We must have times when our hearts struggle and break open. I think perhaps it is only when our heart is broken that we are truly without ego, present to the awareness within us. The Kotzker Rebbe said “there is nothing more whole than a broken heart” and I think that is true. Our relationships mean the most then and are sometimes our lifelines back to ourselves. Even through pain, we are so much more in our body and self. Our heart is tender and our vulnerability evident.
From my current Mussar class’ concluding lesson:
The most important thing is to keep taking steps. The steps that are true and straight will bring their own reward. But there is learning to be had in our stumbles too. We can’t help but regret our missteps, and they put upon us the obligation to do the course-correcting work of teshuvah. But why do they keep happening to us? Why, despite our best intentions to set our feet straight on the path of ascent, do we inevitably slip and fall?
Part of the upward journey requires that we acquire new hearts, and before that can happen, our old hearts need to be broken and reformed (re-formed). There is abundant evidence that life is set up to crack open our hearts, whether through loss and disappointment or as a result of our spiritual efforts. It’s the cracks that let in the light.
Over and over again, as life just happens sometimes, we learn the right thing to do or to say (or not to do or say), and we change our ways. We are human. We make mistakes. If we are improving though, it is wholly worth it for the knowledge and the gift of doing better.
At rock bottom, the only thing we have to cling to is faith. Faith in recovery and healing. Faith in a higher power. Faith in ourselves. It is lonely there, yet there is a vulnerability there that is not normally present so close to our surface. The old must be broken open in order to make way for the new.
Do you find this to to be true?
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