How to Fix a Broken Heart
Written and Narrated By: Guy Winch
Length: 2 hrs and 46 mins
Two types of grief? Actually—these tools can be used on any type of grief…!
How to Fix a Broken Heart is author Guy Winch’s guide to navigating two of the “lesser” griefs we experience: Pain from the breakup of a relationship, and pain from losing a much-loved pet. Apparently society will honor grief from say, losing people in your close family, or in a divorce, but it totally under appreciates just how incapacitating the former two griefs are.
I do agree, as after losing many a beloved fuzzy buddy I’ve heard the ubiquitous: It’s just an animal/You can always get another one. And tho’ I was never one to try out relationships while (MUCH) younger, I do remember friends absolutely devastated by failed relationships. But I don’t agree that society is patient about more “serious” types of pain; it seems to me all of society/most individuals would have you just tuck all that pain inside yourself so that you might get back to being who you used to be.
But I quibble with concepts, and I’ll stop with that, shall I?
Winch, who narrates this quite well—I felt I was listening to his TED talk, could actually even envision the expressions on his face—gives us a few examples of relationships gone awry and grief for a pet run amok. They’re helpful examples, especially since he uses them as springboards into how these individuals SHOULD have managed their pain. And yes, while he most certainly advocates for people grieving at their own pace, he also most certainly says there’s a point where enough is enough (Fortunately he kinda gives guidance about when you should stop the major grieving and pick yourself up).
One of the concepts I found fascinating was how he said our brains are soooo easily addicted, as in: Thinking of the lost love; idealizing them, remembering only the really good aspects of them—our brains get a jolt of dopamine every time we give it a hit of our new addiction, so it behooves us to be mindful of what we’re thinking, and to guide thoughts away from what is ultimately causing us pain.
So basically, even as Winch honors such heartbreak, he also minimizes it all into brain functions that are easily addressed. And even as he includes pet loss in with this treatise on heartbreak, he tells one grieving man that the grief over his dog should be done, and now it’s time to get a girlfriend as wasn’t his relationship with his dog just a way to avoid intimacy?
I mean: Wha?!? Don’t suck me in thinking here’s someone who finally understands how godawfully suckwad it is to lose a beloved animal and then tell me I’ve a fear of intimacy, and that’s why I’m able to bond so closely to the fuzz-buckets. But I s’pose I should be grateful he addressed it at all as many reviewers thought the relationship info was cheapened by the sections on pet loss. So I guess Winch tried to address us all, but there’s no getting it perfect.
Mindfulness is, like, the new “It” word/practice (Or Should-Be Practice as it’s plenty difficult to do), and this audiobook touts it mightily. What wonders could happen if only we just Stopped. Thinking of. Those dratted people/animals who caused us pain?!! It all seems so easy, and Winch throws out many suggestions, and it usually involves mindfulness and personal responsibility/accountability.
So basically a good book if you’re okay with the minimization of grief, the lumping it into bite-sized pieces to be dealt with and dismissed in a timely fashion.
But me? I’m comPLETEly not going to dash out and jump into human relationships galore just to prove that I’m loving my animals for themselves, and not because I’m fearing intimacy.
And I’ll live with that just fine…
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