Are You Breaking Your Own Heart?

Let's try breaking the cycle instead

There’s a particular kind of heartbreak that doesn’t come from the betrayal, abandonment or loss of another.

It’s the slow, sickening twist you never saw coming: You’re not just the one being hurt; you’re also the one responsible for it.

You’re the one making promises to yourself you don’t keep.

You’re the one reaching for the comfort that costs more than it soothes.

You’re the one hoping the next fix, the next plan, the next Monday will finally save you.

This is the heartbreak of self-abandonment.

The heartbreak of realising: No one else is doing this to me.

And it’s brutal.

It’s also, at times, the start of a new beginning.

Because the thing that saves you isn’t always strength, or willpower, or some glorious moment of triumph.

Sometimes, it’s desperation; the gift that precedes a quiet decision made in the wreckage:

I can’t live like this anymore.
I don’t know how to fix it.
But I’m willing to learn how to stop doing this to myself.

Even if that learning is a lifelong process.

If I could go back and whisper to the woman I was;

The woman scavenging for ice cream in the middle of the night.
The woman drinking vodka until 4am on a weekday morning.
The woman smashing plates on the kitchen floor.

I wouldn’t offer her a pep talk. I would tell her the truth:

"Changing this is going to be hard. It’s going to hurt.
You are going to cry and scream and writhe and wail.
You will wish at times you could just disappear.
But… you will survive. And not just that, you will eventually become someone you hardly recognise."

Here’s what I know

We break our own hearts not because we don’t care,
but because we don’t yet know another way to live.

And desperation; brutal, ugly, tear soaked desolation,
can be a gift that leads the way.

If you are in the storm right now, clinging to the mast of old patterns, I want you to know this:

You don’t have to win the storm.
You just have to outlast it.

Don’t fight the waves.
Don’t jump ship.
Learn to stay at the wheel.

Even if you’re soaked.
Even if you’re scared.
Even if all you can do is hold on for dear life.

Because every storm eventually breaks. And when it does, you’ll still be standing; because you stayed.

If you’d like a little extra help for when the waters rise, you’re welcome to borrow my storm protocol.

I lay it out for you beneath today’s paywall.