From Heartbreak to Healing: A New Way to Understand Pain

“I can’t get over this breakup. He was my whole life. I feel like I’ve been through an earthquake,” Liat began. “I’m sad, I cry all the time, it’s hard, and I feel like I’m sinking deeper and deeper.”

“And how does your environment react to your pain?” I asked.

“They’re wonderful. They try to encourage me and cheer me up. They say, ‘Come on, let’s go out, let’s do something fun,’ trying to lift my spirits.”

“And does it help?” I asked.

“Honestly? Not really. Sometimes it even irritates me. I feel like they don’t really understand what I’m going through.”

Why Cheerfulness Often Misses the Mark

“Do you know why it doesn’t work? Why they can’t truly make you feel better?” I asked.

“Because they are trying to fight sadness with happiness.

Sadness is like a black hole. It swallows a person’s inner world and leaves them feeling alone inside their story. But sadness cannot be healed directly with happiness. There is an intermediate step that must happen first: transforming sadness into bitterness, and only then can a person move toward true joy.”

“But sadness is a place where Hashem is not present,” she said.

Sadness, Bitterness, and the Presence of Hashem

“Let me explain with a simple example. If you miss the bus, you feel frustrated, disappointed, stressed. But if you truly believe that everything is from Hashem, then you realize there is no reason for despair. There is Divine Providence guiding even this moment.

Sadness often comes from the feeling that perhaps Hashem has abandoned us or turned away. In a place where Hashem feels absent, sadness grows.

Bitterness is different. Bitterness means that the pain is directed toward Hashem. It means the relationship is still alive.”

“So what does it mean to turn sadness into bitterness?” she asked. “How does that help?”

“When you feel pain over the breakup, ask yourself: do you feel Hashem with you in that pain?

I am not dismissing your suffering. Your pain is real. But sadness is pain with no address. Bitterness is pain with an address. It is pain that speaks to Hashem.”

Pain That Deepens the Connection

“But bitterness also hurts,” she said. “It doesn’t feel easier.”

“It does not remove the pain. It changes where the pain lives. Sadness says: I am alone. Bitterness says: I feel distant from Hashem, and that distance itself shows how much the relationship matters.

Think of a person who does not care about their parents. If they forget to call, they feel nothing. But someone who treasures their parents will feel pain if they forget, precisely because the relationship is precious. The pain itself testifies to the closeness.

So too with Hashem. Feeling bitterness over distance is not a sign of failure. It is a sign of connection.”

Choosing Where to Place Your Awareness

“So how do I make the transition?” she asked quietly.

“You always have a choice about where to place your awareness. You can place it in the point of sadness, and everything will revolve around the loss. Or you can choose to place it in the point of connection, in the awareness that Hashem is with you even now.

Life is like a compass. Wherever you place the center point, everything turns around that place. If the center is sadness, everything becomes darker. If the center is connection to Hashem, the direction of life begins to shift.

Hashem is with you. He is present. That awareness has the power to change the entire inner landscape.”

This column was inspired by the lectures of Rabbi Eliyahu Levy.