2138: A Broken Heart Is an Open Heart by Jamie Greenwood with Tiny Buddha on Pround Love & Self-Awareness

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[00:01:00] This is Optimal Relationships Daily, episode 2138. A Broken Heart is an open heart by Jamie Greenwood

[00:01:08] with tinybuddha.com. Hello everybody and thanks so much for tuning into another episode of

[00:01:14] Optimal Relationships Daily with me your host and narrator Greg Audino. It's great to have you

[00:01:19] here for another episode today in which we will hear about how a broken heart actually prepares

[00:01:24] us for a better love than we had before. So let's get into the post now and optimize your life.

[00:01:34] A Broken Heart is an open heart by Jamie Greenwood with tinybuddha.com.

[00:01:41] Quote, a broken heart is not the same as sadness. Sadness occurs when the heart is stone

[00:01:47] cold and lifeless. On the contrary, there is an unbelievable amount of vitality in a broken heart.

[00:01:54] That's by Elizabeth Lesser. I love you but I'm not in love with you.

[00:02:00] Was the line my first boyfriend used when he broke up with me? I was 22. We were only

[00:02:06] together six months but I cried over him for a solid year thinking a few parallel thoughts.

[00:02:12] If I were thinner and prettier he would have been in love with me. How could he not be in

[00:02:16] love with me? I'm hilarious. And I'm never doing this love thing again. It hurts way too much.

[00:02:24] Even letting myself fall in love was a big deal. I'd always kept people at a distance,

[00:02:29] friends and family included, because I didn't want to be that vulnerable and I didn't want

[00:02:34] to feel that much. Letting people in meant they might see things that they didn't like

[00:02:40] or see the things about me that I didn't like. Being that open left way too much up to chance.

[00:02:46] I much preferred to control the situation. And so when I let myself fall in love for the first time,

[00:02:53] I did it with strong boundaries drawn. I monitored the nice things I did for him to make

[00:02:58] sure I wasn't going overboard. I checked in with myself frequently to make sure I wasn't

[00:03:03] losing myself and was careful not to give him too many compliments. At the time I thought my

[00:03:09] approach was very mature. I wasn't going to be one of those girls who loses her mind and

[00:03:14] goes gaga for some undeserving dude. I would let myself love him just not too much.

[00:03:20] Looking back now, I was in full blown defensive mode driven by a deep need to protect my heart

[00:03:26] from any harm. I'm a mighty deep feeler and like most humans quite a sensitive soul.

[00:03:32] So loving someone just felt like way too much feeling for my delicate system to handle.

[00:03:38] A few years later, I met my now ex-husband. He was kind and generous and as my grandmother said,

[00:03:45] he felt like an old shoe. And so again, I let myself fall in love. A logical,

[00:03:51] rational, we make sense together kind of love. I was better with the compliments

[00:03:56] and did my best to love him through the little things. A home cooked meal, a hug and a kiss

[00:04:02] every night when he walked in the door, a risotto tartlet from the farmer's market

[00:04:06] to show I was thinking about him. And yet, I didn't let him in. I chose him because he was safe to love.

[00:04:13] I chose him because he would never ask for my whole heart, for my fullest capacity to love.

[00:04:19] He had no need to see the deeper, darker parts of me that were desperately seeking light,

[00:04:24] and I had zero interest in showing him. At the time, I really thought I loved

[00:04:29] him as much as I could. And I did for the time and place we shared together.

[00:04:34] I loved him more than I had ever loved anyone, which felt enormous and vulnerable.

[00:04:40] I'd often have this recurring nightmare where something would happen to him and I'd be left

[00:04:44] all alone, bereft and broken. I was terrified by the dream, scared out of my mind, not by

[00:04:50] the thought of losing him, but by having to feel bereft and broken. And then one day,

[00:04:57] he left. And my heart, for the first time in my life, broke open. And all I could do was feel.

[00:05:05] In the weeks and months following our separation, my heartbreak brought me face to face with more

[00:05:10] pain and more love than I had ever known. At times, I thought I might break under the

[00:05:15] strain of their combined weight. While shedding horizontal tears that ricocheted off my glasses

[00:05:21] and ran down my face, as I watched my marriage and home crumble before me, I was able to muster

[00:05:27] more love for myself and for my pain than I ever could have, for either of us, during our marriage.

[00:05:34] When he left, the wall around my heart came tumbling down. The ice melted off the inner

[00:05:40] chambers of my soul. The doors to my ability to love swung open, inviting me to feel into

[00:05:46] those tender places so long ignored. It's true, I did not love my ex-husband to my fullest capacity,

[00:05:55] because up until my heart broke open, I could not love myself to such capacity. I was too busy

[00:06:01] protecting myself from my pain, my needs, his pain, his needs, that I walked right past the love

[00:06:08] that is possible between two people when they opened their hearts to one another.

[00:06:13] Know this, a broken heart is an open heart. It is in the breaking when our hearts are peeled

[00:06:19] back on themselves that our truths have passage to come in and out. If we're lucky, our hearts

[00:06:26] will break over and over again to reveal new ways of being, of thinking, and of loving.

[00:06:33] Each break allows our hearts to heal bigger than the time before.

[00:06:37] Yes, there is pain every time we're cracked open, immeasurable pain. And with each break,

[00:06:43] each sting of pain, our hearts are able to expand and strengthen our capacity to love.

[00:06:53] You just listened to the post titled, A Broken Heart Is An Open Heart, by Jamie Greenwood

[00:06:58] with tinybuddha.com. And I'll be back with my comments right after this.

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[00:08:49] Go to your happy price, PriceLine. Okay and thank you so much to Jamie for this post.

[00:08:56] I think it's certainly one to keep in mind whether your heart has been broken because of lost love

[00:09:01] or maybe a lost job, a lost friend, or even a tough move. Yeah these principles discussed today

[00:09:07] exist everywhere in our lives. And if you have a hard time seeing that or applying

[00:09:13] some of what Jamie had to say, I recommend reflecting on something that broke your heart.

[00:09:18] Could be any of the scenarios I mentioned or it could be something else. Could be something from

[00:09:22] the past or the present. Reflect on everything you learned about yourself or are learning about

[00:09:27] yourself from that process. Which wounds opened up for you? What might you have wanted to do

[00:09:34] differently? What Jamie is trying to say is that if we can answer these questions for ourselves,

[00:09:40] we can bring more intentionality to our next love. We can love better when we know

[00:09:47] more about what we need and more about how to give. We can create deeper connections as we learn to

[00:09:54] love in a new way that better reflects who we are. This allows us to be more present with the next

[00:10:00] objects of our affection. We might communicate better with our next partner,

[00:10:05] you know if we reflect on how poor the communication was with the one who broke

[00:10:08] our heart. We might learn to come up with more creative ideas at our next job

[00:10:13] if the job we last had got boring over time and we stopped challenging ourselves.

[00:10:19] We might be more engaged in the community of the new place we move to if we miss our friends

[00:10:25] and family that live in the place we just left. You get the idea. But with that, it is time

[00:10:30] to get going everybody. Thanks a lot for tuning in today and doing right by your relationships by

[00:10:34] doing so. Have a great day and I'll talk to you again tomorrow where your optimal life awaits.