Soothing a Broken Heart: A Child’s Journey Through Grief and Healing

The Day Everything Changed

I was ten years of age. My brother Declan had died just a year before. My parents had just returned from a hospital appointment for my dad, Frank. The doctors called it “Broken Heart Syndrome.” He needed a triple bypass within 24 hours or he would die of a heart attack. My dad was just 40.

He did have the triple bypass the next day—and he is still with us, tenderly and gratefully, 28 years on.

Understanding Broken Heart Syndrome

This “Broken Heart Syndrome” makes sense to me now.

Of course, his son had died at just seven years of age from a brain tumour. He was heartbroken. There is no other explanation. As a young child, witnessing my parents’ health fears come to life after Declan died was extremely scary. My heart dropped into my stomach with fear. It made the possibility of another death feel real again.

A Family of Shattered Hearts

My dad Frank, my mother Helen, and all of us siblings—six of us remaining—had to find ways to tend to our own heartbreak. We were a collective, a unified shattered heart. But we were also individuals. We had to learn to cope in different ways and gain hope and strength from what brought us distraction from the pain—and hopefully some joy too.

There is no “one size fits all” when it comes to soothing our broken hearts in grief. For my dad, it was physical at that moment. For some of us, it was emotional and mental. So we found our own ways.

Surrendering to the Pain

A way that worked for me in calming and realigning this fractured muscle of love was to surrender into it. To genuinely feel it. Even though I was terrified of what I would find in there—worried that the desolate pain would capture my entire being. I feared that going to that gut-wrenching place would lead me to a shadowed life of despair and suffering.

I believed if I could ignore it, then it would go away. I learned that this is not how it works.

Allowing myself the space to really acknowledge the emptiness and disintegration of what was once a whole, strong, and immaculate source of love—and coming to the reality that this was now different.

Yes, a piece of me had been internally fragmented. And along with this, I noticed the physical pain in my chest.

A Grounding Practice for Grief

What you can do right now:

• Ensure you are in a place where you feel safe. Sit down with your two feet on the floor.
• Notice your heart. Allow yourself some space to feel into this shattered part of your anatomy. Name it and claim it. This is yours. This is a part of you, and it is there through the absolute love and purity of connection that you had the honour of knowing through your loved one.
• Notice if it is physically painful. It may feel overwhelming. Take a breath. Yes, breathe into that overwhelm. As you read this now, take a deep, intentional breath of acknowledgement—right down into those broken parts of your heart. Hold it, and release the sense of freedom and connection you feel as you allow your shoulders to drop into this reality.
• Don’t be afraid to feel into it. You have already been feeling it, but often you’ve tried to push it away. Today is different. It is safe to tune inwards. This is sadness. This is loss. Your heart needs to be acknowledged, felt, and held.

Holding Your Heart with Intention

Hold your heart intentionally. Place your hand over your heart. Notice the warmth from your hands entering the skin, moving down through the blood and deep into the muscles and chambers of your weary heart.

Give yourself this space, this time. You are here right now. Breathe in and breathe out.

Remember—you are feeling this pain for a reason. Tune in to yourself. Through connection to your own body, soul, and energy, you can begin to bring soothing and healing into each of your cells and crevices.

It is okay to feel that release. It is okay to let that go. It does not mean that you are letting them go. It means that you are letting the pain of the absence go—not them.

A Balm for the Heart

Think of soothing as though you are placing a calming, loving balm around your heart. It is safe, and it is mending. Your nervous system will begin to regulate.

Each of us has a different connection to our loved one who has died. However, where we notice their absence is internally—in our hearts, in the emptiness, and in the sense of numbness.

By tuning into your heartspace, it can reawaken the sensations and the energy flow, which in turn offers your body and soul vitality and movement. The blood will start to flow again where it once felt cold and shaken, as you gently and delicately soothe your broken heart with contention, intention, and warmth.

Healing Begins Within

These are grounding techniques that are simple and accessible. Your intentions are available to you at all times.

As a co-founder of Jacinta’s Smile, it is important for me and my sisters to remember to tune into our hearts and offer soothing. By doing this, we can offer support and regulation to others.

Healing begins by going inwards—and in turn, we can illuminate from the inside out.