How Do You Get Over A Heartbreak?
One word of advice that took me years and an epiphany to understand
My uncle who is a Zen master was visiting from abroad many years ago and my sister and I took him out for coffee and some catch-up. At some point in the chat, in hopes of picking his brain and hearing some grand wisdom on Zen philosophy, I asked him, “How do you get over a heartbreak?” I shifted in my seat to make myself comfortable, all googly-eyed, anticipating a lengthy sharing from a man who had trained, taught, and spent decades in Zen practice.
To my surprise, he uttered one word, and ever so casually at that: “Acceptance.” With that, he went about eating the cake he had with his coffee, proceeded to ask other catch-up questions and the chat went on.
Deep inside, I was stunned. That’s it? No profound words, no soul-stirring illumination, not even one long sentence? It was a question I mustered the guts — even hesitated — to ask, and the curt reply felt like a dismissal, like a terse “snap out of it”. Instead of the “aha!” I was hoping to walk away with, it was an “oh well!”. But that was that, and I didn’t push it. Not that I forgot about it; it would pop up occasionally in my mind though it would stay there only for a time as short as the answer was. I didn’t dwell on it, much less attempt to ruminate on its deeper meaning and implications, more to brush off the disconcerting feeling I remember from the seeming dismissal than what I felt was the answer’s inadequacy.
While I have long since gotten over that heartbreak, thank you, the memory of my uncle’s reply cropped up again recently. With the pandemic and all its craziness, the drawn-out isolation, the barrage of bad news all over, and the harsh realities of life assaulting the consciousness, one gets to a point of pause and reflection in search of a lifeline to ride out the waves of turbulence instead of letting them pull you under. This time, that one-word answer buoyed to the surface, with a lighter feeling to it, but ironically it was loaded instead of hollow. It suddenly started to make sense.
“Acceptance.” It dawned on me how this succinctness was the key to the significance of the answer that my uncle offered to the question that I’m sure he didn’t take lightly. I realized how powerful it was, in that the single word stuck with me all these years even if I was no longer searching for an answer to my original question. It was what rather than how he answered that bore weight; the answer lay not in what many eloquent words he would have said which may have been bound to be forgotten, but in how I would process and draw meaning from that one unforgettable word. It was not up to him to hand down an instruction manual and teach me how to get over a heartbreak, but up to me to learn from that single word not only how to get over a heartbreak but how to weather the myriad struggles, changes, and existential issues that life would throw at me.
Like all good things, acceptance takes time, and work. I realized that my tendency to brush off the memory was actually rejecting the very idea of acceptance because it was not comfortable to do. It is not the resigned, shoulder-shrugging, “that’s that” kind of acceptance, but a process, one with no defined steps or timeline, but unique to every individual as it considers the history and nuances of the personal experience, appreciating it for what it was, going through the process of mourning it, taking stock of the lessons that could be learned from it and taking those lessons moving forward. It entails a conscious resolve to acknowledge that things don’t always go the way you want, that something is the way it is and beyond your control and there is nothing to gain from fighting it or knocking yourself out to understand why it happened and all its nitty-gritties. It is surrendering to a higher power, letting go of the what ifs and has beens and leaving the past behind where it belongs. It is fully living in the present with mindfulness and gratitude, and embracing a future of new possibilities with hope and faith.
In this constantly changing journey of life, to have a mindset of acceptance is a big step toward traversing the long road of twists and turns, potholes and bumps, uphills and downhills with composure, resilience and grace, knowing that the road will not always lead you where you want but where you are meant to be.
It took me a while to learn it and put the pieces together, and I continue to learn and take it one step at a time.
Thank you, good uncle. ♥︎
