Heartbreak, De-Armoring & Decision Making
This Article is written by Pele based on discourses with Katara
(Footnotes for this article are presented at the bottom of each chapter.)
In the Hasidic wisdom tradition, there is a well-known teaching that claims that we should all learn three things from toddlers: (*See footnote 1)
1. They live in a state of carefree happiness
2. As soon as they need something, they cry
3. Babies never sit idle, they are always curious and learning
As infants, we live in a state of perpetual bliss unless something happens, internal or external, that undermines this feeling of carefree joy: then, unlike in the womb, one of our needs is not immediately met. The gap between the need and the new reality we live in causes us pain — and we cry.
In this article, we wish to define Heartbreak as the emotional and mental pain created within us due to the gap between our hopes, desires, and wishes and reality.
Heartbreak is a condition that we experience regularly, more than we wish to admit. Several times a day, we experience small or large heartbreaks. As small children, we have not yet internalized the social demand to suppress those feelings and the pain associated with them. Children express their heartbreak in an uncensored way by crying. The great Hasidic masters saw these pure tears as a very preliminary form of prayer. They encouraged their students to be attentive to their feelings like babies, not to repress the heartbreak, but channel it into a prayer to "Our Father (and\or Mother - *See footnote 2) in Heaven".
In the ancient Jewish literature of the Midrash (*See footnote 3), it is said:
“For a layman, it is considered a disgrace to use broken vessels, but the vessels of the Holy One are broken, for it is said: 'God is close to brokenhearted people”.
While the original verse in Psalms merely says that the Holy One is close to the brokenhearted people, the Midrash adds that God does not only show empathy for the brokenhearted but uses them as instruments for the service of the divine. This is a radical claim!
The Midrash asserts that heartbreak is a necessary condition for those who serve the divine. A person whose heart is not broken cannot be such a servant. The instruments used by the Holy One are cracked and broken because a broken heart is an open heart, as Rabbi Mendel of Kotsk said in the 19th century: "Nothing is as whole as a broken heart."
1) This teaching was recorded by Rabbi Yitzhak of Warki (Poland, early 19th century) in the book "New Wonders" page 93
2) Despite jewish tradition being a patriarchal system, that as I have said in other places, was created based on three major problematic directions: 1. The repression of the feminine. 2. Disconnection from the spirits of nature. 3. Severing the jewish nation from all other nations (see the opening chapter of my book “Hagiga” on the Hebrew holidays) – despite all that it is important to note that a. The divine feminine is recognised in the Talmud, and b. Early Hasidic mysticism recognised the wound that was created by the repression of the feminine and did a lot to reclaim the feminine aspect of the divine and the individual (but they were not radical enough to reclaim the place of women, as did the Sabbatian movement of the 17th century).
3) Midrash Vayikra Rabbah, 7, 2, in the name of Rabbi Alexandri, from the Amorites of Eretz Yisrael in the 3rd century AD. The verse "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted" is taken from the book of Psalms 4:19.
Heart-armor & the Eggshell
The process of growing up and becoming an adult involves a gradual coming to terms with reality. As we grow older, we learn that there is an inherent gap between our ideal inherent archetypes and the reality in which we live. Adults are expected to understand that not all their needs will be met. “What to do… this is reality”.
In fact, as we grow older, we learn that we must be active and do something if we wish for our needs to be met. At the same time, we also learn and internalize that some of our needs will probably never be met in the specific environment in which we were born. With deep sorrow, we realize that we must give up the childish hope for these specific needs to ever be met.
Max Rivers, in his book "Loving Conflict" calls these needs "Forbidden Needs": according to Rivers, children who grow up, for example, in a society that opposes emotional expression internalize that their need for emotional expression is a "forbidden need" and they must give it up in order to survive socially. Children who grow up in an environment that opposes the exposure of the body, or physical touch, internalize that their need to celebrate their body is a "forbidden need," and they must give it up. In the same way, children who grow up in a very practical family, which does not look favorably on intellectual discussions, learn that their need for intellectual depth is a "forbidden need", and so on.
The gap between our unmet needs and reality causes the pain of heartbreak. One might say that the gap between the inherent archetypes of “Mother” and “Father” and the biological human parents we get when we are born, simple humans with their dramas and shortcomings, is one of the most devastating heartbreaks of the human infant, a heartbreak that grows as we grow up and get hurt from our parents. Most of us are still subconsciously locked in this fundamental heartbreak. Nevertheless, underneath it all, there is an even more subtle and illusive heartbreak that stems from the soul’s journey. It originates when the soul individuates itself from the Great Divine Oneness – like a spark shot away from the source fire – and embarks on a journey in a human form. This is the ultimate pain of separation that is reflected and triggered underneath the surface with each painful separation we experience in our various relationships. This is the great fundamental betrail that we feel deep inside, though we are not clear if it is us who betrayed the divine source, or is it God who betrayed us by sending us away from the ultimate bliss of oneness into a world full of pain and suffering – as it is said in Psalms “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (*See footnote 4)
To avoid feeling these excruciating heartbreaks, as we grow up, we create an armor that keeps us protected from feeling the pain all the way through.
4) Psalms 22, 1. In the New Testement ( Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34) this verse is on the lips of dying jesus on the cross: “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Birth in Two Stages
Katara sees the armor that surrounds our hearts as an eggshell that surrounds the chick and protects it until it is ready to hatch and spread its wings. Like a shell that protects the fruit from the elements, the armor keeps our heart protected, until we can hatch it, like a butterfly hatching the cocoon shell.
Human emergence into the world can therefore be seen as two stages of birth, with the physical exit from the womb being only the first stage of birth. After that, the armor of the personality starts immediately to develop, like an energetic eggshell that envelops us until we will be ready to crack open. The hatching of the shield that surrounds our heart is the second birth, the spiritual one, which we are invited to go through only when we are ready to spread the wings of our hearts.
Heartbreak unequal Suffering
Many people unnecessarily identify heartbreak with suffering. What Katara suggests is that pure heartbreak is very different than suffering. Pain is indeed involved in heartbreak, but there is no suffering in it.
The suffering and depression that many people identify with a state of a broken heart is not the heartbreak itself, but a direct result of the fear and resistance we have to feel the heartbreak to its end.
We are afraid of pain. Our resistance to being intimate with this pain of heartbreak is what creates ongoing suffering and depression. When we allow ourselves to feel the heartbreak with no defense, the experience might even take no longer than a few moments or hours, after which we experience an explosion of enormous energy, clarity, and release. It is our psyche's twisted attempt to avoid being with the pain, by spiraling into a story of self-pity, that creates ongoing suffering. Many people are familiar with those dark periods of “never-ending suffering” associated with heartbreak. Those people usually feel the need to close their hearts in an instinct of protection. They find it hard to trust love again. What Katara wishes to argue here is that this suffering is not heartbreak itself. In fact, the suffering is a direct result of our resistance to heartbreak, and that is what makes many people closed, bitter, sarcastic, and defensive.
Here once again, the Hasidic mystic tradition comes to our aid, simply because these teachings are at its foundations:
In regard to the verse in the Psalms that says: “God heals the brokenhearted and binds up their sorrows," Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Perchischa is quoted saying:
"A broken heart is very good! (If so, why does it need healing?) The healing is to cleanse it of sorrow, so the broken heart remains without any sadness at all, only joy."
That is, the state of heartbreak is healed by cleansing it from sorrow, and not by desperate attempts to mend the fracture. The ability to be with the brokenness does not contradict the joy of existence. It is possible to have a broken heart that is alive, free of depression, open and blissful.
Yehoo Shalem wrote in his song "Love and Fear":
"Love and fear went for a walk
They talk and each one has a different voice
Fear is saying - it's dangerous for me to love
my heart might break apart.
Love, love she is saying
May my heart break apart
and make room for an even bigger heart"
Heartbreak and De-Armoring
The Jewish-Austrian psychiatrist William Reich was a genius that presided over his time. Due to his unusual ideas, Reich was imprisoned in the United States in the 1950s and died in prison.
According to Reich, life-force energy flows in the human body. When it flows freely, the body is in balance and works harmoniously. When the energy is stuck in a certain place, a blockage is formed, which after a while becomes fixed and turns into armor. The resulting symptoms have different forms of expression. Reich identified five body types, which are created in childhood, according to the five types of armor and protection that we develop in our early stages of life.
Reich claimed that in order for the energy to return and flow freely, the blockages must be released. Various methods were developed as a result. The release of the armor by applying pressure on specific painful points is called De-Armoring.
The pain of De-Armoring is experienced as liberating. Different pressure points in the body are able to release energy and circulate it in different organs and different areas of life, but what Katara claims is that a true clean heartbreak is a type of general De-Armoring, for the entire human system. True heartbreak, clean of drama, can crush the entire persona and wash away the rigidity we have developed as protective mechanisms of our personality patterns. That is why it is said in the Hasidic tradition that “Nothing is as whole as a broken heart".
A broken heart, free of defensiveness, drama, and despair, is a wide-open state, which contains joy and a depth of awareness. The cracks that open up in the broken heart are filled up with precious divine light, just like the Japanese art of kintsugi, in which cracks of broken pottery are filled up with pure gold.
When you look at a pottery vessel that has been broken and undergone the kintsugi process, it is clear why “God is using only broken vessels". The cracks filled with gold do not try to deny the fracture. On the contrary — the golden filling transforms the cracked pottery into a supreme form of art. “Nothing is as whole as a broken heart"
A broken heart that precious light shines through its cracks is a beautiful heart. It is far more beautiful and mature than a heart that has not yet been broken, just as a broken pottery that has undergone Kinsugi treatment is more beautiful than a vessel that has never been broken.
"There is a crack
A crack in everything
That’s how the light gets it" ~ Leonard Cohen.
This can change your life
To avoid feeling the pain of heartbreak we often look for action strategies that will save us from feeling. Sometimes we do significant things, and make fateful decisions - just to not feel this pain.
Many times it is precisely compassionate people who cause themselves and their loved ones ongoing suffering simply because they try to avoid being with the pain of heartbreak. Spouses stay with each other for years beyond what was actually good for them. Young people avoid making hard decisions that will cause heartbreak to their parents and themselves. Conscious entrepreneurs and heartful business people may make decisions that do not reflect their inner truth just to avoid the heartbreak that some decisions might cause them or others.
Some people are capable of making hard decisions because they are unable to feel. Their hearts are closed. On the other hand, there are people with sensitive hearts, who are unable to make decisions that will cause pain, but what they are often unaware of is that avoiding the pain of the necessary heartbreak can lead to ongoing suffering. Suffering that may drag on for months and years, and rob them or those dear to them of precious time of life, time that will never return.
We can develop our ability to welcome heartbreak as a positive feeling. If we allow ourselves not to avoid it, not to ignore it, and not to look for action strategies whose entire purpose is to protect us from feeling the pain — then we can learn to be present with the pain, and let it bring about an important inner transformation. Being present with the heartbreak will allow us to make decisions that are more in coherence with our true selves and are not stemming from our defenses.
The ability to welcome heartbreak allows us to follow the ecstatic current of life-force, make decisions accordingly, and be current. When the ecstatic current of life-force moves on from a particular relationship, whether it is a business or a romantic one, we will be able to feel it and follow the current of life-force, instead of ignoring it in an attempt to avoid the pain and remain in attachment and stagnation. When we follow the ecstatic current we can stay current, fresh and alive.
This approach to life can save us years of stuckness, building resentment, and even developing autoimmune diseases. Autoimmune diseases often arise precisely because we did not listen to the flow of life force and did not follow the current, just because we were afraid to be present with a broken heart and feel it all the way through.
~ Pele & Katara, June 2023
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