Spirituality, Therapy, and the Good Life

A young activist completely overwhelmed by the pain that surrounds her shared her anguish and discouragement with me recently, and I felt my own heart stir and open to the breaking of hers. I have felt the despair that now occupies her body and soul. I remembered sitting in a dark movie theater crying inconsolably while my poor sweet husband held my hand. He could touch me, but not reach me. I was lost . Lost to the cruelty and greed of my fellow humans; lost to the dying of my troubled and still beautiful world. There seem to be no words which can possibly speak for or to this terrible breaking.

In “How to Lead with a Broken Heart,” Joseph DiCenso writes of crying as he sits in a group of thirty-six men and women trying to “name the ache I feel for the state of the world. My grief over the gap between what could be and what is… The species, peoples, cultures, wisdom – dying, disappeared. How it sometimes feels like I’m living a long goodbye. …What does it take to lead from this place? Broken. Open. Stymied. …How do I break open and not apart?”

DiCenso begins with the question, “how can I lead with a broken heart?” and ultimately concludes with another , “And how can that leading be an act of joy?” (You can read his powerful and beautiful reflection here ) While he doesn’t provide answers, I am still left with a sense of comfort and hope by the time I leave him. He has served as brother and witness and guide.

Fyodor Dostoevsky observed, “pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart” and Clarissa Pinkola Estes pointed out that, “Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.” From my perspective, in order to do this most effectively , we will need to continue to open our deep hearts to pain and heartbreak and, most importantly, to love. If we are to commit to the work still ahead on behalf of a broken world, we will need to fully feel our love for it.