Sitting With Heartbreak

Heartbreak is the hardest. We expereince both emotional and physical pain and contraction when the heart loses love. Join us as we direct our healing energies — compassion, softness, kindness and healing visualisations — toward the heart centre in a sensitive, ever-so-gentle practice of nourishment, healing, and positivity. A must for anyone wrestling with the conflicting pain of loss or grief as a way of coming back to self and the world.

Transcript

Welcome to today's meditation where we're going to learn how to sit with heartache.

We're finding whatever seat or supine position the body most wants to rest in and the key here is to be really really comfortable.

It might be that you wrap yourself in blankets or a duvet,

Bring pillows under the back of the head or the knees,

Underneath your seat.

You're really just taking some moments here to make a nest for yourself so that you feel cocooned and supported in whatever way feels best.

And knowing that as you settle down into this space,

You're sending a message to yourself through the body that your comfort is king,

That your comfort is your top priority as you nurture yourself and make yourself nice and warm.

Dealing with heartache or heartbreak is one of life's greatest challenges.

And we might just sense into the fact that it feels both emotionally painful and often physically painful as well.

You can feel as though the radiance or the joy of the heart,

Which is suffering because there has been a loss,

Has been diminished.

And it can feel as though any energy that once flourished in the heart in the form of love has been lessened as the muscles of the heart contract.

We retreat into ourselves.

And the object of our love or the subject of our love is no longer with us for whatever reason.

You might just sense that feeling in yourself.

Sense the emotions and the sensations swirling in and around the heart space.

Or maybe your body has physically retreated and curled into itself,

In which case you're helping to protect that feeling in the heart.

Maybe the shoulders are rounded around the chest.

Maybe the head is hung low in towards the body.

This is a natural physical response to the feeling of the heart aching.

And we're doing so to protect ourselves.

What often happens when we're wrestling with or experiencing loss and the sadness that comes with the loss of love,

On which perhaps we were hanging a lot of expectations and hopes,

Is that we feel ourselves quite cut off from the flow of life and from joy and the rest of the world.

And here I just want to send out this gentle reminder that this is also part of the process.

And that we can begin by acknowledging in ourselves this feeling of being depleted,

Depressed,

Let down or let go of.

And just begin as we do in so many of these meditations,

To turn a soft and gentle glance down towards the heart.

This heart which has loved and lost.

This heart which is now hurting.

And by acknowledging the pain that sits there,

We're honouring the way that we have loved.

We're honouring the existence of love and our capacity to share and exchange in it.

And by honouring this pain it doesn't take it away from us because only time can do that.

But what it does do is help us to soften towards our own suffering.

To acknowledge the existence of pain and suffering.

And to value it as the other side of the coin.

The other side.

The necessary side.

And part of our healing process.

And as we continue to hold this delicate,

Hurting heart,

Just gently with this compassionate glance,

This compassionate eye,

You might notice just a gentle,

A gradual change,

A shift in the feeling deep inside the heart.

Quite possibly a releasing,

A letting go of some of the pain that was there just a few moments ago.

What we're doing is paying attention to the heart.

Dropping into its space.

Dropping into the space.

And by acknowledging the hurt that's there,

We're moving away from the stories of the mind.

All of those narratives,

All of those pain bodies,

All of the criticisms or analyses that the mind likes to come up with when we're hurting.

We're moving away from those and just softening down into the felt sense of the pain.

Away from psychology and into the body.

So yes,

We're hurting.

Yes,

There is pain,

Significant pain.

But by continuing to sit gently with this compassionate eye,

Feeling into what we feel,

We're not adding stories to the pain.

Rather we're honouring and allowing the pain to be there,

Which is an entirely natural response to loss,

To heartache.

And observing what happens as we continue to sit with it.

Not thinking about it.

Not going over and over the details of what happened.

Just leaning in.

Leaning into feel.

And allow it through.

And maybe we feel this pain elsewhere in the body.

As you widen your awareness to include the rest of the body.

Are you getting a sense of this heartache,

Having made home,

Set up residency in the belly,

In the back,

The hands?

Maybe,

Maybe not.

But again we're using the body as a map because it maps our experience and it holds on.

And again by bringing awareness away from the thinking mind and the stories that it weaves that are not self-supporting.

And down into the felt space of the body.

Again just curiosity guiding us into a broader awareness of how all of our systems respond to pain and hold onto it.

So again if you're experiencing a physiological response to your heartache elsewhere in the body.

Again just let yourself feel into that.

Let it be.

There's no need to enlarge this feeling of pain by expanding on it.

But rather we're just dropping the gaze down into those spaces.

Letting a gentle breath gently expand them and soften them.

And again noticing if there's any subtle shift.

Any change in how we're experiencing those feelings of physicality.

And day by day we can return to this practice.

Making time to create a nest.

A place of retreat for ourselves where we check in on how the heart feels.

How the body feels.

And by using this nurturing practice we're not escaping or running from the pain that we feel to be able to feel it.

Rather we're becoming more intimate with it.

So that it can feel and see our acknowledgement of it.

Really it's about the heart receiving its own love as we turn towards ourselves.

As we tend to these fragile tender moments of repair.

And repair it will.

For the heart and its resilience are a thing of great beauty and mystery.

The heart is made to care for and to love.

And as we build its strength day by day and moment by moment.

Its ability to return to full loving capacity in an open exchange with the world around us.

Well it's inevitable.

And you can trust that it's going to happen because that too is part of the natural process.

So whilst you might feel in the pit of despair and be aching so badly in your loneliness and in your pain.

Know that you are not alone.

There are many others right now moving and wending their way through this.

Feel a sense of connection to those.

Those are the hearts that form this web of life around the planet.

And allow that to give your heart succour and strength.

As you begin to visualise your heart connected to the hearts of others around the world.

You might have a physical response.

A feeling of the heart beginning to embolden and expand itself just at the thought of that deep connection with others.

And maybe you can begin to see the heart growing,

Building strength,

Piecing itself back together again.

A patchwork.

A patchwork that is made all for the work that it does and for the courage that it has to heal itself.

And maybe you would like to add to your visualisation as you see life itself growing out of your heart.

Maybe using flowers as a positive visual emblem of the way that nature restores and repairs itself through the seasons,

Even after death.

The death of winter.

The guise of winter.

Trusting deeply,

Deeply that this heart is more than capable of finding its strength of loving and being loved.

Let any other associated images that might be coming to you just float their way up.

And then I want you to set the intention to return to this practice on a daily or nightly basis.

Using this time to refuel your heart's imagination and to refuel your faith in the certainty of it healing.

This is your tender heart and it seeks wholeness.

It seeks expression and it seeks healing.

Those things will come to you as you tend to the gentleness of your heart,

Day by day,

Night by night,

Until I promise you there will be a time when you have your full strength,

Your full courage,

Your full confidence and you'll go out into the world,

Your heart full of smiles,

Your heart full of laughter and your heart full of love.

Take all the time that you need to rest either in this space,

In this place in your imagination or to begin to embrace yourself and maybe wrapping your arms around your own body.

And just repeat to yourself the words of the mantra,

My heart is whole.

My heart is whole.

My heart is whole.

Namaste.

Reviews

This was a very helpful meditation..my Mother passed away a year ago September 24th...so a lot of memories..sadness... thank you so much sorry sharing your gift of teaching..

Donald James Dodge

Excellent! My heart needed this, and it feels lighter! Thank you! 🙏❤️✨️

Thank you for this beautiful meditation. I find great support in this.

This is really good, but the music was so loud that I could barely hear her

So supportive, loving, tender yet empowering. Thank you. Namaste 🌹

First try on a longer meditation. This was so much of what I’m feeling.

Such a peaceful, deeply conscious and explorative meditation.

A helpful guide to accepting the intense experience of heartbreak.

Gentle, soothing and effective at reaching inside to understand one’s feelings

Thank you so much! A lot of tears...but I know I'm not alone and my heart will heal. 🙏

wow, amazing. exactly what my little broken heart needed

Your voice and words are very soothing, just what I needed. Thank you

Holy shit that was absolutely divine. Thank you 🥺❤️

Thank you creating for these heartfelt words and beautiful space! 🙏🏼

This is a really gentle and supportive meditation. Thank you 🙏🏻

Very helpful 🙏🏼 still soo hard though 💔

A powerful release. So soothing. It was very helpful to connect with the hearts of others. Thank you so much. ❤🙏

So beautiful, gentle, and helpful. I noticed a major change afterwards feeling lighter and warmer at heart. Thank you!

My heart feels whole. I've expressed, I'm healing and I'm letting go........
🕉

Thank you so much for this 🙏