Rising Strong: The Reckoning. The Rumble. The Revolution.

by Brené Brown

When I ran this idea by my dear friend and mentor Joe Reynolds—an Episcopal priest and one of the wisest people I know—he was quiet for a while, then said, “Yes. I do think heartbreak is about love. I just want to think about it some more.” A couple of days later, he sent me a letter sharing his thoughts, and later he gave me permission to include it here. Heartbreak is an altogether different thing. Disappointment doesn’t grow into heartbreak, nor does failure. Heartbreak comes from the loss of love or the perceived loss of love. My heart can be broken only by someone (or something, like my dog, though a part of me really believes my dog is a person) to whom I have given my heart. There may be expectations, both met and unmet, in a relationship that ends in heartbreak, but disappointment is not the cause of the heartbreak. There may be failures within the relationship—indeed, there certainly will be, for we are imperfect vessels to hold the love of another person—but the failures didn’t cause the heartbreak. Heartbreak is what happens when love is lost. Heartbreak can come from being rejected by the one you love. The pain is more intense when you thought the other person loved you, but the expectation of returned love isn’t necessary for heartbreak. Unrequited love can be heartbreaking. The death of a loved one is heartbreaking. I didn’t expect them to live forever, and death is nobody’s fault regardless of smoking, bad diets, no exercise, or whatever. But my heart is bro...