The Wisdom of a Broken Heart is actually being born

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“Susan Piver expresses in a wise and funny way that even heartbreak can become an awakening experience.” Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, author of Ruling Your World and Turning the Mind into an Ally

THE WISDOM OF A BROKEN HEART:
An Uncommon Guide to Healing, Insight, and Love

January 2010
Free Press
Self-help
5 1/2 x 8 7/16, 224 pages
ISBN: 978-1-4165-9315-7
$23.00 / $29.99 in Canada

The New York Times bestselling author of The Hard Questions looks at the hardest part of a relationship—heartbreak—and provides a practical, steadying, compassionate plan for emerging a stronger, braver, spiritually transformed person.

he heart that is broken has been broken open,” writes Susan Piver. “When my heart was broken, it changed my life. From this most painful experience came the ability to find and appreciate lasting love.” The anguish and disappointment of a broken heart is devastating and overwhelming, but as Susan Piver reveals in The Wisdom of a Broken Heart, it can also create an opportunity for genuine spiritual transformation, paradoxically leaving one both stronger and softer—and capable of loving even more deeply than before.

Filled with on-the-spot practices, exercises, funny stories, meditations, exercises, and down-to-earth, practical advice on how to cope with day-to-day miseries, The Wisdom of a Broken Heart offers a priceless prescription of solace and encouragement, wisdom and humor. Like an infinitely patient, trusted friend, it tells its readers in a thousand different ways the most important thing to remember and the easiest to forget: “You’re going to be okay.”

Susan Piver’s bestselling books include The Hard Questions: 100 Essential Questions to Ask Before You Say ‘I Do,’ and the award-winning How Not to Be Afraid of Your Own Life. A graduate of a Buddhist seminary, she wrote the relationships column for Body & Soul magazine and is a frequent guest on network television, including The Oprah Winfrey Show, Today, and The Tyra Banks Show. She lives in Boston.

“I wish I had this book to comfort and inspire me during my divorce. Susan’s writing soothes at the same time it illuminates – reading this book, my heart grew three sizes bigger. I have never read anything more helpful or wise about heartbreak. You may find yourself laughing out loud; you will certainly find yourself feeling hope again.” Jennifer Louden, author of The Woman’s Comfort Book and The Life Organizer

“Susan Piver’s new book helps turn the pain of a breakup into a deeper understanding of intimacy. She shows you how relate to your broken heart with consciousness and acceptance to find comfort, clarity, and balance, even when they seem impossible. After reading this book, you’ll know beyond a doubt that you can love again, bigger and better than ever before.” Gay Hendricks, Ph.D., Author of The Big Leap, co-author, with Dr. Kathlyn Hendricks, of Conscious Loving

“Piver has managed to perform an extraordinary task, namely, inspire a person to want to love again. She knows how to repair the shattered soul, using her personal experience as well as the wisdom of great saints, poets, and cultural elders.” Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Entering the Castle

“This is a wonderful book. Full of wisdom, humanity and humor. And it abounds with helpful exercises to turn pain into wisdom. It is helpful even if you are not (right now) sick with disappointment, betrayal or heartache.” Natalie Goldberg, author of Old Friend from Far Away and Writing Down the Bones

“Susan Piver is an ideal guide for anyone suffering from a broken heart.  Spiritually deep, funny and utterly practical, she reveals how this near universal experience can become a gateway to living and loving more fully.” Tara Brach, Author of Radical Acceptance

“The Wisdom of a Broken Heart is an achingly, beautiful, transparent window into the softest part of us, helping us make friends with the deepest part of our soul. Yet, as always, Piver, leads us from brokenness to openness without our hardly noticing. This book is a gift to anyone who knows there is some juicy aliveness at the bottom of pain and wants a way to feel whole again.” Mark Hyman, M.D., Author of Ultrawellness

“Quite beautiful, a natural read for healing. Many do not realize how much more painful divorce, the betrayal of the heart, can be than even the loss of death. Susan has done a fine job displaying how the heart’s intention can convert pain to growth, how we give birth to ourselves again and again, how we find succor from the ‘gift in the wound’”. Stephen and Ondrea Levine, Authors of Who Dies? and Embracing the Beloved

“Susan Piver understands body-wrenching, gut-busting, brain-whacking heartbreak like no one else. Even better, she writes about the power of romantic devastation with such immediacy and truthfulness that, when she offers the necessary tools for recovery and transcendence, you believe her utterly. I’d follow her advice anywhere!” Belleruth Naparstek LISW, Author of Invisible Heroes: Survivors of Trauma and How They Heal and creator of the Health Journeys guided imagery audio series.

“Straight to the heart and from the heart, Susan Piver is your best friend and wisest guide.  The Wisdom of a Broken Heart is a roadmap for how to deal with all the feelings of loss, disappointment, and betrayal.  Clear, accessible, this book is for everyone.” Josh Baran, Author/Editor of The Tao of Now: Daily Wisdom from Mystics, Sages, Poets, and Saints and contributing editor to Tricycle magazine.

“Susan Piver’s book makes the mending of a broken heart into a transformative journey, guiding us toward reclaiming our center and entering into the sacred space of forgiveness.” Allyson and Alex Grey, Visionary artists

“The body has an innate ability to recover from injury, and so does the heart. Through spiritual insights and practices, Susan Piver’s new book walks you through the healing process.” Andrew Weil, M.D.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction
Exercise:  Making Friends with Heartbreak

Part One: Relax
Chapter One: How the Light Gets In
Chapter Two: Nothing Happens
Exercise: What is Going On Around Here?
Chapter Three: Depression vs. Sadness
Exercise: Include Others
Chapter Four: Completely Uncool
Exercise: Question Your Reality
Chapter Five: It is a Dark Night
Exercise: Finding Friends in the Dark
Chapter Six: Making Friends with Heartbreak
Exercise: 90-Second Clarity Exercise
Chapter Seven: Yes, You Have Lost Your Mind (But it’s Okay.)
Chapter Eight: How to Meditate
Chapter Nine: If You Accept Pain, It Cannot Hurt You
Exercise: Flashes of Meditation
Chapter Ten: Sex Might Help
Chapter Eleven: Have Faith

Part Two: See Where You Are
Chapter Twelve: Betrayal
Exercise: It Never Lasts Long
Chapter Thirteen: Of the Four Responses, One is Helpful
Chapter Fourteen: Act Like a Queen
Chapter Fifteen: Give Your Demons a Dinner Party
Chapter Sixteen: Expect Jeannie
Chapter Seventeen: Become Wrathful
Chapter Eighteen: Intensify to Let Go
Exercise: Intensify, Intensify…Let GO
Chapter Nineteen: Trump This
Chapter Twenty: Mirrors
Chapter Twenty-One: “I Forgive You”
Chapter Twenty-Two: Really Unhelpful Things
Chapter Twenty-Three: Really Untrue Things
Chapter Twenty-Four: Intimacy is Always There

Part Three: Be Where You Are
Chapter Twenty-Five: A Luminous Journey
Chapter Twenty-Six: Authenticity
Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Meaning of All These Tears
Chapter Twenty-Eight: One Sorry-Ass Bodhisattva
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Tears and Awakening
Chapter Thirty: The Practice of Loving Kindness
Chapter Thirty-One: Loving Kindness and the One who Broke Your Heart
Chapter Thirty-Two: Turning Off the Projector

Part Four: Broken Hearted to Wholehearted, A 7-Day Program

Afterword

Appendix: Resources