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Lisa Duffy: A Million Unheard Souls

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8 Ways To Heal A Broken Heart: Special Series

8 Ways To Heal A Broken Heart: Special Series

Last updated on: April 27, 2016 at 11:05 am by Lisa Duffy

8 Ways To Heal A Broken Heart: Special Series 2016-04-27T11:05:17-04:00 Lisa Duffy

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We are living in the age of the broken heart. What can we do to help people heal?

Photo by Jean Gerber, CC, Unsplash.Com

A friend of mine recently revealed to me that her husband had left her a few weeks prior. For obvious reasons, I was shocked and dismayed, but more so because she hadn’t told anyone what had happened and was struggling through her grief all by herself. And not doing a very good job of it, she assured me. It breaks my heart to know she’s been alone in her pain.

It reminded me of another woman I know who, about ten years ago, went through a divorce with the most incredibly dire circumstances. She registered for my divorce support program, Journey of Hope, but never showed up to any of the meetings. It was only later she admitted that on those evenings she would drive to the church but could never bring herself to get out of the car and walk inside. She felt deeply ashamed, even though she was the abandoned spouse, and just couldn’t bring herself to let people know she was divorced. The thought of identifying herself as a divorced Catholic was so reprehensible, she kept it all to herself. So, for all those weeks, she just sat in her car in the parking lot and cried her eyes out.

You Are Not Alone

People shouldn’t feel as if they cannot share their pain with others. It seems to be a bit of a crisis, in my opinion, knowing that millions of people everywhere are doing the same; trying to cope with their pain and many times, doing it alone because they feel a sense of shame and embarrassment, or are too sensitive to talk about it with someone else. Do you identify with these people? If so, you need to know you are not alone and that there are people who understand and want to help, myself included.

This has prompted me to begin a series of articles titled, How To Heal A Broken Heart, with the hopes of offering some consolation and support to all those who are suffering in silence. This Sunday, I will begin posting the first of eight articles dealing with healing broken hearts, and you can expect to see two articles a week on this subject.

Unity In Suffering

Every marriage that fails has it’s own unique set of circumstances and the one who is seeking healing isn’t always the one who was abandoned. Sometimes, it has nothing to do with another man or woman, it is the result of a complicated and multi-faceted breakdown between husband and wife. Regardless of the situation, the common thread that brings everyone together is that terrible pain and suffering.

Because people react differently to their circumstances, I’d like to offer these articles in a way that addresses those different perspectives:

The Hopeless Heart
The Jealous Heart
The Angry Heart
The Lost Heart
The Battling Heart
The Abused Heart
The Discouraged Heart
The Lonely Heart

When I went through my divorce back in the early 1990’s, I think I identified with every one of those hearts. It was a long struggle for me to heal, but I did it by God’s grace and everyone should have the opportunity to find healing and move into a happier chapter of their lives.

Pope Francis’ words from his famous (or infamous, depending on your perspective) 2013 interview with Antonio Spadaro, S.J. are so key:

The thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds. … And you have to start from the ground up.

I hope that you will find hope and consolation in these upcoming articles and if you know someone who is suffering because of divorce, I encourage you to pass them on and help them know they are not alone in their pain.

For more resources and support, visit LisaDuffy.Com.

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