Category — wisdom of a broken heart

In January and February I drove across the country giving talks on what heals a broken heart. The talks were based on my new book, The Wisdom of a Broken Heart. Well, what is the wisdom of a broken heart then? How can something that feels so outrageously awful contain any intelligence whatsoever? Why would anyone want to do anything besides get rid of it?

These are excellent questions, especially the last one. As anyone suffering a broken heart can tell you, it’s impossible. Try as you might, you can’t talk yourself out of it. No momentary explanation (I was too needy; he was scared of relationships), form of pampering (physical, sartorial, massage-ical), divination (astrology, numerology, palmistry), or desperation (gin, body building, buzz cuts) can do anything but momentarily relieve the agony. I know. I tried them all. But all that happened was I ended up a mentally overwrought, smooth skinned androgyne with a fabulous wardrobe and no money.

One thing that did help however, was writing. I wrote obsessively about what I was feeling, ever-changing insights about why this was happening, and my dreams, which were pitiless extensions of my daytime imaginings. When I look back at the many journals I filled with my sorrow, rage, and confusion, I see now that I was simply looking for a way to relate directly to my state of mind, to take it in so I could understand it on the deepest level possible. When I would arrive at an insight of any kind—about why this hurt so much, what in my past might have made it so, what a particular scene in a dream meant), I would experience momentary relief. Clarity brought healing. The deeper I went into my own psyche and the more I understood about my own emotional reactions (and what they were called—at first I couldn’t even distinguish between sad, angry, and exhausted), the lengthier my moments of relief became.

I spent a lot of time looking inward, developing a relationship with myself. This changed my life for good. When this awful period was over, I knew who I was in a very different way. My broken heart forced me to look at myself. And with self-knowledge (whether what you find is profoundly beautiful, surprising, or embarrassing), comes confidence. With confidence comes the ability to open to love once again.

I now see that was I was doing was meditating on my heartbreak.

Meditation is substituting for your mental chatter a different object of attention, whether it is a sound, image, or your own breath. When attention strays from this object and becomes reabsorbed in meandering thought, you simply bring it back to your substitute object. In my writing, that object was my emotions.

Paying attention to something is different than thinking about it. It’s the difference between playing with your child and reading a child psychology book. One is in the moment and the other is placing attention on the past or future.

When your heart is broken, you could place your attention on your feelings over and over, simply to discover them and actually feel them. This helps you relax. Distracting yourself from them stresses you further.

When I learned to meditate, I found an even more direct method for diving into my feelings—but this time with an important difference: without trying to understand them, but simply to feel them. It sounds strange, but when I learned how to do what Pema Chodron suggests: “Feel the feeling and drop the story,” a whole new level of healing occurred. When you sit down, invite your feelings, and get to know them without agenda some kind of magic happens. The feelings begin to dissolve. Not at first, when they might actually intensify, but in time, by staying with them, without—this is key—telling your self what they might mean. Meditation is more like lying on the ground, looking at the clouds to see what shape they suggest rather than identifying this one as cumulus and that one as cirrus. It’s a kind of focused hanging out. With yourself.

So if your heart is broken (or even if it’s not right now, but was in the past) try these things: Meditate on your feelings through writing and meditate with your feelings through, well, meditation. Finally, if you feel so inclined, share what you have learned with others. It can really help to tell your story, over and over. Each time you do, the same story yields new insights.

Here is how to begin.

Write
Try to answer these questions (these and others are posed in my book):

1. The thing that has been the most difficult for me since this relationship ended is _______.

2. When I think about our break-up, the thought or thoughts that plagues me over and over is/are _______.

3. I feel the pain of this loss most acutely when I _______.

4. What I miss most about our relationship is _______.

5. What I don’t miss about our relationship is _______.

6. The thing I regret most is _______.

7. The unforeseen benefit of this break up is _______.

8. If I could take him back right now, I would/would not and here’s why: _______.

9. The most important thing I need to tell myself right now is _______.

10. The biggest lesson I have (or hope to have) learned from this experience is ______.

In answering these questions, just write whatever comes to mind. Don’t censor. Try to spend about ten minutes on each question, simply writing in a stream of consciousness fashion. If it helps, set a timer. Pick up your pen (or keyboard) and dive in. If the first thing you think to write is screw her, screw her, screw her, then write it. If it’s I have no idea how to answer this, then write that. Just keep going. Don’t stop moving your fingers. See what happens.

Don’t feel you have to answer all the questions at once. Try one or two a day or a week. Add your own questions. Come back and re-answer them whenever you want to. The beauty of questions is that on different days, different insights may arise.

Meditate

Learn basic mindfulness-awareness meditation and try to practice it regularly. It is the single most helpful thing you can do. Why? The truth is, I can’t explain why. Sure, it has been scientifically proven that meditation makes you happier (by increasing activity in the prefrontal cortex, whatever that means) and relieves stress (by lowering cortisol), but the power of meditation to transform you goes way beyond brain waves and such. The effect is beyond words. That is why I can’t explain it. You just have to try it for yourself and see. Begin with five to ten minutes per day for a few weeks or longer. Eventually, try to build up to twenty minutes.

I offer meditation instruction on my website here.

Share
It can be very reassuring to see that you are not alone. Check out this blog post on my website to read other people’s stories of heartbreak and then post your own. There is relief in telling your story and speaking the truth.

The answers are all within you. The perfect teacher who knows exactly how to heal you accompanies you at all times. All you have to do is slow down, open up, and listen.

A very different interview with the lovely Irene Rawlings on KBCO in Denver. Specifically about working with heartbreak. In two parts, appropriately enough.

Part 1
Part 2

When in Lexington, KY last month, I did this interview with the lovely poet Katerina Stokoya-Klemer. She interviews writers for her show, Accents. (Her own accent is pretty awesome.)

She interviewed me about my work from a literary perspective. This was a first for me and I enjoyed it very, very much. I also read a short chapter from the book.

Here is a link to the interview, which is about an hour long. Our interview begins about 7 minutes into the show.

Everyone in Denver: I heart you.

While I stayed at Jennifer Louden’s house, we talked about heartbreak, writing, and teaching. Plus she and Bob cooked for me and let me do laundry. It was awesome.

Untitled from jennifer louden on Vimeo.

5 Steps to Heal a Broken Heart

Long interview on WebTalk Radio.

A lovely photograph, taken by Konchog Norbu, a monk in Montana. Can you see the broken heart? And how beautifully it’s held by its mountain brothers?

Such a thoughtful, wonderful guy. I love how he pauses to really think about his answers…