The Curious Gift of A Broken Heart

The human heart is quite impressive when you think about it. For the entirety of your life it keeps on flexing, rhythmically pumping blood through your body while adjusting, as needed, to the body's demands. It never takes a break, never gets a timeout, only slowing down periodically before another day of full-time work. And yet, when people sing its praises, they connect it to all these emotion-things that somehow got tied into that blood-pumping dynamo that keeps you alive. Doctors might find this a bit of a snub, but writers know exactly why, so let's play around with that process piece for a bit.

When our heart speeds up, slows down, pumps stronger or weaker, we feel the effects throughout our body but also right there in our chest. These changes are put into motion by chemicals produced within our body, but we know what sets those chemicals going in the first place. All the emotional triggers we have, all those big and small feelings that course through us, they all help produce those chemicals that make us feel different all over - and we feel something in our chest as well. That's how the workhorse of our body became tied into love and joy instead of life flowing through us - merely by association. However, writers and other creatives saw the emotional connection and ran with it.

If someone with no knowledge of human physiology tried to learn about the body through poetry and expressive writing, they would come to the conclusion that the heart produced our emotions. After all, a heart can feel full or empty, it can overflow with every wonderful feeling, it can blacken and shrivel from a lack of use, and it can even harden into a cold, stony rock in our chest. Now, none of these things can actually happen, but when we feel such things, we identify with the emotions and that pain or exuberance just underneath our ribs. There's reason and purpose for this, and it is very much to our benefit to explore this - particularly as those feelings strengthen.

As anyone can tell by reading my past year of posts, I have had a lot of heartache this year. I have lost four inspirational people in my life in 2024, the most recent and by far most important being my mother. Would anyone be surprised if I said my chest hurts? Doubt it, although they might expect something more than just describing pain. At that point, I see why those metaphors have lived on over the years. A heart can overflow with joy, but when a heart gets broken, emotions just leak out through every crack, every fracture pouring feelings all over the place. To me, this is why people are such a wreck after experiencing heartbreak - their emotions are everywhere, untamed forces flooding into every part of their life. I feel that pain in my chest and in my mind's eye, I see wave after wave of love, joy, anger, and everything else just spilling out, unchecked, as they soak into every aspect of my existence.

And how is this a gift? Well, think about it. In its normal state, a heart doesn't leak anything. Everything is contained, it flows as expected, almost to the point where we no longer appreciate what a quiet little miracle it is. The same goes for emotions: How many times do we fight with our loved ones and not feel that love that fills us? We have all these feelings but we rarely tap into them - maybe because they are just that strong, that important. When a heart is broken, we hurt, but more to the point, we feel. We feel everything, possibly all at once, and feel it everywhere. Some things we don't even realize we felt until they spill out and we have to acknowledge them. It's brutal, it's painful, and it's honest because we feel things in their raw form. No filter, no containment, there it is all spilled out. 

If you go through an episode of a broken heart, give yourself a chance to feel more than just the pain. Embrace everything that comes out because at least you are feeling something. As overwhelming as it may be, you are living in the most human, most honest moment we can experience, and you will learn more about yourself in those times of pain than you ever will when everything is contained. Let that pain in your chest be a signal that you are growing.

(Unless it's a shooting pain that hurts your left shoulder as well. That might require a trip to the ER.)