Heartbreak, as I judge from my limited experience, is the pain one feels at the loss of a love object, in the case where the love object, not returning the love, breaks off (whether kindly or cruelly) and disappears. The person you love is gone, but still exists, and is simply not available, This is a rather benign situation as compared with the irrevocable loss through death of someone you love, but it is, nevertheless, painful.

Heartbreak is more than just a particularly hard form of disappointment or failure. It hurts in an entirely different way because heartbreak is always connected to love and belonging. Over time, the more I’ve thought about heartbreak and love, the more clearly I’ve realized how vulnerable we are when we love anyone. The brokenhearted are the bravest among us — they dared to love.

Heartbreak asks us not to look for an alternative path, because there is no alternative path. It is an introduction to what we love and have loved, an inescapable and often beautiful question, something or someone that has been with us all along, asking us to be ready to let go of the way we are holding things, and preparation perhaps for the last letting go of all.

What matters most at the moment of heartbreak is the meaning we ascribe to our pain. We may feel devastated because we believe we’ve just lost our soul mate. And that’s often what we do feel in that moment. When we are deep in heartbreak we feel like we have lost the only person in the world for whom we are capable of feeling this level of emotion. We can’t imagine ever loving anyone else. If we invest in this belief, not only will it increase our suffering, it will also make it more difficult for anyone else to come into our life, because we feel like we’ve already lost The One. Nothing else seems to matter. We lose our drive, our ambition, and our ability to take even baby steps forward.

When you’re dreaming with a broken heart,
The waking up is the hardest part.

That, right there, is the magic of heartbreak: it forces you to be a different person. Unless you want to mourn forever, you have to change. And if you do it right, you’ll work on becoming the person you always wanted to be. You’ll look back on this moment as the pinnacle, the turning point, the unanswered prayer that was the answer itself. It will be the greatest thing that ever happened to you because instead of a lukewarm relationship that wasn’t working anyway, you got the life of your dreams… and you were the one who gave it to yourself.

Where there is love, there is bound to be heartache.

Dreams are always crushing when they don't come true. But it's the simple dreams that are often the most painful because they seem so personal, so reasonable, so attainable. You're always close enough to touch, but never quite close enough to hold and it's enough to break your heart.

Realizing its inescapable nature, we can see heartbreak not as the end of the road or the cessation of hope but as the close embrace of the essence of what we have wanted or are about to lose.

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Heartbreak asks us not to look for an alternative path, because there is no alternative path. It is an introduction to what we love and have loved, an inescapable and often beautiful question, something and someone that has been with us all along, asking us to be ready for the ultimate letting go.

Heartbreak delivers your purpose. If you are brave enough to accept that delivery and seek out the people doing that particular world-changing work, you find your people. There is no bond like the bond that is forged among people who are united in the same world-healing work.

Despair says, "The heartbreak is too overwhelming. I am too sad and too small, and the world is too big. I cannot do it all, so I will do nothing.

Courage says, "I will not let the fact that I cannot do everything keep me from doing what I can.

We all want purpose and connection.

Tell me what breaks your heart, and I'll point you toward both.

God will break your heart.

The heart will break, but broken live on.

You must put these dreams aside, they will only break your heart.

If you’re really listening, if you’re awake to the poignant beauty of the world, your heart breaks regularly.