When a Broken Heart Feels Kind of Good

Can a broken heart feel good somehow?

My research says YES. It can feel a little like scratching an impossible itch. Heartbreak can shove you off a cliff into turquoise waters, making you feel both good and bad at the same time. Sounds weird? Hear me out.

When a Broken Heart Feels Kind of Good

Scratching an itchy scab can compare to taking a bite of a meaty kebab after a boozy night out. Or drinking chilled coconut water in the shade after hours of waiting for a bus that never came under the African, stove-like sun. You feeling me?

You know that moment when you finally tell your self-discipline to go fuck itself and you just give in—your hard fingernails rubbing up against that itchy spot that’s been begging for momentary relief? That’s sort of how a broken heart can feel to me—as if the scab were on the mushy flesh of my heart and my hand could reach through my chest, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom–style, to scratch it (either you get this reference or you don’t).

The Soul Feels Alive

A broken heart can be the most painful thing a person endures in a lifetime, and at the same time it can be one of the most expanding, life-changing experiences—the kind that plugs you directly into your existence, even when you feel like you want to die.

Will you tell me, without hesitation, that a part of you has never felt a flicker of satisfaction—that forbidden itch—when you play Against All Odds by Phil Collins and let yourself lean into the ache of unrequited love? I’ll admit it now: listening to sappy love songs when I’m in love, even when it’s not reciprocated, is one of my favorite things—because my soul feels alive.

A broken heart forces us to step out of the ordinary. To reevaluate. To shake free from the numbness that everyday life lulls us into.

A broken heart makes us philosophical. It makes us speak to our friends about what’s really inside—at least it should.

A broken heart helps us weed out the people who are not truly part of our support system.

And it’s very, very likely that you’ll come out the other side a changed woman.

When the Only Solution is India

In 2012, my now ex-husband broke my heart for the first time. He wanted a divorce. For reference: he saw one divorce through and gave warnings at least three other times during our almost 16 years together. My heart had more ups and downs than a yo-yo at a kid’s birthday party in the ’80s.

That year I was doing my yoga teacher training, and the ONLY solution I could imagine to soothe my busted heart was ditching my job for two weeks and going to the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India, to do Seva—a selfless service performed without expectation of reward. I pictured myself the heroine, scrubbing thousands of dirty plates smeared with leftover dhal until my hands were wrinkled and blistered. I didn’t want to think. I didn’t want to feel. The pain was beyond words. There was a physical ache, and the thought of cleaning up some karmic debt almost made it feel … good.

Ditching the Temple

But … when I arrived, the bathroom line was impossibly long, and the noise level was edging toward what the Krakatoa eruption must have sounded like in 1883—a deafening blast whose shock waves circled the Earth multiple times. I lasted about two hours. I ate the dhal, but someone else scrubbed my dirty plate because I was gone by the time chores were handed out.

Instead, I found myself the only woman on a crowded local bus worming its way up the mountainside toward the Indian residence of the Dalai Lama. A quick recalculation told me that being in his vicinity would soothe my wound better than my short fingernails—and better than Seva.

While sitting on the bus, brushing off invitations from curious Indian men, I couldn’t have predicted what the trip would turn into. It included visits to a Tibetan hospital and an ominous prediction by a psychic—one that ultimately taught me to choose my fortune-tellers more wisely.

I did get to scratch, but maybe I stopped too soon.

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Teaser for Next Week

I scratched and scratched the wound. I spun the prayer wheels at the local Buddhist temple. I visited the Dalai Lama’s home. I let a psychic do “karmic” healing on me. I ate lemon meringue pie and dodged the territorial rhesus macaque monkeys on the mountain paths.

And then the unexpected happened, and my scratching stopped dead in its tracks.

I apologize sincerely for the clickbait, cliffhanger-style ending—but I just have to save this for my next piece. Hopefully, you’ll forgive me when you read on next week.