The Difference Between Heartbreak And Sadness?
Teachers of the Hassidic movement have taught us that a broken heart is not the same as sadness. They teach us that having a broken heart is a positive thing, but that sadness is a negative idea.
So what is the difference? Sadness or dejection is a feeling of death, an inner lack of life. A sad person lacks energy, and the desire or strength to move towards the light.
But a broken heart is another matter entirely – a broken heart is a sorrow felt by the heart, but does not kill it. On the contrary, a broken heart is feeling. Through the aching of a heart, you know that heart, on a metaphorical level, is fully alive.
I love to quote the great poet and singer, Leonard Cohen on this topic. He said, “In every thing there is a crack, that’s where the light gets in.” And I do believe that when the heart is shattered, that is when the light comes in.
The Broken Heart
There is a saying by the Rabbi Mekotek that goes “Nothing is more complete than a broken heart.” People who live full lives expect to feel, and those who feel experience both happiness as well as sorrow.
Every abandonment, every loss and grief is felt by the universal heart, and anyone who possesses a living heart feels it too. But, the heartbreak exists within us along with the joy of life itself, because only a living heart feels.
Disappointed Love
People often say that they experience a broken heart when their love is rejected. But what is this sensation? Is it really a broken heart or is it mainly sadness? In these moments you can examine whether or not you feel a subtle inner happiness, despite the feelings of sorrow.
If you can feel any happiness, then it is a broken heart after all, and from the perspective of inner growth this can be defined as a blessed and holy moment. The moment in which (thanks to the object of our desire) our heart’s armor is cracked, and it comes to realize how much it thirsts for love.
What Is Love?
The thirst for love is the spiritual nature of the heart. What is love if not the desire to unite with something or someone? This is the way I was taught to define the sensations of love: “Love is the desire to be at one.”
In the depths of reality there is no separation. All is one divine unity, but we live in a world that has separation and the unity disappears in it.
Consequently love manifests as a holy power, and seeks to get us back to the universal source. As when a person truly loves nature, they want to be one with nature, and when a person loves another person they want to be one with them.
Sexual attraction is an expression of love, though of course, not all love is sexual. The love for friends, the love of parents and children, or teachers and students – these are all examples of love between people that have nothing to do with sexual attraction, however all of them include a deep desire for unity.
Therefore, when love manifests, something inside of us celebrates. There is an inner euphoria, as if nothing else is important – as long as we are together! And, there is such a strong feeling of rightness – love reveals the deep unity of reality, the unity that exists behind the illusion of this world, hidden behind the illusion of separation.
Therefore love reveals the deep truth, and when this truth is discovered the heart celebrates.
Finding The Good In Rejection
But when our love is rejected, the opposite feeling is created: this rejection does not reflect the deep truth of existence, but rather our fear of being alone. Sometimes, we are forced to separate. And the heart aches because deep down we know that unity is what we seek and separation is painful.
When your heart is broken, when your love is rejected or you feel abandoned, it is easy to fall into self-pity, and/or a sense of worthlessness. But, we do have a choice even when we ‘lose’ love. One can either be sad and heavy or we can utilise the feeling of a broken heart in order to open up.
This is the whole spiritual trick if you ask me: to know how to open up in every given situation, rather than shut down. And, if we were to shut down, we might figure out why and what exactly happened inside, and find ways to open up again.
When we experience abandonment we have the option of allowing it to happen without resisting it, and let it crack the armor we use to block feeling the world.
During this time we have the potential to finally understand what other people feel and we can expand our awareness beyond our own sorrow to feel the sorrow that exists in the entire world.
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