My heart is crushed again.

I feel alone again.
I feel sad again.
I feel disillusioned and empty again.
The bits and pieces of my broken heart stick to the cool, tile floor
Like the remnants of a beautiful past that could have been, but never was.
I am haunted by the ghosts of our sweet and bitter memories, my love…
They show up in the saltiness of my tears.
Yet, somewhere in me
There is hope.

For a broken heart is a new beginning, isn’t it?
But—
It’s not just about beginning.
It is about beginning in a different way than ever before.
And that changes everything.

So why waste forever wondering why it didn’t work out?
Our tears are dewy, fresh with pain, raw with hope.
Our hearts are formidable, so utterly softened, like the fertile, muddy earth.
It is spring inside.
Transformation starts now.
Life starts now.
Growth starts now.
In the ending,
In the crushing,
In the crumbling,
In the old decay buckling and giving way to something brand new.

“Here,” our hearts say, gurgled and knotted in a strangely electric combination of excitement and grief,
Hope and hurt, soaring freedom and complete anxiety—
“Begin here.”
Right smack dab in the middle of the pain—
In the midst of the twisting, stabbing loneliness and wishing so badly it could have worked.
In the midst of wishing we never opened our hearts in the first place.
There is no more perfect place to make an offering of love to our Selves.
There is no more perfect place to begin.

Hold fast to courage and the ink-splattering fear of diving into the new.
Nurture that knot in your gut.
Tend gently to tension in your shoulders
The way your breath catches in certain moments,
Tears springing like rain as something subtler reminds you of your beloved.

Our hearts are broken, yes—
But perhaps just the walls and coatings around them are broken.
Maybe it’s the armor and masks that are smashed to smithereens
As the softness underneath reveals itself slowly.
Now tenderness can shine through.
Now the incandescence of our light can pour out.
Now the beautiful depths of our spirit can soar fiercely out.

It hurts so much, I know.
Let us not lie about that,
We don’t need to gloss over it or make it pretty,
So let us feel the pain.
Breathe into it
And make it into something new—
Art. Beauty. Freedom. Truth.
A budding, bittersweet beginning
Like never before.

Reflect.
Take in all you learned.
Take in all you need, hope, and madly, passionately long for.
Begin like never before.
It is a chance to harness
The potency of our pain
The power of being vulnerable.
For when we are raw and tender
We are most powerful.
Because we are directly in line with our hearts.
Everything else fades away,
Thought dissipates,
Our mind fades into the background,
And we feel.
And we sob.
And we are so fantastically human.

Be tender with your tenderness, dear soul.
Hold your tears like they are diamonds.
Touch your wounds like they’re liquid gold.
Because they are.
You just don’t know it yet.
But you are starting to.
And oh, the magic life has in store for you…

This.
This is the alchemy of a broken heart.
It is sweaty, hopeful, miserable, and perfect
It is the winds of change, and leaping boundless into the great, wild unknown
Where rip tides of the past no longer have their sway,
And fields of buttercups dance just for you.
It is a portal,
Step into it—
Jump into the fertile darkness,
Arrive at the altar of your Self,
Into the passions that sing your soul to life,
Into who you really are—
Who you were always meant to be.
It’s time now
To stand up tall
To trust those tenuous whispers
That makes themselves known when we need them the most.
Be bold, dear soul.
Be so tenderly bold.

Your heart may be broken,
But sometimes the most beautiful, luscious things spring from brokenness.
Trust.
Trust in the sweet magnificence of who you really are.

~

Author: Sarah Harvey
Image: eflon/Flickr
Editor: Yoli Ramazzina