MENDING HEARTS

My friends and I have been talking about heartache and relationships recently. 

About the painful experience when a partnership breaks up, and about the sometimes deep wound it leaves behind where once was happiness.

How long does a heart take to heal?

How long will we be able to shut ourselves off and will the fear of getting hurt again ever go away?

A partnership is a complex thing. 

When we enter a relationship we give something away from ourselves. Our heart is open to receive, to give and we make plans and are full of dreams.

The longer a relationship takes, the deeper and more intimate we become with our partner, and sometimes we even merge with that world.

When this beautiful world is destroyed, when once what we thought was happiness has vanished we find ourselves hurt. 

Sometimes it’s not just the heart that’s in pain but even our whole body.

We are frustrated that our ideas haven’t been met and our dreams have shattered into pieces.

Rejection hurts, failure even more.

It’s hard to get through this stage of healing. We go through different periods of healing, we try to reorganise our lives in a new world, where we had shared day-to-day life with someone else before.

How long does it take to heal?

I don’t know how long it takes to heal…everyone is different, every situation is unique and so are we.

For some of us, we heal only in years, for others it takes only 4 months.

Some people need a lot of time in solitude to mend their broken hearts, for others, only the love and company of a new partner will be able to mend theirs.

Fact is, we never know until we come to meet someone new.

When we come to meet someone new between all that healing and restoring, we might suddenly feel hit and confused.

We question ourselves, we question the other and we find it hard to trust our feelings again.

We are scared.

I think, the fear that hits us is still connected with the pain we felt when our relationship before broke into pieces – and we don’t want to get hurt anymore.

We are waiting for the pain to go away and then we are waiting for the fear of new intimacy to vanish. We tend to think, that only when we’re not scared anymore we are healed and ready for someone new.

But matters of heart are not as obvious.

When we are mending our broken hearts, we have to attend it. Like we would attend a broken leg. With a broken leg we go to the doctor, he has a look at it and we get it fixed. It will take time to be able to walk again without a cast, but eventually, if we follow the right treatment we will be able to walk again.

Now, with a heart, its not very obvious. Not as obvious as a broken leg where the doctor confirms our health by a diagnostic report.

No, with this matter, we have to be brave enough to make the diagnostic report ourselves.

We have to learn to trust our feelings again, and this trust we only get back by trying. 

And despite all fear, let me tell you, no two moments are the same, neither are two people. What went wrong back then, doesn't mean it will go wrong here and now.

We have changed in the process of a break-up, so have others. And even tho you cannot feel that change yet, it does slumber inside of you, subtle, and it will show at the right time. 

Someone said to me, maybe we are forever wounded. I don’t think so, unless we decide to rip the healed wound open again forcefully, which only happens when dwelling in the past and concentrating on our fears.

So, maybe, its not about getting rid of the fear, but collecting the courage of trying all over again.

Maybe, healing doesn't mean that the pain and fear don’t exist, but that the damage and fear no longer control our lives and decisions.

Maybe, the best way to heal is to accept that we are scared of love, but doing it anyways.

We never know how long a relationship will last, neither in love, nor with friends but if we shut ourselves off in fear of getting hurt we will end up confused and lost.

It’s not the pain itself that kills our hope, it’s the fear of pain that imprisons us.

So why not opening our arms open wide, why not being scared but doing it anyways?!

Don’t wait for fear to vanish from the stage!

Go and grab that power called courage by the horns, dive into love and you will be surprised what beauty there is to find!

PS: To me, this short conversation with a friend opened my eyes and heart:

She: So what’s wrong then?

Me: Well, it’s just that i don’t want a relationship anymore. They are always trouble.

She: No, that’s wrong. You don’t want a relationship with THAT man anymore! THAT relationship was always trouble!

Wow...how i love switching the point of view :D