HEARTBREAK

I was watching heartbreak at close range very recently. It was difficult to see; the strength of it made me want to look away.  It was so palpable, so very fresh still.

I was asked a lot of questions and so had to think through certain things with a view I wish I had many years ago. When the big love of your life can no longer be, what then? First: life goes on. The worst thing about it is you don't actually die. You think you will every hour, but you don't. Somehow, you continue to live. When you have children that is very easy to do. You have to. You get up in the morning, make an effort to create rhythm and love for them, even if you barely know how to do it all. You laugh still, but it doesn't seem to come from your belly or your heart, maybe your spleen, your liver? You are alive but you are not. But you manage. You get through one meal and then the next, sleepless nights turn to good-sleep nights and before you know it, time has passed.  But do you really heal?

I believe we all heal, with a lot of work, anger, grief, acceptance, time and love, we all do.  But I also feel that we must remember that our hearts are not the sum of that one love and that one love ought not define future loves.  In one life and in that one heart are unfathomable, still unexplored possibilities. Will we ever stop loving one person? Perhaps not completely. We may develop other feelings for them--not all of them good or healthy--but in time that love evolves as well, into something different.  As it should.

But our hearts are big, creative and alive enough to enable us to love others and love differently.  I do not believe you can love the same way ever again--and perhaps we shouldn't, so there is no point comparing.  We are evolving everyday and so everything about us changes. It is healthy to look forward and ahead and use our past only as firm ground for the journey ahead.

Heartbreak, in any form, can be a straight road towards our greater humanity and that's why it is so painful. After that, you can never be the same.  On this often unplanned journey, you plunge into the very depths of darkness, just like the Christ did, and then begin your own pilgrimage towards your center again--that place in you that carries the most light.  A heart that is broken and healed shines so much brighter than one that is whole and unsullied, because it has more cracks through which light and sun and joy can enter!  It knows more, feels more, grieves more, laughs more. It is just more! A resurrected heart gives more.

I think about the picture of pain I witnessed and feel so very deeply for that person but also am excited for the possibilities in his life.  He will never again be the same, but if he learns what he needs to learn and is able to understand and transform his deepest pain, I am so sure his life will be so much richer. It may seem impossible now, but there is light at the end of that tunnel. 

Once you find your way out of the rut and into that space of total understanding, you will never again be so weak and discouraged.  It's like decoding a language and unlocking one of life's greatest mysteries. Once you have the key, most of life's doors will be open to you.  So, yes, there is much light after heartbreak and it can be quite dazzling!

MANAGING SPACE

How do you hold space?  I developed a sense and awareness of this when I became a mother. Children need you to hold the space around them in a conscious way.  When the children are very little and are acting up, a conscious mother will look within, gather herself and try to "hold the space" in a different way so that the children feel the shift and manifest the subtle movement in their behavior.  And they mostly do.

I think about this again because I am just coming out of attending a flurry of lectures, workshops and masses and the importance of "holding space" became more and more apparent over the weeks. During our masses or services, for example, some people would enter the room and sit in the silence, preparing themselves for what was to come.  And then others would come in and begin to whisper loudly, text, fidget, thereby creating cracks in the stillness that others were trying to hold in and around themselves in preparation for the Sacrament.  What was their perception of that space and how did each person choose to hold himself in it?

At another lecture, people were coming in and out, standing, sitting, shifting, taking things from the little refrigerator behind the speaker, and generally treating the space and what was happening in it,  in what I personally felt was a rather casual approach. 

This is also why I hate being late.  During one of these lectures, traffic was impossible. I am always early or on time but traffic was heavier than heavy that day and it took us nearly two hours to get to Makati from home. So I walked into the lecture 30 minutes late and I really felt I broke into something that was already being formed by the speaker and everyone who managed to come on time and were holding this space in silence, for thoughts and pictures to flow through.  When you agree to be part of something, what are you truly responsible for? The minute we say "yes" to something, we become part of it. It is not just the speaker's task, for example, to ensure that he does his part. It is our task to create the right space to receive what is being offered, not just for ourselves but for the others who have taken it upon themselves to be part of the activity.

A room is more than just a physical space.  Events can be celebrated more deeply if people who participate in them carry this intention of "holding space" with reverence, respect, quiet, consciousness, and inner strength.  It is a sign of respect for the space and what everyone in it is trying to bring forth.  It is also a conscious way of building community as it can only happen if we are all aware of each other and are willing to carry each other through.