When my heart broke, the qualities of natural warmth, qualities like kindness and empathy and appreciation, just spontaneously emerged.

Pema Chodron

In her essay, “The Natural Warmth of the Heart,” Pema Chodron writes about gratitude for broken hearts. She talks about the connection that happens during tragedy – both global and individual. She talks about immediate love and short term memory. She talks about universally connecting experiences. She talks about connecting, again and again, with one another through our pain. As we sit in a moment of broken hearts for so many, it makes sense to me that we can find gratitude right now within our pain.

I have thought for a while about how to write about the experience of teaching about gratitude in a men’s Federal prison. I have never wanted to flesh it out in a Dangerous Minds, Freedom Writers, hero’s journey kind of way. It did not feel like that. It felt more like connecting through our common pain. It felt more like connecting through our common hope. It felt more like allowing our broken hearts to learn how to let light in, just a little, together. My student’s wrote weekly essays and kept gratitude journals during our time together. They read their writing aloud frequently. They bravely shared the parts of themselves that are alive in a world that treats them, in many ways, as already dead.

These men are strong and love life fiercely. They tell the stories of joy at the birth of children, of faith that has been tested, lost, and found, of wisdom hard won, of forgiveness at the depths of the deepest oceans. They are vulnerable and beautiful in ways that allowed me to sit with them and learn. I could go on and on about specific examples of truth, courage, and honesty that emerged in our conversations. The lesson in all of it remains that our broken hearts are a path to understanding. Gratitude – as our subject and focus – made understanding possible.

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