Heartbreak aggregates. It stacks up, squeezes into tiny cracks, it compounds itself. The way rock material shifts and cleaves under pressure, so does heartbreak. There are bits of your first shattering that you’ll find when you dig into the most recent or deepest sorrows of your heart. Alchemically speaking, you can make this into what you want: a shelter for your healing self, a weapon to ward off those who may harm you. You’re welcome to leave it as it is, of course, but the amassed pain is heavy. What do you do when you can neither push it up a hill, nor drag it behind you?
Heartbreak is not static. It lands on you, as shedding leaves, to decompose and be absorbed. Whether the breakdown nourishes you is up to you. Your pain is information: about what you’ve withstood, what you need, what you won’t allow anymore. It’s information about the places you haven’t visited in a lifetime, because you didn’t think they’d matter. In love, in war, and in times of despair, you’ll learn a great deal about yourself if you consider what hurts. Don’t forget the why: why you feel like a lost child when they ignore your bids for connection, why you never ask the thing you want to know. Why you always choose people who make you feel like their acknowledgement is a rarity and not a guarantee. You’ll learn if you take the time to explore the roots of your heartbreak, get down to the bone and marrow. Who, or what, is there? Can you bring it back to the surface to examine it?
Heartbreak is deep and wide. What tools will you need to look at your past selves and all that y’all have experienced? First, beloved, use your sense of touch. Do you feel your own tenderness? The shrapnel of shame, lodging itself in your throat every time you try to speak up, can only be removed if you feel it. Use your fingers to understand the size and shape of it, so you may manipulate it and free yourself. Take a delicate, soft cloth to cleanse the dust and dirt off your heart’s artifacts. Remember the brilliance and shine. Do you see your reflection today? Or who you were when it happened? If you look closely enough, you may see yourself like moon phases, waxing and waning. This is the ledger of your experiences. Turning away might feel like the safest thing to do, because it hurts so bad. You need yourself, though, especially when it hurts.. Turn, and face yourself with a soft gaze and willing heart. You are safest when you are brave with yourself. No witnesses, no co-signers, no cheerleaders but you. Speak to yourself the way they wouldn’t, couldn’t, or didn’t know how to. Whoever failed you matters, but not the way you do. This is your excavation, your digging to do. With a pickaxe or shovel, backhoe or your bare hands, you’re responsible for you.
What has heartbreak taught you? What have you learned from unearthing yourself? Do you know yourself better? Do you better understand the rhizomes that feed you? What blooms when you’re nurtured? What fails when you give yourself up? As you journey through yourselves, find landmarks that make it easier to return with love and care. Even when it’s uncomfortable or painful, you are worthy of your labor. You are worthy of your healing.
Heartbreak is a force of nature. So are you.