Heartbreak.

"...It's in heartbreak, and only in heartbreak, that we discover not just the grace and power of love, but that our own limitless capacity for it finally, suddenly unfurls."

This is one of many quotes I would like to share with you from a blog post by Umair Haque called "How to Let Your Purpose Find You."

How counter-intuitive, to think that we must feel heartbreak and force ourselves into that place, to really feel the power of love. But, it's true. You learn about the amazing, intense, engulfing sensation of love through learning about what it feels like to lose it and to be challenged by it. 

"Most of us don't just hide our heartbreak — worse, we hide from heartbreak. And so we end up something like mute and mapless orphans in the human world; unable to speak the language of mattering; our vocabulary of life itself forever stunted."

Because we often don't instinctively lean into discomfort, and instead hide away from it, we do whatever it takes to avoid feeling heartbreak. We build up walls, we hide away our feelings, and we fight against vulnerability completely. We don't tell that special person we love them, for fear of ever experiencing what it would feel like to fall out of love, or not be loved back. We don't live in love, because we are afraid to live with the feeling of love lost. Our growth and our happiness is stunted when we live like that.

"Love is the process of being transformed by transformation; of a kind of reciprocity in transformation; where the subject makes the object wholer, fuller, truer, and so too, in the discovery of the fuller, truer, wholer self, the object makes the subject. It is for this reason that, when we are electrified by love, the world around us seems bigger, brighter, better — because, in truth, it is."

Love turns our idea of happiness and purpose on its head. Love flips the world upside down and shines a pink hue on everything around us. Things that used to bother us don't seem to matter. Priorities change, and challenges seem easier to push through. Love is power! It lifts us up and inspires us to lift others, too. A world lived in love IS different, because our experience of the world changes. 

People search the Earth high and low for their life's purpose. The scrub every surface and dig into many outlets trying to find that fulfillment, that thing that really speak to them and sets their world on fire. 

"Finding your purpose is not a phase of life — but a way of living."

Falling in love with your purpose is what living is all about. It's not a destination, but a constant journey. I sometimes get stuck on the idea that I'm searching for my purpose, such that I lose sight of what the Universe is offering me and communicating to me RIGHT now. I've come to the conclusion that we ALL have the same purpose. It comes in many shapes in sizes, but it all goes back to one thing: LOVE. Love is purpose. Your purpose may be to start a non-profit that's dedicated to helping impoverished children in Africa get access to clean water. Why? Because you love people and you care about their well-being. This is the same reason someone's purpose may be to become a math teacher. Or a scientist. Or a lawyer. When your purpose is grown from love, and it's root is love for your fellow man and for this planet we live on, that's when true fulfillment is ever-present in our lives.

"But those of us privileged by purpose? We know a secret: that growth sometimes feels like suffering."

Don't misunderstand. Love IS incredible and freeing. But, living a life in love is not free from suffering. In fact, the more you open up your heart to love, the more you are vulnerable to getting hurt too. You may get your heart broken (maybe even by yourself). You may break someone else's heart. But it's okay. It's inevitable that when a bunch of loving, vulnerable people come together, someone will get hurt. But do you wait in the shadows with your anti-love armor, anticipating a war of heartbreak? No! What a dark, miserable place. Let's not live that way. Let's dive into the pool of fireworks that love creates and enjoy every bright, glittering moment, even if we know that we could get burned and that the lights could eventually die out.  


I know what true love feels like. I also know what real, raw heartbreak feels like. And as terrible as it feels to drag through the days, weeks, months, with a broken heart... I would never give up those tough times. Because I know that living without heartbreak would mean that I'd be living without having loved, too.


Check this out: 
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The Neighbourhood, "Sweater Weather"