The Naked Truth About Breast Cancer Podcast

VOL II MUSING - What to do with a broken heart

This week’s riff is called What to do with a broken heart  This year for me has been a long and very dark night of the soul where I’ve often had the feeling that my heart is completely broken  This is something I wrote for myself that may be useful for you too I wouldn’t call it a poem - it hasn’t been crafted or perfected in any way - it’s more a stream of consciousness.  What to do with a broken heart 1 Admit that your heart is broken Put down the weight of pretending for a moment No need to smile to reassure others  Allow the enormity and intensity of this monumental body slam from life  What if you could allow it all to be ok?  Ok that you feel anxious, defeated, lost, and exhausted OK that you’re disappointed with the friends who have left or who don’t understand OK that you’re grieving the hopes and dreams that now might come to nothing The things that will be left undone, the places unvisited The life you thought you might have that might now never be  What if it was ok that there’s a voice inside that says I don’t want to die or this isn’t fair What if it was ok to envy others their choices, their freedom, their ability to be carefree What if it was ok to just feel broken-hearted? 2 Learn to love the darkness We’re expected to rush through these things And there is panic as we sit in the ruins For we’ve been trained to value our lives through productivity There is the sense that we must get on with rebuilding We should be doing something to put our lives back together But just as widows wear black and grieve for a full year So must we sit in the sacred darkness  Train yourself to become comfortable, settle in The darkness is not dangerous, that’s a myth It’s the womb of all creativity Where we remove the clothing of our old selves and fling it into the holy fire of life  In order to rebirth So learn to love it here Learn to trust yourself too - you know what to do Let your inner eyes adjust to the darkness And you will start to see 3 Realise there is nothing we can do except tend our broken heart The soul works in ways that the human mind does not understand Let her do what she needs to do in her own gentle way Just befriend your feelings Invite them to sit at your table The fear, the loneliness, the grief, the exhaustion, the confusion, the loss Even the anxiety that terrorises you  And the depression that feels like a black hole from which you may never come back Ask for the grace to find it in you to love all of them - wholeheartedly They’re all parts of you Ask each of them what they’re here to teach you Do this, even if it’s hard, for the simple reason that anything you do not embrace will haunt you for the rest of your days The only way to be free is to welcome these unwanted friends As if they were your special guests 4 Do not, whatever you do, try and stop your heart from breaking For it is not your heart that is breaking The heart does not break - courage comes from the French coeur meaning heart What is shattering is a set of ideas stored in the mind Of the person you once were and the life you once lived Ideas, stories, that is all In truth - in soul - you were never any of these things anyway What is shattering is the thin veil that prevents you know from knowing the light of your own soul That subtle shift in perspective that changes everything So cry every human tear that needs to be cried But celebrate too Know that what is ending must end - it is what we are here for Allow the sensation of breaking  Become completely undone Only when we become nothing, undefended Do we find our light 5 Know when the time has come to let it all go Ask Jesus or the Buddha to relieve you of your burdens if that is your thing Dig a garden and pour it into the soil Write it all down and burn it Create something wonderful Howl at the moon or scream it out if you want The point is  Know when it is time to say goodbye to the new friends you have made To say thank you very much for the lessons you have brought me But now it is time for you to go Because I am ready to move on Sending love 💜💜💜 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit janemarshall.substack.com [https://janemarshall.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

VOL II MUSING - I'm not sure of anything and I like it

I’ve added an audio version of this week’s newsletter - let me know if you like it and want more. For me, I find recording audio more relaxing than doing video. There’s a 3 line verse on P215 of the book, and it goes like this:  All the things I was so sure of I’m no longer sure of And I like it What does this mean?  I used to think I was my mind, or my personality, my many likes and dislikes, my memories, my preferences, my grievances, my hopes and dreams and plans for the future, my job, my hobbies, my achievements, the constant thoughts in my head, my intelligence, the opinions, my physical appearance BC has shown me I’m none of those things In fact BC has shown me that I’m actually a vast ball of consciousness that has appeared briefly in the history of things, I happen to have the name Jane, and I’m here for a short while to have an experience that we call Life, and then I will pass on I don’t claim to know what happens after that But at this zoomed-out consciousness I know for sure I’m not any of the small or sure things that used to occupy my time and attention The thing about all the things that I was previously so sure of, is that they tie us down and limit our perspective They stop our knowing the full extent of this glorious life And this is one of the completely unexpected gifts of this epic trial we go through in breast cancer Knowing that we can let go of all of these things - because we’re forced to - knowing that we can let go of of these things that that fill our head and hearts, and without them we still exist, life doesn’t stop In fact life gets better This is what I mean when I talk about BC being a soul journey  Faced with these huge initiations - like life-threatening illnesses - we’re invited to activate the soul and allow her to run the show And if we say yes, it changes everything - our perspective shifts completely Because your soul exists beyond the mind, the personality, the likes and dislikes, all the things we’re sure of, and that we use to identify ourselves  This 3 lined verse speaks to how glorious it is it find ourselves there - in this dimension of soul Where in spite of the horrors of cancer there is an unexpected sense of peace and freedom I realised I had spent my whole life looking for these feelings Not knowing that I would find them at the bottom of BC, the hardest most gruelling thing life has ever asked me to do And so that’s what this is about All the things I was so sure of I’m no longer sure of And I like it In spite of things, in spite of how hard the last few years has been I like this place of peace where I’ve landed, very much This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit janemarshall.substack.com [https://janemarshall.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]