Category — wisdom of a broken heart

Wow. The Wisdom of a Broken Heart is getting the most gratifying endorsements. I’m thrilled. No, beyond thrilled…

“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

“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.

“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.

“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

What is the kind of response a writer dreams about after submitting a revised manuscript, post-editorial feedback round one? It would contain even more helpful suggestions and end like this:

“But these are fairly minor things that you can easily fix, Susan. Really, you’ve done a terrific job. This is going to help SO MANY readers. Bravo!”

27 words that suddenly make the crazy-making effort to write a book completely worthwhile.

Plus I’ll get a check.

What more can I ask?! I’m just so happy. Thank you, Editor Leslie at Simon & Schuster, thank you and I’m so in love with you right now.

My new book, The Wisdom of a Broken Heart, is due out January, 2010. It has a chapter about meditation and this is it!

Meditation creates the conditions for transforming pain into wisdom and not to mention, it can quell the 24/7 antics of a freaked-out mind. Meditation cultivates tranquility, joy, vitality, and love and helps you work with difficult emotions such as terror, rage, and despair. By cultivation, I don’t mean gimmicks, I mean it creates inner transformation that gives rise to your own, god-given, birthright-grade qualities of inner peace and relaxation. These things are still there inside you. (They really, really are.) And sitting meditation is the foundational practice that re-awakens these qualities. Far more than a stress-reduction technique, meditation is the ground of peace and joy.

I’m going to teach you a meditation practice called “The Practice of Tranquility.” Tranquility is not something that descends on you when you’re able to get the circumstances just right: perfect job, perfect house, perfect relationship, perfect weight. Tranquility is your natural mind state—it is the state to which you were born and the mind knows how to return there if you just allow it. No matter how shaken up you are, within you is the knowledge of how, very naturally, to return to balance.

Have you ever seen a newborn baby burst into tears? It doesn’t look very tranquil. But at some point, the storm passes and the tranquil state is reestablished. There is no residue. The baby who was red-faced and squealing moments ago is now smiling and playing peacefully in his crib. This isn’t a trick. The baby isn’t rationalizing away his pain or pretending to be over it so you won’t worry about him. The upset is simply gone and his mind returns whence it came: peace. Your mind can do this too and The Practice of Tranquility can show you how.

This practice is ancient—over 2500 years old—and although it is associated with Buddhism, there is nothing particularly religious about it. It is simply the practice of resting your awareness on your breath and, every time attention strays, bringing it back.

Your mind already knows how to do this. It is always resting on something—usually it is on thoughts based in hope or fear, the past or the future. When you begin to notice your thinking, you’ll see that it is rarely focused on the present. Even if you try to stay in the present, you find that you keep slipping into some kind of worry or expectation or judgment. The mind is always commenting on something. In meditation, you practice consciously placing your attention on an object of your choosing instead of allowing it to gallop all over creation. It is not an easy practice necessarily, but it is a very simple one and there is no need to adopt any foreign point of view or belief system. I’m going to give you detailed instruction below and if you wish, you can visit my website for guided audio instruction here.

Instructions for The Practice of Tranquility
Find a comfortable place to sit. If you can sit on a meditation cushion, that’s great. If this is too uncomfortable for any reason, it’s fine to sit on a chair. It’s helpful to designate a particular spot for meditation, so, if possible, choose a particular room or corner of a room to establish your practice. Make your sitting area pleasant. If you wish, you could sit in front of a shelf or table with some cherished or beautiful objects on them, like fresh flowers, some river stones, or a picture of someone or something you love. Keep it simple. The idea is to create a spot that you feel good about returning to.

There are three aspects to pay attention to in meditation practice.

Body
The practice begins with how you take your seat. Meditation posture is actually quite specific. The main thing to remember is to sit up straight, not rigidly, but in a relaxed, upright position. You could feel that as your sit bones reach down into the earth, the crown of your head reaches slightly up, as if some kind and gentle person had put his palm a few centimeters above it and you would like to touch it. I like to use the analogy of a tree, whose roots are planted in the ground, but that also sways and moves with the wind. In this way, your posture should be firmly planted but also supple. When you sit upright like this, you are proclaiming your dignity.

If you are seated on a cushion, cross your legs loosely in front of you. Some people prefer to have their knees lower than the hips, some higher. Play around and see which one works for you. Some people feel most comfortable with only a very thin cushion to elevate their hips, others require a cushion that is one or two feet high. You may have to experiment with cushion heights to find the right setup for yourself.

If you are on a chair, scoot forward so that your back is not resting on anything and your feet are flat on the floor. For most people who meditate sitting in a chair, it’s nice to have the knees a little higher than your hips. To accomplish this, you may need to put a cushion under your feet.

When you’ve found a comfortable posture, place your hands, palms down, just above your knees or at mid-thigh. Let your shoulders and belly relax.

Tuck your chin a little bit to bring some length to the back of the neck. Your mouth should be closed with the lips slightly parted, tongue resting on the roof of the mouth. Let the jaw relax.

In this practice, the eyes remain open. The gaze is soft and cast slightly down, to a spot about six to eight feet in front of you. It’s not like you’re staring at that spot or at anything in particular, more like vision is streaming out from your eyes and mixing with space instead of targeting anything in particular. Although they are open, your eyes are relaxed with the sense that they are sitting back in their sockets, as opposed to straining forward, which is how it usually feels. It doesn’t matter what your gaze comes to rest on, just let it settle on a spot six to eight feet in front.

Breath
Once you have established your posture (which is the most complicated part!), begin to notice the rise and fall of your breath, in and out through the nose. Each breath is different. Can you tell how? There is no need to breathe in any particular way, just allow attention to ride the breath like waves in the ocean.

Placing awareness on the breath is different from thinking about the breath. Here is a simple demonstration of what is meant by placement of attention. Without moving or looking, right now allow your awareness to settle around your right big toe. Allow yourself simply to become conscious of that little piggy. Notice if it feels squished or snug in your sock, or if you can feel the air around it. Now, also without moving or looking, move your awareness to your left ear lobe. Again, just notice it hanging out there in space. Maybe it’s adorned with an earring, perhaps it’s covered by your hair. Now move awareness back to the right big toe. Up to the left ear lobe.

Whatever just moved is your attention and that is what you place on your breath. So go ahead and do that, with a light touch.

Mind
At some point, you may notice that your attention has drifted away from the breath and become absorbed in thought. That is absolutely no problem, none whatsoever. Often, I hear people say things like, “I tried to meditate but I couldn’t stop thinking! There’s no way I can do it.” Well of course you can’t. Trying to stop thinking is like telling your nose not to smell anything. It can’t help it, that’s just what a nose does. This is what trying not to think is like. So instead of trying not to think, in meditation you develop a different relationship to your thoughts. When thoughts arise, you simply notice them and allow them to float by. Keep your attention on your breath. When a particular thought absconds with your attention, as soon as you notice this, just return to it. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been “gone.” The important thing is to come back. Gently let the thought ease away like a wave eases back into the ocean. It doesn’t matter how wonderful, horrendous, boring, creative, or critically insightful your thought has been. Just let go.

When it comes to thoughts, instead of becoming absorbed in them, notice them as you would clouds in the sky. Just like clouds, some thoughts are cheerful and bright while some seem to bear ominous portent. Some are fat and fluffy and beautiful and others are barely perceptible beyond a far-off streak of white. Sometimes clouds block the sky altogether, but you know that just beyond them, the sun is always shining, clear and bright. The meditation researcher and practitioner Jon Kabat-Zinn says that in meditation practice, instead of identifying with the clouds, we identify ourselves as the sky. The sky doesn’t care what kind of clouds pass through or how long they stay. And, just like the sky, we can hold it all and know that no matter what direction we happen to be facing, somewhere it always east and somewhere the sun is always rising.

When you have established your body, breath, and mind in the practice of meditation, try to sit for around 10 minutes per day. It’s better to sit for a short period every day than a longer period on some days. Consistency is more important than duration.

Most people like to sit in the morning, but you may be a night owl and prefer to sit when you get home in the evening. The best time to practice is the time that you will stick with, so choose a particular time slot and try to make it a routine.

At some point, you may feel like increasing your meditation time and, please, go ahead and do so. Just don’t make it a race or try to prove anything to yourself. Take it very slowly. A good plan is to try ten minutes a day for a month. At the end of that month, decide whether you want to continue with ten-minute sessions, stop altogether, or increase the time. If you want to increase, do so by small increments, say, five minutes. Then, after a month of sitting for fifteen minutes, you can make a decision about where to go from there.

I want to mention something extremely important at this point, so listen up. If you find that you want to make meditation an ongoing part of your life, please find a meditation instructor. Working with your own mind can seem like trying to get your eyeball to look at itself and it can get very odd and confusing. It’s vital to find someone who has been practicing for longer than you and who can offer you practical guidance. In the Shambhala tradition, people are trained to be meditation instructors just as I have been and the service is free; all you have to do is show up at a local center and request one. You could also visit your local Zen or Vipassana center and find support there. The only important thing is to go somewhere credible, meaning a place that is affiliated with a lineage that has been around for, say, several thousand years. Stay away from new age nonsense. (See the appendix for a list of meditation resources, including meditation centers.)

***
When suffering a loss, the contents of your heart are like the sparkles inside a snow globe. All day long, your thoughts shake the globe furiously and the little flakes swirl and swirl. The only way to settle the situation is not by willing the flakes to settle or looking away and hoping that when you look back, things will have changed—but to simply put the globe down. Meditation creates the stable surface on which it can rest. It will then settle on its own. Watch while one by one, each flake slowly drifts to the surface and melts away until all that is left is clarity and stillness and you can now see exactly where you are.

The Indian philosopher J. Krishnamurti said, “when you begin to notice what you are without trying to change it, what you are begins to undergo transformation.” Through the simple act of noticing, you will transform heartbreak into wisdom.

I like! Do you? (Subtitle still under discussion.)

This is how Simon & Schuster will describe my new book in their catalog. It includes the title, subtitle, brief description, and some very nice quotes to give me credibility and make me sound cool.

Next step is to submit the manuscript (Oct 15) and then begin revisions based on editor’s comments and vision, which I look forward to very much. Then at some point, cover ideas will start floating around, probably in early 2009.

Nobody (meaning me, my agent, my editor at S&S) really loves the subtitle. I’m thinking of something more along the lines of “Discovering the True Path to Love” because it points to the wisdom journey that you take when your heart is broken and is less prescriptive. That said, people definitely want to know why it hurts and how to make it stop. Most of all, I think when your heart is broken, you want to know that you’re going to be okay. You will love again. You will stop desiring this particular person or mourning the relationship. But how to say that in a catchy (but not cutesy) subtitle? I open the floor to suggestions!!

The Wisdom of a Broken Heart
Why It Hurts So Much and How to Make It Stop

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

“The 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 (often drawn from her own experience), poems, meditations, 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.”

Praise for Susan Piver:
“Susan Piver is a deeply intuitive and innovative thinker. She has both tenderness and acuity regarding what concerns us. I could not recommend her more highly.”
—Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way

“Susan Piver shows us how to create a fearless life.”
— Andrew Weil, M.D., author of Healthy Aging

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

My friend Sarah ingeniously outlines them this way. Check out her blog for more such Sarah-ness.

Here are the phases as I see it…

1) The Break-up/Emotional Thrombosis/International Freak-out
Whatever, that’s like a month to 6 weeks of hell, panic, devastation. All you have to do is survive and lean on your friends and family as much as possible. I just felt like the world had kicked me out and I was all alone in Queens.  Anyone willing to listen was truly a lifeboat for me.

2) Mourning
So now you’re 2 months in and something has to motivate you to not react so hard to the outside world and what it’s throwing at you.  Instead you do the opposite and drop inside of yourself to look for the answers.  This is around the time I read your blog.  It gave me that bit of altitude I needed to be like “Oh sad?  Ok, I can do sad.  I hate it, but I can do it.”  But the key for me was really investigating the sadness.  I was finally seeing the need to unbundle all of the stories and feelings, take what was valuable and release what wasn’t.  That seemed freaking impossible, but that’s where meditation came in.  I wasn’t doing Metta yet, but I do think I did my own weird versions.  So much of the journaling was just notes to myself to freaking hang in there.  I made a decision that whenever one of my cry-fests was about to come up, I wouldn’t push it down or just start in one of my re-run stories about what happened with us.  I would drop whatever I was doing, get in my bed and cry my face off until it passed.  I even left meetings at work to lay on my office floor for a few minutes and cry it out.  Gosh, you basically have to develop a split personality for a bit to pull yourself through.  Journaling is interesting here and I wonder if you’re right about the writer thing. Although I never consider it “Writing”.  It was basically heart nonsense that needed some air.  But I do know people who are opposed to journaling when a shrink has suggested it.  It’s actually troubling for them.  I think you should definitely recommend it, but make clear that it in no way needs to be valid “writing”.  It should be there purely as a friend.

3) Take your heartbreak on the road. 4-6 months in and ongoing;-)
I think you eventually have to leave the cocoon you built for yourself, while being mindful that you’re in a fragile place.  Your heart is sort of brand new if you’ve done the work right.  I was at meditation classes and getting involved in charities.  I went out on a date, (mehhh), but I went!  Oh, I did your writers retreat.  I started my blog. Got a trainer.  It was a hard time, but this year has been the most in-touch with myself that I have ever been.  I would have preferred to learn the lessons in a far less painful way, but what are you going to do. I’m reading this freaking awesome book, “The Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao”.  The first line from one of the chapters is so perfect I can’t stand it, “It’s never the changes we want that change everything”  Pfff, word.  Welcome to break-ups;-)

Oh!  remember when you sent me an email months ago about how to deal with my ex-boyfriend flare-ups.  I was feeling so tight and angry, meditating felt impossible.  You recommend that instead of focusing on the in and out, turn my attention to the actual feeling over and over.  Let it burn itself up.  That was soooo helpful Susan.  I used that a lot to move in to my stage 3.

Anyway, this is way too much.  But thank you for support and kind words.  I think “groundless” is the word of choice when it comes to post break-up experiences. Somedays I feel all kinds of freedom and hope. The other days the groundlessness is just scary.  But I really believe there is no other way. If I thought telling him off would work, believe me, I would have done it;-)

Keep the faith!

For my new book, “The Wisdom of a Broken Heart,” I’m compiling a list of things you could do when you think you’re about to lose it. Meant for those super acute moments when you basically can’t even remember your own name and you just need someone to give you a task.

It’s divided into three categories:

Distract it.

Indulge it.

Fight it.

What would you add?

Checklist: Thinks to Do When You’re About to Lose It
A semi-serious list of things you could do instead of drunk-dialing, head-shaving, burning things down, or devouring entire cakes at one sitting. I can personally attest to the viability of each of these items to take my mind off of what ails me. Even if it’s only for a few minutes. Refer to this list when you are desperate for something, anything to do to distract, indulge, or fight against your sorrow.

Distract it
•    Dump every single item of clothing you own on the floor and divide into two piles: things that make you feel attractive and things that don’t. Take the latter pile to Goodwill.

•    Organize your Netflix Queue

•    Go to Amazon.com, Goodreads.com, or Shelfari.com and review all the relationship books you’ve ever read; begin dialogue with likeminded readers. Make your suggested reading list for others who are going through heartbreak.

•    Organize your iPod playlists

•    Identify 5-7 DVDs that do not make you cry. Could be funny movies or just absorbing ones. Keep this stack handy and when you feel yourself start to hyperventilate, pop one in the player.

My list:
40-Year Old Virgin
Anchorman
All About Eve
Flight of the Conchords (HBO; OK, this is the funniest thing I have EVER seen. You’ll even get a crush on them, which is great distraction from a broken heart.)
Intolerable Cruelty
Palm Beach Story
Weeds
The Wire (HBO; Any season)
The Women (original version)
Anything with Ricky Gervais

I queried friends and these were on their lists:
Big Lebowski
Bowfinger
Coming to America
Dodgeball
Love, Actually
Mulan
Office Space
Princess Bride
Raising Arizona

•    Popular lore (now debunked) has it that Eskimos have countless names for snow, perhaps because snow is what they live in. Heartbroken folks live in a world of tears. Make up names for different kinds of crying. To get you started, here are a few kinds of crying that should have their own names:

Sobbing without tears
When you feel like crying, but you can’t—no tears come out
Crying that overtakes you out of the blue
Crying in your sleep
You don’t even know you’re crying, but you are
Talking and crying at the same time

•    If you haven’t already, start following people on Twitter. I love Twitter. Someone coined a phrase to describe it: “ambient intimacy” and that is just right. Twitter is an online instant message service with the world. You find people and start “following” them. Millions of people are chatting with each other 24/7—but only in 140 character increments which is what Twitter limits you to, so no one can get overly verbose. It’s like a cocktail party that’s always going on and it enables you to get and give some human contact whenever you want. And disappear when you want. To get started, follow me: twitter.com/spiver.

Indulge it
•    Identify 5-7 DVDs that do make you cry. I’m not talking about those dark, gloomy movies that just make you depressed—I’m talking about the ones that make you bawl like a baby. Sometimes it’s a comedy and sometimes it’s be Bambi. For example, the television show “What Not to Wear” always makes me cry even though it’s a fashion reality show. (Something about seeing the swan revealed at the end…) Keep this stack handy and when you just need to let it all out, pop one in the player and sob with dignity.

My list:
Dark Victory
Field of Dreams
Gladiator
Jacob’s Ladder
The Last Samurai
Stranger Than Fiction (when Will Ferrell sings “Whole Wide World)
Anything where a dog dies

I queried friends on Twitter and these were on their lists:
A Beautiful Mind
Bambi
Big Fish
Dead Poets Society
E.T.
Fiddler on the Roof
Grave of the Fireflies
The Green Mile
Hotel Rwanda
I Am Sam
Life is Beautiful
The Lion King
The Little Mermaid
Million Dollar Baby
The Notebook
Philadelphia
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
Steel Magnolias
Sweet November
Titanic
Whale Rider

•    Make a sob-sister playlist and listen to it. Here are my top 10 songs for when I want to get all worked up:
Change Gonna Come (Sam Cooke)
Dark End of the Street (James Carr)
I Can’t Stand the Rain (Ann Peebles)
I Can’t Stop Loving You (Freddy Fender)
I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (Otis Redding)
There is an End (The Greenhornes & Holly Golightly)
What Becomes of the Broken Hearted? (Jimmy Ruffin)
When I Get Like This (Five Royales)
Whole Wide World (Wreckless Eric)
Your Precious Love (Jerry Butler)

Fight it
•    For god’s sake, go to the gym.

•    Take on an exercise regime you think you can’t do: If you’re a yogini, try a 45-minute walk/run instead. If you’re a runner, go to a yoga class. If you always take Spinning, try strength training. If you don’t do anything, do anything.

•    Walk. Walk. Walk. Drop everything and take a walk when you feel yourself about to collapse. You can walk in the morning or you can walk at night. (If you don’t live in a scary neighborhood.) You can take a break from your desk and walk around the block.  You can walk in the summer and you can walk in the winter. There’s something incredibly cozy and fun about piling on coats, scarves, and hats and taking yourself for a walk when normal people would stay inside (when it’s raining or snowing, for example). You are not a normal person right now. Go with it.

•    Help a stranger. This may be the most time-worn suggestion of all time, but who cares. The very second you help someone in need, something completely magical happens. All the energy that you had been devoting to propping yourself up turns from half-assed to raging, a force to be reckoned with—when it’s aimed at someone else. Self-hatred, depression, and insecurity disappear when you put yourself in the service of another. Everything you wish you could do for yourself—take your mind off of it, recover your dignity, feel good about yourself, become energized—just happens. You can help someone by:

Giving them money: do some research and donate to a charity. Go a little out of your comfort zone. If you could afford $10, give $15. If you could afford $500, give $750. And so on.

Volunteer: to read to people in the hospital, help out at an animal shelter, for a politician you admire (I think there may be one or two left), or at your church. One of the best tools I ever found for working with my depression was to volunteer at a crisis center. Talking to others in crisis balanced me out for some reason. The best kind is when you get right up in there with people (or animals) who are in actual pain, whether physical or emotional. Let their difficulty into your heart. You’ll know what to do
next. (And the volunteer agency will train you, too.)

Calling them: you can also help people you already know. Call a friend or family member who is going through some difficulty. Don’t talk about yourself. Keep the focus of the conversation on them.

How Can I Heal a Broken Heart?

For Beliefnet

Jimmy Ruffin

While writing my book on heartbreak (”The Wisdom of a Broken Heart,” due out in September ‘09), I’ve turned again and again to that time honored source of knowledge and solace: music.

Here are the lyrics to my current all-time fave. It is just so wrenching and poetic. Grab a kleenex and enjoy.

WHAT BECOMES OF THE BROKEN HEARTED

Songwriters: James Dean/Paul Riser/William Weatherspoon

As I walk this land of broken dreams
I have visions of many things
But happiness is just an illusion
Filled with sadness and confusion

What becomes of the broken hearted
Who had love, that’s now departed
I know I’ve got to find
Some kind of peace of mind, maybe

The roots of love grow all around
But for me they come a tumblin’ down
Every day heartaches grow a little stronger
I can’t stand this pain much longer

I walk in shadows searching for light
Cold and alone, no comfort in sight
Hoping and praying for someone to care
Always moving and going nowhere

What becomes of the broken hearted
Who had love, that’s now departed
I know I’ve got to find
Some kind of peace of mind, help me

I’m searching though I don’t succeed
But someone look, there’s a growing need
All is lost, there’s no place for beginning
All that’s left is an unhappy ending

Now what becomes of the broken-hearted
Who had love, that’s now departed
I know I’ve got to find
Some kind of peace of mind

I’ll be searching everywhere
Just to find someone to care
I’ll be looking everyday
I know I’m gonna find a way

Nothing’s gonna stop me now
I’ll find a way somehow
I’ll be searching everywhere

So this is what I’ve ended up with, with around 30 hours to go before returning home after one month away.

48,366 words and many short chapters. Laid out as follows:

“The Wisdom of a Broken Heart”

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Part One: Relax
Chapter One: How the Light Gets In
Chapter Two: Depression vs. Sadness
Chapter Three: Nothing Happens
Chapter Four: It is a Dark Night
Chapter Five: Making Friends with Heartbreak
Chapter Six: Yes, You Have Lost Your Mind (But it’s Okay.)
Chapter Seven: How to Meditate
Chapter Eight: If You Accept Pain, It Cannot Hurt You
Chapter Nine: Sex Might Help
Chapter Ten: Have Faith

Part Two: See Where You Are
Chapter Eleven: Of the Four Responses, One is Helpful
Chapter Twelve: Act Like a Queen
Chapter Thirteen: Give Your Demons a Dinner Party
Chapter Fourteen: Expect Allies
Chapter Fifteen: Become Wrathful
Chapter Sixteen: Intensify to Let Go
Chapter Seventeen: Trump This
Chapter Eighteen: Mirrors
Chapter Nineteen: “I Forgive You”
Chapter Twenty: Really Unhelpful Things
Chapter Twenty-One: Really Untrue Things
Chapter Twenty-Two: Intimacy is Always There

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

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

Afterword

Goodbye, Colorado! Thank you. I love you.