So you move yourself to a place where you can accept the destruction. The crumbling, the dying, the old, and the lost. You understand that destruction serves its purpose in many ways and if you allow yourself to observe those purposes, you will learn. You will learn that death is a part of life in the most extraordinary of ways. Death ushers in life, transformation, and growth. It sets the table for wisdom to be gained, knots to be loosened, and big, boisterous messes to be cleaned. Without death, we would be surrounded by stale misfortunes that linger and weigh us down, entirely. Death and destruction are meant to be a catalyst, not an end.
Alongside destruction floats pain. You cannot escape the hurt that is forever glued to your painful experiences, no matter how ugly or believable they are. No matter how much you accept and embrace the change that flows with death, it always leaves a scar. Even when the shock has passed, a slow, lingering sting tends to remain for quite some time. For most people, this is one of the most uncomfortable places on the human journey. It's the place where movement seems daunting but stagnation seems disastrous. You either move or get moved. There is an attachment to what was and a fear of what will be once you take steps forward. The intensity of this experience is exacerbated by the fact that you can experience this cycle from losing almost anything. A person, a relationship, a job, a home, a pet, a car, an arm, an eyeball, a kidney, a perspective, a belief, an idea, a dream, etc. Even from the simple destruction of a belief, you had to the most important piece of who you are. When anything changes from what you know to what you don't, you experience loss. It doesn't even have to be necessarily destructive. There doesn't need to be explosions or funerals, goodbyes or farewells. All there needs to be is a shift from what you know and where you stand to what you don't and where you haven't. That's it.
There are so many things in life that can break your heart. Anything can go from one state to another and just rip you apart inside. You can lose precious things or let go of things that were never too precious, to begin with. Either way, you experience the pain of letting go of something. Anything that breaks your heart is avoided or approached with reluctance. It makes sense, though! Why would you want to feel the heaviness of something when joy and love exist in life? I am someone who tends to wear rose-colored glasses with the best intentions. Unfortunately, I do not always take into account how things might look when the glasses are removed or broken. I see the beautiful, the valuable, the importance in all that I meet. But sometimes, what I see is affected by the love in my eyes. There is almost always a letdown. Not all are as painful as some can be, but almost every single time my lenses change, my heart breaks just a little, tiny bit.
Today I heard a song that preached not letting things break your heart. For a short moment, I absolutely agreed! Shit happens, things take a turn down a different path, sometimes when you are least expecting it. Just because it hurts like hell doesn't mean you should let it break your heart, right? Right! You have the power to not let your heartbreak and that feels like strength. But think about this: what if true strength was allowing something to break your heart, just a little bit, and feeling every inch of it until you've given it the care it needs and it patches itself up once more? How full, how enriched, how incredibly powerful our hearts would be, if only we let them break.
My heart breaks constantly. Whether it's a sad story I read, a shattered person I meet, or an old belief that turned out not to exist outside of my mind. My. Heart. Breaks. It breaks for animals, for people, for ideas and dreams that turn out disappointing. My heart breaks when I lose a friend or a lover, a favorite necklace or a charm. My heart breaks when I get my hopes up and my expectations were more than my reality. My heart breaks when I make choices that hurt myself or others. My heart breaks when others make choices that hurt themselves or me. My heart is constantly breaking, over the smallest most weightless things. Things that I could easily ignore, turn my head and walk away from. But they are there for a most important, sacred purpose. These things that have the power to make us hurt more than we would like to, also have the power to open us up to love and joy that we could never even dream of feeling.
The pathway from pain to love, you may wonder, is, in fact, a very bumpy and rough one, but one that is so amazing, so beautiful and so very worth the trouble. The path is through a broken heart. Just one small crack or one shallow hole, allowing yourself to bleed just a small amount to release what is sure to eventually fester if the crack does not allow it to make its great escape. The breaks in our hearts may fill us with pain and sorrow, but it is the chance we have to fill those cracks with love after letting out what needs to be freed, which gives us the key to experiencing pure joy and happiness on the deepest levels possible. For after the pain and the blood has leaked out from the depths, pure love and light can fill those wounds, and reach all the way down to the very bottom. So, let it break your heart. Let it all break your heart. Let it break over, and over, and over again until there is no blood left to leak. But only let it break a little bit. Find the light that follows and tend to your gentle wound with the love that you wish to fill it with. Let the world and all it contains break your heart in the smallest ways, and watch as the very world that broke it supports you in washing it out but pumping it full of life and love. May your hearts all beat strong with the cracks and the glue, the holes and the bridges, the rough and the smooth surfaces. May your heartbreak just enough with all that seeks to breathe life into your lungs. May your heart live on to discover just how beautiful and incredible this life can be and may you always, always, always know that even the largest most excruciating break can and will be mended. After all, it is your nature to love and it is your nature to be filled with it, entirely.
