From HeartBreak to HeartBreakthrough

During a particularly powerful IMT session, the oddest thought popped into my head. We have many words for heartbreak but what is the equivalent for heart healing? I wonder if we don’t have a direct way to say it because we don’t know how to do it. We wait impatiently for time to heal all wounds.

One of the challenges of the post covid period is that many of us have experienced a kind of heartache which has no clear trajectory and no clear end point. When I think about post covid re-integration, I come up with 3 principles that have helped me create a transversal between loss and recovery.

I named this process HeartBreakthrough because, after much effort, there can be sudden and often dramatic change.

1. Receive AWE.

We simply can’t have enough experiences that crack us open and make us wise to the wider forces of creativity and inspiration in the universe. In the beginning when we are really hurting, it feels almost impossible to “cultivate” awe. What I have found is that awe creeps in anyway. Feeling the rush of the sublime is a clear first sign that it is time to move forward.

2. Move from dynamics of 1:1 to 1:MANY.

Heartbreak has a singular quality. It reflects the preciousness of having known and lost specific people, experiences, places and feelings. The connections are so unique and so intense that it’s easy to use them as a standard of comparison for new experiences. Instead, expanding our ecosystem to include 1:MANY relationships, for example, trying all the coffee shops or all the yoga studios in a certain area, broadens our horizons and sidesteps the urge to keep seeking "the one."

3. Increase Intimacy with yourself.

It’s difficult when you’re in pain to let people in. Here’s where sessions with practitioners can really help. It’s an opportunity to be able to speak freely and receive comfort without social complexity. Intimacy with oneself can come from therapy, creative development, and experiences in nature. These explorations can call in pieces of ourselves that were left behind in the intensity and intimacy of closer connections.

HeartBreakthrough opens us to the world around us and invites transpersonal knowing to soothe the hurt in our personal sphere. Eventually, the combination of awe, community, and intimacy reignites a sense of possibility. The new connections we form are often borne of the very best version of ourselves, composting the sharpest of pains into the soil of transformation.