Growing from Heartbreak
When I look at what my life looked like from the outside (and the inside) 4 months ago, the extreme polarity is breathtaking; almost electrifying. In just April of this same year, I was was still married and trying so hard to make it work. I was not quite yet an active business owner and did most of my work from my loft. I was mostly pushing an online platform, I had some different friends, and was so focused on just saving myself in a hard point of life It was the end of a chapter and I could feel it coming. Still, when I pause to think about my life then and my life now, it amazes me because the contrast is so stark. Life was so different and it all happened oh, so quickly.
I remember a quote from one of my first yoga classes that the teacher read aloud: The only thing that is constant is change. My 18 year-old-thought-I-was-super-wise self thought, well, that’s not true. We can control certain things and we know that certain things will happen. I DO know what my life will be like. Of course I now realize the truth in the statement. We are constantly growing and evolving as human beings. Life changes are extremely hard, but even the things we label as “bad” (death, divorce, heartache, trauma) shape us into a different version of ourselves. Nobody deserves pain, but I truly believe that every interaction, every life event, and every moment in life teaches us something if we choose to see it that way.
Think about your high school self; you don’t have the same tendencies and personality (or at least I hope that you don’t). I wasn’t the same person that I was 4 months ago or even 2 weeks ago. When we’re young, the way our parents and friends around us act shaped us into who we are. As we grow older, the experiences we have (the easy ones and the hard ones) change us - and it’s not a bad thing. It’s just uncomfortable because it forces us to grow and expand our mindset, our bodies, or the way that we once viewed our lives
As humans we attach ourselves to many identities. Many of our identities come from our career: physical therapy doctor, yoga teacher, entrepreneur, barista, coat-giver to the homeless. Some are personal: husband, wife, mother, father, daughter, son, sister, brother. Four months ago, I was a wife who was just opening a coffee shop hoping it would work. I am now single, a boss of an active coffee shop, once again an acute care physical therapist, and embracing a personal entire life that I never knew that I would have. I couldn’t have even imagined it. Is it uncomfortable sometimes? Fuck yes. Am I growing? Absolutely. Am I learning so much about myself? I couldn’t even begin to answer enough yes’s to that question.
I think that hard times in life teach you that you have to learn to love yourself without your identities. You will grow from each experience that is handed to you AND from the ones you choose to step into.
In the past four months I have experienced heartbreak I didn’t even know I could feel. I never knew that life could be that hard - and I’ve literally been hit by a car and walked again. Some of my heartbreak came some from the divorce, but a lot of it came from the experiences in between all of the chaos. I felt deeply in ways I didn’t know I could. I have fallen for people, and so quickly. I was rejected. I was judged. I was scared when my income became nothing. As I type this now, I am sitting alone in a space that once was filled with two people and friends I no longer have. There is no denying that all of the changes that happened at once absolutely sucked. It experienced heartbreak from ending a marriage, from losing friendships, from wanting something badly and not being wanted, and I grieved a life and identity that I once knew to be my only way of living.
But in the midst of all of the heartbreak, I know that this is exactly where I am supposed to be. I feel every single lesson in the heartbreak as I see myself grow tremendously as a person. I see the growth that the tough times have taught me. While some days are the absolute hardest (especially when certain songs come on), I trust what it happened just as it should. Beneath all of the heartbreak, I am the person I am supposed to be right now, just like I was the person I was supposed to be 4 months ago with completely different external identities. And I really love that person.
Heartbreak is not bad, it’s just hard. Hope always lives on for the future because whatever happens next is what should happen. Instead of trying to predict what will happen next or wait and wish for something in particular to happen, I am just following what feels right in each moment and trusting that it will all play out as it should. What other way is there to live? In constant anxiety, worry, prediction and forced control? Mmmm, no thank you. I’m done waiting around wanting something - those who want me will want me.
I’m glad my heart was broken in so many ways. I am so glad I felt so deeply so quickly. How beautiful it is to live a life where you feel intensely? We are so incredibly lucky indeed.