the alchemy of love - or reflections of the brokenhearted warrior

A relationship that has any depth and power at all will inevitably penetrate our usual shield of defenses, exposing our most tender and sensitive spots, and leaving us feeling vulnerable—literally, “able to be wounded”. To love, in this sense, is to open ourselves to being hurt. The dream of love would have us believe that something is wrong if a relationship causes us pain. Yet trying to avoid the wound of love only creates a more permanent kind of damage. It prevents us from opening ourselves fully, and this keeps us from ever forming a deeply satisfying intimate connection.

Even in the best relationships, two individuals will never fit together perfectly. There will always be rough edges and problems that cannot be entirely resolved. Because we are creatures of this earth, with all the limitations and imperfections that entails, human relationships cannot always manifest the perfect, unconditional love we know and feel in our heart.

When we feel the pain of this contradiction between the perfect love in our heart and the obstacles to its complete realization in earthly form, it breaks the heart—wide open. But this is not so bad. Not so bad at all.

When the heart breaks open, we hurt. Yet in this pain is our basic openness to life.
When we feel raw and tender, we are in touch with the very core of who we are.





Thus the rawness of the broken-open heart, which begins in moments of disillusion, is the transmuting force in the alchemy of love. When we let our heart break open, a certain sweetness starts to flow from us like nectar.

As the Sufi teacher Hazrat Inayat Khan put it,

“The warmth of the lover’s atmosphere, the piercing effect of his voice, the appeal of his words, all come from the pain of his heart.”

This is one of the great secrets of love.

Instead of trying to ward off this pain, which is futile anyway, the lover can use it

to transform himself,

to develop invincible tenderness and compassion…and [to become] a heroic warrior in the service of love.

Letting the heart break open awakens us to the mystery of love—that we can’t help loving others, in spite of the pain they cause us, for no other reason than that they move and touch us, in ways that we can never fully comprehend.

Indeed, if those we love perfectly matched our ideal dreams, they would not touch us so deeply. What we love is not just their pure being, but also their heart’s struggle with all the obstacles in the way of its full, radiant expression. Although their imperfections cause us pain, they also give our love a greater purchase, a foothold, something to work with.

It is as though our heart wants to ally itself with the heart in those we love and lend them strength in their struggle to realize the magnificence of their being, beyond all their perceived shortcomings.

So, just as rocks in a stream accentuate the force of the water rushing against them, the obstacles to perfect romance can help us realize the power of our capacity to love.

They force the heart to stretch so that it can embrace all of what we are.

This, more than finding the perfect relationship or having someone give us everything we want, is what can heal us.


from “Journey of the Heart -
Intimate Relationship and the Path of Love” by John Welwood