Here's what they don't tell you about healing. They don’t tell you that at first, you will be a little lost and confused. You won’t know where to begin or what to do. You won’t figure out exactly how to do it but you’ll just know that you need to fix something. You need to repair whatever damage you brought upon yourself or the world brought upon you.
They don’t tell you that it will take a few years to fully heal and release those past burdens that haunt you every time you’re about to embark on a new journey or take a new job or fall for a new person. They don’t tell you that part of you will try to sabotage it before it begins because that’s what you know and that’s what you’re used to but there will always be this glimmer of hope inside of you that maybe this time it will be different, that maybe this new opportunity is not a disaster in disguise, that maybe the things that feel good are actually good for you and you deserve them. There will always be this glimmer of hope that since you’re healing, everything around you is healing too.
They don’t tell you that often this means ending childhood friendships, setting boundaries with your loved ones or family and breaking someone else’s heart or your own because you can never heal in the same environment that broke you and brought you pain and you can never heal if you don’t walk away from those who disturbed your inner peace.
They don’t tell you that sometimes you will have to leave certain things and people behind because some things can’t be fixed and some damage can’t be undone. They don’t tell you that healing sometimes means burning bridges and cutting your losses because broken things were broken for a reason and if you’re going to hurt yourself again mending them then you’re better off without them.
They don’t tell you that the battles you’ll have to fight in order to heal will be with the people you need and love and that’s the hardest pill to swallow but once you win those battles, once you burn those bridges, your healing will truly begin and sometimes healing means breaking things that no longer serve you so you can fix yourself...
Living with a Broken Heart
Remember what the Tin Man said in the “Wizard of Oz” after he finally got a heart….“Now I know I've got a heart because it’s breaking.”If someone you love died, your heart is probably broken. So how do you live with a broken heart?
The answer isn’t how you fix it or move beyond it. The skill is learning to live with your grief as an ongoing way of being in the world. It’s the way you honor that which you love. What I’m proposing is that, with enough healing, living with heartbreak can become natural, and very normal.
From my personal and professional experience, I can tell you that as you embark on your healing journey, you’ll start crying a whole lot more. Not just to clear pain, but for the simplest of everyday reasons, and out of nowhere. You’ll cry when you see a bird, a can of paint, an apple, or even the shape of a cloud.
Random things will make you cry. The heart is designed to grieve, it wants to grieve…..it has to grieve! Especially when it’s broken.
This is the price you pay for love. The loss of the life you thought you had, the life you once knew and held so dear. Loss of a dream you believed was true. But you can also find and feel grief in opening your heart. Opening it to love and to new possibilities. Opening it to what the future holds.
Isn’t that what life is all about? Endings and beginnings, closings and openings? The heart was designed to navigate you through this forever winding adventure called life. But you have to be willing to feel…..and to live with a broken heart.
Here’s the thing…..you can learn to live with your broken heart by befriending your grief.You can discover the love that still exists around you…..and share that love with others who are also living with a broken heart...