How To Practice With a Broken Heart Walking With Acceptance

Recently, I’ve been confronted with a very difficult situation that truly breaks my heart. While the personal details are not important for the purpose of this essay, I can offer a glimpse into my process — in case you, too, are facing a personal challenge that feels overwhelming.

When this situation first arose, although incredibly upsetting, I knew — from years of practice — what I needed to do first:
"Don’t just do something — sit there."

It wasn’t easy. Every part of me wanted to jump in, to fix, to change, to stop what was happening. But experience had taught me that rushing to action only added more confusion and often made things worse. I needed clarity first.

So I sat. I breathed. I asked myself: Is this truly life-threatening, or does it just feel that way because of old wounds and fear?

Stepping back and taking that pause helped me see more clearly. I realized:

• This was not something I could control.
• Though deeply affected, it was not mine to fix, change, or stop.

That’s when the deeper work began:

• I gathered my tools and practices.
• I connected inward and asked: What is the next right step?
  Most of the time, the guidance was simple: Rest. Breathe. Let go.

(And honestly? Letting go felt nearly impossible in this case.)

I had to sit with the raw discomfort of my resistance to letting go — with fear, grief, and the mind’s endless ideas about how things should be. I had to witness the part of me that clings, the part that believes safety lies in control and then investigate what that is all about.

I turned to yoga and to 12-step wisdom — both of which teach about non-attachment, surrender, and acceptance.

In Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, the practice of Santosha (contentment) reminds us that peace is not something we create by arranging life perfectly. It’s already present when we loosen our grasp, when we stop insisting that things be different.

In the Bhagavad Gita, we’re taught about equanimity — meeting success and failure, joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, with the same steady heart.

Both teachings point to a radical idea:
True peace (and ultimately true change) does not come from changing our circumstances. It comes from changing our relationship to them.

Lately, I’ve been living into this.
Not perfectly. Not without tears.
But slowly, quietly, one breath at a time.

Acceptance, I’m learning, doesn’t mean liking what’s happening.
It means being in this life as it is, right now — and somehow trusting that something greater is unfolding.

There is a deeper intelligence guiding this life, even when I cannot see it.

Trust doesn’t erase the ache.
It gives me the strength to stay open, grounded, receptive, and ready.

Acceptance is not passive.
It’s an active, living trust — a steady listening — that prepares me to take right action when the time comes.
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It’s a bowing of the heart to something vaster and wiser than my own understanding.

It’s not easy to do, but there are moments when I can feel my body relax --
the deep inhale, the long exhale — and a calm peace enters.
In those moments, I imagine that perhaps I am standing at the doorway of a deeper freedom — a freedom to know happiness even amidst sorrow,
to feel grief without losing touch with the quiet joy that lives at the core of being.

This joy is not a denial of pain.
It is the vastness that makes room for it all --
the sadness, the love, the heartache, and the hope --
held in the great, unbreakable heart of life itself.

In closing I leave you with an invitation for inquiry. You might ask:
Where in my life am I being invited to trust more deeply?
What would it feel like to stand at the doorway of freedom — even in the midst of uncertainty?