Healing Heartache

Much of our heartache comes not from other people but from our expectations of others and what we feel they should bring into our lives. If other people truly caused our heartaches, we would have little power to heal our hurt. Healing would primarily be left to the passage of time. Even then, the big heartaches could easily be reignited. 

It’s no point arguing with the heart. It doesn’t help to talk reason. The heart doesn’t even hear. It doesn’t know that language. It is instinctive—for good and bad. Whereas the mind will try and patiently think through the reasonableness of any situation, the heart is powerless to do so. The heart is all feeling and flows from a great line of experiences and expectations, both remembered and forgotten.

The most pressing thing we generally want from other people is a sense of love and security. It is a wonderful feeling to bask in the warmth of another’s affection, attention, and protectiveness. It is equally as un-wonderful to feel that the source of that love has somehow betrayed us. Once hurt, we can go through life shutting people out or keeping people around but blaming them. We can close the door of our heart. However, without our heart, we become an empty shell. Perhaps, an intelligent empty shell, but empty nevertheless. 

The heart carries the beat of life. 
It makes existence meaningful and beautiful. 
The heart bypasses language. It doesn’t lie. 
Everything moving and powerful has heart.

Peaceful Centre

A balanced, inner calmness radiates from a peaceful centre. It neither craves others’ approval nor rejects others’ presence. It neither pulls towards nor pushes away. It has a reverent attitude towards life and all its inhabitants. It has compassion for the inevitable weaknesses of the human condition. It has nothing to gain from others’ approval. It is not self-seeking. It is not needy, grabbing or manipulative. It embodies gracious respect for everything beautiful including other human souls. It has a lively freedom, a happy composure, a quick and engaging wit, and an intelligent, interested, and interesting mental attitude.

The Flame Ignites

I had resigned myself to the idea that dancing, for me, would be an unfulfilled yearning. In my mid-twenties, I told myself I was too old for dancing and should transfer all such longings into a more suitable outlet. The dancing flame was buried, and I took up the violin. Playing the violin was enjoyable enough, but I wasn’t a musician. I was a dancer.

In my early thirties, I went back to university to do a Diploma of Education so that I would be able to work as a teacher. I thought teaching would fit in with raising young children on my own. One of the short options in the diploma was dance. As soon as I began the dance option, the dancing flame ignited. It came alive. It was given oxygen, and it started to breathe with a great gust of enthusiasm and relief. I was amazed because I no longer knew it was there and certainly did not know the intensity with which it had waited for air. How wonderful it felt. How deeply it touched me. I felt something in me that was different to all the other parts of me, and it felt uniquely beautiful and satisfying. Alas, the dance option was over too quickly, and I returned to the academic task at hand.

When the Diploma of Education was completed, life carried on. One day, I asked myself if I needed to do something different to improve the quality of my life. Naturally, the dancing flame leapt at the opportunity as it had only recently felt its first breath in nearly a decade. 

“Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t take up dancing now,” warned my rational mind. “You are a responsible mother of two young children. Grown-up women don’t dance.”

“Oh, be quiet,” my free mind replied. “I could be dead in a year. Then what would it matter?” 

I did not die. I did take up dancing—in the form of ice skating. I skated for thirteen years with great enjoyment. Like a friend who was lost and then refound, the bond is protected at all costs. I later transferred to ballroom dancing, which I loved even more. 

Dancing has helped me feel connected to myself and life. It fulfils an inner drive that has remained with me since I was a young child with a treasured picture of beautiful ballet couple Margot Fonteyn and Rudolph Nureyev. I didn’t know who they were, but they were fascinating and lovely. We are no one else. We are ourselves. We must be that, with no regrets, if we wish to be happy. If we keep going forward, following our natural, intuitive, and sincere path, everything will tend to align with our good intention.

Learn more about Dance: A Spiritual Voice