How to Fix a Broken Heart
Fix a broken heart in 5 straightforward steps!
How do you fix a broken heart?
Although this loaded question has been asked by many, there never seems to be a satisfactory answer. My mind often goes to the song “Tracks of My Tears” by Smoky Robinson & The Miracles. In the song, Smoky famously sings:
So take a good look at my face
You’ll see my smile looks out of place
If you look closer, it’s easy to trace
The tracks of my tears
I need you, need you
Need you, need you
I could write a whole analysis on this one stanza, but the concept of pretending to be healed stands out ot me. From the “smile [looking] out of place” to the “easy to trace / tracks of [one’s] tears” that are only visible up close, it seems like recovering from heart break is impossible.
In my own life, I look at how family and friends have dealt with the subject. Similarly to the song lyrics, many simply stuff the pain in a corner of their heart and find a way through the day. Conversations circle back to past lovers who wronged them, friendship fallouts, unexpected deaths, or regrets about missed opportunities. The energy behind each word would make you think these past events happened yesterday. After a deep pause and a groan, they grab their bags and head to work, or dive into social engagements that distract them from feeling those deeper wounds. The hurt, still entrenched on their faces, becomes a permanent resident in their emotional home. While everyone looks fine, no one really is.
My heart health is no different from those around me. When I sit down at the end of a long day, I feel my heart sigh and slump into its lower chambers. A tightness lives in the right atrium, a symbol of the battles I fought and the wounds every ventricle still remembers. I, too, have hurt and disappointment running through my veins.
I have no trouble acknowledging this, but I also recognize that this state isn’t in line with how my Creator designed me. The heaviness I feel should not be something I normalize. With this in mind, I decided to write a heart treatment for myself. If I were looking from the outside in, what would I do to heal my heart?
The 5 Steps
Please note that these steps do not substitute for any medical or professional help from a licensed professional. Please take what resonates!
Step 1: Ask & Acknowledge.
In order to mend any brokenness we feel or carry, we must begin by asking questions. These questions get us to acknowledge our emotional state and understand what love is to us.
When you breathe in and out, what thoughts come to mind? How does your heart feel? Where does your idea of love and relationships come from? Who created your idea and standard of what love is? Who broke it?
Step 2: Assess.
Next, we analyze current behaviors and attitudes. Any routines or lack thereof are called to the light. How does what you do or say now connect to your idea of love? How often do you experience love from yourself or others during the day? Where does grief sneak into your schedule?
In this stage, we can start by writing down everything we do and feel from the moment we wake up to the time we get ready to sleep. Our activities will reveal what love, or lack thereof, truly looks like in our lives. From here, we trace these current habits to past events or experiences that still live with you.
Bonus: Document what emotions you feel at the start of every hour.
Step 3: Axe.
After assessing, we must begin to break what breaks our heart. Often times, these traumatic and saddening events create subconscious attitudes that prevent us from fully loving ourselves and others. It is imperative that any heart remedy include a step to break covenants with negative thoughts, mentalities, and demons that reinforce poor heart healing.
These covenants can look like limiting beliefs: believing you’ll never find love, saying that relationships never works out for you, feeling as if you are unworthy of love, etc.
We break covenants by 1) understanding who Yahweh is 2) looking at the values He upholds and 3) creating action plans to push against anything that counters that.
Ex. If God is loving and kind, and I am made in his image, then I am worthy of love and kindness. I am made to to love myself and others. Since this is how I was designed, I do things like share with others or dance until I can’t anymore. These actions uplift others and uplift myself.
Axing can also pertain to grief. When we miss late relatives or old relationships, we may find ourselves operating in states of deep sadness. While whether grief can be permanently eliminated is another debate, we can do things to prevent it from consuming us.
Ex. Coming up with a grief protocol on those very tough days. This can include going to an uplifting community event when you start missing your ex or writing a letter to your late uncle who passed away, allowing you have a conversation with him in a new way.
Step 4: Affirm.
Once we axe, must fill ourselves with love—starting with our words. We speak words of love over ourselves. This can be affirmations, Bible verses, etc.
We can also immerse ourselves in love. This can be watching rom coms, following social media romance pages/healthy relationships and listening to R&B slow jams. We write love letters to ourselves daily too. This elevates us to speak the language of love and dance in its frequency.
Step 5: Act.
While words are powerful, actions will always speak louder. Engage in loving actions. This includes things like eating well, sleeping well, being kind, dating people who meet your standards, exploring new places and spaces, dancing more, singing more, and truly doing as Jesus did.
In 5 steps, you’ve began the journey of mending your broken heart… and maybe, even created a new one!
Cheers to heart healing!
Amarachi is a multi-faceted creative. She uses her gift of writing to discuss health and wellness, spirituality, personal development, and much more. In addition to writing, she enjoys making content for her various social media pages, creating and improving her sense of style, exercising and running, dancing and singing, and spending time in nature. Her debut book Playing with Portals: Notes from an Ex-Reiki Practitioner is available on gumroad.com.
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