Why do we experience heartache?
Heartache is often the result of a huge loss, a broken relationship, crippling injury, a severe disease or death of a loved one. Our human nature doesn’t like change. We hold on to the people and things we love and agonize when they are gone. When the world around us breaks apart from our ideal, we often go through the grieving process of denial, anger, bargaining with God, depression and eventually acceptance. I’ve heard that the uninformed ego keeps us in the first 3 stages of grief long enough to avoid taking on all the pain at once, which is unconsciously feared to bring about our death from a broken heart.
The Buddha spoke of The Three Poisons as the sources of all human suffering: attachments, aversions and ignorance. Attachments and aversions are sources of tension, pulling and pushing people and things in an attempt to manipulate the world around us to satisfy our desires. When we are attached to a particular outcome, we essentially attach ourselves to suffering and heartache, if the outcome is different than we desire. When we yearn for something to be different than it is, we give away our power. It’s like we become a trailer and our hitch is attached to a wild driver’s truck, dragging us through all sorts of drama where we feel disoriented and out of control. Desire for control comes out of fear. When we naively judge things in the world as “good” or “bad” based on our wants, we are dividing the universe into right, wrong, black or white, which is juvenile-brain thinking, and we simultaneously push away happiness. When we are ignorant of these dynamics, difficult situations can spiral our emotions to a place of despair.
I believe the pain of loss is part of being human, but prolonged suffering (heartache) is optional, something we unwittingly create. Heartache is the result of hanging onto an outcome that “should not have happened,” based on our personal wants or desires. If we blame another, it allows us to justify our resentments and stay in anger, avoiding the most difficult stage of grief, depression. We can never go on to acceptance until the sadness has been completely experienced out of our heart. Some of us are unconsciously attached to the juicy payoff of heartache. When we garner sympathy from others for our suffering, we get to play the victim role, which is really juicy and validating, but only for a short while. In time, people will grow tired of being around “the victim” that sucks the energy out of the room and abandon him or her.
In closing, what has worked for me as a way out of suffering is to embrace an eternal perspective; realize that all souls are already eternal. Accept that God deeply loves all souls, and none can be eternally lost for there is no final exam in this lifetime, unless they eternally reject God. What has worked is to let go of all attachments and aversions, and to radically accept what is (assuming you’re not accepting being in a dangerous or unhealthy relationship).
For more help on learning how to move on from life’s challenges is an excellent book called Letting Go.
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