A Letter To All of Us Who Know Heartbreak

An email from an acquaintance who subscribes to my writing said she was confronting some heartbreaking transitions and would welcome any thoughts I might have.

In replying, it didn’t take long to realize I was talking to maybe every one of us.

Dear Q,

I’m honored that you would reach out to me, and grateful that you are attempting to care for yourself at a time of tremendous loss.  I hope I am able to do the same when my life falls apart in ways that severely test my aspiration to respond with grace to what comes my way.

Since you’ve been reading my stuff you may already know that one of the fundamental impulses of my life is to consider everything from the largest perspective I can––the big picture, if you will––including that the purpose of every experience is to help me grow my capacity to love.  To be sure, it’s a never-ending practice that includes making friends with being a lot less good at it than is useful for me and others.  That said, there are other times when it takes no effort at all to spot a lovely coincidence.  One happened not 24 hours before receiving your note.

I happened to watch a documentary about the late Fred Rogers, the host of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” on television for so many years.  A more loving, life-affirming person is hard to imagine.  I mention him because, immediately upon reading your email, I asked myself what would I do in your position.  A few answers came to mind, which I will share, but the very first was to surround myself with the loving embrace of people whose approach to adversity I find strongly sane and inspiring.

In addition to people I know in the flesh, Fred Rogers is one of them.  As is Greg Boyle, author of “Tattoos On The Heart” and ”Barking To The Choir;” the Dalai Lama, whose recent book in collaboration with Archbishop Desmond Tutu is titled “The Book of Joy;” and Pema Chödrön, among whose published offerings is “When Things Fall Apart.”

You of course must pick your own group of helpful wise ones, warm bodies as well as those accessible via various media.  Those who serve me best offer not only perspective but also tools for managing the tumult of emotions profound loss instigates.

Every death (including the death of intimacy and trust as we have known them) can bring to the fore all the deaths we have ever experienced.  We help ourselves, I find, by being mindful of how naturally powerful the destabilization can be in the face of multiple loses like those you are experiencing.

Among the useful tools is an appreciation of the transition states that are present in all change.  This can help us understand and embrace where we are as a part of the natural process of change.

Another is Carl Jung’s “Star,” a vehicle for generating a “whole picture” of self-understanding, an understanding that includes both the internal and external actions one is committed to taking.

Saints and sages are pretty consistent in their reminders of just how difficult it is to be a reasonably healthy person in body, mind and spirit.  The Bhagavad Gita calls life the great battlefield.  I certainly find that so.

At the same time, there’s plenty of loving support available to serve us, and two of the most powerful forms of that support we carry with us at all times: the power of breath and the power of choice.

The most potent medicine we have for managing ourselves is our breath.  It is the doorway to peace, calmness and a more spacious mind––which comprise a desirable foundation for making healthy choices.

And to me the principle that most determines the well-being of any person is: How we define our world creates our world.  This is the sacred power of choice.

I’ll end with what could very well be the starting point in addressing anything.

Perhaps no action is more valuable than identifying how we wish to respond to whatever our life presents––what we’re trying to accomplish that we can control is how I think of it.  Obviously, the perceptions and behavior of others––in fact, all external events––are beyond our control.  But what we can control is who we’re committed to being (even if we’re not good at it) and the energy we invest in service of that intention.

In this context, I find it useful to remember that while I certainly may find things painful and/or difficult, I’m not doing myself any favors by finding them undesirable.  “Undesirable” suggests that I know how the universe works and therefore how things ought to be––a common delusion that causes a lot of misery.

While watching the film about Fred Rogers (whose 90th birthday would have been this week), I made note of a few of his sayings:

• • “Evil would like nothing better than for us to feel awful about ourselves.”
  • “Anything mentionable is manageable.”
  • “Whenever you find bad things, you find good people trying to make it better.”
  • “Often when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something else.”

It wouldn’t surprise me that everything I’ve said here is already quite familiar to you.  Except perhaps my deep thanks for your email.  The opportunity to clarify my thinking about such a vital reality is a great blessing.

In gratitude,

Steve