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Finding Hope and Healing After Heartbreak


MartyT

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Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
--From Anthem, by Leonard Cohen

If you've recently had your heart broken, experienced a divorce, break-up or another form of loss, there is no doubt you have heard all the platitudes. "There's more room in a broken heart; he/she wasn't right for you; there's a lid for every pot; there's plenty of fish in the sea; when one door closes..."

People who say those things to you are trying to help, but all you hear is, "Suck it up, man up (especially if you are male); get over it; move on; find someone else." When you're hurting, these things are hard to hear, harder to do and not at all what you should be doing.

It's encouraging to hear some experts on the subject say that the best thing to do for a broken heart is to nurture it, allow the emotions to pass through and let it heal. According to Tara Brach, author of Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha, "Clearly recognizing what is happening inside us, and regarding what we see with an open, kind and loving heart, is what I call Radical Acceptance.

She added, "I recently read in the book My Stroke of Insight by brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor that the natural life span of an emotion—the average time it takes for it to move through the nervous system and body—is only a minute and a half. After that we need thoughts to keep the emotion rolling. So if we wonder why we lock into painful emotional states like anxiety, depression, or rage, we need look no further than our own endless stream of inner dialogue."

Read on here >>> Health Journeys Blog

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Having been through break ups more times that I can count, I've learned some tricks to help myself through it.  Determination, focus, it plays a huge part in our attitude and adjustment.  You allow yourself ample time to cry, to grieve, to really experience the gamut of feelings.  And then comes the day when you determine not to allow that person to keep hitting you with fresh wounds, and you begin to adjust to what is.  You focus on what is best, rather than your dream.  You put one foot in front of another and keep going.  Spend time with friends and family, don't isolate yourself.  Look for what is good in living still.  Determine that you are #1 in your life and make it about you.  But don't keep obsessing over the person gone.  If they were so perfect for you it would have worked out.  It doesn't take someone being perfect for you to develop love feelings for them and sometimes the result is heartbreak.  Still, all of life is an experience, it's living.  Shutting ourselves away and not opening up is not living.  I have no regrets for opening up...I have a couple of regrets for choices, though, but I don't beat myself up over them.  It's all a learning experience.

Edited by kayc
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