Heartbreak and the loss of hope
The experience of heartbreak challenges the spirit. When we experience grief, we may feel as though the pieces of ourselves are shrinking and breaking away from our center. We may feel that we are diminishing, contracting from who we once were to nothing. The dreams we had for happiness may be gone and we mourn the loss of a future we longingly anticipated.

The poet Langston Hughes wrote,

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die,
Life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.
When dreams go,
Life is a barren field,
Frozen with snow.

Hope is a fragile thing, difficult to hold on to, a wisp of longing difficult to recover once lost. Solitude magnifies the pain of loss and makes our journey through mourning more difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.