Heartbreak and Love
I want to talk today about heartbreak. Not poetic songs of longing and lost opportunities, but the reality of it. The feeling of having your heart feel it no longer belongs in your chest. Feeling your fears stare you in the face and being helpless to run. Knowing that there is no way to escape it even if you could run, you know you have to walk through the fire or it will chase you to the furthest corners of the world, the deepest reaches of your mind. There is no substance, no escape, and no solution other than to feel it fully. It demands respect and time. It demands every piece of you until it has been satisfied. This is the heartbreak I speak of, the byproduct and danger of handing over yourself entirely to someone or something, it comes with the potential to have seemingly nothing left when it ends. Music takes a different tune, the words in books change their meanings, just as the rose colored glasses of falling in love change your perspective, so does the shattering realization that it’s over.
What a blessing it is to feel life fully, every emotion, every yin to yang. The tides come and go and we are helpless to their power. You can try to fight them, you can pretend they do not affect you, but you will simply be doing just that, pretending. Better to surrender to them and see if there is a lesson you can learn from them. I’ve spent a lot of time running from a lot of different heartbreaks. Thinking I could put enough of myself out into the world for them not to be my burdens anymore, this is not true. Instead I've been asking my heart, what is there to learn from this? What good can I take from the pain of loss? Dissecting the moments fully, delving into my own reactions, exploring my shortcomings, the hurt I caused, my own emotions, so that I can understand them fully. This is where letting go begins. Until we have reached a form of mental understanding minds will continue to return to what needs to be processed. It is simply human nature to need answers to our unfinished business, even if it is within ourselves. When the time comes, thank the moment, thank the person, thank the heartbreak for the time which meant so much to be able to cause so much pain. Thank myself for not hardening through it, for taking the lessons forward as a more fully formed and compassionate person. Every tear has a lesson if we simply listen. When you have to the best of your ability felt the moments, relived the joy, sat in the desperation, you can begin to close that book and put it up on the shelf of your life.
Now I would like to talk about love, the love we see in nearly all things. Even when it is not apparent at face value. The love of a father caring for a son, willing to do anything for him simply because that is as core to him as the heart that beats within. The love of friends, love of community, love to me is the act of caring for another more than you care for yourself. This is not absence of love for self, which is an entirely different topic. But our souls are not made to take, they are made to give. To send love and abundance, as Ram Dass likes to say, into the universe. As simply and intrinsically as the expansion of everything since the big bang, so do our souls send love out from them. This is where true passion stems from. Art, music, poetry, these are all a soul sending love out into the universe. Love however, is quiet, it is easily pushed aside because of its simplicity. It can be tortured, neglected, forgotten, it cannot however be destroyed. At the core of all there is always a glimmer of love, this is my understanding of nature. When we strip away the greed, hatred, and every other nasty little adjective you can put in place here, there will always be love. It is there in the quiet moments of sunrise, it is always patiently waiting to be given, to be sent out on its mission of connection, we simply have to quiet the noise and give it the space to grow.
Love,
Fitz
I had a very hard day today, it tired my soul, it necessitated a lot of patience and compassion, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
