Tiny Buddha

Tag: break-up

  • 5 Questions to Ask Yourself If You’re in a Toxic Relationship

    5 Questions to Ask Yourself If You’re in a Toxic Relationship

    Toxic Relationship

    “My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.” ~Henry Ford

    A few days ago, a close friend called me and asked for advice on whether he should end a toxic relationship with his ex-girlfriend. He still loved her as a human being, but he felt that she was using him for her own personal needs, such as a ride from the airport, and did not truly care about his well-being.

    I thought back to my most recent relationship challenge.

    A while back, I moved in with a group of close friends, after breaking up with my ex-boyfriend a few months prior.

    We shared a large number of friends, so I attempted to maintain a friendship with him for the sake of our social group. Time and time again, I felt uncomfortable around him because of his constant references to our past relationship and inappropriate touching.

    I explained my feelings of unease to my roommates and asked them not to invite him over. I understood if they wanted to continue their friendships with him, but I didn’t feel safe being near him.

    My best friend also held a close friendship with my ex-boyfriend, and didn’t understand my negative feelings toward him, yet agreed to these terms. The same week, I walked into our place to find my ex-boyfriend hanging out with my best friend, three separate times.

    Again, I brought up my concerns. She eventually stopped inviting him over but soon after began bringing around his new girlfriend, with whom she had cultivated a friendship. Again, I felt uncomfortable and uneasy in my own living space.

    I felt hurt. I felt confused. I felt alone.

    This was my best friend, who told me that I was one of the most important people in her life, that she loved me, that she would be there for me when I needed her. At this point in our friendship, these statements no longer seemed to be true.

    I had lost sight of the friend that I thought I knew, and it was time to reevaluate our relationship.

    Reflecting on this experience, I asked my friend a few questions to help him solve his dilemma.

    1. Does this relationship make you feel good about yourself?

    After my best friend starting bringing around my ex-boyfriend, my primary feelings toward her were negative. For weeks I couldn’t fall asleep because I was so angry at her betrayal, and these feelings only worsened as time went on. These were early signs that perhaps I should not continue the relationship.

    When you think about this person, is the first thing that comes to mind positive or negative? Does this person contribute positively to your life, or do they drain you of energy?

    If you can’t seem to get past the negative emotions when you think about this person, it may be time to move on.

     2. How would you like to be treated by your friends, family, and significant other?

    The fundamental issue in my relationship was that I felt my best friend was not respecting my feelings and need for a private space by bringing over my ex-boyfriend and his girlfriend.

    Friends, family, and significant others should all support and uplift you, without being controlling.

    They should want the absolute best for you, even if your ideas of the “best” differ. They should respect your personal boundaries and feelings, even if they do not entirely understand or agree with them. There should be equal give and take in your relationship.

    If you do not feel supported and respected by this person, it may be time to move on.

     3. Is there a change that you can make to improve the relationship?

    I brought up my feelings to my best friend several times and we agreed to a compromise so that I could feel comfortable in my own living space. However, she continued inviting my ex’s new girlfriend over.

    Her behaviors did not align with what I needed to feel supported, and I soon realized that there was no way to change her behaviors if she didn’t wish to do so.

    Have you tried to express your negative feelings to this person? Did they value your input and respect your feelings? Do they want to work with you to create a solution?

    If this person invalidated your feelings or refused to acknowledge a problem, it may be time to move on.

     4. What advice would you give to a good friend who was going through a similar situation?

    If my younger sister came to me with this same problem, I would be infuriated that someone she considered a close friend would treat her like this. From an outside view, it is clear that this friend does not have her best interests at heart, otherwise she would understand her feelings and keep the compromise that she agreed to.

    If you are still unsure about whether to keep your relationship, think of how you might advise a sibling or close friend in a similar situation. Taking a step away from your relationship and viewing it from a third party perspective can help shed new light. A pros and cons list can also help you understand your feelings in a rational way.

     5. What does your future look like without this person in it?

    Ultimately, I chose to end my relationship with my best friend because I knew that my life would be less stressful and more positive without her in it. She has since moved out, and we no longer speak.

    I was afraid that I would lose friends if I chose to distance myself from her, but my life has only improved thus far.

    I have kept my existing friends in addition to making new friends. Looking toward the future, this experience has inspired me to more closely reflect on the ways in which I can better support and nurture those who are closest to me.

    You may be afraid of what your life will be like without this person. This fear is holding you back from seeing that you can gain more than you will lose by letting this person go.

    Look around and notice that you have many other people who are able to properly support you, with your best friend of all being yourself. No matter how many friendships come or go, you will never be truly alone because you will always be there looking out for yourself.

    See through eyes unclouded by fear, and you will discover that the sky ahead is far brighter than anything you leave behind.

    Toxic relationship image via Shutterstock

  • The Key to Loving Yourself, Other People, and Life

    The Key to Loving Yourself, Other People, and Life

    Love

    “Has it ever occurred to you that you can only love when you are alone?” ~Anthony De Mello

    I was sitting in my therapist’s waiting room when I looked over at an assortment of books sitting on the coffee table. One caught my attention right away: The Way to Love, by Anthony de Mello.

    “This looks like something I should read right about now.” I giggled a little with that thought.

    I was, after all, sitting in a psychotherapist’s waiting room because he was the only thing keeping me from a nervous breakdown. My marriage was falling apart and I felt so utterly lost. Perhaps a book about love would help me navigate this painful period of my life.

    I finished my session and hurried home to my iPad. Within seconds, the book came alive on my screen. I perused the chapters at first but stopped dead in my tracks on page 137:

    Has it ever occurred to you that you can only love when you are alone? What does it mean to love? It means to see a person, a thing, a situation, as it really is and not as you imagine it to be, and to give it the response it deserves. You cannot love what you do not even see.

    “This makes no sense at all! How can I love only when I’m alone?” I put the book down.

    I had no idea what De Mello was saying, but that first sentence stayed in my mind and heart.

    Then came some alone time. A lot of it.

    For the next two years, I lived in solitude. My days were filled with meditation, long hikes in nature, writing, introspection, and at times, a deep loneliness.

    I accepted all that life was bringing me. I embraced the hours upon hours of silence and no human contact. In fact, this solitude was self-imposed.

    The disintegration of my marriage had brought some ingrained subconscious patterns to light.

    In the past, whenever life sent something painful my way, I would take refuge in my outer world—friends, bars, alcohol, sex, traveling. They all served as distractions because I was deeply afraid of looking inward. My inner world seemed too complex and dark to even touch.

    Yet, distracting myself with things on the outside hadn’t protected me from pain. In fact, I finally realized the opposite was true: life always mirrors your internal environment back to you.

    If you want to keep your pain, anger, and darkness hidden, life will bring you painful, angry, dark events.

    It’s really that simple. 

    With that realization, I decided to resist the temptations that often follow a break-up, hence my self-imposed solitude.

    I didn’t move to the jungle. I still saw family and some friends. But I made a conscious decision to spend the majority of my days alone, in silence.

    And then one day I got it. I understood what De Mello said in that book. I was living it.

    Solitude had taught me how to love, and with an intensity I never thought possible.

    I learned to love from the inside out. And that love took three forms.

    Love of Myself

    Self-love came first. I had always used people or things outside myself to sustain my dismally fragile self-esteem. Being alone forces you to look inward and see what lies in your inner world.

    Make no mistake: this can be a difficult and painful process.

    But seeing and accepting your inner world is the only way to love the glorious being that dwells beneath all the mental layers.

    This may take some time, and it may bring a swirl of emotions to the surface. That’s okay. Just let them be.

    Let it all see the light of day, without judgment. No matter what lies in your inner world, always remember to put your hand on your heart and tell yourself “I love you.”

    We’re all trying the best we can at any given moment. Cut yourself some slack and let go of the “could have, should have…”

    See your inner world. Accept everything that lies within, without judgment. Through it all, put your hand on your chest and tell yourself “I love you.” That’s it.

    I realize that seeing and accepting our inner world may not be easy at first. For me, the trick was daily meditation.

    This quieted my mind significantly. Since it’s the mind or ego that judges, once the internal chatter calmed down, it became easier to use my awareness to see the beauty of my heart.

    For you it can be different. Perhaps your mind quiets down with exercise or a walk in the park. Just remember: a quiet mind is the foundation for self-love.

    Self-love then becomes an internal light that you shine in all directions as you walk through life. And that is how you end up loving others.

    Love of Others

    Even with all that alone time, I still managed to fall in love again. This time it was different. Because I loved myself, the love I could give another was purer, stronger, and completely unconditional. I loved without attachment. 

    I also felt a different love for my family and friends. I began to love people for who they were. I loved them in freedom.

    Loving people without attachment was a monumental milestone for me. It was the process of self-love that had enabled me to reach this milestone.

    In learning to love myself, I realized I used people as emotional crutches in order to sustain my sense of worth.

    Once I recognized this pattern and sat with the temporary guilt it elicited, I began to feel lighter. The lighter I felt, the more I loved myself. And the more I loved myself, the more I loved others.

    I no longer needed them. I was now standing on my own, without crutches. In this newly found independence, there were no conditions. My happiness no longer depended on what others did or said.

    Without crutches, your hands are free to extend to others. And that’s really what it means to love without attachment.

    Love of Life

    Solitude showed me the beauty of the present moment. I realized how life was glorious, intense, and alive!

    The little moments became memorable. Seeing a bird fly or a flower bloom was a miracle. Because I no longer focused my attention on mental drama, I could experience the fullness of life.

    Experiencing this fullness meant that I trusted life. I knew that what came to me was there for my evolution.

    Loving life meant that I loved everything that came my way.

    Can you learn to love without being physically alone? Yes. Fortunately, solitude can be experienced without running off to a deserted island!

    You can experience solitude in your heart. That is essentially what De Mello was referring to in his quote. In my experience, solitude is a synonym of non-attachment.

    Experiencing solitude in your heart means that you do not depend on anyone or anything in order to bring you happiness or love. You live with the knowing that what you may desire from another is always available to you.

    What you may desire from the outside world is already within.

    This knowing is then naturally reflected in your outer world. You can live solitude in your heart while surrounded by people.

    And it is this solitude that ultimately allows you to genuinely love. Love yourself. Love others. Love life.

    Love image via Shutterstock

  • 9 Things to Tell Yourself When You’re Afraid to End a Relationship

    9 Things to Tell Yourself When You’re Afraid to End a Relationship

    “F-E-A-R has two meanings: ‘Forget Everything And Run’ or ‘Face Everything And Rise.’ The choice is yours.” ~Zig Ziglar

    No matter how old I get, no matter how experienced I become, ending a relationship is agonizing.

    It represents a loss, and losses hurt.

    Deep down, I know if I go through with it, I’ll feel freer—well, not right away, but in a little while anyway—but I’d rather crawl under a rock and ignore the whole thing.

    When I was a teen, I went out with a guy who had a major crush on me, although I wasn’t attracted to him. After four months I wanted out, so I completely disappeared! I ignored all of his phone calls, and that was the end of it.

    Another time, I hoped that my boyfriend would cheat on me and get caught so I could find a good enough reason to end things, which eventually happened. And in my twenties, since I lived with my boyfriends, I would just keep quiet, letting things drag on. Cowardly thing to do, huh? Yeah, I know.

    Later, I realized that I disliked conflict. I was afraid of it. I was afraid of the disappointment it would cause in them and in myself. And most of all, I was afraid of failure.

    Today, I’m no breakup wizard. Trust me. It’ll always be hard. But with time, I developed a few thoughts to give me strength to truly voice my unhappiness in my relationships, and they should help you too.

    1. One day these painful moments will be a distant memory.

    Think about your past relationships—the one you had fifteen years ago, the one you had ten years ago, or the one you had five years ago. They aren’t your current reality.

    Whatever current reality you’re living in will also become a memory five, ten, or fifteen years down the road. Thinking this way helped me lessen the importance of constantly keeping them in my mind.

    2. We’ll both be thankful I took action instead of regretful I didn’t.

    When I projected myself into the future without the other person, I imagined an alternate life where both of us were with the right person. I imagined us being happy. And then I’d think: How could we hate each other for meeting the real loves of our lives?

    Of course in the present moment, we’d be regretful, but in a different time of our lives, we surely would be thankful that someone decided to end things so we could be happier. Why not let that someone be you?

    3. Losing someone who makes me unhappy is actually not a loss; it’s a gain.

    Losing someone might make you feel like a loser. But if you think of the action of losing someone who makes you unhappy and wonder what it would feel like, it changes your perspective on things.

    When I did this, I felt strong. Because I then had the willingness to move, correct, and change the course of my life.

    And that’s an achievement in itself. Getting away from someone who brings you torment is the biggest relief. It makes you regain your freedom, your energy, and your life.

    4. Maybe we were meant to cross paths with each other, not meant to walk our paths together.

    Don Miguel Ruiz, the author of The Four Agreements, teaches us that we’re all messengers. We receive messages, or teachings, from people all around us.

    And we receive them at certain moments in our lives. Just as teachers came and went in school, other people will also come and go as life, or the school of life, goes on.

    And if you have nothing else to learn from someone, it’s simply time to take the other person’s lessons gratefully and continue to walk your path.

    5. A relationship is a chapter in my life, not my life’s entire story.

    Imagine being the author of your own adventure book. Picture yourself reading it and finishing a chapter. Then ask yourself: What will happen in the next chapter?

    And since you’re the writer of your own book, you can add as many chapters as you want. This approach really helped me get excited for my next adventure—which I admit, might be a little scary too.

    6. The moments we shared aren’t destroyed; they’re my opportunity to grow.

    We always think that when we break up, we kill everything else that was created from it. You can learn so many things about yourself from your previous relationships. In my case, I learned to be more present, more attentive, and more thoughtful. I learned that I had to give myself emotionally if I wanted to have a stronger relationship.

    Meditating on your past relationships makes you grow, and learning from them improves future relationships.

    7. A relationship isn’t real if I’m not real with myself.

    A relationship is about true communication and intimacy. Whenever you’re not honest with yourself, whenever you’re not true to your feelings, you can’t strengthen your bond with your loved one.

    Having an honest relationship with yourself might be difficult, but it’s critical.

    8. Leaving will hurt, but staying will hurt even more.

    If you can’t stop thinking that you’d destroy your loved one if you left, think about how you’d destroy yourself if you stayed. Bring the focus back to yourself and picture yourself in a distant future being in this exact situation. Do you like what you see?

    This vision made me see a dark portrait of my life. So I understood that I should only worry about how I feel about myself in the present and that I needed to stop worrying about others so much.

    9. I can break free because I trust myself.

    You possess a profound inner voice—an all-encompassing, nurturing, and loving voice. Its purpose isn’t to bring you down, but to elevate you and make you accomplish things that are so great and unimaginable that you can feel gratified beyond belief.

    Your inner voice will never lie to you. It will always express your deepest truth and guide you with the most precise discernment of what will serve your highest good—even if that means getting out of your comfort zone and taking risks.

    It has never let me down, and it won’t let you down either.

    Find the Courage to Break Free

    Sure, it takes courage to break the news to your soon-to-be-ex that you no longer want to go on. I can attest that you’ll doubt yourself. I can attest that you’ll procrastinate. I can attest that you’ll over-think things, wondering if you’ll make a horrible mistake.

    But you’ll feel invigorated once you free your mind and use your intuition as your guide. Know that:

    You are able.

    You are amazing.

    You are strong.

    And you deserve happiness. Whenever you feel stuck and unable to break free, bring up one of the above thoughts to give you strength.

    Then imagine your new course, as if you were walking on air.

  • 6 Mindful Ways to Calm Your Mind and Heal Your Heart

    6 Mindful Ways to Calm Your Mind and Heal Your Heart

    “We do not heal the past by dwelling there; we heal the past by living fully in the present.” –Marianne Williamson

    As the last moments of my thirties are fading away, I’m preparing for the dawn of a new age, the age at which life is said to begin.

    I’m like a butterfly preparing to break free from her chrysalis into the light, ready to spread her wings and feel what it is to be free—a freedom that has been born from six long months of deep introspection.

    The catalyst for this journey of introspection was the breaking of my heart. Such a wonderful thing to experience at this stage in life, as without breaking it completely, it would never have opened.

    It was hardened from many old wounds, scars from a turbulent past. It was shattered with such astounding glory that it felt as though I would remain forever broken. Forever disconnected from myself and the wonder that lives inside each and every one of us.

    As I watched the pieces of my hardened heart crumble to dust, I found something buried deep within. A consciousness that I had never before felt or experienced, and yet felt very familiar. I stood in this new found consciousness and witnessed the feelings, the pain, the fear.

    I witnessed them with great clarity as though I had been awakened for the first time. Thirty-nine years had passed since my birth and yet I stood in the wake of my heartache feeling like I had been awoken from the deepest life-long sleep.

    Within a few days of this awakening, I found myself walking through the doors of a yoga studio that I had not visited before. Something about the ambiance made me feel like I had come home.

    I paid for the next available class—Energize Yoga. This was a Kundalini yoga class, a style I had never tried before. The class involved a lot of breathing with rhythmic movement.

    We all lay on our backs with legs and arms raised in the air. We were instructed to shake our legs and arms from side to side to the beat of some loud dance music which was getting faster and faster. All the while we had to breathe out forcefully; this was difficult and made no sense to me.

    After five minutes of this nonsense, the music stopped. We were instructed to put our legs and arms down and to laugh as hard as we could. It was easy to laugh, as what we had been doing seemed a little crazy; however, I was not prepared for the laughter and what it would bring.

    The energy that spilled out of my body as my laugh got deeper was like the pulse of electricity straight from a socket, almost causing my core muscles to spasm. I laughed a loud bubbly laugh which came all the way from the very core of my being.

    I left the studio with a monthly pass and a renewed enthusiasm for life. My heart was still broken, my senses still in shock, but the clarity of vision in my newly awakened state made it feel like I was watching the chaos as an observer rather than being consumed by it.

    I could still feel panicked waves of desperation pulse through my body. Depressed at what had passed and anxious at what was yet to come, I could see clearly that there was fear deeply rooted in my soul.

    The pain, the fear, the anxiety, it made me want to climb out of my own skin. To seek refuge in some external place as though my body were just an avatar. As I witnessed all these feelings and emotions wash over me in waves, I felt something was profoundly different.

    I’d dealt with previous heartbreaks by suppressing the painful feelings or distracting myself with work, parties, and avoidance of time alone. This time was different. Instead of suppressing the feelings or distracting myself, I allowed myself to just be.

    I still felt afraid. Afraid of living, afraid of dying, afraid of my pain, afraid of my emotions. On a cold morning in February, I decided to symbolically challenge my fears. I had a fear of height and of open water.

    I traveled back to Ireland, and with the guidance and encouragement of two dear friends, I jumped from a pier into the icy cold waters of Carlingford bay. As I emerged from the icy cold waters, I again felt very alive.

    I proved to myself that no fear is greater than the strength within. I knew then that I would be okay, maybe even better than okay. My life would never be the same again.

    When my heart broke, I woke up and found myself. In losing a love that meant everything to me, I found that everything I need is within me and always has been.

    I stopped looking outwardly for approval. I dove into myself. I dug up all that I had buried, every skeleton in my closet. I looked face-on at the parts of myself that I didn’t like. I opened every wound I had ever allowed myself to carry.

    I walked myself through every negative memory and imagined I were back there in that day/time when the memory was my reality. For each and every situation I observed through my new found consciousness, I could clearly see my part.

    I accepted responsibility for my part in all of these situations. I sat with every emotion that came my way, not judging or criticizing, just observing and allowing it to just be.

    I cried when I needed to cry, laughed when I felt like laughing and felt more peaceful with each passing day.

    I began meditation in April and found that it brought a calmness and sense of peace that was new to my experience. Epiphany after epiphany came to me as I learned about myself and my layers.

    I continued to do yoga and meditation while working through the rainbow of emotions that made up my day. The flip-flopping between my past and my future slowed as I found myself becoming more present and living in the moment.

    The more at peace I have become, the more I want to share what I have learned, as I believe everyone deserves to feel this peace.

    1. Start with your breath.

    A great way to become conscious when your mind starts to wander is to focus on your breath.

    You can practice yogic pranayama exercises with the guidance of a good teacher but more basic than that, just stop and breathe! Deep calming breaths are proven to calm an anxious mind and have a positive impact on depression.

    2. Observe your thoughts.

    The mind is constantly full of thoughts. Attaching to negative thoughts creates suffering. Remember that just because you think something doesn’t mean that it’s true. Byron Katie’s four questions can be a helpful tool when dealing with negative thoughts.

    3. Remember that you are not your emotions.

    Regardless if how high or low you feel, the roller-coaster of emotions you feel is not you. You are much more than that.

    Try to stop when you feel overwhelmed by emotion. Observe how your body feels. Are your shoulders tense? Is your breathing shallow? Come back to your breath. Breathe into the parts of the body where you feel the physical expression of the emotion.

    4. Stay in your present reality.

    The more present and mindful you can be, the less you will suffer. A good practice for mindfulness is to do regular things differently. Hold your toothbrush in the alternate hand. Drive a different route to work. Switch your knife with your fork. You get the idea!

    When you stress over the past or worry about the future, stop! Breathe and come back to the present. Remember always that this too shall pass.

    5. Validate yourself.

    Don’t look to others for validation. Everything you need is inside you. Forgive yourself for your wrongdoings. Give yourself all the love you need. If you have difficulty with this, treat yourself as you would your dearest friend.

    I was my own worst critic and harshest judge until I began to practice self-validation and self-love.

    6. Be patient and persistent.

    Healing your heart won’t happen overnight. We are creatures of habit; negative habits take time to break. Rewriting of neural pathways takes time. Your body and mind need time to adjust when you make changes.

    When you feel like you have taken a step backwards, just breathe and reconnect with yourself. The duality that exists between the heart and the mind can be bridged once you remain conscious and aware. Persistence will keep you on the right track.

    As I write this, I feel excited for the life ahead—ready for the highs and the lows, and willing to greet each situation from a conscious state in the present moment.

    I am opening my heart to the world, a heart that has come back together from the dust, void of past scars. Ready to live, ready to love, ready to breathe!

  • When You’re Hurting and Healing: Give Yourself a Break

    When You’re Hurting and Healing: Give Yourself a Break

    Give Yourself a Break

    “Stop beating yourself up. You are a work in progress, which means you get there a little at a time, not all at once.” ~Unknown

    Often these days, I would like nothing more than to move forward. If I could only figure out which way was forward, I would definitely start heading in that direction. If you couldn’t already tell, I’m going through a break-up, the most major break-up of my life so far.

    Again, I’m often disappointed that if I were to check a box to describe my “relationship status” it would most likely be “It’s complicated.”

    Truthfully, it’s not as complicated as I make it; however, at times it has me spun around to the point that I don’t know my direction. Pain and confusion are part of daily life.

    Recently, after a tearful conversation with my ever-supportive sister, I was looking forward to sitting down on my cushion and experiencing the sadness and pain I was feeling.

    I had spent a day intently focused at work, and, when my mind wandered, holding back tears. I was looking forward to letting those tears flow. I was ready to let these emotions live and to acknowledge and accept them, to live with them.

    I thanked my sister for everything, hung up the phone, walked to my cushion, and sat. I set the timer. I pulled my head up high. I collapsed, crying. I pulled myself up again. I collapsed again, bawling.

    Merely the thought of pulling my chest up again was exhausting. All day I had looked forward to a moment when I could let these emotions be, and now I felt too weak to experience them in the manner I thought I should.

    Experiencing the discomfort, however, did not seem to be my current problem.

    These emotions had something to teach me, and I wanted to learn. If I could just sit in meditation with the pain I was experiencing, I could begin to understand the lessons—or so I thought. I thought the lessons would tell me what to do and how to move forward.

    I wanted to be strong and stable. I wanted to sit with my head high and feel the pain. I wanted to not be a pile of howling self-pity on my bedroom floor. Sitting on the cushion, I realized I might not have an option.

    It was undeniable. At this moment I might just be a weeping mass on my bedroom floor. A word came to mind: overwhelm. I was overwhelmed.

    So I reset my timer. Five minutes. For five minutes I could cry my heart out. Then, I decided, I’ll get up, cook dinner, eat dinner, drink a cup of coffee, and read a novel, and then I’ll come back to the cushion.

    The new plan went much better. Only, I wept for about thirty seconds, and then I lay there breathing deeply. The timer went off and I got up.

    I remembered Pema Chodron’s advice about lightening up, which is exactly what I needed to do. She said, splash water on your face, go jogging, do anything different. I put on Donna Summers instead of the cathartic break-up music I’ve been playing recently.

    I danced while I cooked dinner. I had my dinner, my coffee, my reading. I sat on my cushion. I experienced the feelings that had now transitioned into numbness.

    The gratitude I have for that experience, for being able to recognize my needs and provide them for myself, to simply give myself a positive, healthy break, is immense.

    I gave myself the space I needed. I had hoped to sit on the cushion and get that space, but I found it shaking to “Bad Girls” instead.

    It’s not uncommon to want ourselves or our situation to be different. It is the desire to be a better person that pushes us to grow, change, and actually become better people. However, personal growth is often a slow and painful process.

    The expectation to be something we are not, whether temporarily or permanently, is a form of aggression toward our selves.

    The best thing we can do is nurture ourselves and our circumstances just as they are. Listen to yourself and do not try to force yourself or your situation to be something it is not.

    When you give yourself a break, you create space. Allowing things to be, just as they are, without judgment or expectation, gives you room to breathe. And that is good for clarity. You may find things start to get better, if you let them.

    My situation remains “complicated,” and I still experience confusion. However, the confusion has slowly begun to dissipate. I am more willing to rest in that confusion, to accept complicated.

    The truth is, I am moving forward, day by day, no matter what my choices. There is nothing disappointing about complication; it’s a sign of growth and transition. It’s hard to see sometimes, but the joy of living is in the unknown.

    Letting myself be weak gave me strength. Letting myself be confused gave me clarity. Letting my life be complicated simplified it. Letting myself off the hook gave me a really pleasant evening when I needed it most.

    Girl meditating image via Shutterstock

  • When We Try to Change Others and Avoid Ourselves

    When We Try to Change Others and Avoid Ourselves

    “I’ve discovered that you can’t change people. They can change themselves.” ~Jim Rohn

    This is indeed a fact—a fact I took a long time to learn.

    You may argue that we help each other change, and it’s true. But the deepest truth is that only we are responsible for our own growth.

    The most difficult work is the seemingly minuscule shift from resistance to willingness, which allows us to face the difficult things we’ve been hiding from, and only we can do this for ourselves. 

    I had boyfriends who had issues. One of them lacked ambition; he was already lost when we met around age sixteen. I, on the other hand, was born with sparks at my heels. It took me two years to have the courage to break up with him.

    I dated another sweet guy who also happened to be lost. His mouth said a lot of things about what he wanted to do with his life, but his body seemed to be paralyzed. I figured this out pretty early on and broke things off.

    Then his cousin called to tell me he was okay but that he’d been shot (wrong place, wrong time they say), and I dropped everything to take care of him. I convinced myself this was the catalyst for his change. It wasn’t. Almost a year later we broke up.

    Then there were other guys with other issues. Some of them frozen in fear from traumatic circumstances and others with kinks they were unwilling to iron out.

    Then I was twenty-nine, and I met this guy I told my roommate was “really great, but not gonna be my boyfriend.” He kept asking me out and he kept having nothing but positive qualities, so I found myself in love.

    And he loved every ounce of me. Suddenly I was wrapped up in a man who thought I was spectacular just as I was, and couldn’t help but tell me every chance he got.

    His unconditional acceptance allowed me to see that I had been busy trying to save men instead of saving myself.

    Only through the cloak of genuine love can we have the courage to face the darkest things about ourselves, things we’ve been hiding from our whole lives. And I was ready for it, so it all spilled right out.

    I saw that my whole life I had been trying to be someone instead of simply allowing myself to be.

    I realized that part of the reason I had been drawn to the men from my past was because helping them gave me a sense of control. I didn’t trust them to figure it out on their own; I didn’t trust myself to be with a man who was genuinely strong because I wasn’t yet.

    I was afraid of losing them and the feeling of worthiness they provided me, so I tried to control their lives and my own.

    I believed I could manipulate circumstances to create my happiness. And one day I woke up to the recognition that trying to control everything in my life hadn’t worked out very well for me, and, frankly, it was exhausting.

    It was simply much easier to accept things as they were; the burden was gone, the trying, the effort, the need for things to be different.

    I wasn’t nudged or asked to work on these things. I did it for myself. Because I needed to.

    So I think we need to stop asking each other to change. We need to embrace who it is we see in the moment and accept them as they are. If they can’t be in our lives in the way we’d like because of who they are in that moment, then we get to make the choice to move on.

    But we can’t force each other to change.

    Sticking around because we see potential, in turn, stifles ourselves.

    We spend so much energy trying to be okay with who we’re with instead of really being okay with them. And if we’re not okay with them as they are, then it’s okay to walk away. It’s okay to walk away.

    I had to walk away from the man who changed my life. Because I had loved and been loved so deeply, the loss of that relationship left me in a deep depression. For the first time in my life I didn’t really care about anything. But it turns out that letting go is one of the gorgeous gifts of life.

    I embraced love and truth and difficult feelings and no feelings at all. On the other side of letting go I was left in the residue of the truth of my humanity; I am always left with myself, and it’s myself that I must remain true to.

    When we desperately try to make something work that just isn’t working, we waste an immense amount of energy and create a lot of suffering.

    So, when we finally walk away we feel light (eventually). We realize we are full as we are and so we attract fullness. When we do this we’re allowing the highest love to come into our lives.

    Something Jim Rohn also says is this, “The greatest gift you can give to somebody is your own personal development. I used to say, ‘If you take care of me, I will take care of you.’ Now I say, ‘I will take care of me for you, if you take care of you for me.’”

    Each relationship I’ve had has become a part of me. The love still exists, and the pain transforms into love when we allow it. The difficult truth is that when someone is hiding in fear or suffering in pain or rejecting our love, we have to allow them to do that.

    We’re not here to fix each other or change each other. Sometimes the best choice is to let go and trust each of us to handle our own journey.

  • How to Heal from Heartbreak and Allow Love into Your Life

    How to Heal from Heartbreak and Allow Love into Your Life

    Open Up to Love

    “Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here.” ~Marianne Williamson

    Love terrifies me.

    After having loved, courted, and married the love of my life, things went sour. Over the course of a few years, our marriage crumbled and our relationship came to a sudden halt.

    When you’ve only been with one person, loved that person to the core, and believed that person to be your soul mate, you take the breakup unusually hard.

    Yes, tears. Yes, sorrow. Yes, seclusion. Yes, withdrawal. Yes, not wanting to get out of bed.

    I experienced every symptom of heartbreak to its bitter end. The breakup was like a tsunami in my calm life.

    Over these last couple years of healing, I’ve found it difficult to let down the walls protecting my heart and find the courage to trust someone new.

    I’ve had to actively take steps to overcome my fears of love.

    Here are six ways to remove the protective walls around your heart and permit love to bloom in your life.

    1. Make peace with the past.

    In order to move on from heartbreak, you have to be willing to let go of all that has happened. Yes, you shared a lot together. Yes, it all meant something. And yes, it was supposed to have lasted a lifetime.

    But things don’t always work out the way you want them to. You simply cannot control all the circumstances that unfold in your life.

    People make mistakes. Your ex may not have been mature yet, not fully conscious or developed as a person, or they didn’t know who they were at the time. They may not have had enough life experiences or enough emotional maturity.

    You cannot hold onto grudges, inequities, and resentment toward them because of what happened in the past. As difficult as you may find it, you have to let go and forgive.

    There are a couple of ways to do this: first, take responsibility for your part in the relationship; and second, try to empathize with your ex. Try to consider where they might have been at that point in their life, understand their shortcomings, and extend compassion toward them.

    To heal, go through the grieving process and try to let go of the past. Don’t let this movie continue to play in your mind like a scary horror flick. Imagine this relationship as a film you’ve already seen and don’t allow it to replay repeatedly in your mind, scarring you for life.

    Also, be grateful for the good times you shared and the lessons of the past relationship.

    2. Nurture and show yourself compassion.

    After you let go of the resentment and heartache, take care of yourself.

    It’s easy to beat yourself up and blame yourself for your shortcomings, faults, and your role in the breakup.

    You’re not perfect. But think about how much you’re growing and learning about yourself. No one else in the world other than this past intimate life partner could have helped you grow so much.

    Be grateful for the insights about yourself you’ve gained. Treat yourself in a healthy and positive way.

    Eat better. Get back to exercising. Go back to those yoga classes and meditation practices. Read books on healing and growth. Sleep more. Relax more. Allow for more downtime in your life.

    Treat yourself as well as you would treat someone you cared a great deal about.

    3. Share your pains and sorrow.

    A big mistake I made during my healing was isolating myself from everyone I knew. I was embarrassed and in pain.

    I’ve since found out that not sharing with others was a heavy and toxic behavior. Keeping it all in was too much to bear.

    I initially started seeing a counselor, then started sharing my experiences with acquaintances and colleagues at work. Over time, I eventually shared my pain with friends and family.

    The sooner you share with others, the easier you’ll find your journey back to healing.

    You’ll also find yourself being much more vulnerable than ever before. This can be scary, but you’ll soon find that all the falsities and insecurities about yourself will fall away.

    In the process of becoming vulnerable, you’ll start getting to your core, your real self. You’ll find that it’s in this honest place that your true power lies.

    People want to be there for you during this difficult time. Make space for them to do it.

    4. Seek love in other parts of your life.

    Even if you’re not ready for a romantic relationship right now, allow love to come in from other parts of your life.

    Spend more time with friends and people you genuinely care about and love.

    Pursue those hobbies that make your heart sing, and do those activities that make you feel good.

    Try to infuse as much of your day with love. Eliminate activities, people, and tasks that constrict your soul.

    Schedule loving and feel-good activities into your calendar. You’ll start noticing how your internal positive vibrations will spill over to external positive circumstances.

    The more love you cultivate in your life, the more love you’ll see around you.

    5. Sit with the beliefs that scare you.

    The way to deal with your fears of dating and loving again is to confront all the many negative beliefs that will pop up in your mind. There will be many of them.

    The opposite sex is no good. People will only hurt you. You were not made for love. You are unlovable. You don’t have the ability to love. You’re broken. Your past made you this way.

    If these misguided beliefs come up, acknowledge them and sit with them.

    Ask yourself if these beliefs are real or a result of past negative experiences. Do your beliefs apply to everyone? Have others been able to find love and compatible relationships?

    Are your beliefs based on truth or your deepest fears?

    Question your beliefs. Challenge them. Or simply sit with them and allow questions about these false beliefs to come up.

    By sitting with your fear-based beliefs and considering alternative ones, you’ll realize that your fears will have less power over you over time.

    If sitting is too passive of an exercise for you, test your beliefs with friends who have had positive experiences with love and relationships. Permit them to help you shift your beliefs and perspectives on love.

    6. Continue practicing small acts of courage in opening your heart.

    To love again and open up again is a challenge after a heart-crushing breakup. When your heart has been ripped out and your broken relationship feels like shattered glass, it’s hard to trust again.

    It’s hard to believe again. It’s hard to open up yourself again.

    It can’t be done overnight but it can be done through small steps and over time.

    It can start by saying “hello” to the next person who greets you.

    It can mean returning a smile.

    It can mean saying “yes” to coffee and not filling up your mind with dozens of reasons why coffee with this person is a bad idea.

    It can mean saying “yes” to a blind date.

    And it means saying “yes” to someone who wants to introduce you to someone who they think is a great match for you.

    Take tiny steps of saying “yes” when your heart screams “no.”

    You might believe that no amount of pleasure or happiness is worth the pain and suffering you’ve endured. You can’t afford the emotional, psychological, and mental games another ruined relationship is going to bring your way.

    I get it. I’ve been there and wallowed in that place for a long time. Ultimately, I realized we have only two choices: be a prisoner of our heartbreak or break free and chose to re-write our story on love.

    Love is possible if you make a choice to do the work to open up your heart again. You’ve come a long way. You’re more knowledgeable about yourself, smarter about relationships, more savvy about love, and better able to handle changes.

    Your heart can break open into a satisfying and fulfilling relationship. Past darkness can open up to the most brilliant light.

    Open your heart to the possibilities of new beginnings and more joy.

    Man at heart window image via Shutterstock

  • Healing from Heartbreak and Loving Life, No Matter Your “Status”

    Healing from Heartbreak and Loving Life, No Matter Your “Status”

    Happy Woman

    “Getting over a past relationship is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point to move forward.” ~C.S. Lewis

    I recently stumbled into a clothing store where everything was full of life and color, until I saw the sales clerk.

    She had obviously been crying. I perused the merchandise and hesitatingly asked her a question about an item. Tears welled up in her eyes and she said, “I’m sorry, I’m so overwhelmed. My boyfriend just broke up with me.”

    I wasn’t prepared for that answer, but as I looked at her more closely I saw my former self in her eyes.

    I had, in fact, been that same heartbroken girl a few years back. I can still picture my ex-boyfriend standing in his driveway just before the July 4th holiday, me with tears in my eyes. He simply said, “I’m sorry, I can’t be what you want” and got into his car to drive off to the beach.

    Talk about devastation. I felt paralyzed, thinking, who will love me now? How can I continue life without being part of a relationship? What is my status?

    It took a while, but I did manage to get through that hurt. Here are some of the small steps that I took to learn how to love my life, regardless of being single or in a relationship.

    Give yourself a period to grieve, and then set an alarm to get moving again.

    Just like the sales clerk, I cried until my eyes were blurry. I refused to see my friends and family, and I sent every phone call straight to voicemail. I even stopped eating because I lost my appetite.

    That was okay for the first three days, but then I looked at myself in the mirror and decided that it was time to start functioning again. So, I literally set an alarm clock and chose the date and time that I would pick myself up off of my couch and return to the land of the living.

    Obviously, relationships take time to heal and we have every right to mourn their endings, but once the grief consumes us to the point that we lose productivity, there is a danger of it leading into a much darker place, or even a depression.

    So when that alarm went off I got up, took a shower, got dressed, and decided that even if I simply made it to the grocery store that day, or took a walk in the park, it was better for me than sitting home to sulk.

    Of course, I still had bouts of tears and got down at times, but at least I was out of a place where I would solely focus on my pain. After a while my grief was still there, but it began to lessen.

    Find a cause that captures your heart and throw yourself into helping.

    I always wanted to adopt a dog, so I sought out a pet rescue organization online and adopted my very own dog. She was a handful, and the first week alone she broke out of her crate, howled all night long, and needed to be walked every fifteen minutes.

    I was exhausted, but prioritizing her needs above mine forced me to stop concentrating on my problems. Occasionally, I sent the rescue organization photos to show how well she was progressing, and they asked me to write an article for their newsletter.

    Before I knew it, I was volunteering my marketing skills to post Facebook and Twitter updates about adoption events, collecting old bed sheets and towels for other animals in need, and advising other families on pet rescue. To this day, that is the cause that captured my heart and helped me to become a passionate advocate of pet rescue.

    Be open to the power of saying “yes.” 

    As much as I was embarrassed at my newfound single status, I wondered what would happen if I decided to embrace the break-up as if I had chosen it. Then I made a decision to accept social invitations and say “yes” whenever possible.

    I had a blast that summer! My days and nights were full of activities ranging from dog park meet-ups to planning an art exhibition, learning to plant flower boxes, and doing country karaoke at a local dive bar. Suddenly, I loved the power and thrill of saying “yes,” because I never knew where it would lead.

    A couple of years later, my neighbor invited me and seven of her friends (none of whom I knew) on a girls weekend trip. I said “sure, what the heck?” That same weekend I ended up meeting my current boyfriend, and I eventually relocated from Boston to Miami.

    Now we live together with his children and my rescue dog is our family pet. If you have a little faith in the unknown and are open to saying yes, you never know what path it can take you down.

    Take your ego out of your hurt to make an “I” statement.

    Oftentimes, at the end of relationships we over-analyze them, letting our egos get in the way, and asking ourselves, “What could I have done to make him/her stay?” or “What qualities didn’t I have that he/she wanted?”

    Try writing every question down that you still have about the relationship. Then re-phrase it from your point-of-view. For example, my ex-boyfriend said, “I can’t be what you want,” so I wrote down “Can he be what I want in a boyfriend?”

    Doing so made it so obvious to me that we fell into a relationship where we were simply going with the flow. I realized that I wanted a partner who was seeking a long-term commitment and wasn’t afraid to verbalize that up-front.

    In changing my outlook on my past relationship I eventually got to spend time getting to know and falling in love with my own life. Regardless of if I am single or with a partner, my relationship status no longer defines me, and that is freeing.

    Happy woman in the rain image via Shutterstock

  • The Most Important Thing to Ask Yourself After a Breakup

    The Most Important Thing to Ask Yourself After a Breakup

    “The obstacles of your past can become the gateways that lead to new beginnings.” ~Ralph Blum

    Divorce. Not an activity that I ever had on my to-do list and not something I contemplated when I got engaged in Paris. Who does?

    We’ve all heard the statistics that one in three marriages ends in divorce. Yet this is something that happens to someone else and certainly not a possibility to focus on while skipping down the aisle.

    People change or they don’t, as the case may be. Unless both parties are exceptional communicators, it can be challenging to stay on the same page as time passes. The meltdown of my relationship was such a surreal experience and not something that I could have prepared for.

    The vision of the future, with my husband playing a starring role, was completely shattered. All those plans, expectations, and assumptions were no longer relevant. That delightful man, once my best friend and lover rolled into one, was suddenly behaving like an unpleasant stranger.

    It was the shock of this new situation each morning that brought me back to the reality that the present moment is the only guarantee. That concept was no longer a platitude but something that was agonizing and raw. The feelings of failure and betrayal were overwhelming.

    Months of an avalanche of painful emotions brought me back in touch with deep self-inquiry. Yet another life experience to show me that the relationship with myself was the only guaranteed long-term relationship. Cliché as it sounds, the breakdown of my marriage was a breakthrough I’d been seeking.

    I was forced to examine where we had been applying a Band-Aid solution to cover some deeper problems. This grieving processing of letting go of this man cracked me open and forced me into deep vulnerability. It was time for me to bring the focus back to me and ask myself some big questions.

    Who am I outside of this relationship?

    What’s important to me?

    How do I suddenly stop loving him? (Is that even possible or necessary?)

    When did I become so out of touch with how I feel?

    How can I fulfill my own desires and potential?

    Is there anything in my life I have been putting on hold?

    What is best for me now?

    Some of the answers to these questions were extremely painful to acknowledge. In the eleven years we were together I had been so focused on whether or not he was happy that I had forgotten to focus on making myself happy, to a degree.

    A wise lady said to me, “Don’t worry about whether or not he’s fulfilling his potential. The question you need to ask yourself is, are you? That’s the only potential you can do anything about.”

    However, I will always be grateful to my ex-husband for this soul contract. Divorce was my doorway to enter into a sacred partnership with myself.

    It forced me into the unpleasant realization that I was very out of touch with my own needs.

    I felt unsatisfied in my career, unsure as to whether I wanted to have a child, and unclear about my direction. I was regularly frustrated by how indecisive he seemed and yet he was a wonderful reflection. 

    I was far too focused on him and it was a perfect distraction. His actions forced me to examine my own levels of denial about my part in our relationship.

    There I was, judging him for being dishonest, and yet I had not been honest with myself about being unhappy for a long time. How was that fair to him or me? We all know the answer.

    I share these insights in the hope that you do not wait until a health crisis occurs or a relationship ends before you create a more loving relationship with yourself.

    It is impossible to experience true intimacy with another if we are ignoring the needs of our own heart. How can we truly be with someone if we are avoiding ourselves?

    So often in our intimate relationships, we are focused on what the other will provide in terms of emotional support. It is easy to point the finger, blame them for being disappointing and letting us down. Yet, are we willing to commit to ourselves?

    Life is short and fragile, and we never know whether today is our last day. Bringing ourselves deeply back into our hearts allows us to choose our next steps from a place of self-love.

    Close your eyes, breathe deeply, and ask yourself this important question: “What do I most need from me right now?”

    It can take time to recover from the end of a long-term relationship and readjust to these life changes. I spent a long time processing painful emotions that arose and sadness I felt while adjusting.

    There was deep self-reflection, even resulting in spending time at a retreat in Brazil. I stripped my life back to the bare essentials, withdrew from much socializing for a long time, and began to reacquaint myself with myself. I began to reinvest in the relationship with my own heart rather than seeking love from someone else’s.

    The more we nourish ourselves, the more able we are to share this love with others from a place of surplus and not deficit. This brings such freedom and joy, both to ourselves and others. Is it time for you to commit to self-love?

  • How Painful Relationships Can Be The Best Teachers

    How Painful Relationships Can Be The Best Teachers

    “Sometimes the wrong choices bring us to the right places.” ~Unknown

    “This is it,” I thought. I finally found the man I had been waiting for.

    Of course, it had taken me thirty-nine years and a painful divorce from my husband of ten years. But that was all worth it, I told myself, because it had led me to the man who seemed to see, understand, and love me the way I had always hoped someone would.

    Things were blissful in beginning. We made breakfasts together, took romantic vacations to exotic locations, we fantasized about buying vacation houses. Our developing story read like a fairy tale.

    But this fairy tale did not have a happy ending. The once-sweet Prince Charming eventually became cold, distant, and abusive—a man in constant pursuit of new “shiny objects” to distract him from the remnants of his troubled past.

    I was that shiny object…until I wasn’t shiny anymore.

    The clock struck midnight, and I was left with a broken heart.

    There was a firestorm of mixed emotions after the breakup: betrayal, rage, sadness, and disappointment. I wanted someone to wake me up and tell me it was all just a bad dream. I wanted Prince Charming to return so I could feel those loving feelings again!

    I spent countless hours mentally rehashing the details of the story, torturing myself, trying to see precisely why things went wrong.

    This fruitless nonsense only made me angrier and sadder. Then, one day, amidst the noise of the fruitless nonsense, I heard a gentler voice inside me whisper, “Be patient. The most painful relationships can be the best teachers.”

    After I heard that voice, I began to let myself consider that, just maybe, this heinous experience was serving a benevolent purpose I had yet to discover. And that’s when the learning began.

    I recognized that I had been so willing to make someone else the focal point of my life because, deep down, outside of a romantic relationship, I had no idea who I was, let alone how to love myself.

    I had spent so much time after the breakup focusing on my ex-boyfriend’s shortcomings because I was not ready to see that, in some ways, I was just like him.

    I spent the majority of my adult life bouncing from one relationship to another because I told myself that “happiness” was just around the corner; all I needed was the right partner.

    The pursuit of Mr. Right kept me at a safe distance from pain I spent a lifetime avoiding: the acrimonious divorce of my parents at age thirteen and subsequent abandonment by a mother, who left an emotionally unavailable father to raise my sister and me.

    It turns out that betrayal, rage, sadness, and disappointment were actually remnants of my own past; feelings I thought romantic love would magically erase.

    The harder we work to escape unwanted parts of ourselves, the greater the likelihood we will choose relationships that help us find these unwanted parts.

    I thought a relationship with Prince Charming meant I would never have to feel the pain of grief, but what I really needed was to learn how to welcome grief. The feelings associated with grief are our body’s way of inviting us to honor and grow from loss.

    When I decided to stop running away from my feelings, it didn’t take long to discover that avoiding psychic pain is like running in front of an avalanche: When we stop running, all of the once-forbidden feelings cascade over us with such a great force, it can feel as if we will be crushed by their weight.

    At first, it felt like I was dying. I cried with such intensity and regularity that I began to refer to these daily crying spells as “taking out the trash.” The only problem was, there was so much trash that I feared this chore would never be finished.

    I attended weekly therapy sessions, furiously wrote in my journal, and confided in trustworthy friends.

    Through this, I slowly (and I mean slowly) started to see that the life I once thought of as empty was actually quite full. I had my health, two healthy children, a successful therapy practice, the ability to play and sing music, and a village of supportive friends.

    I was so busy searching for happiness outside of myself that I couldn’t see that the makings of happiness were already there, waiting for my own recognition.

    Looking back, what initially felt like a death was actually a rebirth. All of my feelings, even the ones I feared were too destructive, deserve to be acknowledged and felt.

    When we welcome our feelings into awareness, we are taking the first brave step toward accepting all of who we are. This acceptance is the beginning of unconditional self-love.

    Working through grief eventually yielded a life of creativity and abundance that my once fearful heart never knew was possible!

    Bonds with old friends became stronger, I started writing more, and I began to discover activities and interests, both new and old, that brought me joy. Eighteen months after the breakup, I noticed I wasn’t just surviving each day any more; I was actually living a pretty decent life—by myself.

    None of this would have been possible had it not been for the blistering heartache of betrayal and loss.

    So, if you are in the shadowy aftermath of loss and it feels as if you are dying, perhaps you are really in the process of being reborn. It is your own inner wisdom that has led you to where you are, so trust it.

    Though you may feel awful now, remember this is how you feel, it is not who you are. Feelings are temporary energy states that, when given permission to exist, like the weather, move in and out of our conscious field.

    There is no point in fighting your feelings because they will only scream louder until you hear them. Why make them work that hard?

    As you progress through your own journey, gently remind yourself that everything you seek, you already have. You may feel broken right now, and that’s okay. It is important to remember that all of the pieces are there, waiting to be put back together in the form of a stronger, wiser you.

    You might stumble along the path, and that is also okay. Life isn’t like the Olympics—we don’t have to perfect the routine or stick the landing—we just have to keep showing up, trying our best every day to travel our own path at our own pace.

    So, I invite you to ask yourself, “How could this pain be an invitation to grow?” If you are patient and listen closely, the answer will find you. It might be slow and subtle at first, but it will come.

  • 3 Signs It’s Time to Break Up

    3 Signs It’s Time to Break Up

    “Celebrate endings, for they precede new beginnings.” ~Jonathan Lockwood Huie

    There was an incessant doubt deep inside that wouldn’t subside. It followed me everywhere—through the good times and the rough times.

    By “good,” I mean things were okay. They were never great, ecstatic, wildly passionate, and deeply connected.

    I tried to escape it, block it out, ignore it, and pretend this nagging feeling would eventually disappear.

    But my heart wasn’t skipping a beat. The spark had long disappeared. I never had butterflies thinking about him. I felt myself slowly withdrawing.

    And I couldn’t figure out why was this happening.

    He was a wonderful man in so many ways. He treated me well. I knew he loved me. I knew he wanted to be with me. There was nothing drastically wrong with our relationship. Everything was okay with us.

    I didn’t understand. I wanted to feel differently. It would have made my life so much easier.

    So I contemplated. I stayed. I tried to focus on the great things about him, and us, in the hope I’d fall more in love and it’d all work out.

    But it didn’t. Things didn’t change for me. That feeling was there for a reason. We really weren’t right for each other in the long term.

    I agonized over what to do for months and months. Should I stay and ignore my feelings? Should I go and potentially make a massive mistake?

    After much soul searching and going back and forward in my head, I finally found my answer. It broke both of our hearts but I had to trust my intuition and end it.

    This experience taught me so much about myself and what I need and want in love.

    I learned that when it comes to relationships, things don’t always make logical sense, you can’t force chemistry, and sometimes a breakup is the only answer.

    Here are three ways to know when it’s time to break up.

    1. You just know in your heart it’s not right.

    This was me above. I couldn’t explain it in words; I just felt it in my bones.

    I knew I should feel intensely drawn to him. I should want to spend way more time with him. I should want to share all of myself with him. I should want to make future plans with him and look forward to seeing him.

    But I didn’t. And I couldn’t change it no matter how hard I tried.

    I just couldn’t feel the way about him that I wanted to. And nothing I did could force that.

    It was my gut, my instinct, my heart, my intuition trying to tell me that it just wasn’t right. He wasn’t “the one” for me in the same way that I wasn’t his “one,” either.

    There wasn’t anything “wrong,” but the connection I desperately craved was missing. He didn’t light me up and make me want to be a better person. I didn’t feel how I wanted to with him.

    This situation is difficult because you can’t always explain or articulate why you feel the way you feel.

    But it’s so important to trust yourself. Those feelings are your navigation. Your truth. And when you listen, life gets so much easier and you open the channels right on up for greater love and happiness.

    2. You’re miserable more often than you’re happy.

    Do you spend more time fighting, arguing, and feeling annoyed and disappointed than you do enjoying, loving, and growing with one another?

    I’ve been here too. And at the time I thought it was normal. So I put up with it. I kept trying to make it work. I was convinced the fighting would eventually stop if I could be everything he wanted.

    But this isn’t normal, and we were definitely not right for each other. It shouldn’t be this difficult (especially in the beginning).

    Of course, every couple disagrees at times, and that’s normal. But it’s how you communicate and navigate these differences that can make or break your relationship.

    If you constantly push each other’s buttons and find there’s always tension between you, something’s not right.

    If you try to sort out your issues (whether just between the two of you or by seeking help) and you still find yourself miserable more than 50% of the time, it’s a sign this relationship isn’t healthy.

    Really, you should be happy together more like 90% of the time!

    It’s time for bigger, better, happier, more loving times. You know what you need to do.

    3. Your values, morals, and beliefs are misaligned.

    Do you and your partner have different ideas and plans for money, marriage, children, religion, travel, family, work, and life in general?

    Of course, all of our ideas and opinions aren’t always going to be exactly the same. That would just be weird and boring.

    But is there a mountain of differences or even just a few big ones that make you really uncomfortable?

    This is tricky to navigate. You might find that for a while you’re both able to come to a happy compromise or in the beginning of the relationship you can avoid those big contentious issues.

    But I promise you they won’t go away. They’re going to shine bright at some point or another, and if both of you feel strongly about the topic it’s going to make your relationship extremely difficult.

    Years ago my long-term (ex) partner wouldn’t even entertain a conversation about marriage or having children. After a couple of years together this was a huge warning for me that he didn’t see our relationship progressing much further for a long time.

    I wanted something completely different than he did in life, and it was so important to me to be able to at least discuss these things. It made me realize we really weren’t right for one another. It was time to walk.

    To be happy, comfortable, and growing in a relationship, you both need to be on the same page. You need to feel understood, accepted, and heard. When there are differing views on important life topics, this becomes almost impossible and can be difficult to resolve.

    When you want the same things and feel similar ways about important issues couples are faced with, your relationship is so much more harmonious, connected, and easy.

    So you’re going to want to think long and hard about whether the two of you are really compatible and what kind of differences you’re okay with.

    If there are too many to count or you just find yourself butting heads about critical issues that you both refuse to compromise on, it’s time to go your own ways.

    —

    Many say that relationships are hard work. This is true to some degree. There will always be tough times that test you both and ask for compromise, but I truly believe that the majority of the time relationships should bring joy, inspiration, and happiness to both of you.

    This is when you know it’s real. It’s right. It’s love.

    Things aren’t meant to be hard. You’re supposed to support, encourage, and love each other, not constantly struggle with one another or question things.

    I know breakups aren’t easy. They’re just as heart breaking for the person ending it as it is for the partner on the receiving end. And the wounds take time to heal.

    But if you’re continuously unhappy, seriously, what’s the point? You really are better off alone or with someone who brings you true joy.

    So go ahead and trust your heart and your own instinct. You know deep down what the answer is and where your truth lies.

    Be brave. Know that the pain will go and more joy will come. Do what you need to do to find real love. It’s always, always worth it.

  • Healing from Heartbreak: How to Lessen the Pain

    Healing from Heartbreak: How to Lessen the Pain

    Couple Back to Back

    “To get over the past, you first have to accept that the past is over. No matter how many times you revisit it, analyze it, regret it, or sweat it…it’s over.” ~Mandy Hale

    Heartbreak. It’s a hard thing to go through. And the pain—it’s real, isn’t it? Like tangible pain. Almost as if that person, throughout the time we were with them, emblazoned our hearts with tiny little hooks and, one by one, they’re being wrenched out. Sounds dramatic, but that’s how it felt to me!

    This recent breakup has been the most significant in my life so far. I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with this person. The harsh reality of that no longer being the case can be a lot to deal with.

    But you know time is a healer, right? As a tip, don’t ever say that to anyone who is going through heartbreak! While it’s true, it’s hugely unhelpful.

    Taking myself back to that place, I wanted to know how much time? Were we talking days, weeks, months, years? Relying on time isn’t good enough and it’s different for everyone. I wanted to feel better, even just a tiny bit better, right then.

    I thought I would share a few of the things I did in these first and very raw stages of heartbreak to lessen the pain a little. I really hope they might help you if you’re going through this right now.

    Wallow.

    Allow yourself some time to cry and hibernate at home if this is what you are drawn to do. For the first day or two, don’t worry about what you think you should do or what people tell you to do. You have to do what you need to do.

    Reach out to someone.

    You may have spent a few days on your own, so you need to step out of your own thoughts and spend time with someone who is close to you and who you trust. My own thoughts were my own worst enemy in that time of heartbreak.

    You might want to talk about the situation, which is good, but try not to vent so much that you conjure up more anger (and don’t spend time with someone who will encourage this either).

    I made this error at first, which resulted in more wasted mascara and feeling like I’d taken three steps back. So then I just let go and spent time with my mum and a couple of female friends who really looked after me, who I felt completely at ease with and didn’t have to put on a front for. It can be a real comfort to be around a nurturing person.

    Delete your ex from your social media accounts.

    The first thing I did was remove him from my Facebook friend list. Seems silly, but that in itself was a wrench. But I knew that having the temptation to look at what he was doing, who he was with, and then making assumptions about what was going on in his life would only exacerbate the pain and do nothing to heal the heartbreak.

    I also think that if the relationship ended particularly badly and there isn’t any valid reason to maintain contact (and really be honest with yourself on that one), delete their number so you won’t be tempted to text them. You will notice that after each day of no contact you will start to feel a little better.

    Do something new that you don’t associate with your ex.

    Reclaim your life as an individual. Often, what makes heartbreak so sad is that you feel a huge void. So start to create new memories to mark this new chapter, as it’s a great way to speed up the process of moving on.

    It can be anything, but make it something for you. Join a dance class, a course, or a sports group maybe—something that ideally involves other people too, as fresh social interactions and making friends is a great way to begin to get over heartbreak.

    Commit to not looking at old photos, letters, or texts or listening to songs that remind you of your ex for one month.

    I took off any songs on my iTunes that reminded me of him because I knew that hearing them so soon would have me feeling really low. I still actually haven’t put them back on. Eventually, these things may form fond memories but right now, dwelling on them will make the sadness and pain even more intense.

    By setting an initial time frame of one month, you can be comforted by knowing you’re not saying goodbye to them forever (you might decide you want to later down the line but you can think about that then). You’re just choosing to not put yourself though more pain by engaging with them right now.

    Laugh!

    Watch a funny film (a personal favourite of mine is Grown Ups), go and see some comedy, or go out with your close friends with the sole aim of having fun.

    I recommend that you don’t go overboard on alcohol, as that only seems to heighten any emotion I’m feeling at the time, and I don’t always make the best decisions in light of that. But that is personal to everyone.

    The aim is to go out and do whatever you think will make you laugh or at the very least smile, and be around people who make you feel good, lift you up, and show you that things will get better.

    Laughing is brilliant for an immediate shift in feeling, so do anything you can to laugh as much as possible!

    Learn and let go.

    If you’ve spent some time doing all the above, you’ll hopefully feel a little better and have a renewed sense of hope and perspective. You might even be ready to embrace this new chapter.

    This reminds me of that film 500 Days Of Summer, where the main character Tom starts sketching skylines on his wall. He’s broken through that initial pain of heartbreak and is spurred to channel the emotion in the direction of his passion for architecture.

    Think about all the things you want to do and achieve. Consider how you can use this experience as a way to move forward. What new habits would you like to introduce into your life, what kind of experiences do you want to have, what kinds of people would you like to meet?

    It’s still going to be tough, for a while, but that’s okay. Heartbreak is a crippling thing to go through but it’s also an amazing trigger for unleashing raw emotion and creativity that can be channeled in a positive way.

    It’s put me on a path of self-discovery, and although I have felt vulnerable, it’s forced me to look at things about myself that the relationship was perhaps concealing.

    Also, try your very best to let go of any anger, as it only makes you cling on tighter to that painful emotion. Forgiveness really is the key to moving on.

    —

    Heartbreak is awful, there’s no doubt about it. All of these ideas are really just suggestions of things that have helped make my own journey that little bit easier.

    There’s no quick fix, but the more you start to gently push yourself in new directions every day, the more clarity you will start to get on the situation.

    I don’t think there can be any definitive conclusion on how to cope with heartbreak. Just that with every small step you take forwards, each time you look back, it won’t be quite so painful.

    Couple back to back image via Shutterstock

  • Can You Make Your Brain Fall Out of Love?

    Can You Make Your Brain Fall Out of Love?

    “Sometimes love means letting go when you want to hold on tighter.” ~Unknown

    A long time ago now, but once I was in a relationship that was full of great passion and hot desire, but it was also addictive, distracting, and destructive.

    When I noticed that it was ultimately bad for me, I knew I had to “get out.” So, I went cold turkey, as they say, and broke up, thinking I would be able to handle it.

    Unfortunately, it was much harder than I thought it would be. Every morning I woke up and found myself in the midst of some sort of insanity; my mind and body were filled with thoughts about him.

    My mind just wouldn’t stop racing about all that had happened, what I could have said differently, what I could have done differently, what could have happened differently. I lived with this for months and it was a daily dose of hell.

    It was at this time, however, that I enrolled to study as a hypnotherapist. When you train to become a therapist, you learn to treat different conditions.

    Usually, we had our teacher describing and explaining a therapeutic technique, and then he demonstrated the technique on one of us, which was followed by each of us practicing on each other.

    (By the time we had finished the degree, we cured all of each other’s phobias and bad habits, until none was left. This was quite a journey of self-development!)

    Soon the day came when the topic was “Suggested Amnesia,” a technique to “erase” unwanted memories. I volunteered immediately, ready to let go of all it all.

    The experience was nothing like you would imagine as some cold-war brainwash type of hypnosis.

    During the whole procedure, I didn’t lose any of my awareness. At the end, I didn’t lose any of my factual memories, either. But the memory of my tormenting relationship, previously so eminently on my mind, became a dim and vague residue memory as a result of the procedure.

    The amnesia worked on the emotional level. The edge of my thinking, which made my life so hellish, was gone. Actually, it taught my brain to fall out of love!

    The scientifically interesting background of this experience is about the nature of memory. Since the age of information technology, we tend to think of memory as a kind of data in our brain, which is either stored (remembered) or not (forgotten).

    Information is stored in our brain like on a computer, which can be kept on file or erased. Interestingly enough, however, newest psychological experiments show that the analogy for memory as a data bank is not quite accurate.

    Memory is not a piece of information from the past simply stored in our brain. Rather, all past events have created imprints on our mind, but those imprints are not static. Our mind constantly works with them and constantly changes memories as its current thinking changes.

    Memory is formable. You can change past memories by changing your present state of mind.

    How is this possible? Memories are formed as neurological connections in the brain: a certain sequence of connections is fired when the event is happening and later recalled.

    The same happens during imagination. When you close your eyes and visualize whatever you want, you’re actually creating new neurological pathways. This means that memory and imagination are created on the same neurological level and therefore one can override the other.

    You can try a little experiment. Close your eyes for a minute and think of a person you had a bad experience with.

    With your eyes shut, recall the memory of that negative experience. Make it as real as you can: see it like a colorful movie on your mind. See what you saw, hear what you heard, feel what you felt at that time.

    Don’t make it too long, just long enough that you can open your eyes and notice the negative feeling coming up with the memory.

    After that, close your eyes again. Bring back the last scene of the same movie on your mind, but this time turn the colors black and white, play it backward, and start to shrink the size of the whole picture, until it’s nothing but a tiny dot that disappears into the vast blackness behind your eyelids. Gone.

    After that, start to make a new movie, completely out of your imagination, in which the same situation with the same person has a positive outcome.

    Maybe the person says something different, or you do, as long as at the end you can see the “enemy” person smiling at you, shaking hands, perhaps even giving you a hug (if that’s within your comfort zone).

    After you have effectively created the movie, open your eyes and observe how you feel. You should feel less negative toward this person, neutral, or perhaps even positive.

    The difference between your emotions following the first (memory) and the second movie (imagination) is due to new neurological pathways you have created in your mind.

    After my experience at the hypnotherapy course, my whole obsession with being “in love” completely changed.

    I no longer had those morning thoughts that had previously tormented me for hours after awakening. I no longer had those memories flushing into my life seemingly out of control.

    It is sobering to think how much of what is happening to us is actually a product of our own mind. How often do we say, “Oh, I can’t help it … I’m like this … I’m like that,” while it is our own mind that is responsible for our emotional reactions—whether we are conscious of that or not.

    I felt great relief. For a moment, I also felt disillusionment. My story was about a broken relationship, but what about good relationships?

    “Programming” our minds to fall in and out of love, would that not deprive relationships of all poetry and beauty? Are those happy, loving, and promising relationships also nothing more than connections in our brain?

    Of course not, I reminded myself. True love is not generated by our brain; it is a matter of our heart. Luckily, no amount of research, science, and therapy will ever change that.

    Woman in pain image via Shutterstock

  • Ending a Toxic Relationship: When It’s Time to Say “No More”

    Ending a Toxic Relationship: When It’s Time to Say “No More”

    No More

    “Worry less, smile more. Don’t regret, just learn and grow.” ~Unknown

    The day finally came when my heart was strong enough to speak up.

    I had spent many years trying to be the calm, sensible one. The one who would try to rationalize my sister’s behavior just to keep the peace.

    For years the strategy was to keep everything in its place and accept what was said, done, or requested. The day finally came when the weight of accepting the burden was too much to bear.

    No amount of talking would convince my sister that I was being reasonable. It had to be her way. It had to be acknowledged that I had somehow erred, when in fact it was her very own thoughts that had caused her pain.

    So, no more, I decided then and there.

    “I am done. We are both far too dysfunctional to be in each other’s lives. I wish you all the best… You can blame me…This is what I want.” With those words I gave up on our relationship.

    The feeling of freedom rose. The confidence from finally taking a stand was a trophy I now held proudly. “Well done!” I cheered. I no longer had to deal with accusations. Hooray! I was now in charge. I was the creator of my life.

    Then, ever so slowly, it started to shift. Ever so gently the doubts crept in. Old scripts started playing. The mind was reverting back to old default programs.

    We had both suffered as children. Our parents had been abusive in many ways. We never told anyone what happened in our home. We believed we had to protect our parents.

    I became the surrogate parent. We both accepted that our parents did not know any better, doing to us what had been done to them. We allowed them to continue in our lives as adults.

    My sister was the first to end contact with our parents. I was convinced I was enlightened enough that I could save them. All that ended the night I found myself terrified, at a police station, explaining why I thought my father was about to come to my home and hurt me.

    That night I spoke the truth. That night I heard my mother speak another lie to protect my father. That night I said “no more” to my parents.

    That was an end I could justify. I had to find help to get through the flood of emotions that threatened to drown me. Among the consolations was the fact that I still had my sister. Nobody else understood what we had gone through.

    Now, however, I began to doubt my bravery. My sister and I were supposed to be there for each other until the very end.

    I worried that I had made a terrible mistake. My view of who I was had shifted. I was no longer the savior. I was no longer the protector. I was no longer the one who got along with everybody.

    I saw myself as abandoning my sister. How could I have been so mean? How could I just end it like that? I was a terrible person!

    The pain was intense. The anger, the hurt, the bitterness all began to choke my life. Overwhelmingly, they tortured my soul.

    Years of buried resentment began to rise up like icebergs slowly breaking the surface from their depths. The feelings, once anchored to my core, were now exposed to reveal infected open wounds.

    I cried. I screamed. I read. I meditated. I yelled. I punched. I got angry. I journaled. What was wrong with me? I had always held it together. To witness myself unravelling was terrifying.

    Dark and ugly thoughts plagued me. Driving was now an opportunity to vent. I was safe in my car; I could blast my horn, I could utter every imaginable swear word, and I could find fault with every driver’s technique.

    I was a person possessed by anger and looking for a way to punish.

    My daily meditation seemed to go nowhere. I connected to the universe. I begged for help.

    I had persevered with the early morning practice for months, when one morning I suddenly realized that my sister was no longer the first thought of my day. That was new. Then ever so slowly, other thoughts began disappearing.

    There was a gentle loving energy helping me to create new thoughts to replace the old. I was okay. I am okay. Everything will be okay.

    It was an inexplicably subtle process that I was convinced was not working when, on another ordinary day, I realized I was waking up okay.

    Realizations began emerging. It was fair for me to end the discussion. No amount of talking was going to change my sister’s mind. Years of role-playing had created an expectation that I was to be at fault.

    By speaking up, I was positioning myself as a priority. I was no longer willing to rate myself last. I deserved better, and I now saw that I had made the perfect decision for me.

    Another realization soon came to mind: “You can blame me.” Those were the words I was most angry about. Those words came out of my mouth. I was mad at myself. I was mad that I had given my sister a reason to ignore her role in our story.

    That had always been my go-to solution. Take on the blame to keep the peace.

    When that was done, everything would go back to the way it was. We could live a fantasy life of closeness, all the while not realizing that I was slowly breaking my own heart.

    This was the lesson I was now being shown. I had to learn to speak up when I did not agree. I had to learn to take responsibility for my role in allowing it to be that way.

    I had wanted my sister to love me and to make me feel important and needed. For this I had paid an expensive price. My sister, I realized, played her role to perfection in allowing me to wake up to this truth.

    A few weeks later another realization came to mind: Silently, we had both blamed each other for parts of our pain. We were two damaged souls trying to live our lives with massive wounds in our hearts.

    We could not give each other what we did not have. We did not know how to love each other without the past tearing open the old wounds.

    I realized that I was not a terrible person for making a decision that was in my best interest. No one should be given an automatic pass into your life, regardless of their title.

    It is actually a privilege that should be honored and treated with respect. The lesson may be painful, but if you find some way through the hurt, a better future awaits.

    Each new morning brings a little more light. The universe continues to coax me to take another step away from the ledge of my past. I realize that the heartbreak I felt was a dissolving of me into a million tiny molecules before the gentle re-sculpting of those atoms into a more open and peaceful me.

    Is it time for you to speak up? Is it time for you to find the courage to say “No more”?

    Woman on the rocks image via Shutterstock

  • The Benefits of Flying Solo: Why I Took Time to Myself After My Breakup

    The Benefits of Flying Solo: Why I Took Time to Myself After My Breakup

    “Don’t let past relationships ruin your future happiness. Scars remind us of where we’ve been, not where we are going.” ~Unknown

    I believe that the breakdown of relationships can lead to some of the most powerful lessons we learn in life.

    When someone who we’ve been close to suddenly steps out of our lives, it can leave a huge emotional void. It can conjure up feelings of loneliness, vulnerability, anger, sadness, fear, and hurt, and the natural reaction is to go on a desperate mission to fill that void.

    My relationship recently broke down. It was my choice, and though it was a difficult decision, I left it somewhat hurt but with an overall positive and empowered feeling. There has still been a void, though.

    Despite me feeling strong, independent, and grounded, it somehow left a need for me to seek male approval elsewhere to prove that yes, I could in fact do better than the man I just ended my relationship with.

    That I could “get back out there” and make the most of my new found single status, and better still, that this would be fun and all it meant was opening myself up to new opportunities.

    So I hit the town, and before I even began to unleash myself to the male species, I felt a massive sense of underwhelm. Something was missing. It wasn’t my ex-boyfriend, it wasn’t a man in general, and it wasn’t a lack of confidence or assurance. I didn’t feel damaged or vulnerable.

    What was missing was a connection to myself.

    The week that I made the decision to get back out there was the week that I felt in complete disarray and simply used the idea of dating as a distraction because I thought, well, that is what I should do.

    So, the following week, here is what I did instead:

    Thought about why I ended my previous relationship in the first place.

    Lack of respect and lack of being heard were two major factors. I wanted to be respected as an individual, so being an individual is what I needed to focus on.

    Made a list of my goals and values.

    The whole time that my relationship was causing me stress, I hated the way it distracted my focus from the things that really mattered—building my business, sleeping, indulging in my passion for music, and eating properly as examples.

    So it was important that I acknowledged that those were the things I needed to bring back into balance as priorities before someone else could even enter the picture.

    Got centered and connected with myself.

    I did this by meditating, reading, and opening myself back up to spiritual teachers. When I listened to my intuition, I discovered that I didn’t actually want to be out hitting up the town; I wanted to spend some quiet time inside and alone, reconnecting, being good to myself, and getting clarity on what I really want.

    People say that you shouldn’t spend time inside wallowing, but I think there is a definite need to spend this quality time alone before you even start thinking about dating.

    I did nice things for myself.

    Baths, candles, shopping, working out, eating well, sleeping, pampering—because although the main thing is to feel good on the inside, it certainly doesn’t hurt to feel great on the outside too! I also made time to work on my new business with a refreshed mindset.

    I forgave.

    Yes, he may have hurt me, but holding onto that makes the intent of finding someone “better,” who won’t hurt me even more prominent. This really isn’t the end goal.

    When you forgive, you let go, and when you are ready to move on, even if that isn’t in the not too distant future, you won’t be clinging onto that messy stuff from the past. You’ll be going into dating or a relationship with open and renewed energy.

    The end of relationships will always be hard, but they provide an amazing opportunity to realign with yourself. It made me really think about what I want from life, what I don’t want, the types of people I want to be around (and the ones I don’t!), and the kind of person I eventually want to be with.

    It’s great to get back out there and have fun, but honestly, when it comes to getting back into dating before you’ve had time to bring the focus back to yourself, people can spot it a mile off.

    When you get into that clear frame of mind where you’ve let go of all the bad energy from the past and when you’re content and striving toward your personal goals, you won’t feel the need to get back out there with such force. It will happen naturally.

    It’s a big ask to expect someone else to be solely responsible for our own happiness or self-worth.

    When we truly know that we don’t need someone else in order to feel happy, complete, or loved, we open ourselves up to the best kind of love someone else can give us.

  • The Blessing of a Broken Heart: How Pain Can Lead to Healing

    The Blessing of a Broken Heart: How Pain Can Lead to Healing

    Broken Heart

    “Never fear shadows. They simply mean there’s a light shining somewhere nearby.” ~Ruth E. Renkel

    My last breakup was on April 16th, 2012.

    I remember the date because on the evening of April 17th, as I sat with a blotchy red face and tears in my eyes, my dad told me I soon would remember that day and be glad I was no longer sad. “Men are like buses,” he said. “If one leaves you behind, rest assured another will come.”

    I found his support very touching, but it did little to console me. If this guy was a bus, it was the bus I wanted to be on, period. That day, on my dad’s couch for the second night in a row, I slept a total of an hour and cried for about eight.

    I found the breakup pretty surprising and abrupt. After not more than a strange feeling, and a day during which I sensed an uncomfortable distance, I said to my then boyfriend, “I feel that you might not be in love with me,” to which he responded, “Maybe.”

    Boy, did I feel like a fool. What got to me the most was discovering he’d felt that way for a while but hadn’t said anything. There I was, thinking he loved me, and there he was, waiting for me to what, wise up?

    It was harsh to say the least. My feeling was that he didn’t even care enough to bring it up.

    The following weeks were pretty dreary. I sobbed in the shower, sobbed at home, sobbed while I was working, and felt that my worth was at zero. I’d been dropped like a hot potato by someone that knew me; that had me!

    We’ve all been there, left by someone to whom we attributed a big part of our identity, someone who confirmed us as worthy of love and partnership. To different degrees, we all recover, meet someone new, and perhaps go through variations of the same ordeal later on.

    I’d been through breakups before, and painful ones at that. But at some point, in the fog of this loss, I got the feeling that rather than this one being something I had to get over, it was one I had to get, as in understand, beyond the corroboration or mending of my bruised ego.

    I avoided the traditional post-breakup ranting to friends. It didn’t feel right, and there was little room for trash talking since I couldn’t see the inherent wrong in his change of heart or mind. That led me to suspect that the real source of my pain was absolutely inside of me.

    I wanted to go there; I was on a mission. Determined to find the gold, I decided to put myself through a daily routine of questions regarding the source of my pain.

    I first asked myself if it was really that surprising that the relationship had ended. Were things really going so well that it would make zero sense for this person to choose to end things? The answer was, unequivocally, no.

    We had actually been growing apart. We had fundamental differences in opinion, which had an impact on the development of our relationship; we experienced incompatibility in our rhythm of communication; and our expectations of what it meant to be with someone were different.

    On several occasions I actually found myself wanting out, wanting to not feel the potency of loneliness in the company of another; I just kept it to myself. That kind of blew me out of the water: I’d been feeling that way for a while too, and, I too hadn’t addressed it.

    Once that little nugget came to light, I found my assumptions regarding his approach to breaking up were, at best, doubtful. I couldn’t sensibly hold them against him, or myself for that matter. I had to let my resentment toward the manner of the breakup go. I couldn’t be angry with him.

    Lack of presence can create a disconnect between actual experience and fantasy or expectation. It certainly did for me. There’s what I had, and what I demanded it become, and it was my relationship to the latter that I was most attached to.

    Another step in my recovery was accepting that I was most upset about breaking up with my fantasy and my expectation, not with the real, flesh and blood person, and certainly not with the strained relationship.

    Then there was the matter of low self-worth. How could my self-worth be challenged by my worth to someone else? As it turned out, my low self-worth hadn’t actually been engendered by the breakup but rather exposed. It was there all along, supplemented by the relationship.

    The worthiness I had found in the relationship had little to do with self-worth and everything to do with my reliance on someone else’s evaluation of me.

    While I was looking outward for sources of acceptance, affection, validation, and understanding, I could have been looking inward and cultivating the one relationship through which life is experienced, the one with yours truly.

    It was bittersweet to learn of this. It gave the situation meaning and a powerful possibility for growth and wellness. I was still grieving, but I realized that what I was grieving was the tragedy of abandoning myself.

    I decided to go right ahead and feel it all, with the condition that I keep a watchful eye on the narratives that came up. It was important to remain clear about what it was that was really hurting rather than letting the inner storyteller convince me that I had just lost the love of my life.

    Then again, I had indeed lost sight of the love of my life for a while. This was more a case of mistaken identity, because really, what is the love of your life if not your own love?

    I chose the path of natural grieving, and by doing so I became present to myself and acutely aware of how important my well-being is to me.

    If I was grieving my own abandoning so deeply, then I did have deep love, tenderness, affection, and care for myself. I had so desperately needed my own company and acceptance that when the relationship curtain was pulled, the sight of the neglect was unbearable.

    Little by little that presence, awareness, and allowance gave way to trust and safety within on a level I hardly thought possible. I was able to stand by myself, with all that meant, my ups and downs, my strengths and weaknesses.

    I haven’t since looked at romantic relationships in the same way. I haven’t since looked at any kind of relationship in the same way.

    I still remember the night of April 16th as a sad and painful one, but as the distance between me and that night has grown, a fuller picture has come into view that leaves me utterly indebted and grateful to the events that came to pass.

    The night of April 16th was a rude awakening to a reality that demanded and ignited an important part of my healing—one that, in all likelihood, saved my life. I was blessed.

    A Course in Miracles says that we are never upset for the reason we think. Just as words point toward something but aren’t themselves what they mention, the happenings in our lives and our reactions to them point to greater truths, but aren’t themselves the truth.

    If we take it upon ourselves to see what inside of us they are pointing toward, all grievances become opportunities to heal and love ourselves.

    Photo by Sandy Manase

  • What to Do When It Seems Like Your World Is Falling Apart

    What to Do When It Seems Like Your World Is Falling Apart

    Reflecting

    “Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’” ~Mary Anne Radmacher

    The moment I gave thanks to the universe for placing me in the Philippines and giving me the courage to pursue a happy life of simplicity and love…

    That very moment, riding on the back of a motorcycle, the wind rustling my hair and cooling me down from the sweaty heat that envelops the Philippines, a truck smashed into my left leg and shattered my knee.

    Choosing to leave for the Peace Corps program in the Philippines was the toughest decision I have ever made. It was a choice between my boyfriend and the dream I had worked so hard for.

    When he refused to entertain the idea that we could try a long-distance relationship, I was torn. I couldn’t believe it; our relationship was actually coming to an end.

    My boyfriend and I had insisted that we were soul mates and made plans for our future together. Yet, our plans revolved mostly around his carefree lifestyle.

    His ultimate goal was to live on the beach and surf all day. Meanwhile, I silently craved to work in international development. We tried to figure out how my life goals could be molded to integrate with his. I ached for his approval and support, but ultimately he gave me neither.

    He felt I was leaving him behind and questioned why I was doing this. Questioning my decision to pursue the Peace Corps demonstrates that he did not understand me, which is partly due to the fact that I rarely shared my life goals with him.

    He seemed disinterested in my priorities, successes, passions, and interests not because he was a jerk, but because he didn’t comprehend them. Thus, I stopped sharing.

    I felt he did not appreciate my ambitious nature, and maybe this is because he had no ambitions himself. And while lacking drive and ambitions is totally okay for some, it isn‘t for me. Our relationship allowed me to discover that.

    I served in the Philippines for four months before the accident happened. Despite the myriad distractions and assignments I was given, I was still heartbroken and had a difficult time getting over my ex as I adjusted to this new life and culture.

    After the motorcycle accident, I seriously believed that the stars had aligned and the universe was trying to send me home to get back with my ex.

    Being hooked up to the countless IVs and ingesting painkillers every couple of hours certainly exacerbated my vulnerability. The truth was that I hadn’t stopped loving him; not a day passed that I didn’t think about him.

    I underwent two knee surgeries while in the Philippines and was sent home to recover and re-learn how to walk with my left leg. I arrived in the U.S. exactly two weeks before the massive Typhoon Haiyan ravaged the province where I was stationed. I was so blessed to be home recovering, and it was becoming painfully clear that the stars had aligned for reasons other than my ex.

    In fact, I slowly began to see this accident as a huge blessing.

    First of all, I was alive and had not lost any limbs or my ability to think. Second of all, I had evaded the worst typhoon in the history of natural disasters. Third of all, the freak accident was clearly a red STOP sign that was going to force me to take care of myself and my needs before attempting to care for others, whether it was a boyfriend or the Filipino schoolchildren who I was teaching English to.

    During the last two years before I joined the Peace Corps, I was robotically clocking in and out of my life. Before the Peace Corps, my daily routine consisted of traipsing from an exhausting codependent relationship that destroyed my confidence to an unfulfilling but stable (read: unchallenging and boring) office job.

    I realized that I had rarely taken any time to myself. I had failed to stop and ask myself, “How am I feeling? Why am I crying so much? Why do I feel so drained after hanging out with my boyfriend? Do I really want to serve in the Peace Corps or is it an attempt to escape from my problems?”

    Coming home to recover from my injury forced me to reflect on what I had just accomplished in the Philippines. It was a moment to offer gratitude to the world for giving me a source of internal happiness and the desire to chase after some more of it. Working alongside a new community in the Philippines and executing literacy projects gave me such a rush! I was happy.

    Happiness feels good, and so does sticking to my guns and leaving my ex-boyfriend in the past. We spoke briefly when I returned to the U.S., but our conversations left me feeling bored and kind of sad. I recognized that I had to let him go if I wanted to start moving forward.

    It took courage for me to leave an unfulfilling relationship and pursue my goal to teach English for the Peace Corps.

    While I lost out on my first love, I gained wisdom from the cultural exchange of ideas and values with the welcoming, humble, and resilient Filipinos who welcomed me into their homes. I also gained a heightened sense of self-awareness by immersing myself in this new culture.

    More often than not, we fail to discern why our lives are falling apart in front of our very eyes. Instead of taking a moment to ourselves to listen and maybe even concede to our rational inner voice, we push forward in complacency.

    Complacency feels nice, as it’s comfortable. Its soft texture wraps us up in a daily routine of predictability; we feel safe. It’s no surprise that we avoid change, as it brings discomfort and even pain. How could pain possibly bring us happiness?

    We tend to silence our rational thoughts in favor of the loud, emotional ones that remind us just how painful pain can be.

    Yet, these boisterous emotions admonishing us to continue living in a comfortable rut are actually scared thoughts that bark as they try to mask their fear.

    Look beyond that noisy barking, and try to listen to your fearless inner voice. It may be quiet but it’s there, and it is asking you to sit still and listen to it every once in a while.

    That night of the accident, as I was sitting on the back of the motorcycle, with my hair flowing to the tune of the wind, I felt so at peace. That quiet ride through the province allowed me to hear my usually inaudible inner voice.

    When I heard it, I listened and it shared with me something I had not heard in years. “You are so happy in this moment. Look at the life you are living and enjoy it,” it told me.

    As I gave a million thanks to the universe that night, it gave me the gift of a new chapter in my life. My gift was the chance to return home to pursue my career via a different route, only that now I was equipped with more confidence, happiness, and peace with my decisions.

    While challenging ourselves in current relationships, friendships, and careers is definitely a scary feat, it is also a rewarding one that pushes us to grow into mentally stronger individuals.

    Listen to your inner voice and see just how far you will go when you take a chance on yourself.

    Photo by Patrick G

  • What All Great Relationships Have in Common

    What All Great Relationships Have in Common

    “Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That’s why it’s a comfort to go hand in hand.” ~Emily Kimbrough

    My husband and I have been married for almost ten years.

    And before those ten years, we were college sweethearts and had been dating for over six.

    When you know someone for that long, someone whom you are deeply and madly in love with, something funny happens:

    Your collective thoughts, actions, and words become so tightly intertwined that you walk around believing you are one person.

    As a result, you feel ten times taller. Like you can do anything. You feel as though you’ve discovered the purpose for breathing on this planet.

    But something else happens, too. 

    When you really know someone, intimately and with all the deepest parts of yourself, you also hit bumps in the road.

    Times when you argue. Times when you take each other for granted. Times when you’re completely challenged.

    My husband and I have been through it all, especially as college graduates moving out to Hollywood with big dreams in our hearts.

    We were changing so much, like shapeshifters, rapidly taking on new forms and discovering who we really were in the process.

    The truth is, that period could’ve easily destroyed us.

    Not only that, but: Sometimes we felt like we didn’t know each other. Sometimes our matchbox-sized apartment in West Hollywood got under our skin. Sometimes we fought.

    Sometimes we were broke. Sometimes we weren’t intimate. Sometimes our car broke down.

    Sometimes exes popped up out of nowhere, determined to tear us apart.

    We’ve weathered all of these storms, and more. And we will weather them, still.

    Things will happen. Shadowy forms will come out to dance. Life will hurt sometimes. And be hard. But also worth it.

    My husband and I have a beautiful life. I truly couldn’t ask for more. We have a deep, eternal bond, embodied in the form of a brilliant and loving toddler who brings us a deep joy we once never knew existed.

    We also do things that light us up from the inside out. We make films together. We write together.

    We share a love for the arts, books, meditation, politics, quantum physics, and vegan food. We take walks together. Talk about anything and everything.

    Together, alone, we make the stupidest and most politically incorrect jokes you can imagine.

    We challenge one another to leap out of our comfort zones. We make big decisions and set off on bold adventures.

    My point is this:

    If you have true love in your life, don’t let the down, dark, doomy, disappointing, messed-up times fool you into thinking that you. Just. Can’t. Do. This. Anymore.

    Embrace the fact that love—the real, infinite, take-your-breath-away kind of love—will be filled with ups and downs.

    Embrace your every moment together. All of it—the romance, the laughter, the tears, the disagreements, the adventures, the infinite unknowns. 

    ‘Cause if, along the way, no matter how deep the trenches, you each have somebody who cherishes you, supports you, uplifts you, respects you, and thinks the world of you, then you must thank your lucky stars for that gift.

    And throughout the mystifying journey, remember this:

    If the bad times suck hard, then the good times must be really special. That’s why the bad times make us suffer so much—because the good times are something we can’t bear to lose.

    Accordingly, we struggle. We work at it. We fight for our blessings.

    No relationship is perfect. But the ones worth having are always worth fighting for.

  • Coping with the Pain of Loneliness After a Breakup

    Coping with the Pain of Loneliness After a Breakup

    Breakup

    “Relationships are like glass. Sometimes it’s better to leave them broken than hurt yourself trying to put it back together.” ~Unknown

    I am at a phase in my life right now where I’m struggling with loneliness.

    Most of the time, I feel a deep sense of disconnection from the world around me and the people I share it with.

    The mere fact that I am writing this in the small hours of the morning, deafened by the ear-splitting silence of an empty flat, unable to sleep, simply emphasizes this point to me even harder.

    The empty flat in question is mine. And the situation in which I find myself was not part of the plan that I had envisioned for my life at this moment in time.

    Everything that was once familiar has now changed.

    It was during the end of summer of last year that I split up with my long-term boyfriend. We had begun our six-year relationship stepping out into the big wide world, side by side, doing the grown-up thing of getting our first place together.

    It was new and exciting. The future looked promising. And to be fair, it did work, on and off, for a respectable number of years.

    However, fast forward past the cluster of good times and the occasional happy holiday, and I found myself having to face up to the heartbreak of a damaged relationship. In particular, the daunting prospect of sharing my future with another human being who, in essence, I just did not feel a connection with anymore.

    I could choose to spend my days feeling alone, on the surface still part of the relationship, but deep down feeling emotionally detached and distanced from him.

    I could patiently wait for the days where I felt an element of hope—the momentary optimism that everything would turn work out okay for us in the end. I could even reason with myself that this is only a rough patch in our relationship, just a little blip in the overall bigger picture.

    Or I could face up to the truth and accept the glaringly obvious: it was over, unfixable, and time to move on.

    For months my thoughts were in constant battle. The laborious task of trying to make things work seemed like it was set up to be life-long endeavor. Neither of us had the enthusiasm anymore. It seemed we had simply lost the passion.

    In the end, we knew what was coming. It was time to call it a day, move on, and go our separate ways.

    Here is what I’ve learned about dealing with loneliness:

    Feel your emotions.

    When you strip away a big part of your life, you feel exposed, empty, and vulnerable.

    During the time after my breakup, I experienced deep feelings of unshakable loneliness. And I still suffer with these feelings from time to time.

    However, I have learned that masking those uncomfortable feelings (my escapism being alcohol and meaningless dates) only leaves the pain unattended for a while longer.

    I started to understand that I needed to accept my loneliness as a true emotion. It would not just softly fade away, no matter how hard I tried to numb my feelings or look for distractions.

    As you experience your emotions, you start to feel lighter. Give them the time and space they need to be fully expressed. Write down your thoughts. Talk about them with someone. Acknowledge that they do exist and that what you are feeling is very real to you.

    Trust that the pain does eventually lose its intensity, making room for you to experience a sense of calmness and clarity amidst the difficulties.

    Listen to your own advice.

    I have indulged in my fair share of self-help books over the years, ranging from detailed accounts on depression, self-esteem issues, and more recently, tips and tricks on beating loneliness.

    These stories may offer a few moments of fleeting comfort as you flick through the pages. But they are not able to take the sting out of the raw emotions that you experience first-hand, such as during those times when you are sitting alone, feeling fed up and isolated from the world around you.

    Therefore, I have learned to take only the advice that works best for my own mind, body, and spirit, and leave the rest for someone else.

    Maybe you are someone like me who prefers to stay at home, enjoying a book, watching a film, or having a bath rather than getting “out there,” meeting people, and forging new relationships.

    Sometimes you just need to give yourself a break, making space during those times when you need to rest and restore. Go at your own pace. Understand that you are your own best teacher. And only you will know when it feels right to take the brave step out of your comfort zone into the unknown.

    Realize there is nothing to fix.

    We know the world is a busy place, crammed full of busy people with busy lives. But that doesn’t mean we need to rush around trying to mend everything that is seemingly wrong with us all of the time.

    While learning to stay with uneasy emotions, I realized that I didn’t need to find a speedy resolution for the difficult feelings. It’s okay to feel lonely; it’s just one of our many human emotions.

    In fact, it was a relief. There was no need to force myself to search in all the wrong places for the solution anymore. I am certainly not the only single person in the world. Why did I feel that I needed to fix this aspect of my life so soon? It wasn’t even broken.

    Try and enjoy the freedom that comes from being detached. Appreciate the opportunity to gain introspection on yourself. You may even discover new interests or familiarize yourself with old forgotten hobbies now that your life has shifted focus.

    Accept how it is.

    Accepting that there is nothing wrong with how I am feeling gave me the grace to relax. There is no problem right now; therefore, there is nothing I urgently need to attend to.

    I know that eventually life will change again; it always does.

    How I am feeling now may not be a true reflection on how I feel in a few weeks, months, or years’ time. And I trust that I will stumble across whatever it is I am looking for at some point again in the future.

    Right now, though, I am experiencing my life as it is, complete with its bundle of thought-provoking emotions that come as part of the package.

    I have learned to accept that this is just another passing chapter in my story, purposely placed here to keep life interesting and meaningful.

    It may not be a highlight, but it is still part of my life. And I can live with that.

  • 3 Questions To Ask Yourself Before You Enter A Relationship

    3 Questions To Ask Yourself Before You Enter A Relationship

    Kissing Couple

    “Love does not obey our expectations; it obeys our intentions.” ~Lloyd Strom

    Recently, I did something radical; I entered into a relationship with the intention of extending love. I consciously set the goal of peace.

    It’s with the intention to experience more peace than ever before that the relationship began, and it’s with that same intention that we decided to end the relationship. In between it all, I felt deeply connected, heard, and loved.

    What did I do differently this time that allowed me to experience a new level of peace and love? What about this relationship created the space for us to peacefully “break up”?

    Unlike other relationships I had that seemed to pull me deeper into fear, this relationship accomplished the complete opposite—helped to release me from it.

    Whatever I did differently with this one, I wanted to bottle it up! As I took some time to reflect, I realized that what I did differently comes in the form of three simple miracle-minded questions that I asked myself before I even entered the relationship.

    The three questions below helped me step away from fearful relationships based on getting and filling my perceived voids and instead, helped me step into a loved-based relationship built on extending the love and completeness I found within myself first.

    And what a difference this shift made in my experience!

    The next time you find yourself getting ready to join with someone in a relationship (or even a friendship) ask yourself these questions first:

    1. What is this relationship for?

    In the past, I would just jump into relationships without any real intention set at the beginning. I wanted the attention and for someone to prove I was lovable. I wanted to get more than I wanted to extend. I was motivated by ego fears and desires to fill my perceived voids.

    The way we move beyond these ego fears is by stopping and asking ourselves, “What is this relationship for?”

    Without a clear goal set at the beginning, it’s easy to get lost and stuck in a fearful place. So with my last relationship, we decided that our goal would be peace, and that we wanted to help each other remember the truth about ourselves instead of getting lost in the illusions about ourselves. What is this relationship for? To extend peace.

    And this makes all the difference. When you do find yourself in a disagreement, you can remember that your goal is peace and then act accordingly.

    The value of setting a goal in advance is that it will pull you through the tough times. Without the goal, it’s easy to get caught up in the ego’s drive to be right or justified. Having a common goal in mind allows you to move forward together instead of working against each other. In my last relationship I found that a shared goal connected us and gave us something to focus on.

    2. What limiting beliefs are blocking me from authentically connecting?

    A lot of times when we don’t experience something we say we want, it’s because we have some underlying fear associated with getting it.

    For example, if you say you want to experience a deeply loving relationship and it hasn’t shown up yet, it might be because deep down you’re scared of it. I know for me, I said I wanted to have a loving relationship, but when I got honest with myself, I realized I was actually scared of falling in love.

    Somewhere along the line I decided that being in love would make me weak and vulnerable. When I went even deeper, I noticed that I had the belief that I wasn’t good enough yet to be loved. I didn’t think I was skinny enough, successful enough, or funny enough, and deep down I was scared that other people might find that out, too.

    So what do you do when you realize you’re scared of what you want? What do you do with the belief that you’re not good enough? You simply become willing to move beyond the fears. Often times the awareness of our fearful patterns is enough for them to be released.

    Sometimes I will even say to myself “I hear you fear, but I’m not going to let you determine my actions right now.” Instant personal power.

    This opens the way for you to step beyond the limiting beliefs you carry about yourself. The truth is, you’re good enough right now in this very moment. There is nothing to prove. Become curious about your beliefs and behaviors. Invite them in, question them, and watch as they melt away.

    3. Am I focusing on the content or the frame?

    Fear-based relationships often start with a strong attraction to a body. I don’t know about you, but I’ve definitely been sucked into relationships because the frame was lookin’ good. I paid no attention to the content, aka the mind.

    But at the end of the day, it’s important to remember that you’re always getting in a relationship with a mind. If the content is not engaging and exciting, circle back to the first question: What is this for?

    When we put all our focus on the content and not the frame, we simultaneously release our expectations and allow ourselves to experience peace and love in ways that we might not have thought possible. The frame will shift and change, but lasting fulfilling connection starts and ends with the content, not the labels and clothes we place around it.

    Ultimately, within others you can either lose yourself or remember yourself, because from a spiritual perspective, everyone is a reflection of you. And with that idea, relationships become a miraculous teaching device.

    You decide if you want fear or love based on the intention you set at the beginning. I’ve both lost myself and remembered myself in relationships, but I prefer the latter.

    The three questions above are how you open the doorway for a love-based relationship to enter your life.

    By setting the goal of peace, becoming willing to move past our beliefs of not being good enough, and focusing on the content, not the frame, we can experience a deep connection and trust, which is perhaps one of the most miraculous things you can share with another human being.