We are all, every one of us, filled with horror.
—Michael Ventura, “A Dance for Your Life in the Marriage Zone”
I keep trying to talk myself out of my own grief, but I find that I feel most at peace when I just admit to myself that my heart is breaking.
My heart is breaking.
And it’s okay. It’s just a way of being. Sometimes hearts are full, and sometimes they are empty, and sometimes they are intact and strong, and sometimes they are broken.
There’s really nothing wrong with having a broken heart except that it’s sad and painful. Not that I advocate drawing out either feeling a second longer than the life they have on their own, but they are just feelings and will pass.
Ironically, when I just get honest about the fact that my heart is breaking, I feel free—free to stop trying to cajole myself into pretending I’m in a different emotional space than I’m in.
This is an auspicious time to be meditating on the truth of my heart’s breaking, it being the season just ushered in by Lughnasadh, or Lammas, the ancient traditional season of the grain-harvest.
Indeed, John Barleycorn must die.
I’ve been re-reading one of my very favorite books, May Sarton’s Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing. Sarton is so out there with her truths, truths with which I resonate down in my core:
“Something has to open people, and it’s always terrible.” (italics mine)
I must not fail to acknowledge this, that my heartbreak will open me up, and that the elixir pouring forth from the ferment of its brokenness will bring joy as well as nourishment.
Well said. I have been studying people who live well with chronic pain and a major theme is acceptance – instead of “catastrophizing”, the hallmark of those who get worse over time. The still moment of simply being with pain heals and calms but seems more than that. Redemption? transcendence? Initiation? Something like that is in in their eyes, an energy of significance. Keeping in mind it will pass lets you “in it” for that split second, actually a timeless moment. Integration is another word that comes mind and the experience of it – watching the pain dissolve – somehow makes the pendulum swing further in the positive direction. It’s all been said I guess, and I suppose I haven’t added anything new but it does seem very important. Better than pain meds!!