Tiny Buddha

Tag: break-up

  • Finally Letting Go of the Pain and Moving On after a Breakup

    Finally Letting Go of the Pain and Moving On after a Breakup

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

    Another year over and you’re still troubled by a relationship that ended last year or in years past. The whole thing is dragging on too long—why can’t you just get over it? But every time you think about it or bump into your ex, you feel ruined again

    How about giving your feelings another shake?

    Rattle them in any direction—a new one. If it turns out to be the wrong direction you can correct that later, but just move them, any which way, get them out of the rut they’re in. One way to do this is by talking it through, even more than you already have.

    Why Talk it Out?

    Perhaps something remains unsaid for you, even now. Perhaps that’s why your feelings remain so strong. Or perhaps they’re entangled with non-relationship issues—a sense of getting older, time passing, concern about not having children, or the life you hoped for.

    Perhaps part of you holds out hope you could get back together again. Perhaps you need to admit that and let go of it.

    Maybe you fear you won’t meet anyone else like your ex. You won’t, but you will meet someone. Just they will be different.

    Explore all this.

    How It Helped Me

    I attended a few counseling sessions a year after the end of a relationship. It had been a long, happy relationship that had started in my early twenties, but it burned out as our lives took us in different mental and geographic directions.

    For the year after the breakup I got on okay with life, but the shine had gone. A veil hung between me and true engagement with the world. I could smile but the smile never went to my eyes.

    I honestly thought I had done all the talking I could at the time of the breakup—my ex and I had even attended couple-counseling together—but a year later, something still felt stuck in my chest.

    So I sat myself down in front of a counselor. I didn’t want to or feel like it, but suddenly all this stuff came out of my mouth—stuff I found laughable or which fell away as I said it, stuff I didn’t know I’d been thinking. Apparently, it just wanted to get itself off my chest. And it had needed a year to mature sufficiently to do it.

    I kept apologizing to the counselor for talking endlessly and not letting her get a word in. But it worked. I realized I was over the relationship, but not the process of its ending—the fatigue, the accusations, the indecisions, the reverberation among friends and family.

    I was suffering a lingering childlike shock that such things could happen in life. Discovering this, and finally putting words to it, allowed those feelings to go.

    Some other things I’ve learned along the way:

    If You’re Feeling Overwhelmed By Emotion

    You’ve just bumped into your ex and you’re feeling highly emotional. Half of you wants to cry, half of you would do anything to get rid of those feelings.

    This is your mind panicking to get rid of emotions it cannot understand. The mind likes to understand things but can never understand the heart. Hearts have no logic.

    So, abandon trying to comprehend what happened or why. After all, at this stage, is there anything your ex could say or do that would change how you feel?

    Befriend the part of you that gets emotional. Don’t beat it up. It’s normal and healthy to feel how you feel. You’re alive!

    Besides, emotion shows you have a heart and would not wish the same sorrow on others. This aspect of your personality is to be treasured. Wouldn’t you love it in anyone else?

    So, instead of trying to quash emotion, ask “Is it possible for me to feel like this and still be okay?” Because your heart is stronger than you know; it is designed to handle being broken.

    Loving Someone Does Not Mean You Should Be With Them

    It also doesn’t mean that they’re good for you. Face this reality squarely. You can have a happy life, even with great sorrow in your heart, even while carrying loss.

    Physically, your body is probably keeping going just fine and it’s only your mind that has the problem. Its idea that “things should have been different” conflicts with what actually happened, so it wedges your mental wounds open.

    That causes the turmoil. Give in.

    Admit: “This is exactly how it should have been. This is exactly how it is.” Shrug while saying it. Facing the truth is difficult. As a result, life may feel more painful, yet perhaps also more peaceful, because conflict with it is reduced.

    Our Sorrowful Life And Happy Life Can Exist In Parallel

    Author A.S.Byatt has occasionally spoken about the longevity of bereavement. She lost her son forty years ago. He was eleven.

    Twenty years later she told an interviewer, “You don’t get over it and you suffer greatly from people supposing you will. You suffer from people not understanding the pain of grief.”

    Another twenty years on, Byatt shared with another interviewer a metaphor she developed with her friend Gill Cadell, a widow. It involves parallel train tracks:

    “One is appalling and one you just go along,” explained Byatt. “Gill said to me, ‘Is it alright to be pleased to see the flowers in the morning?’ And I said, ‘Oh yes, because the other track is always there.’”

    The interviewer asked, “You mean the appalling track?”

    “Yep.”

    “And it’s still there?”

    “Oh yes, it hasn’t changed.”’

    You see, winter trickles into the beginnings of spring. It’s okay to try loving a new person while still loving your ex. The heart can simultaneously run along multiple tracks.

    Making The Decision

    My friend, who dabbles in NLP, had a client who was still heartbroken eighteen months after breaking up with her boyfriend. The woman was explaining to my friend, in detail, how she felt—a curdle of sadness, anger, hurt—and how she was convinced she would never be able to move on.

    My friend stopped her, saying, “And now tell me, how you will feel when you are over him?”

    The woman described how free she would feel, how relieved that it was behind her, how keen she would be to get on with life, how confident and unafraid she would be if she happened to meet her ex.

    My friend suggested, “So why don’t you just feel that now?”

    The woman’s life transformed instantly.

    For her, it was about making a decision to move on. If it has been a while since your relationship ended, perhaps this choice is also available to you. Play with the idea.

    Five More Minutes And We’re Going On A Bike Ride

    I remember a story about Kylie Minogue that went something like this. She had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer and her boyfriend sometimes found her crying on the bathroom floor.

    He would firmly tell her, “Okay, honey, you can cry for just five minutes, then I’m taking you on the bike for a ride.”

    She’d think, “Hmm. Actually a bike ride sounds pretty good.”

    This is the attitude to take. It doesn’t matter if sorrow comes again and again, just each time draw a line in the sand. And beyond that line make something else happen.

    It Has Been Long Enough Now

    People may tell you it’s time you got over your relationship. Like with bereavement, you don’t ever have to “get over” it, but you may need to more forcibly move yourself on, and if you’re stuck, to take a new approach to doing so.

    Hurtful experiences, ones that emotionally and logistically reset our lives, leave us with two choices: open up more or close down.

    The braver choice—the one that will allow new things to enter your life—is to open up.

    So how about setting aside a few weeks to unfold this a little more? If you can’t climb out, dig out. Book yourself a few sessions with a counselor whether or not you feel like it or think it will help.

    Go in, sit down, see what happens. Give your heart the chance to say everything it wants regarding the relationship and whatever is entwined with it. What emerges may surprise you.

    Give yourself a new and different opportunity to leave it behind.

  • 7 Ways to Cope With the Grief of Heartbreak

    7 Ways to Cope With the Grief of Heartbreak

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

    Shock. That was the first feeling. Shock and disbelief.

    This isn’t really happening. Denial.

    Look into her eyes. Slow realization. I’m not dreaming. Fear.

    Wave upon wave of torrential sadness. Messy.

    We’d been in a long-distance relationship, and as far as I was aware, everything was inutterably perfect. I was as happy as I’d ever been; I was in love.

    For months, I’d been planning to travel across the country to see her. We talked about it endlessly, fantasized about its possibilities, gazed longingly upon the shimmering sapphire-memories we were sure to make.

    It was as if we were already nostalgic for what we imagined would occur, for what we were certain would be one of the best times of our lives.

    I waited and waited, and finally, the day came. Brimming with excitement and anticipation, I boarded a plane and flew over 1,200 miles.

    Everything seemed to go wonderfully until the third day of my visit. I remember it clearly, how she looked at me with those caring eyes—irises the color of melted caramel—and told me something wasn’t right. She couldn’t explain it, but she didn’t feel the same way anymore.

    Blindsided. I could hardly fathom the truth—that our gleaming vision had been fool’s gold, our immaculate castle a house of cards.

    Perhaps I overlooked something obvious, some subtle-yet-pronounced signal. I don’t know. To this day, I’m still not entirely sure why she ended it.

    What I do know, though, is how it felt. I had invested so much of myself into ideas of a future with her that it was like a piece of my identity had been amputated. The sunlit future I’d treasured had been blacked out before my eyes in a proverbial nuclear holocaust.

    I felt purposeless, stamped out, alone.

    Thinking back now, it strikes me that all people probably experience heartbreak in relatively the same way. Maybe some feel more anger, while others feel more depression, but in general, a sudden loss is like a tsunami of confusion, regret, and sorrow.

    It’s something I wouldn’t wish upon anyone, but if you live long enough, it’s unavoidable. Chalk it up to this peculiar circus we call the human experience—sometimes gravy, sometimes gauntlet.

    I firmly believe that pain is necessary for growth, but that knowledge doesn’t always make it any less crummy when you’re neck-deep in swamp muck. You mostly just press on, search for hope, and let Father Time do as that old adage says: heal the wounds.

    And amazingly, after a while, things do improve. Eventually, you’ll be surprised to notice that you went all day without thinking about it, that you’re enjoying yourself again, that you’re no longer wallowing, that you let go. 

    But in the early stages of the healing process, day-to-day life feels about like staggering seven miles through three feet of elephant ordure.

    If you’re in that place right now, I’m writing this post for you. You’re stronger than you know. Keep going. Things will be better.

    7 Ways to Cope With the Grief of Heartbreak

    In my experience, there isn’t any magical antidote for that immediate, pressing sensation of grief, but these simple steps will make it all a bit easier to swallow.

    1. Know you’re not alone.

    When my girlfriend dumped me, I turned to the Internet to read about breakups. What I found were countless stories of people who had suffered precisely what I had. Reading those stories was therapeutic because I no longer felt so helpless or worthless.

    I felt connected to the billions of other people who’d felt equally awful. I gained respect for my ancestors and my contemporaries, for the strength of the human race. I started to have faith that I too could find the resilience to survive and reconstruct my world.

    2. Take it one day at a time.

    Or, heck, one breath at a time. One moment at a time. When I was down and defeated, I couldn’t imagine how in the world I was going to survive, let alone do all the work that I knew was coming.

    Thinking about the future was entirely overwhelming. I couldn’t do it. Instead, I just concentrated on single days.

    The present was painful, but I stayed there. I stayed with the pain as it ebbed and flowed through the days. And the days crept by, each one a small victory.

    3. Reach out.

    Internet stories can be wonderful, but it’s your loved ones who will be a godsend in times of grief. Don’t hesitate to contact your friends and family immediately when something tragic has occurred. This is why we’re here—for supporting one another, or as Ram Dass says, “walking each other home.”

    I remember calling my mom, dad, and several of my friends shortly after my breakup. They couldn’t make the pain go away, but they listened and said what they could.

    I knew I was cared for. I knew they were concerned. Feeling that love reminded me that I wasn’t worthless. I was still the same me.

    4. Create.

    After she told me the bad news, I felt an eruption of emotion that was unlike anything I’ve ever felt. There was just so much of it. I needed to let it out somehow, so I wrote.

    Writing was a rock, something that had been there before and was still there, something I could turn to. I wrote poetry and letters and stories. Translating the experience into art was a type of catharsis.

    It was a way to channel the energies, to release them, to cleanse myself. Whether it’s painting, singing, dancing, drawing, or sculpting, perhaps you will find solace in an art form as well.

    5. Find comfort in music.

    After the split, I remember sitting in an airport, listening to “Hailie’s Song” by Eminem, crying quietly to myself as oblivious people walked by. Sure, that’s a sad image, but it also felt good to let it out. It was part of my healing process.

    Music was another constant, something that wouldn’t let me down. I think I probably listened to every sad song I’d ever heard. It wasn’t a way to feel sorry for myself (okay, maybe a little) as much as another means of knowing I wasn’t alone.

    It was a way of feeling more poignantly the pain in the songs and lyrics of others, a way of empathizing with them and knowing they understood how I felt too.

    6. Maintain your normal routine.

    This was perhaps the hardest thing to do after what happened—return to my routine. Honestly, I felt like locking myself in a dark room with ten pounds of ice cream and sucking my thumb for the next few months. It didn’t seem possible to return to my day-to-day life.

    But I did, and after a while, I realized that it was my routine that was renewing my sense of purpose. Actually doingthings took my mind off of the hole in my chest and reminded me of my value.

    7. Believe.

    It takes a certain measure of faith to fall into a black hole of pain, grope around aimlessly for a while, and eventually emerge. My situation felt devoid of anything positive. It seemed like there was nothing to hang my hat on.

    But somewhere, deep within me, I managed to find the courage to believe that things would be better again. I believed that life would not forsake me.

    I believed I could weather the storm, and after a few months, the horizon didn’t look so bleak anymore. I began to leave the past where it was meant to be—behind me—and to find satisfaction in the present.

    Reflecting on Now and Then

    I think about her some days. I read the letters she wrote to me; sometimes a song reminds me of her, and sometimes, for no good reason at all, that face I knew so well inexplicably materializes in my mind’s eye.

    I still feel the slightest pangs of sadness, a sort of vague wistfulness for a future that never was with a person who was so dear to me. I imagine her out there somewhere, living out her sunrise-to-sunsets, and I wonder if she remembers me too.

    But then I smile, because I’m okay. I experienced the bliss of unconditional love, and it brings me joy to remember it. I’d never take it back, not for anything.

    I’m at peace now, with her and with what happened, with myself and with this moment.

    I hope she is too. I hope she’s happy and without fear, smiling that beautiful smile.

  • When You Don’t Feel Good Enough for Someone Else

    When You Don’t Feel Good Enough for Someone Else

    DSC_0008

    “Your outlook on life is a direct reflection of how much you like yourself.” ~Lululemon

    I recently started going through what has been the most difficult situation I have ever had to bare in my life: the end of my twelve-year relationship.

    I have gotten to know the darkest and most hidden places inside me, and pain so deep that I did not know we as a species were capable of feeling it.

    It has been through this process and my will to endure, survive, and overcome that I have had to dig deep to find meaning and answers.

    I went through a long period of negativity and was unable to find reasons to come out of my misery.

    I became obsessed with the idea of having what I desired more than anything in the world, and nothing else in my life was worth living, or even good enough, if I couldn’t share it my life with the man I loved.

    Little by little, I started finding joy in little things. I smiled to every stranger I passed by and created deep eye contact whenever I said “thank you” to someone. I began eating again (I pretty much had stopped).

    I achieved this by accepting what was happening instead of desiring things to be different. I wanted to stop hurting and knew that the only way was to be fully present and to stop obsessing over things I couldn’t control.

    It was only because I moved from my place, took a few steps to the side, and changed my perspective that I was able to understand what was happening and where it was all coming from. This understanding gave me peace.

    Having perspective helped me see that everything that happens is a reaction to something else. Symptoms are only that; they are not the cause itself. Being able to focus on motives instead of responses gave me awareness.

    Then it wasn’t so much about the final process itself but more about what I can do now with what I have this instant.

    I began a very intimate process of gratitude. I started thanking the universe for absolutely everything that was happening in my life and even went back to my earliest memories. I started acknowledging every small moment of joy that I was fortunate enough to savor.

    When I stopped trying to ignore my deep feeling of emptiness and anxiety and started paying attention to why I felt it, I was able to wake up in the morning without feeling what I called “the black hole.”

    I realized that my body was trying to tell me something: relying on someone else for happiness, well-being, and joy was wrong. These were all things that I needed to provide for myself. It became very clear once I put it into action; the emptiness started dissipating.

    Through my great effort I got to a day when I could again breathe calmly and deeply without having that sense of suffocation that had paralyzed me for the last five months.

    I am happy to share with you a few things that I engage in daily that I consider to have saved my life.

    Practice daily gratitude.

    I express my appreciation every night for everything that goes on during the day. I thank the people who offer me support, the people who love me, the people with whom I am lucky enough to be able to talk to or share some insight, even the people that represent a challenge.

    Gratitude helps us cherish what we have right now and see life as a truly amazing gift.

    Let people know you care about them.

    If I care for someone, I immediately tell that person. I don’t hold back.

    When I open up to people, it creates a mirror effect and people open up to me. Even people who find it challenging to express their emotions give love back to me, through words and actions.

    Giving love and then receiving it helps me feel less alone and a lot more appreciated.

    Appreciating all this loving and kindness helped me rid my attachment to the one person I wanted to give me love.

    Write love letters to yourself.

    Listing virtues that I am happy to have and reflecting on the things I’m not proud of helped me love and accept myself that much more, and build confidence and strength.

    For example, I’m happy to have a clear view on what I’m willing to accept into my life and what I’m not. I’m happy to know that I’m a good listener, that I’m responsible, and that I am capable of taking care of myself.

    I’m not too proud of my lack of patience, my intolerance, or my need to control—but I accept myself, flaws and all.

    Writing things down in this way engraves them and makes them more present and real, and not so intangible and unclear.

    Get to know yourself.

    I spent more time alone than I had ever before in my life. I went to the movies on my own, I ate dinner at places my ex and I went on a regular basis, and walked everywhere. Being alone with my thoughts helped me understand what I needed to do to gain peace.

    That was remembering that I am who I am by myself, and not who I am in response to someone else.

    This translated in me falling in love with who I really am instead of the recurring thoughts and fears of not being good enough for someone else.

    Through being alone I got to understand my values and my worth. This reinforced to me that we don’t need someone else to be complete; we only need ourselves.

    This helped me shift my perspective, to know that I am good enough, and there is no need to convince or prove to other people that I am worth their love.

    Once you start feeling love for yourself and are able to see the world as a truly magnificent, beautiful, and sacred place, you will notice how it gives back. If you pay enough attention, you can see how you are receiving gifts, constantly.

    The key is in thanking and being grateful for being alive and for the fortune of what we already have.

    Photo here

  • You Are the One: 5 Helpful Tips for the Brokenhearted

    You Are the One: 5 Helpful Tips for the Brokenhearted

    Woman in a Field

    “All the wonders you seek are within yourself.” ~Sir Thomas Browne

    Anyone who has ever gone through some sort of heartbreak knows what awful pain it can cause, both physically and mentally. It can be devastating, shattering, and overwhelming for your spirit.

    In the beginning of 2012 I had my heart broken by a person who I thought was “the one.”

    Between tears and desperate calls, I found myself searching the Internet for remedies to get over an ex. I knew I was a strong person, but I just couldn’t see anything becoming brighter or better ever.

    I constantly needed family and friends to reassure me that I was going to be okay. It even came to a point where I started worrying about the physical agony, as I felt intense aching in my heart and around the chest area. I worried that this would be something I had to learn to live with.

    One day I realized that I couldn’t let heartache and depression destroy my life, and then found some helpful ways to heal and become happy again, even finding a sort of joy and self-worth I hadn’t experienced before the break-up.  

    I also had the amazing opportunity to share these tips with Tiny Buddha readers in my first post “10 Tips to Help Relieve Depression and Heartache.”

    During my healing period I often found myself questioning the idea of “Mr. Right” or “the one”—that special someone to sweep us off our feet and make us feel complete.

    People in my life would tell me that once I found someone new I would get over my ex. This sounded comforting, but when you feel like your life is crushed, a new love interest isn’t really a top priority, even though a rebound-partner can feel like the right solution at times.

    Also, I wondered what I could possibly offer someone with my wounded spirit. I knew I had to find another type of “Mr. Right,” and to my surprise, I did. More precisely, I found “Miss Right”—and that is me. 

    For little more than a year I have been dating me. I’ve been in a loving relationship with myself that has had its ups and downs, just like any other relationship.

    I strongly believe something good always comes out of something bad. So, if you are at sitting at home with a broken heart searching the web for any kind of hope of recovering, these tips may help.

    1. Be your own sweetheart.

    Just like in a romantic relationship, where you do kind things for your significant other, you should do kind things for yourself.

    Take yourself out to the places you’ve always wanted to go. Write yourself loving notes and practice daily affirmations where you tell yourself the things you formerly wanted your partner to tell you.

    I buy myself flowers and I lovingly wrap my arms around myself while I sit in stillness to embrace self-love. Try it!

    2. Laugh out loud whenever possible.

    There is no better medicine for your spirit than a good laugh. Yes, the heartbreak will remind you of your suffering, but I’ve noticed that the human body and mind are so wonderful that they allow you to smile, even during dark times.

    Find reasons to smile and laugh whenever you can, even if it’s just for short-lived moments. (A great post to read on this topic: Why It’s Essential to Find Humor During Your Darkest Hours.)

    3. Practice self-compassion.

    When you feel sad or lonely, tell yourself the caring things you would tell a friend in need—for example, that it’s perfectly okay to feel distress and anxiety, but that this too shall pass.

    You are still a good, strong, and lovely person. The truth is, even if you are single, you are never alone. You are always surrounded by loving energy from friends and/or family, and the universe/higher power.

    4. Consider yourself single and ready to mingle—with yourself!

    Know that you don’t need a romantic partner to be complete. Be your own soul mate and strive to feel whole from within, and you will find that sense of completeness.

    When you are ready to love again, you will meet that special person to share a beautiful love story with. But for now, focus on yourself. That way, when you eventually meet someone, you’ll come to the relationship whole, not someone who feels lacking.

    5. Know that it’s okay to be angry as long as you are gentle with yourself and willing to forgive.

    You’ve probably read a lot about the importance of forgiveness. I agree that forgiveness is essential to move on, but we also need to know that it’s okay not to be able to forgive in an instant moment, weeks, or even months.

    Don’t stress out when people around you encourage you to forgive. All you need to do is have patience with yourself for not being capable of forgiving just yet. Let the emotions of anger, hurt, and disappointment be released first.

    It took me a long time to learn how to forgive myself and my ex, but I finally did and it has set me free. I now understand his reasons for breaking up with me, even though I may not agree with them.

    The key is to be gentle and keep your anger at a healthy level. Don’t punish or attack yourself for what has already happened. Instead, try to grow and learn from the experience.

    —

    Do I still look for the romantic version of ”the one”? I am not searching; I feel confident that he will show when the time is right, and when I’m ready to share my new wonderful me with someone. But for the time being, I enjoy being with myself.

    Do you?

    Photo by William Terra

  • From Broken Heart to Open Heart: When Breaking Up Is a Good Thing

    From Broken Heart to Open Heart: When Breaking Up Is a Good Thing

    Sunny Girl

    “When you blame others, you give up your power to change.” ~Dr. Robert Anthony

    On March 18th, 2011, I received an email that forever changed my life.

    “You got me—I’m seeing someone else.”

    That’s the only line I remember. I had noticed that my boyfriend at the time had been acting “strange” and confronted him on it. He fessed up to me in an email while I was at work. There was nothing I could do and nowhere I could go.

    I felt that burning sensation on the back of my neck. I wasn’t sure what to do next, so I sat there at my desk in my office in a haze for the rest of the afternoon.

    I spent the next few days plugging along, assuming that since I had not shed a single tear, everything was just fine. It wasn’t.

    Three days later, I walked into my house after an evening of hanging with friends, and all of sudden it hit me: He was gone. I was alone.

    I broke down, sobbing uncontrollably. I saw no hope, just days and days of pain ahead of me. Unfortunately, that would come to be true.

    Until that point, I was a “relationship jumper.” I’d move from one relationship to the next with little to no break in between, and had done so for fourteen years and four serious relationships.

    Not once during that time had I stopped to think about what I wanted.

    My fear of being alone far outweighed any desire to get to know myself, so I continued on from one relationship to the next, wondering with the ending of each one why it had failed.

    Of course, I blamed all of them. There couldn’t possibly have been anything wrong with me. I was a good girlfriend—I supported them, was there for them, gave more than they did, kept my mouth shut and tried not to get angry with them, stayed with them even when I knew something didn’t seem right.  (more…)

  • Relationships That Hurt: When Enough Is Enough

    Relationships That Hurt: When Enough Is Enough

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

    There was a time when I was quite black-and-white with relationships. I either trusted you implicitly, assuming you’d never intentionally hurt me, or believed you wanted to cause me pain and questioned everything you did.

    Once you moved yourself into the latter category, there was no going back.

    Eventually, I realized I was limiting my relationships by not recognizing the grey area, where people are human, they make mistakes, and they need forgiveness and understanding.

    From there I swung the pendulum the other way—I trusted everyone. I refused to consider that someone’s actions might reflect that they didn’t truly care. And I stayed in a lot of unhealthy relationships while making excuses for people.

    I wanted them to care. I wanted to believe they valued me—that it only meant I was interpreting incorrectly if their actions seemed to suggest otherwise.

    But this is where it gets confusing. On the one hand, we often create a lot of meaning in our heads that isn’t really there. We may feel convinced someone intended to be rude, inconsiderate, or thoughtless when really that wasn’t the case.

    On the other hand, sometimes actions speak louder than words, and our interpretations may be accurate.

    Sometimes someone is knowingly hurtful or neglectful. We need to be able to recognize that or we’ll end up feeling disempowered, disrespected, and stuck.

    So how do you know when to stay and when to walk away? How do you know when you’re not reading into things too much, or being too paranoid, or making mountains out of molehills, but rather simply seeing things for what they are?

    After placing myself in this situation more times than I’d like to count, I developed a little three-question guide that’s helped me recognize when enough is enough. (more…)

  • Be Gentle with Yourself When Dealing with Heartbreak

    Be Gentle with Yourself When Dealing with Heartbreak

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

    I’m sitting in the nail salon near my apartment, perusing Vogue and making small talk with the woman who is cradling my hand and filing my nails. We’re catching up on our lives; I tell her I’ve been in Phoenix for the month. She nods and, in broken English, inquires about him.

    I’d like to say my subsequent tears are a rarity, but lately, they seem to have a mind of their own.

    I sit across from my best friend and shake my head, unable to squeak out a sound over the lump in my throat. I well up while crossing the street, while waiting in line, and now, in a mortifying turn of events, at the nail salon while this lovely woman across from me pats my hand in a show of support she does not have the words to express.

    We had been together for four years (four and a half, if you count early, long-distance courtship). We’d both been married before; he wasn’t looking for anything serious. Truthfully, neither was I. I had a thriving business in the fashion industry, a son in high school, and a mother who lived with us back in Phoenix. A relationship with a man in NYC seemed inconvenient, if not impossible.

    For anyone who has ever felt the free-fall of love, “inconvenient” and “impossible” suddenly become obstacles you are willing to leap over like an Olympic athlete.

    You throw caution to the wind. You are like Wonder Woman, flying into the chasm of love in your invisible jet; armed with a lasso and bracelet cuffs. What could possibly go wrong? (more…)

  • Learning to Stop Clinging to People: Know That You Are Loved

    Learning to Stop Clinging to People: Know That You Are Loved

    “As long as you make an identity for yourself out of pain, you cannot be free of it.”   ~Eckhart Tolle

    I have a heart condition. Not one that you could see on an x-ray, or even one that you would find in a medical textbook.

    For as long as I can remember, I have felt like my heart has had a gaping hole in it—and I’ve been stuffing anyone, anything into that space to try and feel a little less empty. A little less alone.

    The first day of my freshman year, I met a girl.

    We spent the rest of the day together and discovered we had an uncanny amount in common, including our values and a passion for the violin. We even had the same name. So I decided then and there that she would be that college friend that everyone talks about, that friend with whom you share everything and never lose touch, even after you’re both old and gray.

    I had decided she was the perfect shape to fill the hole in my heart.

    I then proceeded to spend as much time as possible with her and her friends, ignoring the people I had grown close to in my dorm. I even declined invitations from classmates to go out to eat, get a coffee, or even just go with them to the library; I wanted to be available in case she and her friends decided they wanted to do something with me.

    Yet even though I thought I had finally found a group of people that made me feel complete, there was always this underlying fear—a fear that they were just pretending to like me, that I was a second-class citizen in this clique.

    And then she broke the news to me. “You make our group dynamic awkward,” she said. “We think you should go find some other friends.”

    I was devastated.

    My heart now felt even more empty and alone than it did before I met her, because I had built an identity for myself based on a friendship I had forced—a relationship I had made fit simply because it was there and available.

    After that, I slowly started spending time with my other friends and started enjoying their company again, but I still withdrew and isolated myself.

    I couldn’t imagine that anyone would want to spend time with me if she and her friends didn’t, and that perception made it almost impossible to believe anything good anyone said about me. (more…)

  • 7 Ways to Manage a Break Up and Work Through the Pain

    7 Ways to Manage a Break Up and Work Through the Pain

    Break-Up

    “Most of our troubles are due to our passionate desire for and attachment to things that we misapprehend as enduring entities.” ~Dalai Lama

    Some breakups are so bad that they make you hate the sunshine. It’s up there gleaming, looking down on you, being all sunny despite the fact that you feel like a slice of hell. The suffering is relentless. The sky is ugly.

    The ending of my last relationship was awful. I think it hurt as bad as it did because this wasn’t some random young woman who had just walked into my life. This was someone whom I’d been aquatinted with for years.

    I know her family. I had a business relationship with her and we had been performing together as part of a musical group. It also wasn’t my choice to end things.

    I once read that the pain of the death of a loved one, the pain of the end of a relationship, and the pain of a child losing a teddy bear are no different. Pain is pain.

    And to the one who experiences pain, it can be all consuming and can seem like the end of the world.

    I don’t like it when some people think that just because your relationship only lasted a couple of months you should hurt less than if the relationship had been longer. Again, pain is pain. No one has the right to judge it, put limits on it, or qualify it.

    Sometimes, it’s hard to imagine that you’ll ever feel better. So, what do you do? You can hate it if you want, resent it, resist it, or wish it wasn’t happening.

    The fact is that it’s happening. I wish I could tell you that I’d found the secret to making the healing from the breakup of a relationship easier or faster. I haven’t.

    I do know that when all of the flirting, smiling, hand-holding, and special times on the couch are over, somehow you have to find a way to put the pieces of yourself back together.

    I think the way to do this is different for everyone. Here are some things that I’ve found helpful. (more…)

  • Letting Go and Starting Over When It’s Hard

    Letting Go and Starting Over When It’s Hard

    “Letting go isn’t the end of the world; it’s the beginning of a new life.” ~Unknown

    This June marked twelve years since I got divorced and moved 1,000 miles away from my hometown. It’s an anniversary that I usually remember, but not one that I tend to dwell on… until this year.

    This year, the memories of the demise of my first marriage were hovering at the forefront of my mind.

    Maybe it’s because I saw a friend who is roughly the same age I was, going through similar hard decisions. Maybe it’s because my spouse and I were struggling to make a hard decision about an external relationship that isn’t going well.

    Whatever the reason, it caused me to reflect on what I’ve learned in the last decade or so.

    My ex-husband and I met in high school, when we were seventeen, and had been dating for seven years when we got engaged.

    I think on some level we knew, even then, that we shouldn’t get married, that things weren’t that great, but people were starting to ask, and everyone (including us) assumed that we would get married. So we did what we were “supposed” to do.

    Things were okay for a little while, and outwardly we seemed happy. Inside, however, things were crumbling. We kept trying to put the pieces back together, but every time we tried to hold tighter, things dissolved into another argument, each cutting more deeply than the last.

    By the end we barely spoke, each retreating to separate rooms for the evening. Eventually, I got up the nerve to call it quits. He agreed, and for the most part, the split was amicable.

    Honestly, I think my decision to move away was harder for him to accept than the divorce. Maybe because it made things seem more final.

    So here I am, twelve years later, older and hopefully wiser, looking back at that time in my life and thinking… (more…)

  • How to Love Without Losing Yourself

    How to Love Without Losing Yourself

    “We love because it is the only true adventure.” ~Nikki Giovanni 

    Last night I sat with an old friend who has recently broken up with his girlfriend. He’s sad. She’s sad.

    I don’t think it was time for them to give up yet; he’s exhausted and disagrees. He says he thinks that he just loves to love. When you love to love, he says, it’s impossible to separate the act of loving from the person that you’re actually supposed to love.

    He thinks that he’s too much in love with the idea of love to actually know what he wants. And so, he argues, giving her another chance would be futile.  

    I know what he means, because I love to love, too.

    When I met my boyfriend, Chase, I thought I had been in love before. In fact, I was positive of it. I had built a life out of a dating and relationship blog—of course I had been in love before.

    There was only one relationship that stood out from the masses of little flings, and for a time, he was my world. We met in college (although he wasn’t in school, a sign of different horizons that would eventually be the pitfall of our short-lived romance). And we developed our own little cocoon which quickly meant everything to me.

    I had grown up with a happy home life, two parents that met, fell in love, and then stayed together. I had an (albeit naive) perspective that when you meet the right person, you fall in love, and that’s that.

    I never doubted him for a minute; this was what was supposed to happen. I trusted it, the process of companionship, and I let myself settle into having someone.

    After only a few short months together, he said he needed to move since he could no longer afford to live Boulder, where I was going to college at the time, so we made the decision to move in together. (more…)

  • Dealing with a Break Up and Learning from the Experience

    Dealing with a Break Up and Learning from the Experience

    “Why worry about things you can’t control when you can keep yourself busy controlling the things that depend on you?” ~Unknown

    Relationships end, everyone knows that. The tough part is actually dealing with suffering, accepting, letting go, moving on, and processing a whole lot of other feelings at the same time.

    Six months ago my ex-boyfriend decided to end our relationship because he couldn’t forgive me for a mistake I’d made.

    During the first weeks of our breakup I decided that it would be best if I just gave him some time to think things out. I accepted the consequences of my error and decided not to pressure him.

    I knew it was my fault we were in this mess, and he was suffering from my wrongdoing (which didn’t involve infidelity).

    After a month we saw each other again, and he told me that he could not forgive me for what I did—that my mistake meant that I didn’t love him and had never loved him throughout our three years together.

    I asked for forgiveness. I asked for a second chance. He told me he couldn’t trust me anymore and couldn’t risk getting hurt again. I accepted his decision and started moving on with my life.

    Two months passed, and one night he called me. He told me that he missed me terribly and wanted to see me. The next day we went to Starbucks.

    He told me he couldn’t stop thinking about me, that he compared every woman with me, and that he wanted to give us a second chance. But then he told me he was too scared to fully commit to me and that he wasn’t sure what he wanted. (more…)

  • How to Overcome Loneliness

    How to Overcome Loneliness

    “Man stands in his own shadow and wonders why it’s dark.” ~Zen Proverb

    After my ex-girlfriend and I broke up several years ago, I never felt more alone in my life. I hung up the phone with tears streaming down my face as I stepped into my new reality.

    I only had one friend in the world, who happened to live fairly far away, so most of my newfound singlehood was spent alone.

    It was difficult for the first few weeks due to all the painful emotions that usually come with a breakup, but after a while the pain went away.

    Usually I could keep a positive attitude and project the appearance was all okay, but truth be told, I was a very lonely person back then.

    Sometimes, a coworker or some acquaintance would ask if I was seeing anyone to make conversation. I told them that I was taking a break from dating for a while to heal from the breakup.

    However, I really had no idea how to meet people. After being in a relationship for seven years and losing touch with a lot of friends, my social skills were pretty much nonexistent. I wanted to meet people, make new friends, and date, but I really thought I was just incapable of doing it.

    At one point the loneliness just overwhelmed me. I was walking down a street one night. As I was passing by a busy restaurant, I looked in the window and saw so many people at quiet, intimate tables sharing smiles and conversations over candle light.

    Suddenly I just couldn’t take it any longer. My mind became flooded with all of these thoughts like “Why is it never me in there with someone else?” or “Why am I always alone? Is there something wrong with me?”

    Before I know it, I was crying right there, while walking down the street.

    It all just seemed so futile. What was the point of living if I didn’t have anyone to share my life with? (more…)

  • Knowing When to Walk Away from Unrequited Love

    Knowing When to Walk Away from Unrequited Love

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

    To say that love hasn’t obeyed my expectations would be the understatement of the century.

    I have not been lucky in love. I’ve been blessed with some amazing moments over the years, but somehow have managed to choose partners who did not want what I wanted, did not feel what I felt, and did not want to walk beside me into a future together.

    I have really had to sit with this and try and figure out what part of this was my doing, and how to change it, because this year I once again chose a partner who was not walking with me. Except this time not only was he not walking with me but he was subtly trying to kick my feet from under me every chance he got.

    I once again entered into a relationship desperate to find love and instead found a beautiful disaster. Love is a blessing, this we know. Unrequited love is toxic, and it can eat you alive.

    Falling in love can be a slippery slope, regardless of any protective barriers we may have built. It can ease in like a light a mist that settles itself beautifully over your life, or it can blindside you.

    Often we fall in love with a person before we have fully gotten to know them. By this point it’s too late—you’ve already stretched your heart for someone capable of bruising it. This is what love requires: utmost vulnerability and trust. Hopes and expectations rise along with the awareness that it can slip away.

    I suggest we do our best to live in the moment. Love is elastic. It stretches and retracts and changes shape constantly. It is very uncertain. One day you are over the moon and the next disillusioned.

    The elastic can break. You can re-tie it, but there is now a knot. Suddenly that perfect perception of the other person is a little bit tainted. Something rocked the pedestal. Sometimes we can recover from this, sometimes we can’t. 

    Loyalty and commitment teach us that we are not to walk away from people that we love. Buddhism teaches us to love without expectation. There are a lot of belief systems about love and I question them often. If your love is shared and you are both happy I assume you wouldn’t have to question love at all. (more…)

  • Lost Love: What It Means to Move On

    Lost Love: What It Means to Move On

    “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” ~Alfred Lord Tennyson

    I met a special someone. It was my first taste of love and I was sheepishly drunk with it. His were eyes I could look into forever, and he had a voice I could hear till the end of time. It was absolutely frightening.

    We were colleagues. I unwittingly got involved in his life and eventually found myself wanting to get even more involved.

    After a period of ambiguous yes-no-maybes, he exited the picture for good. He never wanted to talk about it, or wanted anything to do with me again.

    I was distraught, destroyed. Shot.

    “Move on.”

    There was a cacophony of voices, concerned friends, self-help books, parental wisdom all cooing, screaming, demanding me to let it go, let him go, move on.

    They were all voices echoing the same rational advice. It’s only logical to disconnect, eject, and proceed. Move on.

    I couldn’t.

    Not a day went by without me cross-examining myself for faults, things I should or shouldn’t have done, things I could do to fix it.

    Self-help books and long runs with blaring earphones only gave a brief respite. Reason left me as soon I put the books down. My mind wandered back to the hurts when I stopped running, breathless and ever-desperate.

    “Move on!!”

    Why linger? It was a horrid state to be in. I really wanted to snap out of that self-absorbed paralysis, but something kept me there.

    After six months of marinating in the much celebrated soup of love, loss, and lament, I finally fumbled out of it. (more…)

  • How to Deal with a Break Up

    How to Deal with a Break Up

    “No feeling is final.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke

    I met him the last semester of college and was instantly attracted to him.  I was definitely attracted to him physically, but it was the way he sat in class with such quiet confidence and mystery that made me long to know him.

    I practically drooled all over my desk whenever he spoke, but couldn’t even bring myself to say, “Hello.”  One night out, I saw him standing by the bar. I told my friend that I had a crush on him and she promptly gave me two choices: Go speak to him or, she would embarrass me. Needless to say, I chose the first option.

    I don’t remember what was said when I approached him, and in the grand scheme of things I guess it’s irrelevant. We spent the entire evening together. He taught me how to tie a tie, he told me about his closeted love for Vanilla Ice, and we shared the most romantic evening I had ever experienced.

    His affinity for Vanilla Ice notwithstanding, I fell in love with him that night.

    We graduated only a few short months later and moved away from each other, but maintained a friendship over the years. We got together whenever time and space would allow.

    Recently, I took a chance and revealed that I had romantic feelings for him. In a fairy tale-like manner, he flew across the country, and we made the decision to start dating. Everything was great—until it wasn’t, and we broke up.

    Although the decision to end the relationship had been mutual, over the following months, I cycled through many feelings and emotions. One day I would tell my friends that I was “so over him,” and the next day I’d find myself flat on my back, sobbing uncontrollably, wondering where we went wrong.

    Even today, I can’t say that I have fully gotten over the relationship, but there are a few things that have been helpful to me in the process. (more…)

  • How to Let Go of a Past Relationship: 10 Steps to Move On Peacefully

    How to Let Go of a Past Relationship: 10 Steps to Move On Peacefully

    “The amount of happiness that you have depends on the amount of freedom you have in your heart.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    Nine years ago my heart was in a million little pieces that formed the basis for a million regrets.

    I had my first serious relationship in college, when all my insecurities came to a head. My ex-boyfriend had to juggle multiple roles, from therapist to cheerleader to babysitter.

    The whole relationship revolved around holding me up. I realized this soon after it ended—that I’d spent three years expecting someone else to love me when I didn’t love myself. The guilt and shame kept me single for almost a decade.

    I dated, but it was always casual. I’d start getting close to someone and then find a way to sabotage it.

    Long after I let go of the man, feelings about the relationship held me back. I was afraid of being vulnerable. I was afraid of being hurt. But mostly I was afraid of hurting someone else again and having to live with that.

    If you’ve been holding onto an old relationship, now is the perfect time to let go. Here’s how you can start moving on. (more…)