The Power of Heartbreak

I experienced a deep heartbreak recently, and it caused me to reflect on the power there is in this process. It occurred to me that maybe heartbreak is one of the ways the Divine has created for us to turn away from the superficial and from the distractions of our lives, and toward deep, true Love.

Because when heartbreak hits, it doesn’t just crack us open—it strips away everything that doesn’t matter. It brings us to our knees. It reminds us that underneath all our striving, all our schedules, all our expectations… we are tender beings who long to love and be loved.

Heartbreak has a way of stopping us in our tracks. It doesn’t ask for permission. It doesn’t wait for a convenient moment. It simply arrives—fierce, undeniable, and often life-altering. Whether it comes through the end of a relationship, the death of someone we love, a serious diagnosis, or some unexpected loss, heartbreak presses down with a weight that feels like it could flatten us.

And yet.

Beneath the ache, beneath the wreckage, something else is happening.

If we’re willing to let it, heartbreak can open us. I don’t mean the tidy, self-help version of “everything happens for a reason.” I mean something messier, deeper, and more real. When the heart cracks, there’s a chance—just a chance—that we can allow more love to flow. Both out and in.

A Sacred Cracking

There’s a reason spiritual traditions around the world speak of the heart as a sacred vessel. It isn’t just a metaphor. Our hearts are where the eternal and the human meet. They’re where we remember our essence, even when we forget everything else.

And when the heart breaks? That’s the moment the shell gives way. The protective layers we’ve built—through personality, survival strategies, ego, even old belief systems—begin to fracture. And through those fractures, something holy can shine through.

That light may not come right away. In fact, it usually doesn’t. At first, all we may feel is the shattering. It’s like being underwater, unable to breathe, stunned by the violence of what just happened. The old life, the old dream, the old sense of safety is gone.

But over time—sometimes slowly, sometimes all at once—we realize that the heart didn’t just break down. It broke open.

And that’s where the power lies.

Three Pathways After the Break

In the wake of heartbreak, we tend to respond in one of three ways.

First, we might withdraw and drown in self-pity. This isn’t a judgment—it’s a very human response. We hunker down, pull away, and curl in on ourselves. But this path often leads to stagnation and disconnection. We can get stuck in the narrative that life is happening to us, and we lose our sense of agency.

Second, we might withdraw but turn inward, seeking the Divine. This path has depth and potential. Rather than folding into despair, we descend into our own sacred interior. We meditate, we pray, we walk in nature. We don’t run from the pain—we sit with it. And slowly, we begin to encounter the parts of ourselves we forgot were there: the child who still longs, the elder who still trusts, the mystic who still remembers.

Third, we might reach out. We call a friend. We go to therapy. We sit on someone’s couch and cry. We let another heart witness our broken one. And in that connection—if it’s loving and safe—we find ourselves softening. Supported. Held.

Of course, these aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, the most healing path often includes a bit of all three: time alone with the Divine, time with our own truth, and time with others who can hold space for our grief.

Letting Love Flow

Here’s the invitation: when the heart cracks, don’t seal it back up too quickly.

Let the rawness teach you.

Let the tenderness guide you.

Let the space that’s been created become a new channel—one that allows more love to flow through you than ever before.

The love that moves through a broken heart is different from the love that lives in a safe, untested heart. It has weight. Depth. Wisdom. It’s the kind of love that knows life is fragile and still chooses to open again.

That’s a sacred kind of courage.

And often, it draws to us others who are in the same terrain. When we show up cracked open but still loving, we give other people permission to do the same. We create a field where it’s safe to be real. To not have it all together. To not know what’s next.

This is what makes heartbreak alchemical. It’s not that pain is inherently “good”—it’s that pain, if tended well, can become a gateway to deeper presence, deeper connection, and deeper truth.

Remembering the Great Big Love

I believe that heartbreak awakens something ancient in us.

When the heart breaks, we are thrown into longing. And that longing—if we follow it to its root—goes beyond the person we lost or the diagnosis we received or the life we thought we’d have. It reaches for something much bigger.

It reaches for the Great Big Love.

The Love that shaped us before we ever had a name.

The Love that breathed us into being.

The Love we knew before we were embodied—when we were still stardust in the Divine’s dreaming.

Sometimes our soul remembers that place so acutely, the ache feels unbearable. But that ache is holy. It’s a homesickness for the Divine. And every time we touch it—through heartbreak or awe or prayer or silence—we draw closer to the truth of who we are.

Not separate.

Not abandoned.

But sourced from Love, made of Love, and held by Love… even in the mess. Even in the grief. Even in the heat and dust of being human.

The Heart’s Stretch

So if you’re in the middle of heartbreak right now—first, I am so sorry. And I am holding your precious, wounded heart in mine.

But I also want to say this: something is stretching inside you. Something holy is making more room. More space for compassion. More space for joy. More space for love to flow both ways.

Let it stretch. Let it hurt. Let it heal.

The heart is a sacred muscle. It gets stronger the more it opens.

And with every break, it learns to carry more of what really matters.