There are often questions regarding how to heal a broken heart, without considering the fact that our hearts may not be broken. In other words, there are instances where our spirit is broken, yet we assume that to be a broken heart. However, I have created a post to support healing a broken spirit, titled "Healing a Broken Spirit: Steps to Release and Repair".

Ultimately, we either lose love or choose to let it go. While these are two different things, we easily confuse the feelings associated with each. As we go through these experiences, we typically feel as if our energy has depleted, that we've been let down and discouraged from loving again because we believe our efforts were for nothing. We tend to associate loss of love with rejection and inadequacy, which speaks to a lack of understanding and acceptance of the loss. We allow the emotions we encounter to take over us, yielding an inability to properly rationalize the choices and decisions we made to contribute to the loss. And this is primarily a result of a lack of accountability.

Accountability is valuable, but it can be challenging to practice. Because regardless of whether we desired to lose love or not, either way, we played a role in that loss. This means that we have a responsibility for the undesired emotions we experience after such a loss. It's essentially accountability that illustrates the difference between a broken spirit and a broken heart, so let's look at these individually.

Here's the difference between a Broken Spirit & Broken Heart!

A BROKEN SPIRIT

After losing someone we love, we can experience a variety of emotions. Specifically, when we believe that we have failed or take on perceptions and feelings of inadequacy, we are experiencing the impact of a broken spirit. The spirit becomes broken because we no longer believe we could have another opportunity for love. In that moment (and in subsequent moments until addressed), we believe that a second chance at love is impossible.

A BROKEN HEART

When the heart is broken, we occupy an emotional space where we cannot understand the hurt and pain associated with the loss. Broken hearts often stem from a lack of understanding or an inability to accept reality. In contrast, broken spirits are merely emotions of disappointment, inadequacy, and regret derived from choices and decisions we've made.

THE DIFFERENCE

It's really easy to confuse the two when there is no constant reminder of the difference. But, when you're heart is broken, the feeling, more or less, resembles the inability to breathe. And that's because, despite the non-literal nature of this, broken hearts damage and discourage our ability to properly process emotions because of the complex relationship between mind (psyche), soul, and body. For most of us, when experiencing what we refer to as a broken heart, we often feel as though we can't exist in the absence of lost love. Or, in other words, we believe that we can't live or function without the individual or concept of love that we feel we have lost.

Conversely, a broken spirit feels different. When our spirit is broken, we lose our will and ability to see the beauty in love. Because when we experience damage to our spirit, we allow ourselves to be consumed with exaggerated disappointment. And many, whether we cannot or refuse to rationalize our feelings, won't admit that prolonged disappointment is indeed a choice...

Thus, I know it's easy to forget that we make the choices that most often yield undesirable circumstances, but when we accept that our reality reflects our decisions and choices, we can change how we are impacted by those decisions and choices. And in turn, seek to find solutions that mend and deter future broken hearts and spirits.

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