Is it possible to be born with a frozen heart, or is it something that you learn from your encounters with life experiences? When pain or destruction crosses your path, it is only standard that the fortification of your castle is implemented.
The protective shell is needed to protect yourself from more harm. But, in doing so, the heart organ of epithelium tissue turns to stone. A frozen heart with the incapacity to love, filled with coldness towards others, makes you merciless and harsh. Fixated mainly on self-centred goals and desires.
When you are subjected to a frozen heart pain
In a previous post, I have eluded to the personal anguish I have been experiencing. The first occurrence was in the post, which spoke about having a fresh start, and the second was about making sense of the conditions at the crossroads.
These posts were subtle hints of the pain of how my heart of flesh has been eroded and turned into a frozen heart. A little over a year ago, the proverbial happily ever after marriage went into self-destruction mode.
I will keep the details of this for now; however, my girlfriend of 21 years, fiancé of 13 years and wife of 10 years decided it was time for the union to end. Whilst this is enough to send the most hardened men into freefall, circumstances and actions will make the difficult situation for anyone even worse.
It is possibly a good idea to give a proper definition to a ‘frozen heart’; this is not being able to love someone because of a pain and probably a heartbreak in the past, like commitment Issues.
I can only associate the initial pain with flesh-eating bug, eating you from the inside to the outside. Making sense of the situation only highlights your reality and the new normal. The pain of a broken heart slowly turns into a frozen heart, hardening in the same manner that the body shutdown your extremities to preserve the blood flow to your heart.
Disney’s take on a Frozen Heart
Disney offers a great representation of what a frozen heart is in the film Frozen. Love is often viewed as an open door. When Anna first met a handsome prince named Hans, she felt that she had found the keys to this door.
Disney’s depiction of a Frozen Heart tells the story of a lonely young woman named Anna who has been shut away from the world for most of her life. Her parents are dead, and her sister – the only person who might show her an ounce of love – is cold and distant from her.
So, when Hans popped up with his own hidden agenda, she jumped at the chance for love and companionship with this handsome stranger. However, when Hans’ true character surfaces, Anna experiences a broken heart and realises the love she was searching for all along from her sister Elsa. Check out the Frozen Heart song below:
The need to heat up a frozen heart
There are two sides to every story; for this reason, I will refrain from attributing blame. However, when you feel that you are not the perpetrator and the falling guy, this pain takes root just as an oak tree would.
Once the avalanche of pain has subsided, the shock, fear, blame, anger, and revenge phase comes. This phase to a reasonable person does not exist; to a frozen-hearted individual, this becomes the logical step. Rational thinking no longer exists, and irrational thinking and actions take a grip.
Hardening of normally warm blood flowing from a functioning organ becomes the norm. After all, softness is perceived by you as being weak and naïve. I am guessing I was not alone in believing that my frozen heart offered me the best protection in this position.
A broken heart, hardened heart, or frozen heart is, in fact, not protective at all. Instead, you may have gone into shutdown mode to protect yourself from more pain, essentially the pain of peeling yourself off the floor with a spatula.
This protection is only temporary and encased with bitterness which only prolongs the suffering and the length of time the heart stays in a solid state. The easiest way to overcome this is to seek warmth to soften the heart, but this is also the hardest to achieve.
As in all walks of life, we all respond to negativity to protect ourselves or those around us. Our natural response to heartbreak or betrayal makes it easy to develop a hardened heart.
I may elaborate a little more on my circumstances and pain in a future post. Still, I just felt after coming across a passage in a spiritual pamphlet about a heart of flesh, I had to put this post out.
Your mind and body may feel that the frozen heart offers you the best protection. I agree that this is part of the process; however, this process needs to end before you can progress or reach reconciliation.
The heart of flesh is intended to be porous, filled with love and feeling; when hardened, the heart is no longer porous. It does not allow the inflow or outflow of love, the same love needed for healing!
Sources
- Disney Fandom, A Frozen Heart, [Accessed 10 May 2022]
- UCB Word For Today, A Heart of Flesh, [Accessed 10 May 2022]
- Urban Dictionary, Frozen Heart, [Accessed 10 May 2022]
