By: Naazi Morad
There are moments when pain floods the body so deeply, it feels like you can’t breathe. Not just sadness, but a full-body ache. Your chest tightens. Your soul gasps. You feel the rupture of something sacred.
This is more than emotion. It’s somatic overwhelm, when grief and heartbreak manifest physically. And in that moment, whether you whisper My Lord, My Rabb, when you surrender and call out to our higher power, know this: the Divine is near. Not when you’re strong. Not when you’re smiling. But when you’re shattered. When your soul is breathing because your lungs cannot.
Why Does It Hurt So Much?
Because you loved deeply. Because you cared sincerely. Because your attachment was real, not performative, not transactional. This pain is not weakness. It’s attachment grief. It’s the cost of showing up fully.
We often think love is laughter, lightness, joy. But love is also sacrifice. It’s staying up all night for someone who won’t thank you. It’s praying for someone who hurt you. It’s grieving someone who’s still alive but no longer close. When you break to the point of breathlessness, it means your love was sincere. It means your soul showed up without armor.
What Can We Do With This Pain?
We don’t fight it.
We don’t shame it.
We feel it.
Name the pain: Is it grief? Betrayal? Loneliness? Abandonment?
Understand the trigger: What memory stirred it? What loss reopened it?
Let it move through you: Like a storm, it will pass. But first, it must rain.
This is the work of emotional regulation: not to suppress the pain, but to honor it.
This is radical acceptance: not to approve of the suffering, but to allow it space to breathe.
And in that storm, talk to your creator.
Lord, my Rabb, I am drowning. I am tired. I am aching. But I know You are near. I know You see me. I know You hold me.”
That prayer is not weakness. It’s surrender. It’s strength. It’s the soul speaking when the body cannot.
