Lessons from heartbreak

"Only love can break a heart, only love can mend it again." 

Gene Pitney - lyrics to the song Only Love Can Break A Heart

Avec Tout Mon Coeur

(With all my heart)

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We've all heard the phrase broken heart, I'm sure...and most of us, at one time or another believe we've experienced one. Broken or breaking hearts are the subject of countless novels, movies and most of all, popular songs. The young lead character, Sadie, in Abby McDonald's, "Getting Over Garrett Delaney" poignantly and dramatically proclaims, “You can die of a broken heart — it's scientific fact — and my heart has been breaking since that very first day we met. I can feel it now, aching deep behind my rib cage the way it does every time we're together, beating a desperate rhythm: Love me. Love me. Love me.”  Love affairs that don't turn out well, involvement in relationships that are toxic or constantly hurtful can certainly make us feel this way. I've felt it myself several times in my life. Therapists might suggest that such heartbreak comes from an excessive neediness or a feeling of inadequacy or thinking oneself not good enough to merit being loved. Even more likely though, is heartbreak after a loss. Grief is one of the chief causes of heartache. 

But Sadie is right...there is such a thing as a broken heart. Doctors have identified a very real medical condition called "broken heart syndrome" that in most cases is serious but short-lived and from which a person can fully recover in a very short period of time. But broken heart syndrome can actually be fatal. According to the American Heart Association, "Broken heart syndrome may be misdiagnosed as a heart attack because the symptoms and test results are similar. In fact, tests show dramatic changes in rhythm and blood substances that are typical of a heart attack. But unlike a heart attack, there’s no evidence of blocked heart arteries in broken heart syndrome. In broken heart syndrome, a part of your heart temporarily enlarges and doesn’t pump well, while the rest of your heart functions normally or with even more forceful contractions."

The syndrome is more common in post-menopausal women than anyone else but it can happen to anyone. Also called stress-induced cardiomyopathy, broken heart syndrome is experienced as "sudden, intense chest pain — the reaction to a surge of stress hormones — that can be caused by an emotionally stressful event. It could be the death of a loved one or even a divorce, breakup or physical separation, betrayal or romantic rejection." It could happen after a sudden surge of intense anger too, or other losses that are closely associated with self-image like the sudden loss of one's career, the loss of a child, sometimes even the loss of a beloved pet can trigger actual heart break. And as the American Heart Association reminds us, "It could even happen after a good shock (like winning the lottery.)" The syndrome is also associated with depression and severe anxiety which can be triggers and the New York Times (February 2010) reports many other emotional but also physical triggers of broken heart syndrome. Non-emotional triggers like a sudden drop in blood pressure, a surgical procedure, an adrenalin surge due to fear or adverse drug reactions are just as common triggers. 

And yet, if you can weather the immediate storm of the initial heartbreak, which may definitely require medical treatment, or as in the case of ongoing depression or what I call "slow heartbreak," therapy or counseling, there are countless lessons and precious treasures that can come out of that experience. Friendships are deepened by shared burdens or grief and you learn who will walk with you during the darkest of times. Most of all, you learn more about who you are, what you're made of, what matters to you and you learn to acknowledge your own feelings and needs as "okay." Getting to the bottom of depression - or a broken heart - takes work and commitment but it's worth every second. Ultimately, you'll learn that heartbreak is actually part of the human experience - not just a silly drama. 

In the midst of a heartbreak of my own, I wrote this poem to express my new understanding:

 Hearts Were Meant to Break

Hearts were meant to break.

Love…requited…bursts them wide open

expanding them ever outward with the

awesome power of the big bang,

photon upon photon of love light -

an endless grace, that energy moving toward

the sacred consummation of intimate union.

And when stars cavort and gaily pour

the glittering dust of diamonds

into the space that love has opened

to receive it, a heart so fills with light

that it must split asunder to make room

for the more of love, the overflowing

river of it, the numinous, luminous constellations

of love light dancing through the cosmos.

Love…unrequited…breaks it open wider still…

transforming brokenness into beatitudes,

slivers of past sorrows that now sparkle

like shards of glass catching moonlight.

But the shattered heart remembers,

with deepening gratitude, its shattering,

having tried with such determination

to share its rounded fullness with another

and found it breaking on the hard, square edges

of someone’s heart not open yet.

There is no way to put it back together.

Now broken, it moves ever outward

like the universe,  which is itself

Love’s energy radiant with grace.

Avec Tout Mon Coeur at my website

Still broken...but authentically me

"Let go of who you think you're supposed to be and embrace who you are."

Brené Brown

In Remembrance of Things Past

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Perhaps I'll never really exhaust the subject of brokenness because it's part of understanding who I really am and what the process was of becoming me. I promise, however, not to dwell too long on the broken parts...but rather more often on the good that comes of them. I know that there are people who would prefer not to explore the idea of being broken...let alone admit it out loud. The question for me today is what do we gain by being vulnerable, by acknowledging the broken bits and pieces, by accepting our imperfections? 

And for me the answer is authenticity. If I can muster the courage to admit how cracked and broken and mended I am, if I can expose what most would perceive as weakness and allow myself to be vulnerable, then what I gain is the freedom to be truly and authentically myself. I don't have to pretend to be someone else. I don't have to keep trying to be who others expect me to be. For years and years, I was the "rock," the "strong one," the "crisis handler," the "responsible get it all done well" one. I didn't let a soul see how shattered I was at times, how much struggle there was to pretend to a strength I didn't feel. 

My own perception of vulnerability was character weakness. My version of relationship was to be the one in control, the giver, the do-er, the rational and seldom emotional spouse or partner or friend. "Big Girls Don't Cry" should have been my theme song...or alternatively, "Lean on Me." I didn't often let anyone offer me a shoulder to cry on. I never admitted that sometimes the burden was just too heavy and I needed someone to share it with me. If I had a problem - or you did - I could analyze it to death coming up with just the right advice or course of action. But I didn't very often acknowledge how I actually FELT about any of it. What I THOUGHT, yes, but what I FELT, no. The brain could be trusted - the heart with its messy feelings could not.

I could, I thought, prove that. When I fell in love late in my life after the death of my husband, I couldn't seem to help myself from opening the door to all those "feelings." Irrationality was the special of the day and for once, my heart ruled my head. And then...I had my heart totally shattered. One would think, wouldn't you, that I'd fall back on old habits - go back to pretense, to rationality, to cover up? But that's not what happened...once the door to a feeling heart was open, I couldn't close it again. And I realized that broken or not, I didn't want to go back to that inauthentic person I'd been. So it is that I learned this most valuable lesson: (I post this for a dear new friend - you'll know who you are!!)

HEARTS WERE MEANT TO BREAK

Hearts were meant to break

Love…requited…bursts them wide open

expanding them ever outward with the

awesome power of the big bang,

photon upon photon of love light -

an endless grace, that energy moving toward

the sacred consummation of intimate union.

And when stars cavort and gaily pour

the glittering dust of diamonds

into the space that love has opened

to receive it, a heart so fills with light

that it must split asunder to make room

for the more of love, the overflowing

river of it, the numinous, luminous constellations

of love light dancing through the cosmos.

Love…unrequited…breaks it open wider still…

transforming brokenness into beatitudes,

slivers of past sorrows that now sparkle

like shards of glass catching moonlight.

But the shattered heart remembers,

with deepening gratitude, its shattering,

having tried with such determination

to share its rounded fullness with another

and found it breaking on the hard, square edges

of someone’s heart not open yet.

There is no way to put it back together.

Now broken, it moves ever outward

like the universe,  which is itself

Love’s energy radiant with grace.

© 2013 Lianne Schneider 

So, I can say truthfully, that though I'm a mended (or mending) version of who I was, I think I was blessed to be mended with gold as I said the other day. Admitting that I'm always vulnerable now, that I can be hurt, that I feel things not only lets me be authentically who I am without pretense...but strangely enough my vulnerability gives the people I love the courage to be vulnerable too and it's there, in that shared vulnerability, that true and honest and loving and joyful relationships are born.