Sensitive People and Heart Disease

Illustration by Victoria Borodinova via Pixabay

​One of my education teachers was also a gifted empath. One day she said to me, "Your heart has been broken so many times that it cannot survive another." I accepted that as truth without seeing it as the medical problem it was slowly becoming. 

Twenty years later a pandemic came our way forcing me to slow down, go within, and rethink my life. I began to pay attention to the myriad ways my body talked to me. I know our bodies talk, because I've become a professional at reading the bodies of my clients. Reading my own? Not so easy. But, we can learn anything we really want to learn. ...

I decided I wanted to learn how to listen to my own body so that I could create a healthier balance between others and myself. In the process, I finally asked myself just what was that sensation I feel in my chest, just to the left? It was pain - and it had almost always been there - and I'd never noticed it.

Folks, it turns out that everyday heartaches can, over time, lead not only to complex PTSD, but also a medical condition actually called, "broken heart syndrome." It is also known as "takotsubo cardiomyopathy." 

Like most health conditions, just knowing about it can motivate us to make changes that will decrease the aggravation of our symptoms and, over time, encourage healing. Some of the core aggravations identified from my research are:

• We ignore little irritations because we underestimate their power, but over time they can shred us inside like wearing barbed wire;
• We often lack the personal boundaries that need to be there to protect, mentally and emotionally, all because we find it easier to hurt our own feelings than to risk hurting the feelings of those who don't care about boundaries;
• We don't like conflict, so we let toxic behaviors and attitudes slide, thereby enabling and further empowering the folly-loving;
• We trust too soon and too completely and wind up letting in the heartbreakers;
• We get too attached, forgetting that death is part of life.

When we prioritize setting boundaries based on our core values, we learn who to keep at a safe distance and who the few are that are safe enough to let in. Love may cure all, but love without boundaries is a killer. 

Here's a story about a medical doctor who wants us all to become better at listening to our own bodies, because she, too, suffered from this medical condition: Healing a Broken Heart.

Broken hearts don't just come from an end to a relationship or the death of a loved one.
In a broken world, the heart is always at risk.
Some shut down their hearts, resulting in broken hearts all around them.
We must not shut down, we must learn to listen and respond and protect, respectfully