How does one heal a broken heart?

Oct 17, 2026 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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(Kaieteur News) – My next question to Guru was done via mail. I wrote to him and asked Dear Guru,

There is a problem that affects millions of people, yet many suffer through it in silence. It is heartbreak. People will openly discuss their financial difficulties, seek medical attention when their bodies are unwell, and ask friends for advice about their careers. But when their hearts are broken, they retreat into silence, pretending to be fine while quietly falling apart.

Some have been abandoned by people they loved deeply. Others have discovered infidelity, been rejected without explanation, or watched a relationship they believed would last forever crumble before their eyes. Some are grieving a love that ended years ago but still occupies a corner of their hearts. Others are struggling to accept that the person they love no longer feels the same way about them.

They go to work, smile at colleagues, laugh at jokes, and carry on with their responsibilities. But when night comes and the distractions disappear, the memories return. A song, a photograph, a familiar place, or even the sound of a telephone can reopen wounds they thought were healing.

Many are too embarrassed to seek advice. They fear being told they were foolish to trust, weak to care so deeply, or deserving of what happened to them. So they suffer alone, sometimes for months or years, waiting for time to do what they do not know how to do themselves.

Guru, why does heartbreak hurt so much? How does one stop loving someone who has stopped loving them? And how does one move forward when the heart refuses to accept what the mind already knows?

The Guru replied:

My dear friend, heartbreak is among the most painful experiences of being human because we do not merely fall in love with another person. We fall in love with the life we imagine sharing with them. We make room for them in our plans, our habits, our hopes and our understanding of the future. When the relationship ends, we lose not only a person but also the future we had begun to believe was ours.

That is why telling someone with a broken heart to simply move on is rather like telling someone with a broken leg to run. The instruction may be well-intentioned, but it demonstrates little understanding of the injury.

The first thing to understand is that there is no shame in having loved deeply, even when that love ends painfully. The fact that someone failed to honour your affection does not mean your affection was misplaced. Nor does another person’s inability to love you as you loved them diminish your worth.

Also, you can love someone and still recognise that the relationship is no longer good for you. You can miss someone terribly and still understand that their absence is necessary for your peace.

Sometimes you miss a person because they were right for you. Sometimes you miss them because they were familiar. And sometimes you miss the person you hoped they would become, rather than the person they consistently showed themselves to be.

The second lesson is to stop demanding that your heart heal according to a timetable. There is no universal period for recovering from heartbreak. But while you give yourself time, do not make a permanent home out of your pain. Eat properly. Sleep as best you can. Exercise. Spend time with people who genuinely care about you. Return to activities that remind you that your life contains interests, possibilities and pleasures beyond the relationship you have lost.

And, above all, resist the temptation to keep reopening the wound. Constantly checking an ex-partner’s social media, searching for clues about their new life can keep you trapped in the very grief you are trying to overcome. You cannot heal while insisting on touching the wound every morning to see whether it still hurts.

Third, forgive yourself. Many broken-hearted people spend years conducting imaginary trials in their minds. They revisit conversations, examine every mistake and wonder whether one different decision might have saved the relationship. They blame themselves for not seeing the warning signs, for trusting too much, or for staying too long.

Nor must you hate the person who hurt you in order to move forward. You may never receive an apology. You may never understand why things happened as they did. You may have to accept that some questions will remain unanswered.

Finally, remember that heartbreak is also an opportunity to rediscover yourself. When a relationship ends, ask not only what you have lost, but what you may have neglected while trying to preserve it. Reconnect with old friends. Revisit forgotten ambitions. Discover interests that belong to you alone. Learn to enjoy your own company without interpreting solitude as evidence of failure.

And if the pain becomes overwhelming, persists to the point of disrupting your daily life, or leaves you feeling unable to cope, seek help from a counsellor or mental-health professional.

Grieve what you have lost. Learn what you can. Release what you cannot change. Then, little by little, begin living again.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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• broken heart, Financial Difficulties, guru, Peeping Tom

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