Honoring the Heart After a Breakup or a Loss: A Love Letter to Healing

Dedicated to Chuck — One of the Great Loves of My Life

Life Energy Renewed LLC — by Lesley VanDeventer-Witt

There are seasons of life that stretch us so deeply, we wonder if we will ever return to ourselves. Seasons where the heart feels heavy, pulled in directions it never asked for, touched by endings it didn’t expect.

Breakups do this.

Loss does this.

Death does this.

In truth, anything that forces us to release someone we once held close — someone whose energy lived in our daily spaces, whose voice we recognized even in a whisper, whose wordless thoughts drifted to us unspoken, whose presence shaped the rhythm of our days — will inevitably touch the most tender parts of our spirit.

This extended reflection is dedicated to Chuck — one of the great loves of my life. To the memories that shaped me. To the love that taught me. To the grief that continues to expand me. To the part of my soul that still feels his imprint and always will.

And it is also dedicated to every heart experiencing a similar ache — whether through breakup, separation, estrangement, or the passing of someone deeply cherished.

Grief wears many forms, but it always touches the same sacred space inside us.

And that space deserves to be honored, your heart deserves to be honored after a breakup or Loss. Thinking of your own love letter to your healing.

 

When Love Changes Form: The Universal Grief of Letting Go

 

Grief after a breakup and grief after a death may look different on the outside — but internally, they often run parallel. In both cases, you are:

• adjusting to a new reality you didn’t choose

• mourning a connection that shaped you

• confronting silence where there used to be voices

• facing days that feel unfamiliar

• trying to understand what life looks like without the beloved

 

Both can shake a person’s identity.

Both can disrupt routines, beliefs, expectations, and dreams.

Both can leave you questioning:

Who am I now? How do I do life now?

The human heart does not separate its wounds into neat categories.

It simply knows:

Someone I loved is no longer here the way they were.

And when the connection was deep, soulful, and sacred — as it was with Chuck, everyone needs a Chuck in their live and hopefully more than one — the grief can feel just as deep, just as consuming, just as spiritually transformative.

Breakups, Death, and the Shared Path of Healing

Whether it’s the ending of a relationship or the passing of a loved one, the heart undergoes a similar spiritual process:

1. Shock and Disbelief

The mind can’t understand what the heart already knows:

Things have changed forever.

2. Emotional Overflow

Tears, numbness, anger, gratitude, longing — all swirling together with no rhythm or timing.

3. Searching

Looking for meaning, memories flooding at unexpected times, looking for the person in small signs, in music, in moments, in dreams.

4. Identity Shift

Learning to live without a presence that was once intertwined with your own.

5. Renewal

Not forgetting — but integrating.

Not “moving on” — but moving with.

Not erasing — but evolving, even more love and acceptance .

This path is not linear, not predictable, and certainly not neat, more like a plate of pasta with a surprise sauce, unrecognizable.

There will be days when you feel strong and spacious, able to luxuriate in the surprise of their essence, their energy.

And days when the ache reopens without warning, with no appetite at all.

Both are to be expected.

Both are part of your healing.

Both are sacred.

Why Losing Someone You Deeply Love Hurts So Much

Pain is not proof of failure.

Pain is proof of connection.

Your heart is not breaking because you are weak.

Your heart is breaking because it knew love deeply enough to feel its absence.

This is a truth many avoid, but holistic healing embraces, even encourages:

Because there is no grief without love.

There is no heartbreak without meaning.

And so, when I say,

“There would be no reason for my heart to break if it had not loved with such depth in the first place,”

I mean it quite literally.

Your grief is the evidence of your capacity for love.

Your capacity is the evidence of your wholeness.

Your wholeness is the evidence that you will heal — because nothing that has the ability to love so powerfully stays wounded forever. What feels like a wound is really the foundation of your expansion, strength, power, and resiliency.

A Love Letter to Healing: writing your own

“Today, I honor my heart and the love I shared with Chuck — one of the great loves of my life. I let the grief move gently through me, knowing it is only proof that my heart loved deeply and beautifully. That our boundaries with each other were sacred and healthy.  Then every breath brings me closer to peace, every tear releases old pain, and I am quietly returning to myself with softness and strength.”

Let this affirmation anchor you.

Let it soothe you.

Let it remind you that healing doesn’t erase the love — it carries it forward.

Understanding the Hidden Gifts of Great Love

Great love is never small.

Never forgettable.

Never shallow.

Great love expands us — spiritually, emotionally, energetically.

It awakens parts of the heart that would otherwise remain asleep, no matter how imperfect.

And even if the relationship ends…

And even if the person passes…

And even when the future changes…because it must.

Great love leaves blessings that remain long after the form has changed.

Remember energy, never dies only changes form.

Some gifts are obvious:

• The laughter

• The memories

• The shared stories

• The growth

• The deepening of your emotional intelligence

 

And some gifts are subtle:

• The way your heart softened

• The lessons you now hold

• The intuition you sharpened

• The standards you raised

• The resilience you inherited

 

And yes… sometimes the blessing and the heartbreak arrive in the same breath.

There would be no reason for my heart to break if it had not loved with such depth in the first place.

Because heartbreak and blessings are not always separate things.

Sometimes they’re the same thing wearing different colors with different energy — or opposite colors and energy that blend together and complement each other so well, you can’t tell where the pain ends and the wisdom begins.

This is the paradox of love and loss:

The deeper the connection, the greater the expansion — even when it hurts. Even when the pain feels like it will never end.

Grief After Death vs. Grief After Breakup

While both forms of grief are spiritually intertwined, each has its unique challenges.

Breakup Grief Brings…

• unanswered questions

• emotional whiplash

• the pain of watching someone continue living without you

• the temptation to analyze every detail

• the rise of self-doubt or “what-ifs” (would of, could of, should of, rarely helpful).

Grief After Death Brings…

• Much of the questions that break up grief brings, and…

• the finality of physical absence

• the impossibility of repair

• existential questioning

• spiritual longing

• the aching quiet of missing a presence that will not return in the physical sense

 

Yet both ask the same thing of your spirit:

To learn how to carry love differently.

T learn how to carry energy differently.

Not to erase it.

Not to suppress it.

Not to “get over it.”

But to integrate it.

To honor it.

To allow it to shape you in a way that strengthens, rather than diminishes, your heart.

What It Means to Heal: The Holistic Perspective

Healing is remembering.

Healing is honoring.

Healing is taking the time needed.

Healing is integration.

It is learning to live with the love in a new form.

The holistic path invites you to:

Honor Your Body

Grief shows up physically — in the chest, in the stomach, in the breath.

Gentle movement, rest, hydration,

journaling  and grounding practices help your nervous system settle.

Give yourself the gift of feeling the grief and allowing all of the emotions that go with it.

Integrate it.

Honor Your Emotions

Tears are healing.

Silence is healing.

Laughter is healing.

Anger is healing.

Nature is healing.

Allow your emotions will ebb and flow like the waves, sometimes rhythmic and sometimes overwhelming.

Embrace all of it, except all of it and love yourself through it.

Honor Your Mind

Redirect painful thought loops gently.

Allow varied meanings to your story.

The thoughts we think are never written in stone. Become flexible with different possibilities.

Allow for the best meanings to your stories.

Even in a painful breakup, the love is real, even if feel you were the only one loving. Your love is honorable.

Stay aware of old stories or “what-if wounds.”

Practice truth-telling with yourself:

“I did the best I could with who I was at the time, and so did they.”

“I completely love, honor and except myself and everyone else involved.”

Honor Your Spirit

Meditation, prayer, quiet moments, nature, journaling — all reconnect you to the deeper part of you that remains untouched by endings.

In holistic healing, never rush the heart.

You accompany it, like following in a dance, yes you get to choose some of the moves and how the dance goes too. There is more than one way to be responsive.

 

Quote for the Soul — You Are Becoming More You

“Great love never disappears; it transforms. Chuck’s presence in my story shaped my spirit, strengthened my heart, and expanded my capacity to love. What breaks today is not my future — it is only the part of me who of is making space for who I am becoming.”

Let this truth sit with you.

Let it breathe with you.

Let it unravel the tight places in your chest.

Allow yourself the truth of love and acceptance.

You Are Not Beginning Again —

Creating a new story: Creating Healing

Whether the loss came through breakup or death, your story is not at the end.

Your soul is not collapsing, even if it may feel like it at times — it is reshaping.

Your heart is never empty — it is reorganizing its energy in a new way.

Love never disappears or despairs forever, it changes. Like Einstein’s theory E=mc2

Everything is energy, Love too. Remember, energy is never created or destroyed,

only transformed—like chemical energy in fuel becoming motion and heat in a car, or potential energy converting to kinetic energy. 

It transforms.

It evolves.

It integrates.

It becomes part of your spiritual framework.

And you, even more loving and kind— beautiful soul — are becoming wiser, deeper, stronger, more compassionate, and more connected because of the love you’ve known.

This is not the end of the story. This is energy converting.

This is the turning of a page. What is it that you want to write on your new page, with your new energy? There is hope, and here is post dramatic growth.

Remember to author your own love letter to healing. You are the beneficiary of that energy. Remember that converting energy is work and with love and loss the work is converting the pain to wholeness.

A Love Letter to Healing

Many Blessings to you: 

“May your heart soften in all the right places. May your grief be gentle, your memories be sweet, and your spirit be strengthened by the love you have known. May your tears water the soil of your future. And may you remember that endings are not punishments — they are new beginnings.”

Take courage,

And always,

Believe in you, I do.

Much love.

Many blessings.

— Lesley VanDeventer-Witt