How To Like Your Life When Your Heart Is Broken
An accessible monthly guide to maximizing daily delight, even amidst the ordinary difficulties of being alive
Sitting in the Target parking lot, I squeaked out over the phone, “Well … all I can think of is going to buy new sheets. So I guess that’s what I’m going to do.”
I didn’t feel at all like myself. My mind felt like a mindfield. My heart was broken.
A few days before, I ended a saga of a relationship just a few months after my mom died, and it felt like grief was crumbling down on me. I spent a pathetic few days doing nothing but sleeping and crying. It felt like a dam had broken; every emotion pinned me down under a current.
On day three of this terrible routine, it was time to get up. Unbelievable energy was required to shower and get in my car. I remember looking down at the steering wheel, thinking, “I just need to do something.”
What small vote can I make for hope? Is there anything (!!!) something (!!!) that I can like about my life right now?
This led me to the bedding aisle of Target, browsing patterned sheets. A random errand that marked a small step towards the light.
In truth, this practice — looking for things to like — is a survival mechanism. It’s a bridge to alleviate us out of the unfortunately normal struggles of living. It’s a way to straddle the great dichotomy — life is really hard, but there are still a lot of things to like.
We sometimes live as if one day everything will click into place. The perfect puzzle piece will fall, and joy will finally break through.
But we are always in progress. Until heaven, we live inside this both/and — joy alongside grief, loss alongside love. There is no such thing as “one day.” As long as we are on earth, the day to like is today.
I’ve been writing these monthly guides with accessible exercises to help us find daily delight because I’m continuously inspired by the question, “If life is too hard to love, what can I like?” But April has me stumped!!!!
You can read past monthly guides here:
So this guide is a bit different.
I’m feeling a need to call it what it is — to like your life is a fight. A way to stay afloat amidst real emotions and difficulties: heartbreak, death, fear, disappointment, and insecurities of many demoniations.
The real purpose of this theory is to buoy us in the unpredictable currents of ordinary life.
This Target-parking-lot-buying-new-sheets memory was exactly a year ago, and these are the practices that have carried me since. Life does get better.
Read on for a few ways to like your life. This month, we’re talking about heartbreak.
A Few Ways to Help You Like Your Life When Facing Heartbreak ❤️🩹
New Sheets To Save You
Is there a small change to your environment that could help you like it a bit more? Life is happening in the space you spend your time. In my case, it was a new set of patterned sheets inspired by some Pinterest scrolling. It could be some flowers, a candle, or even moving your furniture around. What’s a small shift you could make? I’ve found this has a natural, positive domino effect. Heartbreak can make everything feel frozen, and small changes like this help things thaw out.
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