From Heart of Stone to Heart of Flesh: How to Heal After Crisis and Grief

"I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 36:26)

"There are people with hearts of stone, and stones with the heart of a person," wrote Yossi Gamzu. These words are featured in the famous song “HaKotel” (The Western Wall), written on the eve of the liberation of Jerusalem 53 years ago.

Jerusalem Day is celebrated as a national holiday in Israel on the 28th of Iyar, marking the reunification of the city and its return to Israeli sovereignty on that same date in 1967, following the battle for Jerusalem.

Every battle comes at a cost of sacrifice and loss. War takes lives, and it often drains the life out of those left behind, who sacrificed loved ones for the nation. The trauma of war, like that experienced during the Six-Day War, leaves behind destruction, not only on a national level but deep within the individual as well. It creates personal crises that are not easily washed away.

In our journey through life, we are often accompanied by setbacks, struggles, failures, and disappointments. Many times, we are forced to face realities that strike us like a slap in the face- undermining our sense of stability, destroying the foundations we built, and leaving us in emotional ruins.

Some of us have lost loved ones in tragic circumstances. Some have been struck by illness. Others groan under the weight of poverty or financial hardship. Some live with relentless emotional pain caused by family conflict. Even before we rise from our beds each morning, a daily quota of challenges awaits us.

Occasionally, out of a deep inability to process this reality and the pain that accompanies it, we subconsciously develop a defense mechanism that numbs our senses. That mechanism is the “heart of stone”, where every painful experience gets stored away without being emotionally processed, without being given time, space, or healing. A heart of stone is a blocked, numb heart, hardened from an overload of emotion and unprocessed experiences.

If I don’t understand the meaning behind the crisis I’m facing and if I don’t try to uncover its purpose, I’m left with the overwhelming pain. I become trapped in anger and confusion, terrible doubt and anxiety. All of these feelings begin to build up in the heart over time. Every new struggle adds another heavy stone to the pile, until the heart, once soft and alive, becomes cold and hard- more stone than flesh.

The instinct to shut down emotionally or avoid dealing with pain is natural and it helps us survive in the short term. Over time however, it creates unbearable emotional pressure, so much so that we eventually lose our capacity to feel and empathize with what’s happening around us.

At the root of this lies a misunderstanding that pain is meaningless or cruel. In truth, life’s crises are signals and messages to show us we’ve gone off course, intended to lead us to higher ground, offering us clearer, deeper insight into life and ourselves. Crises are not obstacles to be quickly resolved so we can return to business as usual, because often, that’s simply not possible. We are often left with unbearable pain, that we can’t rationalize or push away.

The crisis wasn’t intended to cause suffering, but the pain is a byproduct. The purpose is to awaken us and to alert us that we can and must rise to a new level of existence.

Grief brings wisdom and forces a new awareness of the world around us that we may never have reached otherwise. Mourning also brings a great “but” (in Hebrew, “aval”)- a challenge to everything we thought we knew. It adds a giant question mark over the fixed ways of thinking we relied on. Everything once felt stable, clear, and within my control- until but…and the whole house of cards came crashing down.

Only when we allow ourselves to process a crisis deeply and truthfully and when we look at our pain through the eyes of faith, without fear, and try to find the light hidden inside, can we remove the stones from our hearts and regain the emotional capacity to face whatever comes our way.

When that happens, a profound sense of release emerges and insight flows. It's the feeling we refer to as, “a weight has been lifted from my heart.” The sharp pain that once threatened my peace and stability disappears, and I’m left with inner joy and clarity.

Even now, as these words are written, there are those who still carry heavy stones in their hearts, burdened by years of hardship and sorrow. There are also those who have learned to recognize the voice within the pain, who have softened their hearts, and reclaimed their humanity.

This article is not intended to minimize the real tragedy of those who’ve lost loved ones, but to offer a new way to think about how we process hardship, so we can learn not only to survive it, but to grow through it.

Inbal Elhayani, M.A., is a certified NLP and guided imagery therapist, writer, and lecturer.