Heartache and the trials of love

Among all hurts there is this one —unbeatable, sublime... It crawls around a weeping heart and simply needs its time.

Life is full of trials, and the hardest ones must be those of the heart. Really, what other reason would be there to create all those magnificent works of art, literature, and music, to fight wars, to destroy kingdoms, to kill and to die for?

Somehow the heart is made that way — its sorrows and sufferings seem to surpass those of the mind and the flesh. Those of you who have experienced either the feeling itself, or the subsequent break up, or just a great longing for that one person will probably agree — there is no cure for the inner aching, and all one can do is just go through it... Open up and fully go through the cycle of the unstoppable, unbearable pain which numbs all other feelings and turns its bearer into a totally inadequate, possessed, somewhat disabled creature who is barely able to function in what we call “normal life”.

And it's true, no one can help. No words can ease this condition, no other human can make it better, no act can make it go away. Some desperate souls resort to numbing themselves even more with intoxicating substances or reckless behavior, but at the end it only weakens them more, and the void grows deeper. One needs to really go through pain, and pain needs its time.

For the broken heart, the whole world is fundamentally wrong. What can be right in the world when your very essence is falling apart? But look around you — the world is still the same. What sort of trickery is this, what makes a person despair so deeply, so incurably on the inside if the world is still the same magnificent, ever-changing wonder of life?

When the ache is provoked by unreciprocated romantic love, it could be just hormones (don't underestimate them though, hormones RULE the world we live in).

But sometimes it's deeper than that... and so even scarier. The effects of hormones will go away in time, it's a given, but when the pain nests deeper than our current blood composition — oh, dear, then we are in for an eternity of pain and suffering.

But are we, really? I say, maybe not. I say the deeper your feeling is, even the one that hurts, the more benefit to you, dear reader. If you can gather yourself and go through hell, if you can die on the inside and come back up, if you manage to open yourself fully to the world and stand naked, susceptible, vulnerable... true magic will happen.

They say true love is unconditional. Some strange reasoning also tells us that if love is unconditional, it shouldn't be painful. My question is, why so? No one said that "unconditional" always equates to "joyful" or "happy". Deep inner happiness is a given when one's heart is in love, but it doesn't mean that you will always feel ONLY happiness. We are complex beings. Human array of feelings, emotions, sensations, thought processes, and the more sublime, spiritual processes on the levels of wordless perception beyond thinking is so wide that stuffing this whole thing called "unconditional love" into one unchanging state of body and mind is simply impossible.

Unconditional love and complete happiness (even when there is no response) is something that can be achieved by a highly developed spiritual being who no longer has no regular human needs, fears, wants, desires — or still possesses them but has learned to not collaborate under their weight. I believe that it is something to be achieved, but it is a life process. And maybe, just maybe all these trials, including heartaches, is something one has to experience and learn from in order to grow. It is possible that pain is a requirement; one of the keys to one particular door that you have to walk through if you want to go further.

"But I don't want to go further, I just want to be happy!"

Yes. I know. I just want to be happy too, and most of our life's endeavors should include happiness. But there's this one thing: life is not about being in a constant state of happiness and pleasure. Life is a battle. No, not the one against other people, governments, injustices, chauvinism, GMO, failing public education system, or another million things that come to mind. Life is a battle, and that battle happens inside every one of us.

It's the battle of every one of us for our own authenticity, humanity, openness, kindness, inner strength, willpower, intent. This battle can be happy, but at times it can be horrifying, and it simply CANNOT be always easy and pleasant. It could be if we were perfect, but no one is, and state of perfection is that level where one could call himself "God" (and maybe not even then).

We are the swords in the hands of this world. What does it take to make the sword strong enough to be a perfect creation? It doesn't even start out as a sword, in the beginning it's just elements that have to be smelted, and only then it can be shaped and heated over and over again, and then quenched to become durable enough...

Does this analogy relate only to our character, or maybe to our physical bodies?

I think it can be used in relation to our very feelings as well, to our ability to survive all the hurts and remain sharp — sharp undefeated blades of true unconditional Love.