Alain De Botton: How Do You Heal a Broken Heart? The Importance of Closure & Self-Compassion

0:01Sarah Ann Macklin:This is a Be Well Moment, the most replayed moments from my latest conversation. It's a glimpse into the wider episode, which you can find linked in the show notes below. Because sometimes one small moment is enough to reconnect to living well and being well.

0:22Do you think that heartbreak is one of the most important life lessons that we can learn?

0:29Alain de Botton:Heartbreak is an absolute nightmare. I would say that it is one of the worst things that anyone can go through. I didn't know this. I didn't go through heartbreak till later on in life. And I used to think, oh, what are those songs about? What's this drama about? I mean, lots of people have not really had heartbreak. They've had breakups and they felt a little bit sad for a week or two. It's not heartbreak. Guys, heartbreak is the serious thing. Heartbreak is a year, two years, three years of your life where you are in pieces. This is no fun at all. I mean, it is a quasi-medical condition. You should get time off work for it.

1:04Alain de Botton:It is a major life event. It is an annihilation of yourself that existed in the life of another person. The worst heartbreaks are those that are not properly explained. We can take a lot if they've been explained. I think there should be almost a government law that you cannot leave a relationship without giving the other person maximal closure. Why did this happen? What's going on? How did you come to this decision? The thing that will devastate anyone is a relationship that seems to be going well. You feel invested. You trust. You love. You adore. You're planning a future. And then from one day to the next, the person goes, I'm so sorry.

1:45Alain de Botton:I'm not feeling I've got to leave and I can't really explain why. You probably lost the next two years. Just then and there, you lost the next two years. at least. And it will have a massive impact on your ability to trust other people, etc, etc. So as I say, you know, you get fined about£100 for dropping a Coca-Cola can on the ground. Not great. But what do you get fined if you do this to another human being? Nothing. It's in the realm of private life. Now, I don't want to, you know, call the police in. But guys, let's raise our game here. You cannot just exit somebody's life after a 5 or 10 or 20-year relationship with a, oh, sorry, I wasn't feeling it anymore.

2:22Alain de Botton:I'm off and I'm going to block you now. We can't do this to people. It's devastating.

2:27Sarah Ann Macklin:It is probably one of the most soul-destroying moments. I mean, it's very connected to trauma when those things happen.

2:35Alain de Botton:It is a trauma. It is a trauma. It is a trauma. And because it literally is an annihilation of yourself in the eyes of another. Another person knows everything about you, everything. You've told them everything. You've shown everything about you, shown yourself in total vulnerability. And then for no reason, that witness, that friend, that lover vanishes from your life. And it is like you have to be born again, as it were, not in a nice way religious people talk about. I mean, in the grimmest way, you have to start again. And yeah, so anyone who's suffering from heartbreak, I mean, they need so much help.

3:12Alain de Botton:They need so much kindness, so much support. they are not going to be themselves for months and years.

3:18Sarah Ann Macklin:But do you think at that point they develop a different type of self once they heal and grow from the pain that they endured?

3:27Alain de Botton:Sarah, I'm not from California. We're recording this in the UK, in the United Kingdom. We're recording this in old Europe. Europe is tragic. America is optimistic. I know many of our viewers are from the United States. I say this with love and compassion and desire to be helpful. Some things are tragic. Some things are not always the road to some beautiful future. Some things are just shit. And we need to, you know, some things shouldn't have happened and nothing beautiful happens. You just have to scrabble. I mean, look, imagine we're living, we're staying in a lovely apartment. Imagine this apartment is torched and burnt thing.

3:57Alain de Botton:And you might go, well, after the torching, you know, some wallpaper was better, etc. You might also want to go, this was a total waste of time. Like I was, my life was fine. And then my apartment burnt down and it was a disaster. and I think there is a little bit of that with heartbreak. Yes, sometimes we get stronger. Yes, sometimes we learn about boundaries. Yes, sometimes we learn that the next person we go on a date with, we better ask some sharper questions and we better behave. So of course there are good lessons we can learn, of course, but I want to make a case for just the pain and sometimes there are lessons we wish we hadn't had to learn and bless those who don't have to learn some of life's hardest lessons.

4:39Sarah Ann Macklin:yeah i mean i'm in a complete agreement with you there i think one of the most interesting moments for myself maybe personally on this was that it made me have to understand myself more like it took me to a place that i probably would never have had to go to without that and i think that is something with one of my favorite terms of all time which you just said we're in europe and old england that everyone will cringe when i say this word quite rightly i did for many years which was self-compassion. I think it's one of the hardest concepts for anyone who is English to connect to. It's just something that makes you want to go, ooh, to that word.

5:20Sarah Ann Macklin:But they're the moments, I think, that we really develop that understanding of what that means.

5:26Alain de Botton:Let's think about what happens when your heart is broken. So your heart is broken and the rejection is immense. So somebody has known you, seen you, and decided you were not good enough. And so from there, you've got some choices. You can side with that person's view. You can essentially go, they knew me, they saw something defective in me, and therefore, you know, I'm at an end, I'm at rock bottom. And everybody goes through that period. For a long time, they side with the view of the person who hurt them. And then if things can go well, at some point, they have to start to go, hang on a minute, that person was not right.

6:04Alain de Botton:I'm going to be on my side rather than on their side. Because otherwise, well, I've got to live with me. I've got to find an argument for being me. Otherwise, you know, I will never get up off the floor. And so slowly you do, as you say, learn self-compassion. You learn to think, OK, I'm not a perfect person, but there's got to be a way in which I deserve to live as well. And then the slow process of recovery.

6:32Sarah Ann Macklin:thank you for listening to this be well moment if it resonated the full conversation is linked in the show notes and i hope it gave you a small pause to take a moment for you and to reconnect to living well and being well if you loved it please do leave a review follow the show or share this maybe with someone you love