
The pain felt like it was being forced through the crack in my heart and flowing into my physical body.
I couldn’t physically contain the pain as it was too high so I dropped to my knees and rocked, curled over like a question mark, as the waves of it cascaded and crescendoed, and the tears ebbed and flowed until eventually I could catch my breath again and stand.
What does a broken heart teach me?
It taught me that there is a physical organ inside my body which when in great emotional pain, cleaves open as evenly as if sliced by a knife allowing a torrent of pain to come out.
It reminds me of my physicality.
That emotion is FELT and comes from my body and that my body and emotions entwine and I cannot separate the two.
A broken heart reminds me that I am human.
If my heart can be broken — I can break someone else’s.
A broken heart also teaches me that it takes time to build and develop a great love to the extent that your heart can break in two at its loss.
- That kind of love evolves and is unique. It has taken effort and commitment. It is not just random. It is a love developed, step by step, like grains of sand accumulating on a beach.
- The number of actions, feelings, and words that go into building up that kind of love is like those grains of sand.
- Smiles, a touch, a laugh, a sentence, a phone call, a smell, a sound; all build up a picture and memory of the experience of someone, and then you may lose them.
Not having the physical presence of someone in our life can break our heart even when we retain their essence and memory in our body, mind, and our emotional memory.
Our brains retain memories, but our hearts remember what those memories felt like.
The separation of us from the physical presence of our object of love is devastating.
Space where they once were reminds us that we are mostly alone. Without the physical presence, we must travel inward to find our memories and our thoughts and feelings about the person.
We must be still. Be quiet.
But the memories although they bring comfort, also carry the reality of their physical loss and the pain and ache starts up again.
So, sometimes we shut down remembering. We shut down traveling inside. We stop ourselves from loving again so profoundly with one person over a long time. We give intimate love to multiple people over multiple times so we can’t build up all that love, so we won’t experience the pain of the loss of a big love again.
But this is not good. It brings little meaning to our life. We are designed to be creatures that don’t spread ourselves too thin.
We are made to put deposits of love into the bank account of another’s heart, and they do the same to us.
We gravitate to people who give us the most of what we seek: recognition, acceptance, love, unconditional positive regard and to be honestly seen.
When we lose them we are reminded of our essential emptiness and aloneness.
We seek to find a connection with each other but realize it is only temporary.
Loss through death or separation always comes.
only by cracking open an egg — do we see the yolk
only by cracking open a peach — is the seed released
only by opening a walnut — can we eat the nut
Only by opening our heart can pain come out and love enter in again.
Our hearts need to be opened for us to receive and take in all the beauty there is around us.
a closed heart cannot feel
a closed heart cannot take in
a closed heart cannot give out
A cracked open heart knows it can heal and learn to beat again without hurting.
A broken open heart knows the depth of the split relates to the extent of the love it contained.
We recognize that the pressure coming out is due to the rush of grief from our emotional memories.
we keen like babies for our mothers
we long for the breast
for comfort
to bury our heads in and to breathe in warmth, softness, and security
We long to feel small and big at the same time.
We long to feel powerful but also are vulnerable.
We are creatures full of duality, even though we seek not to be.
we are alone, but we are connected
we are physical, but we are emotional
we are a spirit, but we are flesh
we are a heart, but we are also skin and bone
we are love and also hate
we are filled with sadness but also joy
we can hurt, and we can heal
we can take in and give out
we can hold and contain, and we can push away
A cracked open heart can teach us all this.
Our heart is a magical container for all that is in our spirit and our emotional selves.
We can’t be fully human if we never open and share our emotional selves with another.
If our hearts break enough times, it is because we have given a lot, we have let people in, and we have not been withholding love given out.
If you keep breaking your heart, it is a sign you have loved lots and given lots.
If you haven’t loved lots and given lots, your heart won’t break as much. But you also won’t feel as much. Have all the joy of FEELINGS.
Allow yourself to fill your heart by being open to loving everything and everyone.
Love the birds and the insects, the breeze, the sun, the dust in the air, the salt spray, the scent of daffodils and freesias.
The more you love, the more you are compelled to care for what you love, you interconnect.
What happens to one happens to them all — and you. You feel it, and you want to fight to protect it.
Love
The more you love, the more you lose
The greater your connection, the greater your pain
The more you fight to protect, the more you hold on
The more you let go, the more you say goodbye
When you love you learn you have to eventually let go and say goodbye. All love stories have an ending. Death avoids no-one.
You learn that you can only be you and love.
Love is everything.
Love to take in, love to give out. Love to let go and love to embrace. Love to say goodbye.
Love for self sets you free and love for another sets them free.
we say goodbye
we break
we journey within
we find God inside of us
a whole universe of love and light
then by connecting with the outer
we feel safe inside and outside