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)

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/avec-tout-mon-coeur-lianne-schneider.html

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

Gifts from the Sea

The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its nets of wonder forever.

Jacques Cousteau

Between Sea and Shore 

(I know I've posted this image before but it fits the post best!)

http://lianne-schneider.artistwebsites.com/featured/between-sea-and-shore-lianne-schneider.html

Some days, my longing for the sea is palpable. Today is one of them...a gray, rainy day, the first of several this week...and I can think of nothing I'd rather be doing than walking along the beach at Cape Cod or Cape May, or Rehobeth, La Jolla, even Galveston before the summer crowds descend. The ocean in all its many moods and guises has always been a metaphor for my life's journey and there are times only those hours alone on a quiet beach can help me to decipher the lessons along the way. Some years ago I picked up a stone on the shore at Race Point, one of those diamond days - so perfect you could never forget it, shared as it was with my dearest friend. I've kept the stone for all these years and carry it with me to remind me of all the sea has to tell me.

  

THE WORRY STONE

I carry it in my pocket,

roll it around there letting

it shift from palm to fingers,

trace its contours with my thumb

and remember the day I

picked it up at the beach,

that brilliantly sunny

afternoon at Race Point…

how it caught my eye

amidst all the other pebbles

because it was not yet

perfectly smooth, though

quite well-polished, different

in hue and composition

from an ordinary stone,

a worn conglomerate

of sparkling quartz and

dull gray limestone,

one  black clast of obsidian

distorting the smoothness.

My thumb catches the fragment,

worries it, like one worries

a broken tooth with the tongue,

feeling the irregularity there,

probing it with questions -

what long journey has this stone

made to find itself on this shore?

How was it shaped by that voyage,

battered, abraded and pounded,

its rough edges worn down,

by long ages of pressure,

the travel across distant seas

cementing together all

the disparate metals and minerals,

compressed now into one

remarkable and unique stone.

I carry it with me in my pocket

and worry it with my thumb

to remind me of my own

uniqueness, melded from all

the separate pieces of self,

light and dark, rough edges

scoured by the unrelenting rhythm

of life’s ocean into a new whole

that is finally becoming me. 

Perhaps I'll get back to the sea this summer - but even if I don't, it's always in my heart, always reminding me that some things are eternal, that there is an ebb and flow to life that one must learn to accept. But like the tide...what seems gone will return...and find me waiting. 

The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/sea.html#284FQUeFS7VdxVWD.99

The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/sea.html#284FQUeFS7VdxVWD.99

Velveteen Rabbit and the magic of touch

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

Leo Buscaglia

Velveteen Rabbit a painting by Lianne Schneider

Sometimes the only thing a person needs is the touch of another person's hand. Sometimes there is nothing that needs to be said but, "I need a hug."

A poem I wrote some years ago...

At last...life is like a song

No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.

Hal Borland

 American Robin - Harbinger of Spring

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/american-robin-harbinger-of-spring-lianne-schneider.html

At last...finally...welcome SPRING!!!!!!!! The long cold winter is over at long last. Today I awakened to full sunshine, the cacophony of bird songs outside my window, the last patches of snow shrinking visibly by the hour - a reminder of the previous week's freakish one foot snow storm - and the spring bulbs pushing their leaves up through the newly thawed earth. In a week, there will be crocus and primrose and an early daffodil or two. In another, the tulips will burst forth and the hint of new leaves will appear on the lilacs and birch first. The hawks were circling the morning - perhaps looking at a new supply of field mice to feed their babies. It is spring - and like the earth, I feel reborn, renewed, prepared for growth.

Most people describe spring in terms of color and very often refer to the greening of the earth. I'm an oddball, I guess. I see the gold in spring before I ever see the green. This is what it looks and feels like to me:

SPRING IN GOLD

Whoever sees but green in spring

has not seen it early making

crazy patchwork quilts of gold

laced with yellowed snow.

Old-gold stubble of close-cropped corn,

tawny gold of last year's hay,

dew-topped first furrows, sun-gilded

creek willows easing green-gold brass

against the morning sky.

Tentative yellow-greenings, wary, watchful,

waiting for the season's promise - 

a shy bride on fulfillment's eve. 

© Lianne Schneider 2008

Yes, for me the season is golden first, warming my heart, brightening my thoughts, lifting my spirits towards the heavens. The gold of spring is the burnished setting for the jewel-like colors that will adorn the earth in just a week or so. But for now, I am content to bask in the golden glow. 

 

Epiphany - have you had one?

Sometimes the dreams that come true are dreams you never even realized you had.

Alice Sebold - The Lovely Bones

Epiphany

http://www.lianneschneiderart.com/Art/Digital-PaintingPhotoArt/i-KV84mZv/A

Someone asked me at one point which of my poems or artworks most conveys what my vision and my spiritual and personal life journey is like at this late stage of my life. My answer is always the same. Although most of my poetry, particularly that designed or created especially to accompany an image or vice versa, reflects who I am or where I've been, this image and poem really say it best. “Epiphany” is a very emotionally charged statement of what still drives me every day and underlines my hope and the image is a composite of those things that were part of my "awakening" if you will.

In this case, the image of course was created to go with the poem, specifically to try to say visually what I expressed in the poem and to do that in a way that would be representative of who I saw myself to be as a writer and artist at that time. The central element in the image is a symbol that is important to me from my experience with meditation – it’s a variation of and an extension of something called a Tau Cross – note that it is the intersection of what I see as my connection to the earth (the roots) and to the universal mind – the explosion of light/thought/energy from the center and all arching to form a heart – representing the LOVE I feel for all life, for that which is beautiful and inspiring. 

I do have moments when I’m alone in my “cave,” when I’m standing beside the sea or walking up a creek, or just watching a glorious sunset when I am simply overcome with emotion. I never realized until I allowed myself to open up and express it, just how deeply emotional I am. I never cried – and even when my beloved grandmother died, my father died and my husband died, I cried very little. I was the “rock” upon whom everyone leaned. Now tears come easily – as often from joy or wonder as from sadness or grief. But I’m still an impatient person in many ways – I want to KNOW everything. I want to know how to do everything so I can create more effectively.