HEALING THROUGH HEARTBREAK & CREATING A CONSCIOUS PARTNERSHIP
“Love is the highest energetic frequency.”
Maureen Dodd, one of my healers & mentors, once said this to me and a bunch of other spiritual junkies as we all sat wide-eyed in the heart of a church. That’s a story for a different time, but I’ve held this connotation close as I navigate my own life’s love ballads and battles.
NOW AGE LOVE
We’re breaking down what love is & means to us today. We’re (finally & for the most part) embracing LGBTQ love, marriage and everything in between while dismantling societal & inner child fairytale programming — sorry cinderella, I adore you & your glass slippers, but you’re canceled.
I was at my friend Sean and his fiancé Austin’s house in upstate New York a few weeks ago and on their fridge were two princes kissing. “THIS!” I exclaimed to my partner as I pinched the emblem of gay love off the fridge — a timely and sacred dig at the “prince & princess” silo we have confined lovers to for years. I’m straight, but it made my soul sing. Love isn’t just a feeling between a male & woman, let alone two people. I believe love is an energy that can be embodied solo, together or if you want to get esoteric, even through frequencies that can be attuned via sacred soundscapes, numbers & geometry.
As I continue to live a heart-centered life, one that is out of my head & fully in my body, I’ve been reframing common clichés as more antiquated misnomers.
Think about “The one.” Or what about “Love at first sight?” Both cling to a “happily ever after” (sigh, another) fallacy.
There is one prominent phrase (however, typically iterated in terms of life rather love) that resonates with me —
“Breakdown to breakthrough.”
In other words, heartbreak is hard, but it has the ability to heal beyond your present pain & expand your capacity to give & receive love — If you allow it to, that is. The other mentioned idyllic scripts feel disconnected from reality but, “Breakdown to breakthrough” seems to encapsulates it all — at least for me. Here’s a few far-from-amorous anecdotes that have taught me how heartbreak, all forms, is one of the most healing experiences.
TRANSCENDING TRAUMA
My love affair with a one-in-a-million cancer diagnosis first put my heart & soul into a tailspin, but then pushed me on a path towards greater self connection & alignment — some serious spiritual whiplash. It eventually forced me to look at my life, and the world, through the lens of love & gratitude.
When in treatment, a rare walk outside in nature, given I was often neutropenic, would make me swoon. The mundane turned into magic right before my eyes. I would gaze at leaves how others would gawk at rainbows. Transcending through that type of trauma allowed me to find the extraordinary in the ordinary. It pushed me to be more present with the beauty and love that surrounded me on a daily basis.
I also learned who I am outside of my external appearance & world. I was stripped of almost every strand of hair on my body and a lot of what society praises as external beauty — the egoic channel to love. As a young twenty-something this was truly heart-breaking. Alas, when the moment came to buzz my head, I had a dance party with my best girlfriends at the Bumble & Bumble in Meatpacking. It was liberating.
I may have been bald, but I felt free. I felt me. It was a spiritual tipping point.
Stripping down to the rawest, realest version of me was startling, but it allowed me to tap into a very deep and authentic place of self love, rooted in gratitude.
It inspired me to get to know myself on a deep soul level, which took me down late night rabbit holes googling self discovery systems like human design, gene keys, akashic records and more. I began to feel more aligned with my truth & love the path that I was leaning into. So much that I eventually came to realize that some close friends and loved ones were not so aligned with my new path — prompting yet another kind of heartbreak.
BREAK-UPS
The tight knot in your stomach that warps your wellbeing. The fortress that, brick by brick, builds a wall around your heart-space so no one can ever break in again. Or what about that mental merry-go-round that makes you frantically search for an imaginary emergency break — typically through vegan ice cream, indulgent baths and nontoxic face masks. Or is that just me?
I’ve been on both sides of breakups — the breaker-upper and broken-up with. I would tell you to keep staying safe & hide for your life if I haven’t legitimately felt what Hemingway wrote way back when — “We are all broken, that’s how the light gets in.” Heartbreak is one of the most painful, but remarkable opportunities if you let the pain in.
The hardest part is even after you “feel the feels,” drown yourself in self care, say your affirmations & shit talk with your friends (likely with sides of tequila), the only thing in the end that really heals is time.
And maybe it’s my Aries rising, but I am not the most patient. I’ve unpacked (& unpacked, & unpacked) stinging situations so many times with my shamanic therapist, that at one point I realized the unpacking wasn’t productive nor healing anymore. The once razor sharp knife had been dulled into a smooth bread knife — and it was I who was holding it in the end, ready for my next dig. Until I realized, it was time to let go. This is where intellectualizing (talk therapy) moves into somaticizing, releasing through the body rather the mind. For me, that’s in the form of movement, reiki, chord cutting etc.
I realized that I was holding onto perfectionism — trying to perfect the imperfect path of healing heartbreak. When in fact, there isn’t one.
Love, just like life, is meant to be messy.
Whether it’s your soul mate, soul partner, twin flame or tweedle-dee, no relationship, heartbreak or love is flawless. These types of tumultuous times are calling for you to transcend. These digs are creating more space for your love to take hold.
The greatest, most painful heartbreaks have allowed me to become aware of what I like to call, ‘soul wounds’. They have shined light on areas from my past that needed a little extra attention & healing — from my own present shadow as well as ancestral parallels & patterns.
Through heartbreak, the oblivious became obvious. My intuitive antenna became attuned. My trust muscle got stronger and the gratitude eventually arrived.
I became grateful not only for my own heartbreak & healing, but discovered a profound sense of empathy & admiration for others’ heartbreak as well — for what others have gone through & grown through. It’s like a tiny string of light connects all of our hearts a little more when we’re broken open.
Romantic heartbreak is far from poetic or a rom com when you’re in it and I wouldn’t wish that feeling upon my worst enemies, but it does connect you to one of the deepest depths of feeling & healing. It connects you to not only yourself, but to the community & the world around you. Heartbreak is your calling to learn lessons & uplevel, opening up a channel to connect with a partner that aligns with your growth path onwards & upwards, if that’s a part of your purpose.
CREATING CONSCIOUS PARTNERSHIP
I believe you have multiple soul partners in the world that you can attract based on your present energetic frequency and life path. Like a magnetic, you have the ability to call in people, places and things that are energetically aligned — otherwise known as the basics of the Law of Attraction.
When I crossed paths with my current partner I wasn’t looking for a relationship. I was in a state of rediscovering me after breaking through the bounds of my last relationship of 8 years. I remember actually mentioning it to him as we first swapped smiles at a friend’s engagement party. As millennials do, he slid into my DM’s and we had 2 dates in less than 48 hours. I can’t recall any “sparks” or “fireworks,” but there was something that kept bringing us back together. An undeniable intrigue that I still to this day can’t put my finger on. And then…COVID hit, pausing any potential passion and turning us into ‘Pandemic Pals’.
That time apart allowed us to create a rare, modern-day foundation for what we have now — a romantic partnership that goes beyond skin deep and is overflowing with conscious connection. Alas, it wasn’t the romanticizing over text from afar that brought us to this place.
We are both far from perfect partners & have both made mistakes. My partner & I’s past pain has emerged in our present love life in multiple ways causing riffs & missteps, yet shining light on our wounds, patterns, and programming — this kind of conscious partnership is what some call a “twin flame.” However, with every step we continue to open up and choose each other (see #3 on one of my biggest lessons learned in 2021) with trust & grace rather forcing each other to fit into our preconceived partner molds. We let each other grow & evolve into our own best versions of ourselves, so that when we can come together, we know & feel whole in who we are. This type of texture in any partnership means you are paving a path that you haven’t been before, giving way for more depth, meaning & connection.
To be frank, true love is fucking terrifying.
Being so vulnerable with each other has opened up the most transparent communication channels which has been one of the things I love most about my current romantic partnership. I am able to dive deep & divulge what I see, feel & need, but also inquire what he needs in order to maintain an ever-fluctuating state of “balance.”
We’re also mirrors for each other, everyday. We show each other both our beauties & our beasts — because love encapsulates both.
Like I mentioned before, love, similar to life, is meant to be messy. It’s meant to be full of polarity & duality. That’s what propels our growth. That’s what makes us a human being having a spiritual experience. I personally found that pain in heartbreak shined light on the love I was seeking and where I needed the most healing. You may not have to experience heartbreak to find deep healing or love, but for me & for most, I know it’s a very sacred step in living & growing forward. It either pushes you off a cliff or you willingly jump and free-fall into the depths of your own being. Into the depths of your own connection and into the darkness where light is born.