Listen: Chris Witts presents Morning Devotions.
By Chris WittsSunday 10 Oct 2021Morning Devotions with Chris WittsDevotionsReading Time: 5 minutes
In this Part 3, I’m again talking about how to mend a broken heart.
- Read Mend a Broken Heart – Part 1 and Part 2
Some helpful tips for mending your broken heart
1. Acknowledge that your heart is broken. You can’t mend or change what you can’t admit. We talked about this in Part 2.
2. Recovery starts when you allow yourself to reconnect with your interests. And learn to cultivate and connect with joy again. When you tell yourself that it is alright to feel good again. This starts through making efforts to focus your attention away from your pain, to living purposefully again. Recovery doesn’t necessarily mean the end of your pain, but it means that you’re taking charge of your pain. And that your pain is not controlling you anymore, because you’ve stopped reacting to it. You have started to use your pain to motivate yourself. After a previous break-up, I lost three stones and got fit again. Talk about getting your life back! Exercise is good because not only does it get you fit—it allows you to release your aggression. And it releases the brain chemical serotonin, which will give you a mood elevation and a happy buzz.
3. Your pain will eventually go away, after you’ve taken charge of it. Even though it may not be immediately. People become depressed when they don’t deal with their negative feelings. Confide in your loved one and God. Your loved ones will listen and comfort you, but God will heal you inside out, when you put your trust in him. Also pray for strength and healing (emotional, spiritual, physical and mental)—Psalm 147:3: “He heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds.”
4. Don’t look at your failed attempts as a reflection on you. The fact that you failed at something, doesn’t make you a failure in life. Learn from this experience to give you a better chance at succeeding next time. Were there any warning signs, with hindsight? Many things we do in life require a few attempts, before getting it right. Especially when we don’t ask for God’s guidance first, before doing it.
5. Use this time as a time of self-discovery, self-acceptance and self-awareness. Get to know yourself again, and find out what makes you tick. Use this time to find out what you really want out of life. If you don’t know where you’re going, you won’t know when you get there. If you don’t know what you want, you won’t know what to pray for.
6. Try to find out what you really want in life. And don’t settle for less, but keep praying till you find it. You can also join a prayer group that empowers you. If it doesn’t, it’s not the right one. If you can’t find the right one, start your own. And find other people who want to mend broken hearts, online or offline—James 5:16b: “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.”
7. Develop a relationship with the Holy Spirit. When your spiritual eyes are open, you will not choose the wrong person or the wrong thing, to put your energy on. He can also direct and teach you how to choose the right partner, friends and career—John 14:26: “But the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”
8. Be a friend to yourself by developing a winning mindset (way of thinking). Watch what you allow in your mind—Philippians 4:8: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
9. Be your own friend by always being kind to yourself. And you will attract people who will treat you as nice and valuable. If you can’t treat yourself nicely, you can’t expect other people to do so.
10. Forgive yourself and whoever has hurt you. They are not worth you being bugged down by emotional baggages. Forgiveness is the doorway to any new beginning and emotional freedom. We can’t move on in life unless we forgive, however painful it may be. Lack of forgiveness is the doorway to continuous pain, bitterness, anger, and sadness.
11. Shift your focus from pain to something positive. Fill your time with good and productive activities—for example volunteering. This will help you feel better about yourself, because you’re helping others. Or joining an evening class, because you will make new friends. You will also have less time to fixate on your pain.
12. Write down a list of your strengths. Look at it frequently, to remind and tell yourself that you’re lovable, and a good catch.
13. Reinvent yourself. Imagine and write down how you’d like to be—and become it. This is not the same as pretending. When you’re pretending, you act in a particular way but you’re thinking in another way. Pretending is doing something while telling yourself that this not who you are; you’re just acting. Reinventing is doing something while telling yourself that this is the new you. Changing your thinking, attitude and belief to align with the new you. Imagine in your mind how someone who has these new qualities behaves, and behave in such a way. How do they walk, how do they talk? Set goals to increase your chances of sticking to these. Research shows that if you can pull it off for 21 days, you will become this new person.
14. Make up and write down some positive affirmations. Read them repeatedly daily, to program yourself to feel empowered again. When we declare these affirmations with faith, it will become established—Job 22:28: “You will also declare a thing, And it will be established for you”.
Some examples of affirmation are as follows:
- I am lovable
- I love the real me
- I’m a winner
- I am wonderfully and fearfully made
- I am in charge of my mind.
- I am a positive and confident person
The Bee Gees sang the song “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart” in the 70s. The real answer is: with God’s help. God, helping you, can mend a broken heart.
(The tips above have been taken from an article published by Henrietta Elegunde, “How To Mend Your Broken Heart”, Ezine @rticles, June 17, 2007)