Heartache and Heartbreak

Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. Today I'm going to talk about heartache and heartbreak. So when we experience a great loss, when a relationship comes to an end or some other really tragic or difficult event happens, we can experience a deep and quite overwhelming pain. And I wish I could tell you that there was some magical technique to fix heartbreak. But it isn't something that we can fix just like that.

It just isn't that simple. Healing our hearts take some time. It's often the loss of a life that we thought we were going to live, as well as the heartbreak itself that we have to kind of be with that can leave us feeling quite lost and confused as well as sad, anxious, or angry. All of those emotions and responses are really normal. And although we may want to, to avoid our despair and our grief, the best way to navigate through the pain is to be right there with it and to meet it with gentle courage and compassion, which is probably at times the absolute last thing you're going to feel like doing.

It can be pretty scary and intimidating to face strong emotions. So you might feel like if you do so, the pain will consume you. You might have the urge to drown your sorrows, numb yourself, or distract yourself continuously. And hey, there's nothing wrong with a bit of indulgence or distraction every now and then. But if we continuously avoid our emotions, we'll only tend to prolong them and make things harder and harder for ourselves in an already to be difficult time.

So as we mourn the end of a relationship or a big loss or misfortune in our lives, our resistance to our new reality can create more suffering on top of the pain we already have. So to ease you through the grieving of heartbreak, I'd like to offer you these simple invitations. One, that you rise each morning, take a deep breath and remember to give yourself compassion for what you're going through. Two, that you surround yourself with the love of good friends and family. Three, that you take care of yourself by getting the rest you need, eating good food and getting out into nature, getting some fresh air and sunshine.

And just knowing that with each passing day, your pain will ease a little more and you'll begin to smile and brighten a little more, and eventually the storm will pass as all storms do, and the sun will come out again and shine. So just take it one day at a time. So as always, thank you for your practice and your presence here with us. And now just inviting you to settle in for today's meditation.