“You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens.”
The above quote came from Rumi, a 13th Century Persian poet, a Sufi mystic, who is also one of the most popular poets and best-selling poets in the United States.
While the quote can easily be interpreted differently, the meaning that I’ve understood so far is that, in the end, when our heart is broken, again and again, we’ll reach to a point where we end up opening our heart… to ourselves.
How a Heart Gets “Broken”
From soap operas to daily conversations, generally speaking, someone’s heart gets broken because someone they care about:
- betrays them
- hurt them in any way (verbally, physically, psychologically etc.)
- doesn’t love/like them back
- no longer wants to be with them as they have different priorities
- dies
In this post, I will only focus on betrayal in a romantic relationship as that’s the most common cause of (and easiest way to get) a broken heart.
What People Tend To Do After Their Hearts Get Broken Due To Betrayal
Most people, after their hearts get broken, especially after betrayal, are likely to get traumatised and close themselves from any romantic relationships. Often for years. Often forever.
Or they go to the other extreme: have as many romantic relationships as possible so when one partner betrays them, they still have other partners. A lot of ‘spare tyres’ but no love. Just spare tyres. Come and go easily.
Both methods result in an unwillingness to fully give and receive love, despite the continuous need to always have a connection with other people.
From what I understood, when Rumi wrote, “You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens,” he was referring to breaking our heart by giving and receiving love from other people, to fully trust them, which means, if they break the trust, our heart would break. If this repeats, either with the same or different partner, we will eventually wise up by opening our heart to ourselves: by loving ourselves, by being accountable. To ourselves.
Loving Ourselves
I wrote about what self love is in this post (click here to read it). Self love is not about indulging ourselves with junk food, alcohol, and other things that lead to an unhealthy addiction.
As mentioned in this post (click here to read it), one of the most important elements of self love is validating our emotions.
When someone is about to betray us, we often see signs that we tend to ignore. Our intuition usually tells us that something is off, but because we are not trained to trust our intuition, we chose to ignore it, rationalising it as unreasonable fear. This is, of course, a deep topic that needs a separate discussion, as many of us are still foreign to intuition and confuse it with fear.
When we validate our emotions we will not force ourselves to go against them. This means, when we sense something is off about someone, that he/she is about to betray us, we take necessary steps to either distant ourselves, get prepared, or cut the friendship/relationship altogether.
Loving ourselves is also about having a healthy boundary by knowing our values and sticking with them.
Betrayal often comes from a partner who believes in different values and different definitions of what constitutes betrayal.
Their ideas of ‘fun’, for example, can differ from our ideas of ‘fun’. Some people have sex outside their relationship and insist that they don’t ‘betray’ their partner. They’ll say it’s just for fun. Nothing’s wrong with that if all parties involved have the same belief. But if they have different beliefs on what constitutes ‘fun’, at one point, a betrayal is likely to occur.
Another example would be a partner who says one thing and acts the opposite. If one of our core values is consistency between words and actions, then we should not tolerate anything outside this value. Inconsistency between words and actions is a surefire way of betrayal sooner or later.
Being Accountable
Being accountable means willing to accept responsibility for our actions.
How the hell are we accountable when our partner betrayed us?
By observing the pattern. OUR pattern. Here are some questions to ask to make yourself accountable:
- Have previous partners betrayed you as well? If yes, then it’s time to reflect: why do you often (or always?) end up with a partner who betrays you? What is in them that attracts you? Perhaps you have a tendency to see your partner from a rose-coloured glass instead of seeing them as they are?
. - Do you tolerate inconsistency between words and actions?
. - Do you pay attention to what you need out of the relationship? Do you pay attention to what they need out of the relationship? Do you communicate with your partner in a healthy manner?
. - Do you know what a healthy relationship looks like? Do you know what an emotionally mature person looks like? Do you know that love is not enough, that you have to have compatibility as well to have a healthy relationship?
. - Do you have your own friends and hobbies instead of depending on your romantic relationship as the only source of your happiness?
. - Do you obligate your partner to always make you happy? Does your partner obligate you to always make them happy?
If the answer to questions 3, 4, and 5 is “no”, and “yes” to question 2 and 6, then you’ll need to enrich yourself with relevant information. At this stage, I’d recommend two books: “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz, and “Eight Dates: Essential Conversations for a Lifetime of Love” by John and Julie Gottman, PhD (they’re husband and wife, both PhD, and have done extensive research for decades on what elements needed to have a healthy, long-lasting relationship).
If you can sense any toxicity in the relationship but choose to stay for whatever reasons, then you should hold yourself accountable for letting them hurt you.
Therefore…
Only when we open our heart to ourselves first, we can have a healthy relationship with ourselves. Anyone who has a healthy relationship with themselves will have a healthy outlook on life and relationship with others. It’s similar to the saying, “you can’t pour from an empty cup”. Fill your cup first. Take care of yourself first. Love yourself first.
Once we love ourselves, we don’t feel the need to completely depend on others for our happiness. Sure our happiness gets affected somehow, but if they decide to betray us or leave us, instead of kicking and screaming, throwing tantrums (or shoes, or plates), we’ll peacefully let them go. I’m not saying that we won’t feel sad or angry. The uncomfortable feelings are inevitable, but when we love ourselves, we will not avoid the responsibility to take care of ourselves.
In the long run, we’ll naturally repel anyone who is not right for us.
And should you make the same mistake of choosing a betrayer again, be gentle with yourself, learn the lesson and move on. Most importantly, take this piece of advice with you:
