LIFE’S LESSONS
By Henrylito D. Tacio
“To be rejected by someone doesn’t mean you should also reject yourself or that you should think of yourself as a lesser person. It doesn’t mean that nobody will ever love you anymore. Remember that only ONE person has rejected you at the moment, and it only hurts so much because to you, that person’s opinion symbolized the opinion of the whole world, of God.” ― Jocelyn Soriano, Mend My Broken Heart
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During my college days, one of my favorite American singers was Kenny Rogers. One of the songs I liked was “A Love Song.” Two memorable lines go this way: “Why do people cry when they hear the word goodbye in a love song? Tears are sure to fall when you know they gave it all in a love song.”
Another stanza has these words: “Each of us know there’s no guarantee we’ll ever find love. And in the songs that we share, the heartache is there to remind us.”
Heartbreak is a universal experience, one that often leaves us feeling lost and crushed. It’s as if the world has ended. But you are not alone. Movies and novels are replete with such stories.
Some people have a hard time moving on after love has ended. There are those who still long for that love will rekindle again for both of them. For some it may happen but for most, it won’t.
Helen Reddy’s song comes to mind: “I can’t say goodbye to you no matter how I tried. You’re such a part of me without you, I would die. Deep in the heart of me, I know that you and I were meant to be together, I can’t tell you goodbye.”
Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz once wrote: “Why can’t we get all the people together in the world that we really like and then just stay together? I guess that wouldn’t work. Someone would leave. Someone always leaves. Then we would have to say good-bye. I hate good-byes.”
Maggi Richard said, “Two words. Three vowels. Four consonants. Seven letters. It can either cut you open to the core and leave you in ungodly pain or it can free your soul and lift a tremendous weight off your shoulders. The phrase is: It’s over.”
For many people having a broken heart is something that may not be recognized at first, as it takes time for an emotional or physical loss to be fully acknowledged. “Human beings are not always aware of what they are feeling,” Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson points out. “Like animals, they may not be able to put their feelings into words.”
This does not mean we have no feelings. Well-known psychologist Sigmund Freud once speculated that a man could be in love with a woman for six years and not know it until many years later. Such a man, with all the goodwill in the world, could not have verbalized what he did not know. He had feelings, but he did not know about them.
It may sound like a paradox – paradoxical because when we think of a feeling, we think of something that we are consciously aware of feeling. As Freud put it in his 1915 article The Unconscious: “It is surely of the essence of an emotion that we should be aware of it. Yet it is beyond question that we can ‘have’ feelings that we do not know about.”
Even the Holy Bible has a passage on the subject: “Insults have broken my heart and left me weak, I looked for sympathy but there was none; I found no one to comfort me” (Psalm 69:20. In this verse, King David explains that insults have broken his heart, not loss or pain. It is also a popular belief that rejection, major or minor, can break an individual’s heart. This heartbreak can be greatly increased if rejected by a loved one or someone whom you respect.
So, how do you mend a broken heart? Having been broken-hearted several times over, I can say I am an expert on the subject. Here’s what you can do:
Accept it. No matter what you do, it is the end of a beautiful relationship. If there is a beginning, there is always an ending. You cannot control the feelings of the other person. When it comes to love, two hearts must combine to beat as one. If there’s only one that beats, then it is not love at all. Instead of feeling sorry for yourself, be glad that you were part of the other person’s life before.
The words of Ranata Suzuki come in handy: “It’s difficult for me to imagine the rest of my life without you. But I suppose I don’t have to imagine it… I just have to live it.”
It’s not the end of the world. Just because you won’t see the person you loved the most anymore, the world hasn’t ended. The fact is: the wind will continue to blow, the sun to shine, and the sea waves will rush to shore. Your friends and enemies may talk about the failed relationship you had but that’s part of life and growing up. You are still in control of your life.
You can even sing Every Brothers’ song which goes this way: “I’m through with romance, I’m through with love. I’m through with counting the stars above.”
Move on. It’s okay to think of your beloved for a day or a week. But after that, move on. Count your blessings. That person may not be the right person for you. I have known a lot of people who said, “I should have not married early in life.” Or you might be singing the song of Ogie Alcasid: “Bakit ngayon ka lang dumating sa buhay ko” (Why have you come to my life just now). The break up might be a sign that someone out there is much better than your previous love.
Joel Osteen in Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential, suggested: “You must make a decision that you are going to move on. It won’t happen automatically. You will have to rise up and say, ‘I don’t care how hard this is, I don’t care how disappointed I am, I’m not going to let this get the best of me. I’m moving on with my life.”
Find another love. It might be easier said than done. I am sure you have heard it before: “I won’t find another love but you.” What they really meant is that they won’t open their heart again for a new love. Instead, listen to your heart. Love will find a way. “I believe for everyone who goes astray,” Tom Jones sings, “some will come to show the way.”
These rules are not foolproof. There are those that despite what they do, they continue to be brokenhearted. But as Shannon L. Adler said, “If you spend your time hoping someone will suffer the consequences for what they did to your heart, then you’re allowing them to hurt you a second time in your mind.” – ###
