Picking up the Broken Pieces
A few weeks ago, in the article Memories of Melting Ice, I emphasized that loving others is still worth it, even if it isn’t returned or causes pain within our own hearts. After reading the article, someone asked, “but what do we do once we’ve been vulnerable, truly loved someone, and find that our hearts were rejected, abused, or taken for granted?” This is a great question - one that, I believe, every person who has ever tried to love has probably asked at one point or another during their lifetime. This can happen easily in friendships as unhealthy co-dependencies develop and unrealistic expectations are placed on one or both of the friends. These expectations rob one or both people of the true gift of self as they are ultimately unfulfillable and the friendship collapses under the weight of perpetual dissatisfaction. In the dating world, plenty of hearts have felt the sharp pain of sharing vulnerably, only to feel rejected and convinced that giving too much of themselves means that people will walk away. Married couples, even in the best of situations, still can experience periods of miscommunication that leaves one or both spouses wondering why try to communicate at all if it only leads to pain? Parents can experience this when a child wanders far from how they have been raised or if a misunderstanding leads the child to admit how much they hate their mother or father.
Rejection hurts.
Sharing vulnerably only to feel rejected hurts.
Yet that desire to love and be loved pushes us forward. Unfortunately, this desire can be misdirected and we can convince ourselves that all we want is love, when, in fact, all we are seeking is healing from a wounded heart.
This is an important distinction because I think that much of what leads to the toxic hook-up culture - or seeking intimacy after intimacy only to find disappointment and more pain, is a result of pained hearts seeking wholeness. Sadly, sometimes when we are in pain we don’t realize that we are ripping off pieces of our hearts and giving them away to anyone that we think will receive them. In our desperation we enter a seemingly endless cycle of relationship after relationship, wondering why they are all so unfulfilling, why we feel so empty and misunderstood.
Instead of letting our hearts heal from the wounds of the past, we convince ourselves that the love of the next relationship will make us whole. This practice places an unfair expectation on those around us as, instead of loving them, we are actually using them in our misguided attempts to find happiness and meaning in our own existence.
This pattern can happen in friendships, in relationships with significant others, within the hook-up culture, in marriages, and even remotely. We have to acknowledge that the use of pornography further embeds this behavior within us as it warps our hearts into feeling temporary pleasure while at the same time prolonging true healing. Using others, whether in real life or on the internet, is like taking morphine to numb the pain after a surgery and believing that our bodies are completely healed. It is a lie and does nothing but perpetuate a self-destructive path that leads us to tear even more pieces of our hearts and give them away in a vain attempt to feel just a little bit of love.
How can we break free from this incredibly dangerous cycle?
Perhaps the first step we could take is to simply face reality. Whether we are fresh out of a relationship and tempted to seek another or much further along the path of ripping apart our hearts, it is incredibly important that we do not give in to an unrealistic interpretation of what brought us to this point or in any way continue the fantasies that leave us feeling hollow.
We face reality by first acknowledging that we are in pain. Lean into the pain and do not ignore it. Oftentimes our first instinct when we are hurt is to do something that distracts us or only temporarily assuages what ails us. Rather than immediately seeking comfort, we have to acknowledge the pain. It hurts - our hearts feel broken and torn apart. We have to acknowledge the reality of our wounds in order to move forward and not enter into habits that do nothing but bring us more pain.
In facing the reality of our broken hearts, it is important to recognize any habits that easily give into that may convince us that we are finding healing. For example, we all have a heart that wants to be wanted… we want to be acknowledged, heard, and seen. These desires are good, but if they lead us to substitute authentic love from others for simply getting attention, having others express their pity for us, or assume that everyone around us exists only for the sake of hearing my pain, then we aren’t actually finding healing, we are only furthering the delusion that leads us to taking advantage of the hearts of others in exchange for temporary relief.
If we can face the reality of our pain instead of trying to numb it with alcohol, drugs, and unhealthy relationships, we can grow in confidence in who we are and what we were created to be.
If we can avoid the pitfalls that can tempt us to ignore our pain, we will find that, after a period of time, our desire for solitude actually increases. This solitude is not a reaction against pain. It is not another way of avoiding the uncertainty of sharing vulnerably. Instead, respecting our solitude simply means that we learn to love who we are in God’s eyes rather than trying to constantly adapt and identify ourselves with whoever is around us. If we are in pain and simply want attention, we will do anything we can to fit in with the group that surrounds us. If, however, we learn to love our aloneness with God, we will find that we don’t have to try as hard to fit in as those around us will love us for who we truly are (not who we think we should be) or those who are equally in pain and also searching for attention will gradually fall away as they continue on their own journey of dissatisfaction and longing.
We see here a weird paradox. In our pain we may come to believe that the more chameleon-like we are, the more friends we will have. The opposite is actually true. When we are constantly trying to adapt ourselves in a desperate search to feel wanted, no one really wants us. On the other hand, when we grow in our love of solitude and confidence of who we are in God’s eyes, we actually find that the community around us grows stronger and more meaningful.
We hear in scripture that “it is not good for man to be alone” and whether that community takes place within marriage and the family or with a group of friends, we find that we thrive when we are together. An authentic community does not ignore pain or become a place where our messiness cannot be shared; rather, we find that when we’ve first done the work of leaning into our pain and growing in confidence of who we are in God’s eyes that the community actually receives our wounds better and becomes a place of healing. Instead of giving into the temptation to use those around us in the community, our authentic selves can be presented and loved in a way that simply does not happen if we are only seeking relief and a temporary fix from what hurts us.
Enduring suffering is a challenge for everyone, but if we learn to suffer well and avoid the trap doors that will only leave us feeling worse, we can truly come to a better understanding of who we are and what we were created to be, that is, one who is loved and capable of sharing that love.