How To Get Your Heart Broken

Getting your heart broken—to put it frankly—sucks dick. For those of us that have experienced the phenomenon, you can vouch that it is probably the most unpleasant experience that you have had the displeasure of experiencing. Nevertheless, falling deeply in love and then having your heart ripped out of your chest is part of life—so if you have yet to have someone screw with your emotions, you will sooner or later, promise.

The one good thing that can be said is that getting through heartbreak will only make you stronger and better for it. So while it may make you feel like you are dying—and yes, it can feel that awful—once you make it through the tunnel to the other side you will feel empowered and that much wiser. I myself have suffered from a broken heart and although it was one of the most gut wrenching experiences of my life, I wouldn’t be the person I am today if it were otherwise.

Sometimes, however, you may decide that having your heart broken is not something that you need at whichever point in your life. Personally, I think once is enough. You live, you learn and you move on to something stable and lasting. I would like to share with you a few circumstances that you may find yourself in one day, that you can use as a red light signaling you to reconsider the future situation you are getting yourself into.

There are several key signals that most often lead to a heartbreaking finish. I have to admit that avoiding heartbreak is a tricky ordeal. Love in itself requires you putting yourself in certain positions that leave you open to heartbreak.

For example, the first thing required before one can fall in love is accepting the possibility of love. In order to do this, we have to be open to the idea of allowing someone to enter our lives and enter our minds. Allowing someone to see through our facades and into our true selves—our souls if you prefer—is not always easy. For some it will be much more difficult than for others.

In order to let someone in, we will have to take our defense systems offline. This in itself can be extremely difficult; some of us have spent so many years putting up barriers that taking them down will take quite an effort. Here is a bit of advice: don’t throw your drawbridge down too quickly.

People are very complex creatures and getting to know one takes time—especially when our guards are up. Don’t forget that while you are slowly letting your guard down, so is the person that you are seeing. Break your defenses down sooner than your lover, throw them down before your lover lowers their defenses enough for you to be able to really get to know them, and you may be setting yourself up for heartbreak. Make sure you know the person relatively well before you allow love to consume.

Once love consumes you, not much else seems to be in existence. This can be great, but at the same time very dangerous. The feeling of first falling in love is near impossible to define with words. The best way I can come up for describing the sensation is by saying that falling in love is nothing short of magical.

We find ourselves constantly thinking about the person we fell in love with as if they had left a permanent imprint on our minds. We want to spend more and more time with him or her and therefore inevitably end up spending more time with them. Slowly, but surely, the main focus in our lives shifts from ourselves to our lover—this is where things can get real ugly—Lindsay Lohan the morning after ugly.

The more time that you spend thinking about the person you love, the less time you spend thinking about yourself and your needs. Love masks all those needs and makes you feel like they are no longer important to you. That may very well be the case for the moment, but sooner or later, after the initial onset of love, you will find yourself in need of some of that independence you gave up.

We are egocentric beings and our main focus is and must always remain ourselves. That is not to say that our focus cannot be dished out amongst those that we love, but if we take ourselves entirely out of the spotlight, eventually we will feel a strong urge to make ourselves once again the centers of our own lives.

This will happen to both you and the person you love—more so for the male in the relationship than the woman; not to be sexist, but it’s a fact that women are more willing to “share” their lives with their partners than their male counterparts. Spending too much time together, devoting too much of yourself to the other, giving up too much of your freedom or taking away too much of your lover’s freedom will conclude with a messy finish.

You need to always remain your own person and remain true to yourself, your goals and your dreams. Love is not about giving up your life for the other, but rather allowing the other to share your life experiences. If you stop living for yourself, you stop having new experiences and your relationship quickly goes from being filled with love and being magical to being boring and dead.

If you don’t think you can experience heartbreak when letting go of a dead relationship, think again. If you ever did love that person, then letting them go—letting go of the love that you once had and the possibility of reviving it—can be more heartbreaking than a heated breakup.

Understanding that you have to give up someone that you once shared true love with will break your heart several times over. Not to mention, that it could have been avoided if you simply made sure to give yourself some space. Heartbreaks are the most memorable moments in our lives—sadly. They mark the different chapters in our lives.

However, love can do the same if you allow it to—so there is no need to go out looking for heartbreak. If it can be avoided, then it should be. This is not to say that you ought to avoid loving in order to protect yourself. As the English poet Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote: ‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Love as fully and as sincerely as you can. If heartbreak cannot be avoided, then accept that life is giving you a lesson and move on to greater things.

Paul Hudson | Elite. 

For more from Paul, follow him on Twitter @MrPaulHudson