The Courage to Embrace the Gifts and Losses in Life If you never knew disappointment, would you ever grow? If you had never felt loss, could you have compassion for another? Without real heartache, would you ever know the greatness of love? On When the Heart Breaks, David Whyte invites you to join him in an investigation of a question that rests at the center of human experience. With a poet’s insight into the landscape of the soul, he offers a deeply moving exploration of how we experience beauty and loss―and how with resilience and time we can rise again each time we are broken. “There is no path we can walk that will not take us through some form of heartbreak,” David Whyte tells us. “And to accept that truth is to give a merciful gift to ourselves.” So often our hearts break because the love we offer―whether to a partner, a friend, a child, our work, or a place―is not returned to us in the same way. Yet if we retreat from the experience of unrequited love, we miss the opportunity to discover the countless invisible ways that the world offers us its love in return, often unlooked for and unrecognized. Being fully open to both joy and sadness, says David Whyte, helps us to develop a more beautiful mind―a mind that embraces the hidden riches of life. We learn to apprentice ourselves to the great and small difficulties that test the edges of our identity and lead us into greater and greater understanding. With words to inspire laughter, courage, and deep reflection, David Whyte invites you to join him in the great conversation that takes us into the exquisite vulnerability of the unknown―the way a heartbreak can make us more humble, more aware, and expand our ability to love.
Author
Poet David Whyte grew up with a strong, imaginative influence from his Irish mother among the hills and valleys of his father’s Yorkshire. He now makes his home in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The author of seven books of poetry and three books of prose, David Whyte holds a degree in Marine Zoology and has traveled extensively, including living and working as a naturalist guide in the Galapagos Islands and leading anthropological and natural history expeditions in the Andes, Amazon and Himalaya. He brings this wealth of experience to his poetry, lectures and workshops. His life as a poet has created a readership and listenership in three normally mutually exclusive areas: the literate world of readings that most poets inhabit, the psychological and theological worlds of philosophical enquiry and the world of vocation, work and organizational leadership. An Associate Fellow at Said Business School at the University of Oxford, he is one of the few poets to take his perspectives on creativity into the field of organizational development, where he works with many European, American and international companies. In spring of 2008 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Neumann College, Pennsylvania. In organizational settings, using poetry and thoughtful commentary, he illustrates how we can foster qualities of courage and engagement; qualities needed if we are to respond to today’s call for increased creativity and adaptability in the workplace. He brings a unique and important contribution to our understanding of the nature of individual and organizational change, particularly through his unique perspectives on Conversational Leadership.
