4 Valuable Lessons to Learn from Heartbreak

We have all, at some point or another, experienced heartbreak, and let’s be honest: it really sucks. But while sulking in our pain can be comforting, it can also be extremely dangerous and alienating. Let me explain why.

When we are experiencing pain we tend to think we are alone, we think nobody could ever understand what we are going through because they can’t possibly know the depth of our feelings. And that’s true. They will not know about our particular situation but feelings are universal and that means heartbreaks happen to most people and the emotional response is (most likely) similar for everyone.

What differs is the way in which people react to heartbreaks and that really is an individual choice. Everyone heals at their own pace and it may take people months if not years to be fully over a person.

But I do think there are always some silver linings to each and every situation. Here are the 4 main lessons we can try to learn when we are going through a heartbreak.

1. Be grateful for your ability to love

This may sound silly and somehow useless in this situation.

“Why would I be thankful for the ability to feel such pain?” One may ask.

Well, a friend of mine explained it to me very nicely a couple of months ago. He said that sometimes people are so hurt by their past relationships and so scared of letting their walls down that they will never risk falling in love with someone.

He said the ability to love does not depend on the willingness of other people to accept it. We are strong for the sole fact of being able to feel what we feel and not to take it for granted — and especially to be able to admit it. So yes, be grateful you are still able to love and allow yourself to feel a bit proud, too!!

2. Taking accountability for our feelings requires a great deal of strength

We all know in some situations it would be easier to just push our feelings back down, try to forget about them, and enjoy the moment.

It’s really easy: whether you realise you are not in love with someone anymore or that you are in love but not reciprocated, know that speaking up about your feelings takes strength.

I was discussing this with a friend and she said how sometimes people stick to the wrong choices because they are easier to live with than the right ones.

We all know maintaining the status quo involves way less emotional stress than subverting it so the sole fact of having been able to admit our feelings (to ourselves) shows an amazing level of emotional maturity.

3. We can’t force people to love us

This is probably the hardest part of it all.

It doesn’t matter how much we love someone; if they are not ready to accept our love or if they are unwilling to, there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. I guess this point sums up the first and the second one, in a way, but I think it deserves a space for itself.

It is such a crucial point!! The inability of people to accept our love says a lot about them but nothing about us! We are not loving them wrong, they are just not ready to accept us into their lives. And that’s okay.

4. This pain will change you

This is probably the hardest lesson of all.

Heartbreaks are traumatic experiences and like any trauma, healing from them will change something about ourselves.

We could find ourselves becoming more and more closed off to new people or we might just learn to set some stricter boundaries in the future, but we will always come out of the situation a slightly different person because pain changes us.

Even if just slightly.

So here you have them: these are the 4 most valuable lessons I learned from my (and my unfortunate friends’) heartbreaks.

We all know this will — unfortunately — happen to us at some point in our life so I think the best thing we can possibly do is to try and use this to learn something about ourselves that will shape the way we will approach future relationships.