How to Move On (Healing a Broken Heart).
Dear Andrew,
I’ve held onto a person and the potential of a future with them for about three years now, and I’ve recently learned that the person isn’t holding on anymore. I feel like I’m left with a lot of empty promises and unanswered prayers, and I’m not sure where to go from here. I’m not exactly sure what my question is, but I would love to hear what you have to say about how to move forward when you feel uncertain and empty handed.
Thank you so much for your work — know that your words are impacting so many people for good.
Best, Laura
Dear Laura,
I am sorry about your situation. The ending of something is always challenging and painful. My heart goes out to you.
Moving on is hard. Often, we are reluctant to move on because we are afraid that our best days are behind us. We are afraid that what has been will be better than what is to come.
Luckily, the future that awaits us has many surprises still in store. These surprises will be incomparable to anything we have experienced, and possibly even greater. Some of these surprises will be in the form of beautiful people we never knew we needed. Or maybe they will take the shape of stars out in the distance; stars we are already headed towards.
This does not mean that moving on will not hurt. Leaving someone or something we have devoted ourselves to sometimes feels like we are losing a part of our soul; a part we thought would be ours forever. At first, we may want to avoid this pain. We may want to act like we do not care about the person or thing we are moving on from. However, avoiding heartache merely prolongs it. To move on, we must give ourselves permission to embrace whatever feelings arise. In essence, we must allow our hearts to break.
A broken heart simply means we care about the people and things we found. The only way to escape heartbreak is to avoid caring all together, and this is not a path we would wish even on our worst enemies. To not care is to deny ourselves the opportunity to feel all of the things that make this life worth living.
Moving on is also hard because we rarely know the next step. Maybe we believe a beautiful future lies ahead but we feel disoriented. If we feel lost or displaced, we first need to take a deep breath. We need to remember that not knowing is natural. No one ever knows what is next. All we do know is that we are here. We are here and we still have wonder in our hearts. Most importantly, we are still capable of love.
Moving on becomes easier when we remember one thing: we are not leaving empty handed. We might be saying goodbye to our old life, but a piece of that life will always be with us. Every experience changes us into someone we never would have been otherwise; someone who is now more capable of spotting the magic in their life.
To move on, we just have to be willing to begin again. We have to keep the fire burning in our hearts, even when we are scared. If our fire has gone out, then we must pick up the black sticks lying in the base of that fire. We must pick them up and write something new in the ashes of our lives. We must rewrite our story in the way it was meant to be told. In a way more beautiful than the world ever knew.
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