You break your own heart by waking up every single morning and walking around complacent. By confusing monotony with comfort. Routine with settling. Everyday for uninspired. When you look at your life and you fail to find any spark, any zest, and any reason to laugh until you ache or dance around from pure excitement, that’s when you’ll be looking at your own life and feeling nothing but disappointment. Disappointment, boredom, and ultimately – heartbreak.

Because nothing is more heartbreaking than realizing you’re existing in a life that does absolutely nothing for you. That your life is simply going through the motions rather than pulsing, fueling, pushing, and pulling. That it has no give and take. That really, when you pull away and really look at it, it is just static.

You break your own heart when you lose your voice. When you mistake “just listening” for “never being heard.” When you make way for the opinions of others, which is admirable, but never find room for your own. When you get so lost in the proverbial shouting of everyone else that you forget to take a second and speak up for yourself. When you do a double take, triple take, umpteenth-whatever take at your own surroundings and realize that you’ve never dared to take up space.

Because nothing will be more heartbreaking than the moment when it becomes clear that there’s barely room for you in your own existence. That you’ve cultivated a world that somehow doesn’t take you into consideration. That somehow, you exist in a place that doesn’t care about you.

You break your own heart by refusing to let go of people who have already let go of you. By clinging, scraping, clawing and grasping onto individuals who didn’t care enough to stay in the first place. By making homes out of ghosts, and filling your heart with empty promises that take the shape of people. When you refuse to say “enough is enough” and metaphorically white-knuckle yourself to people with the quiet hope that they’ll come back and see you were right all along, you’re setting yourself up for the inevitable crash.

Because heartbreak is not avoidable. And no amount of fighting for someone who doesn’t want you in the ring in the first place will stop the hurt from coming. No amount of resistance can make someone love you. No amount of demanding can force someone to stay when they’ve had a foot of the door even when you didn’t notice it. And even though they hurt you, if you prolong it by refusing to allow them to say goodbye and leave, you are equally to blame.

You break your own heart by not looking in a mirror every now and then. By not checking in with yourself, by just assuming that you’re okay. When you don’t ask yourself questions or force yourself to have even and ounce of self-awareness, you are ultimately setting yourself up to be crushed by your own denial. Ambivalence is not attractive, and ignorance is never really bliss. Because that ignorance is not forever, and facing it later is only avoiding the inevitable.

Being blind to your own faults and gaps is heartbreaking. Not only to yourself when you finally come to terms with your own shortcomings, but to the people around you wondering, “How can they not see this?” You cannot expect anyone to look out for you, to be your coach, to have your back, to check you and hold you accountable. The only person who you can truly count on to be the best advocate for you IS you. And being anything less than that for yourself is, well, heartbreaking.

You break your own heart by simply ignoring your heart in the first place. By thinking and operating solely with your head, and never taking anything else into consideration. By not allowing the missteps and the failures, and never putting yourself on the line in any way, shape, or form. Even when it scares you, ignoring your heart is still not the answer. Ignoring your feelings will never solve anything. And ignoring your gut will just leave you disappointed in the long run.

Because while your head is great and wants what is best, sometimes your heart deserves some say. Sometimes it’s okay to lead with pure emotion, pure feeling. Sometimes that impulsivity will turn into something greater than your head could have ever fathomed. And sometimes, the only way to get to that point is by trusting your heart and leaping even when it’s the last thing you want to do.

The fact of the matter is at some point in life, you’re going to break your own heart. You will do more damage to yourself than you thought possible, and you’ll be left holding the pieces between your fingertips internally cursing yourself for being so damn stupid. But the truth is, while heartbreak (self-imposed or otherwise) is absolutely unavoidable, that doesn’t mean it’s definable.

Because heartbreak doesn’t define you, it’s moving on from it that does.

So even when you’re responsible for the pain and the ache and the times in your life that make getting out of bed feel like fighting an uphill battle, you still have a choice. You say to yourself, “Do I wallow and beat myself up for yesterday? Or do I take today as it comes, and try to do better?”

And when you choose the latter, you’ll take the first steps towards healing your own heart.

Even if you never even realized you were capable of healing yourself in the first place