For several mournful hours this afternoon and evening, our
dog Chispa was missing. I wasn’t too worried in the afternoon hours, as our
neighbor’s dogs have temporary residence in our backyard, and I was sure she
was freaked out and might have dashed off, but would come back. We found her
outside the fence when we got home last night, so I figured she’d just do the
same again. As it got dark, I got worried, and drove and then walked around the
neighborhood, looking for her. When we got back, dejected, I posted a photo of
her on Facebook, hoping that would turn up a lead. I also called a coworker
from many years back, as she’s married to the local dog catcher, hoping she could tell me if he had caught Chispa today. I left her a message.
On Facebook, a friend responded to my post about Chispa with
kindness and a suggestion. I was struck by this little interaction, as this
same friend had posted a photo of her lost dog within the last few days, and I
hadn’t commented on her post nor followed up to see if she’d found her dog.
Eventually, my former coworker called me back and let me
know that her husband had picked up a dog today that matched my dog’s
description, and on the road we live on. I felt flooded with relief, knowing
that while my dog was probably scared and miserable at the animal shelter
tonight, at least she was safe.
The interaction with my friend, who’s local, on Facebook
struck a chord, harmonic with another chord that’s been playing over and over
again in my heart lately. Now, now that I’ve experienced this, I can feel my
empathy grow for other friends when they lose pets. It was a stark contrast to
how I’d breezed over that same friend’s post about her lost dog just a few days
before. This isn’t about Facebook etiquette and dynamics. It’s about growing
empathy.
I am better at growing empathy when I have experienced
something myself. I don’t consider this a virtue or a fault. I’m also an
experiential learner – I need to touch it, I need to DO it. So too, with my
heart.
Today I grew some empathy and expanded my forgiveness for
the one man who’s broken my heart in romance; I do believe there are other ways
to break a heart, and I’ve experienced some of them. My one heartbreak so far in
life occurred just a few years ago, and I was devastated to my bedrock. I also
healed and am healing many needed wounds, congestions and dis-ease from my
inner core in the process.
In my work towards equanimity and developing a healthy
indifference to Heartbreak Henry, as I’ll call him, who lives also in my excruciatingly
(in this instance) small town, I continue to struggle in my mind a bit with not
seeing myself as the victim and him as the perpetrator, blaming him, and
probably many other predictable emotional habit patterns of those of us
distressed by heartbreak. Yes, distressed, because right now I experience the
remnants of that heartbreak only as mild distress, anxiety and disappointment
that arise when I encounter him or information about him. I’ve learned to clear out my
system clearly and efficiently with muscle testing and energy healing when my
awareness arises shortly after the distress reaction emotions.
In months and years past, I have been a kicking, screaming,
barfing, weeping mess about this heartbreak. I have walked through the
gauntlet. So, with as much progress as I’ve made, I’ve learned to forgive
myself these judgmental habit patterns, not resist them, and watch them float
by on my river of thoughts, just like everything else. Away it goes…
Today, in conversation with a friend, I discovered that ol’
Henry has left another woman (a post-me woman, as pre-me was his wife, with
whom he was still married during our relationship, and still is) in a puddle of
heartbreak. And then, wham, whiz, marvel of it all, my mind cracked open, and
Heartbreak Henry once again became the mirror for my healing process.
See, prior to my affair with HH, I had never experienced a truly
broken heart. I thought maybe I’d never REALLY been in love, though now I
realize that hindsight in affairs of the heart can be quite distorting. I’d
been in love before. AND, I’d never so fully given my love before in a romantic
relationship. My love for my children had and continues to reach those
angelic heights. I cracked open my heart, and gave of it fully, to him, to HH.
In previous break-ups, I’d left a small but still
significant trail of broken hearts.
As I heard today the story of HH and this other woman, I
remembered how I’d felt sad and some longing in past romantic partings, but a
bit of disconnect; I wasn’t fully invested, so though my soon-to-be ex’s heart
was breaking, mine wasn’t. I was witnessing his sadness with a bit of distant
concern, almost like he was a character in a film with whom I empathized.
And I remembered, in those moments when I was pounding my
fists on the ground and vomiting and screaming and weeping, HH had always
appeared so far away, so disconnected, so unaffected. And it hit me – HH had never had his heart broken.
Maybe. I could be off here. As with so many things with HH,
it’s not really about him. It’s a wonderful, flying-into-the-glory chance for
me to expand my consciousness, and my heart.
I remembered old, disconnected me. Though I’m older and
wiser now, I’m less decrepit, less stiff, less set in my ways. And I am most
definitely still doing the good work so that it may continue to be so.
From my time with HH, I discovered how fully I could give my
love. And now I’ve been blessed with the most generous and hilarious best
friend of a hot lover of a partner, and I have learned to give that love AND
receive that oceanic love right back. My heartbreak was the path to this bliss,
for me. When we came together, my Love was in a state of heartbreak too, though
his was an unbearable sense of heartbroken loss from a young, beautiful,
loving, passionate and gifted friend who was lost in an accident, gone way, way
too soon.
Today, I remember what it was like to break hearts, to even
feel a little superior in that moment of not being as devastated as the “other.”
Today, my empathy and forgiveness grows for Monsieur Heartbreak, for I have
walked in those shoes.
And I walked right out of them, into the barren hell of my
mind, the deepest shadows that challenge my heart and my love for myself and
all life. And I walked through that fire, as I surely will again, to the other
side, and jumped into the seething, bubbling, pulsing, soothing, buoyant, saturating,
life-filled ocean, into Love.
In my prayer for my own equanimity, I have found something
more harmonic than indifference. I pray, with clear love and deep gratitude,
that Heartbreak Henry gets his heart broken before he dies, and gets to
experience the ineffable blessing of the journey back.
