The Wisdom of a Broken Heart: An Uncommon Guide to Healing, Insight, and Love

by Susan Piver

When your heart is broken, sadness begins to soften you whether you want it to or not. Your normal defenses are gone. When you think of the pain you feel, the tears come. A sad movie or song could make you cry, but so could a happy one; the poignancy of any genuine emotion is inescapably touching. When you see that others are in pain, you cry for them, too. The world actually seems alive in a way it never had before—every

When the one you love does not choose you on the deepest level, although he may actually love you in his own (bizarre) way, the pain of not being chosen is too much to bear. In a great show of self-respect and personal dignity, she elected to end it rather than tolerate being less than fully embraced.

But the cost was high. She lost her mind. Not in the crazy-kooky sense, but in the way we all do when our hearts are broken. She could no longer choose what to think about. No matter how many obstacles she tried to throw in its path, the heartbreak train steamrolled over everything. This is how it works. No matter how hard you try by throwing yourself into work, watching Law & Order marathons, getting drunk, or getting drastic haircuts, insistent thoughts about this loss trump everything. Maybe these things could distract you for a few minutes, but eventually the mind returns to rehashing detail after detail of the hows, whys, and what the hells of the breakup. Even during sleep, your brain spews image after nightmarish image of pain and sorrow and rage. Your mind is gone. You have lost authority. You are no longer mistress of your domain.

Ladies. If you are partaking in behavior such as this, I have two words for you: stop it. No matter how much “proof” you have that your love was stolen, it makes no difference. He left. Don’t be a chicken. Woman-up. If you are angry, the person to go toe-to-toe with is yourself. Fight for your own heart and don’t let it be squashed by anyone: not her, not him, not yourself. When you direct anger at him, you allow yourself to be filled with thoughts such as … well, okay, there’s really only

one thought, but it has myriad forms: he deceived me. Whether by reneging on a marriage proposal, cheating on you, or saying he’ll still love you in the morning, he somehow misled you. There is no excuse for this, and I’m not trying to make one. Still, the instruction is the same: stop thinking about what he did and start thinking about what you are going to do to get whole and healthy. Every time you catch yourself thinking, He is such a jerk, and I will make him pay, stop. Take a big mental magic marker and X that baby out. Instead, turn your mind to your own behavior, needs, and future.

So look underneath your anger. No matter whom you’re angry at—him, her, or yourself—it is very likely that what you will find is both harder to bear and easier to manage, because it is, finally, the truth: you will find sadness. Allowing sadness to break over you is so difficult and requires much more courage than ranting, raving, and issuing indictments. The antidote to rage is actually sadness. It’s allowing yourself to grieve what you have lost because the loss is real. When you are sad, you burn clean fuel. Rage is dirty fuel and simply leads to more and more pollution. So, please, have compassion for yourself and allow yourself to mourn.