My dear, I know your heart is broken but you need to stop breaking it, too. You are not what happened to you, and you are not what you have done. Your heart as it is, as it was, is more than enough; there is no need to wish it were different or to become painful parts of your past.
Your heart is enough; it always was.
Broken hearts are remarkably reckless, and yours was in the path of someone else’s hurt and misguided pain. Your heart was not broken out of spite or intention: your heart was broken by getting caught under foot in the parade of someone else’s heartache. You were never a target, your broken heart is collateral damage from someone else’s sorrow.
Your heart was made with hinges, so that you can let in as much as you crave to let out. Don’t let your broken heart rust them. Let them swing freely so your own hurt can leave you. Your heart was not made to only collect the suffering of everyone else, so your own anguish could have company.
Broken hearts cannot be healed in boxes or in darkness. Pull out all your shattered pieces without shame or suspicion, and lay them all out in the sun like the stunning mosaic you’ve become.
Broken pieces have more facets and faces for the light to play on.
They are more dazzling for being divided.
Your heart was broken by your own imagination, too. It was not created to withstand the unbearable weight of disappointment and unsatisfied expectations. We suffer when we imagine different than what is, breaking slowly while we wait for something that may not be on it’s way. The slow and subtle breakdown of your once hopeful, patient heart can cause more hurt than the pain of breaking beneath the gravity of swiftly falling.
My dear, hearts break by forgetting that all hearts are broken.
It’s in the smallness of seeing our own hearts as less than that they crumble. Your broken heart does not mean that you’ve been undone: it means you’ve become. We are not born in pieces; broken hearts happen naturally and necessarily because of, not in spite of, living and having loved.
Your broken heart is beautiful evidence that you have done both.
You are not what you’ve done. Your broken heart was already there when you broke it even more. We all inherit the pain of generations and harbour it in our habits and our health. It’s no wonder your heart burst, holding heartaches that were never yours to own. You are not your addiction or your grief; that is only your heart trying to hold itself together while you learn how to help your broken heart still beat.
Your heart is enough; it always was.
You are not the words you have heard or what has been said to you. The hurting hearts of others speak loudly so they can drown out their own shame-stricken distress. You can hear in the chorus of the broken hearted notes that sound like mirrors, reflecting the instrument, not the audience. Hearts become broken when we turn someone else’s serenade into a song we believe we need to play, too.
Your heart was meant to be a witness, not an echo.
Your heart did not break from being worn on your sleeve; it broke from beating for someone else. Do not lock it away in a tower of pent up apologies, waiting to be given, or received. Wear it boldly in all it’s broken glory, more resilient and real than it ever was before. Broken hearts cannot mend in an unrequited void of wondering where you went wrong; they heal through accepting that they beat and they broke as best they knew how.
What you believe broke your heart was never what broke your heart.
Your heart broke just as it was intended to, just as life breaks through a seed to turn into a tree.
Your broken heart does not mean that you’ve been undone: it means you’ve become.
XO. SJ VanDee
PS: You can read more over at www.LifeInDetox.com and follow along on Instagram at www.Instagram.com/LifeInDetox 🙂
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