Tiny Buddha

Tag: breakup

  • When You Reframe Your Breakup as an Opportunity, Everything Changes

    When You Reframe Your Breakup as an Opportunity, Everything Changes

    “Sometimes the most uncomfortable learning is the most powerful.” ~Brené Brown

    Seems impossible, doesn’t it?

    How can you look at your breakup as an opportunity when it feels like someone cut your right arm off and ripped out your heart?

    Breakups can be rough. When you open yourself up to another person, love them unconditionally, and compromise your own needs for the “betterment of the relationship,” you put yourself all-in. It’s no surprise that you feel lost, confused, and unwilling to move on when that connection is torn away from you. You gave everything to your relationship and now it’s gone. Forever.

    Breakups have taught me something that I never learned in school: I’ve learned that losing love is hard. Brutally hard. I experienced more pain after the toughest breakup of my life than completing an engineering degree, doing standup comedy for the first time, and walking 400 kilometers in two weeks with 50 pounds on my back. When I lost my soul mate, I didn’t know how I was going to move on.

    At first, I didn’t. I did everything I could do to escape, suppress, and avoid my feelings. I wasn’t nice to my body. I cried in the shower. I hid in the park close to my apartment since I was still living with my ex for a month after the breakup.

    It was my “grieving period.” We all need one after a breakup. But although we all need different lengths of time to grieve, it’s important to put a time limit on it. Since I knew I was going to be living with my ex until we got our arrangements sorted out, I decided that I was going to give myself that month to grieve. And grieve, I did! I was a drunk, unproductive puddle of sadness.

    Eventually I said goodbye to my ex, my cat, and my apartment. I cried on the metro on the way to my buddy’s condo. That first night away from the place I’d called home for years was brutal. But I knew my grieving period was over in the morning. And the next day, I got to work.

    The road to recovery wasn’t easy. There were many ups and downs. But I stayed focused on letting go and moving on in the healthiest way I could.

    That was two years ago, and I’m proud to say that I did let go and move on from the toughest breakup of my life. I’m a better version of myself today than I’ve ever been and I’m still a work in progress. We all are.

    When I was recovering from my breakup, I did a lot of “reframing.” I tried looking at things through new perspectives so I could develop more understanding and empathy, for my ex and for myself. Today, with the advantage of hindsight, I can put my finger on an idea, or reframe, that helped me start moving on faster:

    Breakups are an end, but they are also an opportunity for a fresh start.

    First, a breakup is the end. Accept it. If you’re reading this and thinking, “Maybe I can still get my ex back if I just do this…” then you’re reading the wrong article. Because if your mind is set on getting your ex back, this is not your new beginning. At best it’s a rerun of the same show that’s been playing for too long.

    Because guess what? When a breakup happens and people get back together, usually they break up again. And again. And again. The chances that you’ll get back with your ex and everything will improve and they’ll change into the perfect partner is as likely as me playing first base for the Yankees.

    But just because you accept this as the end of your relationship doesn’t make it a negative experience. Most things come to an end in our lives—jobs, friendships, lives, your favorite Netflix series, the tub of cookie dough ice cream in your freezer (okay, in my freezer).

    When one door closes another opens. You just have to have the guts to lock the old door behind you and walk through the new one.

    I realized that my breakup was my opportunity to:

    • Do things I’d wanted to do for a long time but hadn’t because I had a partner to consider in every decision I made.
    • Peel back the layers and look within myself to see where I was going wrong in my romantic relationships, and most importantly, how I could improve so that I would be better in my next relationship.
    • Reconnect with friends and family who had been relegated to the sidelines for five years because my relationship consumed a lot of time and energy.
    • Meet new people and get excited about a fresh chance at love.
    • Inspire other people to get over their breakups without the typical clichés and bad advice.

    Let’s face it, you’re here on Tiny Buddha because you’re interested in self-improvement and self-growth. You’re on a journey toward becoming a better version of yourself. That’s why if you’re struggling to let go and move on after a breakup, you need to reframe it right now so you can continue on your journey.

    You need to tell yourself this is your opportunity to become better. This is your chance to fix things that went wrong in your past relationship so next time you don’t end up with a partner who isn’t right for you.

    Remember, relationships end for a reason.

    You and your ex had your problems. Sure, you had love and a deep connection, but did you also have rock-solid communication, clear boundaries, and unwavering honesty? Did you share the same core values?

    I’ll say it again: relationships end for a reason. And when it happens, it’s okay. Your ex wasn’t the only person on the planet who is capable of loving you. On the contrary, if you use your breakup as an opportunity to improve things about yourself, you will attract a partner with whom you’ll find so much more love and connection that you’ll wonder how you lasted as long as you did in your past relationship.

    That’s what life is all about. None of us get things right on the first go. Finding a soul mate is no different than learning a new language or getting in shape. You have to practice. Look at your ex and breakup as a practice round. Because of that relationship, you’re stronger, smarter, and more prepared for the next one.

    This is your time. It’s your opportunity to sort through your past relationship issues and figure out how to be better.

    Because no matter what, we all play a role in our breakups. Even if you were lied to, cheated on, duped, or betrayed, you still played a role. That might be hard to hear, but it’s true. My mom always said, “It takes two to tango.” And my mom ain’t no fool.

    I had to get comfortable with my role in my breakup, too. I was no angel.

    I had to accept that I hadn’t been true to my core values. I wanted children, my ex didn’t. Still, I put that to the side because we were in love. I also realized I had a lingering fear of commitment. I was still battling with jealousy and insecurity issues even though I thought I’d left them behind in an earlier long-term relationship. It wasn’t easy accepting those things about myself, but when I did I knew exactly where the nuts and bolts needed to be tightened. And I got to work.

    For you, perhaps there were co-dependency issues or a need for validation. Maybe you stayed for the sake of the children, the dog, or the mortgage. Who knows. But I do know that you played a role and you need to accept that before you can move on.

    Looking in the mirror and accepting the not-so-good things about ourselves is difficult. People resist peeling back the layers of their personality because it means leaving themselves vulnerable and exposed.

    But you’re different. You understand the importance and power of vulnerability. And your breakup is the best chance you might ever have to rebuild yourself in the image that makes you feel like the confident champion you dream of being.

    I know your breakup sucks. I know you miss your ex and still have love for them. I know it’s hard looking to the future and wondering if you’ll ever meet your true soul mate.

    Remember: the greatest opportunities for growth in our lives come when we’re the most uncomfortable. And a tough breakup takes us way outside our comfort zones.

    That discomfort is your opportunity. Accept it, embrace it, and cherish it. Big breakups don’t come around often. This is an exciting time! You’ve proven to yourself that you’re brave enough to take a risk on love. Just because the relationship is over doesn’t take away that bravery. Now it’s time to be courageous in the face of adversity.

    And guess what? If you can shake off your breakup in a productive, healthy way, it’ll build new skills and resilience for the next time a difficult, unexpected life event happens. Jobs will be lost. Friends will drift away. People will die. Change is inevitable in your life. Now is your opportunity to prepare yourself for those times that will come whether you like it or not.

    A breakup is your opportunity to show everyone around you—friends, family, colleagues—how gritty you can be. It’s going to be hard work. It’s never easy coming to terms with our limiting beliefs, fears, and ghost in our closets.

    You have an important choice to make:

    You can choose to sit in your basement waiting for “time to heal” and hoping that by some miracle you’ll get better.

    Or you can choose to look at your breakup as an opportunity to improve the way you show up in your relationships so you can attract the right type of person into your life.

    You will let go and you will move on. But you have to start, today. The last thing you want is to look back on this moment and realize you waited too long to accept this as your opportunity. Time is too precious to waste feeling stuck.

  • Why I Got Caught Up in the Drama of an On-and-Off Relationship

    Why I Got Caught Up in the Drama of an On-and-Off Relationship

    “One reason people resist change is because they focus on what they have to give up instead of what they have to gain.” ~Rick Godwin

    Dave and I met earlier this January. I was immediately attracted to his aquamarine eyes and his tattoos. I met him on the eve of my twenty-sixth birthday and, based on our interaction, I assumed we’d have a casual fling. Things didn’t end that simply, to my surprise.

    When we were lying in bed together that first night, holding hands, he turned to me and asked if there was any chance we could get to know one another without sleeping with other people.

    This was strange to hear, but as a single woman in Los Angeles, I felt as though I had stumbled across some sort of rare species of man who was actually interested in pursuing a commitment without me having to do much.

    A part of me felt caught off guard and suspicious, considering I’d made it clear that this was just supposed to be a hook up. On the other hand, it was kind of nice that someone who I was incredibly attracted to wanted to get to know me exclusively. In retrospect, I realized that it filled me with this feeling of warmth that I’d been deprived of before I’d met him.

    Within five days, Dave asked me to be his girlfriend. Although I found his eagerness to jump into a relationship to be a bit off, I agreed because I liked him and wanted to go with the flow.

    The first few weeks were amazing, as we shared intimate conversations, romantic outings in Los Angeles, amazing sex, gifts, and the beginning of what felt like something that could blossom into a true partnership. However, the passion was intense, and we hadn’t had much time to develop authentic trust. It became increasingly evident to me that this relationship would be a ticking time bomb.

    Within a month and a half, I was overwhelmed with Dave’s jealousy, suspiciousness, and paranoia. He was becoming increasingly controlling and accusatory toward me.

    I was incredibly loyal to him and began to resent feeling like I was always doing something wrong when I was trying my best to be a good girlfriend. His gifts started to seem like a farce—like he had simply gotten me them to possess me instead of genuinely liking me for who I was.

    I broke up with him a few times because I couldn’t tolerate his jealousy and the way he degraded me. However, I would go back to him because I’d remember the good times and was becoming addicted to the kind of intensity he provided for me.

    I would question myself and think perhaps I was being too critical; after all, no one was perfect, and I should be flattered that someone was evidently so invested in me. I was in it too deep to see things clearly and make the right decision.

    When he and I would split, I’d attempt to get out there and date others, but no one was able to elicit the same warmth and stimulation I’d felt from him. So I’d go back to him. Just three months into this, we’d already established an on-and-off relationship that began to deteriorate my mental, emotional, and physical health.

    The fourth and final time we broke up ended with him yelling at me in public. I had wanted to leave a particular bar because I’d had an anxiety attack, and he accused me of wanting to exit because of “some guy” there. He was totally delusional. There was no guy in the bar I was trying to hide from him.

    I remembered chasing Dave after he’d stormed out from the bar and thrown money at me, demanding I take a bus back to my house. I was actually crying on the street chasing him while he yelled at me! I hated myself and the woman I’d regressed to.

    For comedic relief, there were two women watching us fight, standing outside a movie theater eating popcorn.

    “Don’t chase him, girl,” they told me. “He’s mean. Look at how he’s yelling at you. You deserve better.” Dave cussed at the girls before running off. I stopped chasing him. I came to my senses. It was brutal, but I realized that this relationship just wasn’t worth all the pain anymore.

    Part of me hates myself for letting myself get involved in such a clearly self-destructive relationship. I would like to say that this is my first on-and-off relationship, but it isn’t. Based off my experiences and observations, it seems like once you’ve been in one on-and-off relationship, you’re prone to more.

    Why couldn’t I just walk away the first time I broke up with this guy? Why do we get hooked on the drama of on-and-off relationships? Here are some theories I’ve formed.

    1. Life wasn’t much better before.

    Looking back, I recognize that I wasn’t in a solid place in my life before I met Dave. I was bored and at a crossroads with my career. I was highly susceptible to getting caught up in something like this because I was unhappy with my life and the drama provided both stimulation and a nice distraction.

    2. Pain felt familiar and comfortable to me.

    Even though Dave had shown me his mean streak within a month of dating, I stuck with it thinking I deserved it and that I should endure it for the greater good. My parents often shamed, invalidated, and criticized me when I was growing up, and as an adult I’ve been attracted to partners who do the same.

    3. I wasn’t clear on my deal breakers.

    I knew I was turned off by extreme jealousy, but I didn’t know it was a deal breaker for me at the time. Now, looking back, the deal breaker I’ve settled on is being degraded or humiliated for someone else’s uncontrollable jealousy.

    4. I developed an addiction to him and the drama.

    I’d become addicted to Dave, the sex, and the whole act of reconciling. There’s something intoxicating about the highs that follow the lows. It’s a cycle many are familiar with, and I am one of the lucky ones that got out of this relationship before it became even more destructive.

    —

    Now that I’m armed with this knowledge, I’m going to focus on understanding and working on my masochistic behavior. I’m going to get more clarity on what my deal breakers are and make sure to end things once I feel someone isn’t respecting them.

    I’m sure there are some on-and-off relationships that end up working out, but in my experience, the whole act of repeatedly getting back together and breaking up undermines trust. I’d love to hear any experiences you’ve had with on-and-off relationships and any insights you’ve formed.

  • Healing, Forgiving, and Loving After a Painful Break Up

    Healing, Forgiving, and Loving After a Painful Break Up

    “People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. When you figure out which it is, you will know exactly what to do.” ~Anonymous

    About five years ago, I learned the biggest lesson of my life about self-love and losing oneself in a relationship, through a breakup that almost killed me.

    After going through another night of three hours of sleep, I drove myself to the ER to save my own life. I hadn’t eaten or slept much in three weeks, and the scale pointed to ninety-seven pounds. I felt weak, malnourished, and unloved.

    Three weeks prior to that morning, I had found out that the love of my life, whom I had to break up with in March 2013, had started dating the girl we’d had the most painful fights over.

    He’d met her at a party when I was visiting family and continued flirting with her, despite saying he chose me. Though he would have been happy to stay in a relationship with me, I knew I couldn’t be with someone who openly flirted other women.

    When I learned he was now dating her, I heard a thump on my heart. Literally. It ached sharply as if there was a chestnut-sized rock sitting in the middle of it, vibrating strongly in response to a transmitter signal far, far away. I half-died that day.

    As I climbed back up from that point, I discovered truths about love, forgiveness, and healing.

    Maybe you are in the middle of such a painful breakup, or maybe you are in the aftermath of a breakup that left you shattered and undone. You are sitting on a ball of emotions you don’t know how to unravel.

    Although I can’t give you a personalized plan to heal and grow from your experience, I can share some pointers, as someone who is on the other side of it all, looking back over the five years of her recovery. These ideas may help you fine-tune your own healing process.

    1. Don’t make an event your whole life story.

    What I learned about letting go is that the pain starts changing form into wisdom when we make a decision to not make one specific event from the past our whole story.

    Instead of thinking your life is over because you’ve lost this one relationship, gain a broader perspective and try to see the breakup as valuable to your personal growth.

    The purpose of the pain was to reveal what needed healing and to gain the wisdom you will need further along your path. A relationship that taught you something about how to love and be loved is a win. A relationship full of mistakes but expanded by wisdom and forgiveness is a successful one.

    We are story-making machines. It is natural to make a recent event the focus of our current experience. But your story is not over. You are still writing your story with the choices you make today.

    2. To heal, you have to  be an active participant in your life.

    People often say, “Just let it go. Let the past stay in the past,” but this is misleading. Letting go isn’t as easy as turning off a switch or erasing words off a whiteboard.

    I didn’t know what letting go meant. As far as I was concerned, that part of my life was still alive in me, balled up and tangled. Every time I heard those words, I pictured removing an organ out of my body. That didn’t make sense. I wondered how other people let go and why I couldn’t just let go and live happily ever after.

    Here is what I discovered: You are never going to forget those relationships with deep soul connections. You just won’t be dwelling on them daily when you are busy exploring life and the depths of your own inner being.

    You don’t need to have forgiven or be completely healed to participate in life around you. I spent a year and a half in isolation. Nothing healed. Not even a feather moved during that time. My healing didn’t start till I started living.—by volunteering, going on lunch dates with friends, and going to events to meet new people. Sometimes letting go means simply living a full life, without the other person.

    3. Allow for forgiveness to unfold in its own time.

    I must admit, making the choice to forgive was not easy, but being patient while the process took place was even harder. Letting go, forgiving, and healing from a relationship is not like hitting a reset button. It takes time to build up the courage to face that buried pain and allow it to leave you. And sometimes, before we can forgive, we need time to experience enough joy and connection with others to dilute the pain of how we were hurt.

    Forgiveness is about digesting pain into wisdom. Into acceptance. Into compassion. Into an expanded heart that can hold space for it all. It is not about living like nothing painful happened, because life does not stop for us to heal. Flowers still bloom and the sun comes out every day. We heal while we take in more of life. The death-rebirth cycle in nature that exists in life also exists within us. It is a never-ending cycle.

    As I started opening up to new experiences and actually living, I allowed new insights to come in. My heart had time to breathe. I put myself in his shoes. I asked myself, “What would I do if the person I loved but kept hurting unintentionally left me when I didn’t want the relationship to end?”

    When I eventually developed enough courage to admit that I would have gone onto the next best thing (the other girl) to ease the pain, compassion came. It took me nearly two years to register the depth of his loss and how he must have felt left out in the cold. We all do what we can to find relief from pain, and that was his way. I didn’t need to judge it or to see it as a transgression against me.

    When you want to increase the temperature of water in a bath tub, you don’t take out the cold but add hot water until it reaches your desired temperature. That is how grief, healing, and forgiveness work. Trust your body and soul to hold you through the processing of a whole chapter in your life.

    4. Update your perception on relationships.

    I loved my ex deeply. I can carry that in my heart’s memory and still know that we were teachers to each other who were not destined to be together for a lifetime. I am no longer hurting because of not being with him. I have done my releasing ceremonies and let memories run through my mind, bringing up various emotions—anger, resentment, grief, jealousy, and lots of tears, too. I sat through them. Some of it hasn’t been pretty.

    We are taught that a ‘good relationship’ is one that lasts a lifetime. If it didn’t last, we believe that it was a failure. If we have several ‘failed relationships‘ behind us, we assume that it is because we are just unlovable. Success seems to be the most prized value in our modern society. But wisdom through experience can be even more valuable.

    I realized that the way I had been viewing relationships was outdated. What if relationships were intensive training programs for our souls to learn about love? What if they were the perfect set up to practice being loving, kind, understanding, forgiving, and accepting both toward ourselves and the other person?

    If you learned the lessons you needed to, the relationship was a success, whether it lasted three months, three years, or for decades. Take your wins and carry them forward with pride. You are a survivor. No one can take that away from you.

    —

    I am now in a relationship that is continuously growing and teaching me more about love than any book on the planet could. I am in love and enjoying practicing new ways of doing relationships.

    I have spent time and energy recognizing how I put up walls, respond from a place of immaturity when I feel hurt, or disregard my partner’s needs because my inner child was triggered into her pain.

    I’ve learned to give him space, to do things that make me happy, to recognize and own my projections, and to practice self-love so I don’t expect it all to come from him. These were some of my mistakes in past relationships. I had to get honest with myself, own them, and work on them.

    Our love is not fickle; it is resilient because we both are. I found out that two people who have walked through fire and excavated their soul truths with their bare hands create a relationship that can stand the test of time and the tricks of their own egos. I can’t know for certain this relationship will last forever, but I now know all relationships are valuable and there there is life after a breakup.

  • The Top 7 Reasons We Stay in Bad Relationships

    The Top 7 Reasons We Stay in Bad Relationships

    “Some of us think that holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.” ~Hermann Hesse

    She knew it sooner than I did. And more intensely than I did.

    I, on the other hand, may have considered our differences but never thought of them as deal-breakers. I tried to justify the many struggles we had between us and believed that our marriage could work despite the challenges.

    I had this feeling things would get better and stayed hopeful no matter how bad our relationship got.

    I told myself that her extraverted personality and my more introversion could work together. And that her more social and outgoing nature and my more private and homebound inclinations were just minor differences.

    I believed it was both of us trying to settle into our professional careers that led to our conflicts. Or maybe, it was moving away from California so she could complete her professional training that put pressure on our relationship. Or it was because we didn’t have a support system that we weren’t getting along.

    In retrospect, if I’m being completely objective, I can see there were problems.

    There were fights and disagreements that would have landed us on a reality TV show.

    There were days of not talking and threats of leaving regularly.

    There were instances where we ignored each other’s feelings and preferences in our life goals. There was a lack of understanding and compassion for each other.

    Yet, we stayed together for years, and even after our separation, I still didn’t want this relationship to end.

    Even after our divorce, I was hopeful.

    Was this the optimist in me?

    Was I being delusional?

    Are you too wondering why you’re stuck in a relationship that isn’t working and bad for your spirit?

    You may feel the dysfunction on a daily basis and feel frustrated with the constant fights and disagreements.

    Are you wondering why you’re having trouble letting go when the person you’re with isn’t the right person for you? Are you wondering why you’re stuck in dysfunctional and unhealthy relationship? And even worse, not doing anything about it?

    Here are top seven reasons we stay in bad relationships.

    1. We have grown accustomed to people who treat us badly.

    Those of us who grew up in abusive or hurtful households feel used to complicated love.

    We begin to believe that people who hurt us are the ones who truly love us.

    We have learned that it’s okay to be treated poorly, to not have boundaries, and to feel hurt by other people’s behavior.

    Others have taught us that it’s acceptable to accept abuse and dysfunction. We not only can tolerate it but have to come to view this is as normal.

    2. We prefer bad relationships over the unknown.

    This is the biggest reason most of us stay in dysfunctional, hurtful relationships.

    We may despise the person and the relationship, but we hate uncertainty and change more.

    Our brains are simply not wired for changed circumstances.

    We would suffer any amount of pain to avoid dealing with the unknown in the future.

    3. We prefer a bad relationship over being alone.

    We can’t stand being alone.

    We can’t imagine a life by ourselves.

    We see ourselves with cats, other lonely people, and silent walks in the park.

    We hear silence, see no one, and feel like disappearing from earth altogether.

    The alternative we imagine of being without someone feels hopeless and scary.

    4. We don’t value ourselves.

    We have a low sense of self-worth and don’t believe in ourselves.

    When we find people who tear us down and bring us down, we take comfort in their behavior because it confirms our beliefs about ourselves.

    We are open to people treating us badly because we are used to treating ourselves badly by talking down to ourselves, criticizing ourselves, and hurting ourselves.

    We don’t believe we are worth the time and attention of someone kinder and more compassionate toward us. We may even fear being treated well because we don’t trust that we deserve it or that it will last.

    5. We feel rejected, dejected, inspected, and tossed to the sharks.

    Ending a relationship, no matter how good or bad it was, makes us feel unwanted.

    It hits at our self-esteem and self-worth.

    It makes us feel unwanted and unworthy.

    Many of us felt unwanted or abandoned in our childhood, and ending a relationship in adulthood brings all our old feelings to the surface.

    We’d rather stay with someone than fall into a sinkhole of unworthiness, never knowing if we can pick up your self-esteem again.

    6. We feel out of place and out of sorts.

    We don’t know what our place or role in the world is anymore.

    We are no longer the husband, wife, partner of so and so.

    We lose half of our family and friends, our ex’s family and friends.

    We don’t know what to say to people at dinner parties, work, or any other social situation.

    Our society tends to put an emphasis on couples, so without a partnership we become lost and on the outside of everyday life.

    We become talked about, and our relationship status seems to be at the center of attention.

    7. We don’t believe there’s anyone else out there for us.

    A big part of why we’d rather stay together is that we doubt we could ever find someone nearly as compatible again.

    How do we know we can date again? How do we know someone else will find us attractive again? How do we know if love will strike again in the future?

    Instead of uncertainty of a day that may never come and a love that may never bloom, we choose to stay with the person we’ve already found.

    —

    Instead of hanging on to a relationship that is bad for your heart and soul, consider the possibility of moving on, grieving, and letting go of this relationship that isn’t working.

    Trust your gut, know that this relationship isn’t right, and act on your inner knowing.

    Look at the relationship objectively, as I wish I did sooner, and make the decision to walk away before things get any worse. As much as you would like it to get better, if neither of you are working on the relationship, or if you’re just not right for each other, it will not improve.

    Know that brighter days are ahead if you release this person and the unhealthy relationship from your life. You can get through this breakup, as you’ve likely done many times in your life, and can move on from this relationship.

    Brighter days mean being alone sometimes; it means finding peace; it means getting to know yourself and eventually finding yourself in a healthy and fulfilling relationship.

    So many people have gone through heartbreak, have lost that one special person, and have gone on to find the right one.

    Uncertainty after ending a bad relationship is uncomfortable but better than the comfort of dysfunction.

    Letting go and ending this relationship is risky, but with great risk come life’s greatest rewards.

    One day of peace and comfort by yourself is worth a thousand days being in a relationship that is suffocating and dysfunctional.

    Instead of showering love on someone who can’t reciprocate, consider giving yourself that love.

    Open your heart to yourself, speak gently to yourself, do nice things for yourself, make your life comfortable and relaxed.

    Cultivate an inner sanctuary of silence, compassion, peace, and acceptance of yourself, perhaps through yoga, meditation, or spending time in nature, or by seeing a therapist to work through the core wounds from your childhood.

    Work on spiritual practices that help you accept yourself for who you are and be comfortable in your own body without needing to be with someone. This could include breath work, affirmations, journaling, or even some form or art.

    Finally, remember, your ex has helped you grow and lead you to the place you are today, but it’s not healthy to keep them in your journey to the end.

    Letting go of your ex allows you to pick up the journey on your own for a bit so you can grow stronger and be better prepared for healthy, happy relationships in the future.

    After your own solo travels, you can find another love that will help you grow as a person and further reach your potential as a human being. Or will allow you to discover who you are so you can live an honest and authentic life, which will lead you to rich experiences, spiritual growth, and deeper friendships.

    Losing this unhealthy relationship doesn’t mean your world has ended and there will never be someone out there again for you.

    Ending this relationship will open the realm of possibilities for authentic relationships, healthy love, and true happiness.

  • Easing a Broken Heart: 5 Ways to Reframe Rejection

    Easing a Broken Heart: 5 Ways to Reframe Rejection

    “When the wrong people leave your life, the right things start to happen.” ~Zig Ziglar

    The end of a relationship triggers many grief emotions, but when a couple breaks up because one person decides that it’s over, there is a very distinct pain: the sting of rejection. It doesn’t matter whether things had been difficult for some time or if the split came out of the blue; either way, rejection feels cruel.

    At the end of my marriage eight years ago, I had no idea that the breakup was coming. On top of the shock that the relationship was suddenly over, I carried the intense and overwhelming feeling of rejection; I was no longer valued, wanted, or needed.

    Rejection can trigger feelings of shame, low self-esteem. and diminished confidence as well as helplessness and victimization. If you are left for another person (which was my experience) the intensity of rejection increases further. I experienced anger and resentment about betrayal; this makes healing feel much harder than in those cases where a decision to split is mutual.

    When I began move through my initial grief, I found that the biggest shift in moving forward came through changing how I viewed rejection. I realized that by identifying with the feeling of rejection I was telling myself that something was wrong with me; that the marriage was over because I hadn’t come up to scratch and, therefore, needed to be let go.

    Of course, this was not true but in the mind of the injured party, it was natural to feel this way. By shifting my perspective, I eventually began to realize that my husband’s decision to leave was not a reflection on me.

    It is always hugely important to acknowledge and process feelings of grief; reframing is not about burying your emotions. However, as I’ve learned from my experience, rather than simply waiting for time to be your healer, you can move through pain far sooner and more effectively by viewing your situation in a different way.

    Here are five ways I helped myself reframe the rejection.

    1. It’s not necessarily about you.

    It’s almost impossible not to take rejection personally. My ex-husband said he left because he wasn’t getting what he needed from our relationship; he needed to follow his “truth,” which no longer included me. His narrative of the breakup became about my inability to be what he needed.

    This is where shame really kicks in. Rejection tells you that you weren’t enough to keep your partner from leaving and, in some cases, you’ve been replaced with someone who can make them happy.

    But what if it’s not all you? As personal and hurtful as the rejection feels, sometimes it happens because the other person is unable to give enough or be enough of what the relationship needs. When someone is unable to love you fully, they will either reject you, or stay in the relationship and treat you badly or indifferently enough until you decide to end it.

    We are all human and it’s very rare that one person is flawless within a relationship. I felt far less rejected when I realized that my ex-husband had his own considerable struggles and issues that led him to choose to leave; it wasn’t all about me.

    2. Relationships are assignments.

    There is a spiritual school of thought that views the people in our lives as lessons. The theory goes that we meet no one by accident; we are all in relationship to further our growth and deepen our connection to ourselves and the universe/each other. Partnerships with a significant other are huge vehicles for growth, but when the learning has gone as far as it can go with one person, it must end.

    Sometimes people leave our lives naturally and comfortably, other times we face the pain of rejection. The lesson is not always obvious at first, especially through the pain of grief, but what is initially perceived as rejection can also be viewed as a release from a completed assignment and an opportunity to learn.

    Consider that you still have much more to achieve with your life, and maybe your partner was not the person to show you the way. Perhaps being released from your relationship will allow you to find what you really need to become the person you are meant to be.

    This reframe can be wonderfully comforting if you choose to find love again in the future. If you learn your difficult lessons from the old relationship, you will grow, and the person you share the next stage of your path with will bring more fulfilment and easier challenges.

    3. Change the ending.

    When someone chooses to leave you, they not only decide that the relationship is over, they also determine “the story” of why it ended. So, why did my marriage end? The event that ultimately broke us apart was his leaving to be with someone else. However, on another level, there was more to it than that.

    I had changed within the marriage; I had been working through a deep personal issue a year or so previously, and had come out of the other side stronger, more content with life, and ready for a happier future with our family. I had grown, but my husband had not changed with me.

    When I became aware of this, I started to view the ending as less about rejection and more about an incompatibility between who we both were. It was an empowering reframe because it allowed me to feel far less victimized. The way he ended the marriage was not excusable, but it held far less of an emotional grip over me.

    Think about ways that you might have been rejected, not for anything you did “wrong,” but for something that altered the nature of the relationship.

    • Did you refuse to have your boundaries crossed or to put up with certain behavior?
    • Have you changed for the better in a way that your ex-partner could not handle?
    • Were you simply yourself and refused to change to please them?

    If you can view the ending in a way that empowers you, even a little bit, it can really ease your pain.

    4. Remember you are still whole.

    The feeling of rejection is greatly fuelled by the beautiful, romantic idea that two people “complete” each other. The conclusion is quite demoralizing; are we are no longer complete because someone doesn’t want us? What is our role in life now that we are not required to complete the other person?

    Losing a partner is painful and the grief of loss is real, but the pain is heightened and prolonged unnecessarily when we believe that we have been rejected by “the other half of ourselves.” It can feel like life has no purpose or meaning anymore. When I began to accept that I was still whole and valuable, it took away the feeling of despair that I was somehow diminished and “less than” because my husband had decided to walk away.

    5. Focus on gratitude.

    I love using gratitude as a tool for helping to shift into a more positive state of mind. Admittedly, in the early days of grieving, it’s not easy to feel grateful for anything at all, so I found it easier to start with making a list each day of the small blessings in my life—the day-to-day things we usually take for granted. I really recommend this as a practice.

    As your mindset starts to shift, you will come to realize that there are genuine reasons to be grateful that you were rejected. Mine included:

    • Finding out about my husband’s affair and my divorce. Who knows how long I could have remained unaware, believing my marriage was something it wasn’t?
    • The chance to learn to value myself more highly and to become aware of how resilient I am.
    • The new life opportunities which came my way once I began to see the loss as an opportunity to have a better life; I know for certain that I would not have the career, and sense of purpose which I have now, without that crisis in my life.
    • The chance to understand myself more fully and begin a new healthier and happier relationship.

    A heart broken by rejection can be a perfect example of a blessing in disguise. The best way to move forward is to allow yourself to feel the pain, then go on to reframe the loss as an opportunity. Trust that the right things will start to come!

  • He Left, But I Will Not Give Up On Myself

    He Left, But I Will Not Give Up On Myself

    “I now see how owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do. “ ~Brené Brown

    He just left our home.

    After eighteen years together, fifteen of them being married, he left as we had planned, as we had gently and lovingly discussed.

    We are on a break, a trial separation. What you hear about separation and divorce is all so achingly true. It feels like a death, a chasm where all the worst feelings imaginable pile in on you, where you can’t quite breathe right.

    The pain is visceral—like someone sliced right through your core, the heartache deep enough to make the bones ache, the weariness that makes your head feel heavy and weighted, the primal twists in your gut that cannot be fully appreciated until they are forced upon you unexpectedly.

    My eyes are completely dried out and sore, begging for a reprieve from the ocean of tears.

    I did not see this coming. I wasn’t blindsided completely, as there have been whispers and ghosts of unpleasant truths that had been squashed down for years: all those inner, intimate workings of a marriage that didn’t always flow smoothly, undetectable to the outside world. The ebbs and flows, the dark thoughts that sprout up on a sleepless night, a human experience in all its shared, bumpy glory.

    Through all that, there was purity and goodness, what makes a marriage so rewarding and rich: a deeply rooted friendship, strong as anything I have ever felt with someone in my life. I was connected, heard, understood.

    I had a witness to my life’s journey in all its madness, monotony, and triumph. My person. My love. The person who got it without having to say a word. That steady presence even when we were physically apart. I felt secure and safe, and my feet were firmly planted on the ground.

    So much time, so much history, so much togetherness feels like it has been wiped out in the span of a few months. It disappeared up in smoke with only the ashes to remain. I am untethered, rudderless, a sail desperately trying to right itself in the tempest.

    There is no faultfinding, no hatred, just a crushing sadness with a generous dose of regret. Regret for all the times we didn’t tune into each other or communicate when things urgently needed to be said and handled with proper care. Care that would heal wounds instead of allowing them to fester.

    Regret for retreating into our respective corners and hiding, survival skills carried over from tumultuous childhoods. We landed in the gray area of life where feelings subtly shift over time and don’t course correct in healthy ways.

    That dreaded place where human emotions get murky, cloudy, and raw, allowing vulnerability and disconnect to cause you to do things you never thought you would. In turn, you make futile efforts for control when there is none. You don’t want to let go but you must. Your hands are too raw and bloody from the struggle to hang on for dear life. I know what it means to surrender now.

    It is gone. I am unsure it will ever be back. If it comes back, I hope it is stronger and more lovingly powerful than before, impenetrable from any slings and arrows that may try to dent and poison it. We will nourish and nurture it to make it right, whole, solid—not let it wither away so easily on the vine.

    I won’t mind the battle scars, as they will serve to remind me of what we can endure, how we cope, how we survive, and what loss really feels like in your soul. It will remind me to cherish the feeling of home, the safe haven of togetherness. We will mourn the death of our old marriage and pave a path for a new one that is healing, bright, and hopeful, permanently altered for the better.

    Right now, I am alone, terrified, vulnerable, standing on the edge of an abyss. All I have is myself, and I have to believe that I am enough. My mantra is “I will get through this,” and I repeat it often. It comforts me sometimes.

    I know there are things I didn’t want to acknowledge about myself: I became complacent, didn’t take full advantage of my days of freedom, chose the easy way out on many occasions, ignored my creative leanings, and became more dependent than I would ever care to admit.

    I numbed myself with monotony, allowing seemingly benign things from the past to insidiously take root and work their way to the surface, infecting everything in its path.

    Now it is all there, right in front of me, not so much taunting me but in my face, reminding me I have some work to do. Life lessons that need to be understood and imbibed to my core so I don’t keep repeating them. Not to put myself in such a place of insecurity ever again. I must own all of this, my part. Digest it painfully and slowly but knowing it will fortify me in the future.

    Where will I be in six months, a year? How will this unfold? Will I make hugely gratifying changes that smooth everything over? Will he? Will I take this time to get back to myself? Will I be all too human and fail miserably? Will I numb myself yet again to all of this? Maybe. Maybe not. It is unknowable right now.

    I know what I will be doing every day until the answers come. And they will come whether I like them or not. I will get up each morning. I will take care of my body and mind. I will shower, wash my hair, put on makeup, and get dressed.

    I will face the days, whether they feel short and uneventful or impossibly long, full of loneliness, despair, and isolation. I will cry until I feel depleted and then cry again. I will not sleep well. My stomach will feel like someone is gripping it tightly in their fist.

    But I will take long walks, and inhale clean, fresh air. I will try to eat well, be kind to myself, stay open, soft, and not wear bitterness like a mask or feel my chest constrict with impotent rage. I will remember that it is okay to be afraid. I will reach out to people when I need to and be alone when I need to.

    I will try to laugh every day and remember all the good things I have. I will drink red wine and dance spontaneously to remind myself I am alive in this body. I will not give up on myself, though I will want to. I will not break even though I am fragile as fine china. I will throw many balls in the air and see if one lands on a treasured feeling of possibility.

    I will let this exquisite pain be my greatest teacher. I will give it time—that magical elixir that taunts and teases on its own schedule. I will become the woman I know I am deep inside, even though she got lost along the way—the woman of my dreams, who is capable and strong. It has been eighteen years of building one life, and now I will begin building a new one.

    The most important thing I have learned through this period of profound change is that you need to show up for yourself—always. To be your own champion and best friend. To know with absolute certainty that you are the only person you can count on in order to move forward and build the life of your dreams, with or without someone else. And knowing that is worth everything.

  • What Helped Me Move On After Being Cheated On

    What Helped Me Move On After Being Cheated On

    “Sometimes walking away is the only option because you finally respect yourself enough to know that you deserve better.” ~Unknown

    When I was cheated on, I was hit by an ongoing blizzard of conflicting emotions.

    There were the initial tears that I failed to hide from anyone. There was a cold ruthlessness as I told her that I couldn’t be with her after what she did. There was a wave of misery, there was a wave of anger, and all of it was dotted with periodic moments of calm and even gratitude that she was finally out of my life.

    There were also random spikes in my productivity as I sought to get on with my life, followed by horrifying loneliness, feelings of betrayal, doubting my own self-worth, and the inevitable relapse back into misery at the discovery that she had hooked up with the guy she had cheated on me with less than twenty-four hours after I had ended our relationship.

    Grief, I learned, is non-linear. It will go, and it will come back. Sometimes I’ll be perfectly happy doing the food shopping, and get depressed over a memory of us doing it together. There’s no predicting when this will happen.

    It was an ongoing spiral, as we had a number of mutual friends, and on top of that, two of our mutual friends lived right below me, and she would visit them often. So she was sticking to my life like gum in hair. There was no escape.

    It wasn’t the first time that she had cheated on me. On the first occasion, the man in question told me that my girlfriend had justified her actions by saying that I had hit her.

    This allegation swept me off my feet. In fact, I was speechless. I mean, it’s one thing to be cheated on, but to have the person I am in love with say a lie like that, something potentially so damaging, it actually broke my heart more than the act of cheating.

    I broke up with her then, and she burst into tears. Her tears were so genuine, the pain of losing me was so obvious, but at the same time contradicted by what she had done.

    The following day she begged me to take her back, and with tears streaming down her face she told me that she had been manipulated, and that the other man had made up all that stuff about me hitting her just to split us up. And she seemed so genuine. I took her back.

    Things proceeded as they had before, both of us determined to put this into the past and move on together, into a bright future. We got a place together, and poured all of our efforts into making it our dream home.

    At some point she lost her job, but I told her to leave the rent to me, since we were partners and money shouldn’t come between us. And during the months that I was supporting us both financially, she cheated on me again, this time with a guy who she insisted was just a friend.

    In the past I had noticed a lot of flirting between them, but she had always told me that I was being paranoid, and hanging on to what had happened in the past. It was like my memory of the first guy had been weaponized to use against me if I dared mention that she was making me uncomfortable with her flirtatious behaviour toward her new guy.

    When it came to light that there was more between them than she was letting on, I ended things, and instantly fell down this well of despair.

    Several of our friends had given me plenty of emotional validation in the sense that I had treated her perfectly, and that anyone in their right mind would be appreciative. But at the initial time of heartbreak, such words do little to stand against the relationship grieving process.

    Our mutual friends informed me that she was officially dating this guy less than twenty-four hours after I ended the relationship. That was expected but painful. What wasn’t expected was the revelation that there was a third occasion where she cheated, in the months in between the two that I knew about.

    This was with a friend who she had mysteriously fallen out with, and urged me not to speak to. We had mutual friends who knew about this third occurrence, but had kept silent in the hopes that my girlfriend would tell me.

    When this all came out, I did speak to this mysterious third person, and found out the horrifying realization that my girlfriend had also told this person that I had hit her. What a coincidence.

    This statement not only hurt, but it unravelled all of the trust she’d rebuilt with me when she convinced me that the first guy was lying and had manipulated her. Now it not only hurt to have my partner lie about me, but I learned that she was lying to me, too.

    Her mysterious fall out with her friend was caused by her refusal to leave me, her friend feeling led on, and when confronted by why she wouldn’t leave me, giving the explanation that as long as she stayed with me she could live somewhere rent-free.

    Cue emotional tidal wave. I mean, this is a lot to process. It was as if the person I had spent every day with was suddenly a completely different person. I had been lying in bed next to a stranger. Behind every “I love you” had been a hidden smirk. I felt like the punchline to a colossal joke that everyone knew about except me.

    I coped badly at first, ending the relationship but being unable to embrace the sudden void of free time, which would otherwise have been spent on her. And in the free time, my mind wandered back to the good times, unable to match the person I had fallen for with the person who I had just broken up with. I couldn’t quite believe that they were the same person.

    I sought out moments where she could have changed, and wondered what had changed her. Had she been manipulated by the people she cheated on me with? I grasped at a lot of straws in a vain attempt at thinking that maybe this relationship was fixable.

    The apartment we had moved into together was our creation, having decorated and furnished it together. It was our dream home. Now it was just mine alone, but haunted by my memory of her presence. And at the core of all of this was my own self-doubt. Had I done enough? Why was I so easy to just casually hurt? Is she evil? Am I just undeserving of love?

    But all of my time wallowing in our apartment alone did give me time to think, and I came to the conclusion that all I had to do was think differently.

    A lot of my trains of thought had elements of truth, but were completely lacking in logic. Here are the things that I told myself in order to move forward.

    Firstly, what was my ideal scenario?

    I was mourning the relationship, but what did I hope to happen as an alternative to what was actually happening? In my head I said, “I would love to have her back, having decided that this guy she’s with isn’t actually that great.” Or better yet, “I would love it if she’d never met him.”

    But you see, even if she had never met him, she’d still be capable of doing what she did. In fact, her repeat offences were proof enough that this was a very real side of her, and I needed to acknowledge that.

    If she’d never met this guy, she would have met another guy. So really what I’m ultimately saying to myself is “I would love it if she was the person I thought she was, and not who she actually is.”

    This can be simplified and translated to “I’m wishing for a different person. A better, more suitable partner, that isn’t her.” This thought came as a shock because at the time I didn’t want to accept it, but it’s the truth—she isn’t suitable for me.

    So secondly, what did I actually lose?

    On the surface, it’s easy to say that I lost my girlfriend to another man. This isn’t the case. All I lost is time out of my life that I had spent committed to the wrong person. I didn’t lose the relationship because it was a lie. And I was losing more time out of my life by fixating on it. Again, it’s a harsh truth but one I had to accept.

    So thirdly, it was time to address my own thoughts of self-doubt.

    Was there self-esteem to be recovered?

    I told myself repeatedly that I’d failed her, and that I wasn’t enough, while those who had seen our relationship grow and collapse had reassured me that I had done all that I could. How does one get out of this rut of self-doubt?

    A friend pointed out that the questions I was asking myself, such as “Did I do enough?” in spite of its negative tone, revealed a strong commitment to my relationship. When we were together I was doing my best out of fear of not doing enough. My doubts about this now were the exact same caring, positive characteristics that I was proud of when we were together. I had nothing to be ashamed of.

    So my fourth train of thought: Is she evil?

    It’s a perfectly rational conclusion to come to. Logic would say that if the blame isn’t on me then it must be on her. At first it feels great to say that she’s evil. Misery transformed into anger works, for a little while. But it isn’t productive, nor is it healthy. And I had to come to the hard conclusion that no, she wasn’t evil. In fact, when I last met her, she was downright miserable.

    I asked her, “Why aren’t you happy? You got everything you wanted. You got the guy you wanted, you got rid of the guy you didn’t want. You still have your family and your friends. I just get to live alone in the home we decorated together, with all of our memories.”

    Okay, so I was slightly bitter when I said those things, but one look at my former partner revealed that in spite of everything, she wasn’t happy. Nor was she prepared or willing to make amends. She just shook her head sadly and said that she still felt empty. And that’s when I realised that she was very lost too.

    Her cheating on me was not a reflection on me as a person not good enough for her. It was a reflection on her insecurities.

    She was trying to fill a void in her life, and she was making the classic mistake of looking for the answers in other people, but being unsatisfied because the problem was in her. I was just unfortunate to fall into her destructive path, a path that was just as destructive to herself long term as it would be for her short-term partners.

    Maybe she’ll continue this cycle. Maybe her current boyfriend is the one that will snap her out of it. But in that moment I just felt sorry for her.

    I told her goodbye when she confessed that even though I dumped her, she was planning on leaving me for this guy anyway. I may feel sympathy, but I don’t think a sympathetic side should mean that I’ll let her insult me.

    I still know my worth. Many would say that letting her back after the first time was me being a doormat, but I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. I never lost sight of my own worth.

    I think it’s worth pointing out that even though I’m lessening the pain with these lessons, it’s also important to still let myself feel things. Sometimes I’ll be so sure of myself, and then walk past the place where we first met, or something will remind me of her, often something odd and obscure, and tears will form in my eyes. And that’s okay. It’s not the end of the world. The trick is to let myself feel it without letting it hinder my own productivity.

    An important lesson is that it’s okay to be sad.

    It’s hard to display emotions when people throw out phrases like “Man up” and “Get over it.” Phrases like that invalidate emotions that are perfectly valid. Why should I hide my emotions? Something bad happened to me, I sometimes feel sad as a result, and that is 100% okay.

    A friend told me recently, don’t bury it alive. Deconstruct your relationship, through communication and letting your emotions breathe. Give the relationship a metaphorical autopsy. Do not bury it alive, or it will come back to bite.

    The things I tell myself have aided the healing process. They won’t erase the sadness completely, but nor should they. Our emotions are good for us.

    On a final note, one of my areas of concern is my trust issues. I have yet to encounter them because I haven’t yet attempted to get close to someone else, but I know that they’re waiting to pounce on me.

    After what I endured, it would be crazy to assume otherwise. But does this mean I’ll be avoiding relationships altogether? No, it doesn’t. I’m re-writing my train of thought, and as far as I’m concerned, my trust issues are just another part of the screening process. I know what to look out for. I know my worth. I will not be hurt like this again.

  • Why Failed Relationships Aren’t Actually Failures: 5 Lessons on Love That Doesn’t Last

    Why Failed Relationships Aren’t Actually Failures: 5 Lessons on Love That Doesn’t Last

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

    I’ve always loved relationships—the euphoria of early romance, the comfort of built intimacy, and the experience of adventuring through life with someone else. While there are some pretty snazzy parts of being single, I was a sucker for love from a young age.

    Now, I also didn’t meet my fiancé until I was thirty—which means I’ve seen my share of the romantic downside as well. With the highs of love come the lows of romantic breakdown: heartache, loss, and the grief of things not working out. Regardless of how they happen, breakups aren’t easy, and it’s common to think of a relationship’s ending as a failure.

    But is it?

    The dictionary defines failure as “the nonperformance of success or expectation.” If the point of a relationship is to be together until death do us part (or until we ride off into the sunset and the credits roll) then yes, a breakup is not exactly a success.

    But what if that’s not the point? Maybe we can still strive for a love that lasts while reframing our ideas of the loves that didn’t.

    The following is a compilation of lessons I’ve learned from my own “failed” relationships, a mixtape of why “failed” love isn’t actually a failure at all.

    While our definition of that word may vary, I encourage you to read on with an open mind. There just might be more success in your own past than you previously thought.

    1. Relationships teach us about ourselves.

    Whenever one of my previous relationships was coming to an end, it usually began with the finding of incompatibilities—disagreements as small as where to eat or as large as whether or not to have kids.

    The inconsistencies in beliefs often showed me more about myself than they did the other person. I had to date an atheist to find out how much I really wanted to believe in God. I had to date someone who liked to stay home to realize how much I liked being social. While finding these incompatibilities was anything but fun, in retrospect I see they were a map to finding myself.

    2. Relationships show us where we can grow.

    There’s a saying that I’ve always liked: “Relationships pour miracle grow on our character defects.” When I was in a relationship that pushed my buttons, I realized which buttons were there to be pushed: things about myself I wouldn’t have noticed until another person made them glaringly apparent.

    For example, dating someone with a lot of female friends showed me that I was pretty insecure; while at first his social circle seemed to be the problem (how dare he hang out with other women, right?), over time I realized that it was my own self-esteem that needed attention. Although this “button pusher” relationship didn’t stick, it showed me where my work was.

    Through examining my buttons (rather than the button pusher), I was better equipped to do the self-work that would allow me to show up more fully for every future relationship, romantic or not.

    3. Relationships allow us to practice vulnerability.

    It’s pretty scary to open our hearts up to another person. After all, none of us really know what the future holds, right? Those of us who have experienced our fair share of heartache have even more reason to be cautious: We know what it’s like to lay our hearts out on the line and give someone the option of smashing them to smithereens. (While it’s helpful to avoid this heart-smashing type of relationship, it happens to the best of us, and the possibility is always there.)

    Yet, being vulnerable in the face of potential loss is truly the bread and butter of life. Sure, we could play our cards close to our vest and lessen the likelihood of possible harm—but in turn, we also lessen the likelihood of truly being known.

    Regardless of how a relationship has ended, when I’ve allowed myself to fully open my heart to another person, I am reminded that it was not a waste at all; it was a brick in the road of living my fullest life.

    4. No love is ever wasted.

    When in the throes of a relationship, we often have our heart set on not just our partner but on our future with that partner. This is often the hardest thing about a relationship ending: you don’t just lose what you’ve shared, but the imagined future that you’d included the other in.

    When that future vanishes, it’s common to look back on the shared past with regret. But what if expressing love, kindness, and shared intimacy is an end in and of itself?

    As humans, we love to keep our eyes on the outcome and the finish line but forget that it’s the journey to that mountaintop that shapes us. As the quote above reads, “Tis better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.”

    Whether the act of love is in the present or the past, it existed all the same—and if we allow it to do so, it can remind us of the most beautiful side of the human condition.

    5. Our past loves played an important role in our lives.

    Each person that journeys beside us on the road of life not only shapes who we will become but also how we feel as we get there.

    My first love and I moved across the state to pursue our individual dreams. While our relationship didn’t last, we were a safe haven for the other in an unfamiliar and daunting time.

    On the flip side, those unhealthy relationships that, on the surface, appear all wrong can help us more wisely choose a partner in the future.

    While it would be great to learn lessons from other people’s experiences, most of us have to find out what we want by trial and error—from dating a few (or a bunch) of the wrong people before we can identify the right one. Even the most painful relationships in my past helped me learn who I wanted to be with (as well as who I wanted to be) in the future.

    —

    Some endings are inevitable. Being able to see the positives in our past doesn’t mean those relationships have any business in our present. It does, however, mean that instead of looking at what we lost when something ended, we can remember what we gained as well: perspective, strength, and experience.

    If failure is the nonperformance of success, then let’s demand to expect only growth from ourselves and define success as the amount of love that we gave. Because love is never lost…

    It simply changes shape.

  • A 7-Step Plan for Finding Love After a Devastating Breakup

    A 7-Step Plan for Finding Love After a Devastating Breakup

    “Resilience in love means finding strength from within that you can share with others.” ~Sheryl Sandberg

    It took me a couple months to start repairing my broken heart after the toughest breakup of my life. I thought we were going to spend our lives together, but the gods of love had other plans.

    After I’d grieved in healthy (and not-so-healthy ways) I knew I could take two paths: stay stuck in my misery or pick myself up, dust off my sadness, and make a plan to move on.

    And now it’s time for you to move on and find love again, too.

    I know it’s not easy. For years I believed my ex was “the one” and the thought of finding someone new after our breakup was terrifying.

    But I got back on my horse and kept riding. I felt the fear of rejection, putting myself out there again, playing the “dating game,” trusting someone new, and wasting my time with people I didn’t connect with.

    But finding love doesn’t have to be complicated and scary if you follow a plan, just like anything else in life.

    You want to start your own business, take a vacation, or get out of debt? Make a plan.

    You want to find love? You’ve got to make a plan for that, too.

    If you don’t have a plan you’ll continue stumbling around in the dark hoping you’ll miraculously find true love. So if you’re struggling to find love and tired of the same old patterns leading you into the arms of the wrong people, then listen up…

    Step 1: Let go of your ex.

    Have you really let go of your ex and moved on from your breakup?

    If you haven’t let go, you’re not going to find love. Period.

    On the first date I went on after my breakup I talked about my ex. A lot. I knew I was breaking the sacred rules of first dates, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t about to hide my true feelings. Because the fact was I was still sad about it. It was clear to me that I wasn’t yet over the breakup.

    But I also understood that if I had my ex and my breakup on my mind there was never going to be room for new love to enter.

    Do you still have negative feelings around your breakup? Are you holding onto anger, shame, or resentment?

    If you want to find a new partner and true love, you’ve got to let that stuff go.

    Whether you’re getting over a recent breakup or a breakup that happened months or even years ago, you have to let go.

    How?

    First, stop avoiding and suppressing your negative feelings. We avoid dealing with our feelings in all sorts of ways: binge-watching television, eating, sex, alcohol, drugs, and telling people, “Everything is fine,” when we’re actually a hot mess.

    Instead of avoiding and suppressing, let your feelings flow through you and get comfortable with the discomfort. Don’t chastise yourself for the feelings. Ask yourself, “Where is this coming from?” and, “Why is this coming up NOW?” Getting curious is always healthier than suppression.

    Second, get back to doing things you love. Sometimes when we’re in a long-term relationship, we lose ourselves. Go do things that light you up inside and bring you joy. Go take that hip-hop dance class, join a new gym, or write the book you’ve been putting off.

    And finally, make sure you have someone who listens to you without judgment and will let you vent when you need to. You think you don’t have someone to talk to? Think harder. You might be surprised of how willing people are to help and listen when you tell them how much you’re hurting. Exploring solutions is always easier when we have someone who listens instead of feeding us useless clichés like, “Time will heal.”

    Other solutions to exploring our feelings are support groups in your community, online forums, or starting a journaling practice. Get the stuff out and you’ll be surprised how much easier it becomes to let it go.

    Step 2: Believe that you have more than one soul mate.

    “But Eric,” you say, “I already found my soul mate and now they’re gone!”

    It’s okay. All is not lost.

    Because there’s no such thing as having only one soul mate on this planet. If you’ve already found one, good for you! But guess what? There are more out there!

    How do I know that for sure? I don’t. But if you want to go on staying stuck in your breakup and feeling sad about losing your soul mate, I can guarantee you won’t find a new person who brings out the light inside of you, who makes you feel special, wanted, and supported.

    Believing you have only one soul mate is nothing more than a limiting belief—and limiting beliefs are meant to be overcome.

    If you haven’t yet found a soul mate, this is still an important point to understand. If you convince yourself there’s only one soul mate for you out there, you’re going to put too much pressure on every new relationship you enter into. Remember, there are multiple soul mates out there for you. But I promise, if you’re lying on the couch watching Netflix, you’re not going to find them.

    Step 3: Don’t date people just because they’re the exact opposite of your ex.

    When you go through a devastating breakup you convince yourself that you’ll never date someone like your ex ever again! “That’s it!” you scream, “I’m going for someone totally different than my ex!”

    Your ex hated spontaneity and adventure? You’re going after a rock-climbing, world-traveling, adrenaline-seeker.

    Your ex had blonde hair? Only brunettes from now on!

    Your ex didn’t like reading, cats, Star Wars, trying new restaurants, the opera, camping, people-watching, or road trips? You get the idea.

    But the problem with this approach is that it’s a knee-jerk reaction. Instead of thinking about what you really, truly want in a relationship, you jump in blindly. Dating someone just because they’re not like your ex probably won’t end well.

    The solution?

    Go to Step 4.

    Step 4: Get clear on your values.

    Our values are the guiding lights in our lives.

    If you’re not clear on what you value, how can you find someone who shares your values? Because if you’re dating people who don’t share the same values as you, it’ll never work.

    Think about your past relationships. Remember those times when you first started dating someone and you discovered something that didn’t jive with your values? And remember how you brushed it to the side and said, “It’s probably not that big of a deal. Maybe I’ll change….or maybe they’ll change.”

    Sound familiar?

    Fast-forward to your breakup. I’ll bet some of those old clashes in values came up throughout the breakup process, didn’t they?

    Get clear on your values and don’t negotiate, undermine, or reduce them. Stay true to them and find a partner who shares your values. If you do this, you’ll be taking a huge step toward finding love again.

    Step 5: Say “no” to relationships that are a waste of your time (and theirs).

    It’s hard to say “no.” We don’t like hurting people’s feelings and letting people down, so we say “yes” to things we shouldn’t. Then we kick ourselves afterward for not having had the guts to say “no.”

    When we delay our “nos” we’re wasting our time and the other person’s time. We go on third, fourth, and fifth dates with people who we’re really not interested in, but we just can’t tell them the words, “I’m sorry, I just don’t want to be with you.” Instead, we draw it out into a painful process of indecision, stress, and fear.

    How do you say “no” to someone you’re not interested in continuing dating?

    You say, “I’m sorry, but I know what I’m looking for in a partner and you’re not that person.”

    Now, you don’t have to use those exact words. You have to find your own balance between honesty, compassion, and staying true to your values. Because if you’re clear on your values after Step 4, there’s no reason to waste your time with people who don’t align with what you’re looking for.

    And really, what’s so bad about saying, “You’re not the partner for me?” Personally, I’d rather hear that and say my goodbyes than feel attacked by a laundry list of all the areas I lack and reasons we’re not a good couple. Just because things didn’t work out with someone doesn’t necessarily mean I should change; maybe it just means there’s a better match out there for me.

    Yes, people might feel hurt by your honesty. But ultimately, that’s for them to deal with. I don’t say that to be callous; I say that because people aren’t going to grow if you lie to them, coddle them, and keep saying “yes” when you’d rather say “no.” Ultimately, that honesty is going to help both of you move forward in a healthier way.

    Step 6: Improve yourself.

    No matter how many self-help books and articles on Tiny Buddha that you’ve read, we all have blind spots and weaknesses.

    After my latest breakup, I realized I needed to work on some things. I reflected on my fear of commitment. I got clear on my core values. I worked on my ability to communicate my feelings around tough subjects like sex, money, and having children.

    I read new books, worked with a coach, and traveled by myself. I met new people and shared life experiences with them in a vulnerable way.

    It’s really hard to take a long, hard look in the mirror and ask ourselves, “Where have I been going wrong? What can I do to make myself better?” It’s so much easier to point a finger and say, “It’s your fault! Not mine!”

    But true growth can only happen when we look inside ourselves. When you grow and become a better version of yourself you’ll develop more confidence—and we all know confident people are a lot more likely to find true love.

    Step 7: Work it!

    If you’re ready to find someone new, you have to go out and find them.

    It drives me a tad crazy when people say, “I want to find love, but if it happens it happens. I’m not going to go out looking for it! I’ll let the universe do its thing.”

    Are you kidding me? When is the last time something that made your life better came to you while you were sitting around doing nothing?

    If you want to find love, go out there and look for it!

    When we put ourselves out there, get out of our comfort zones, and face our fears, amazing things start to happen.

    Go to social gatherings with new people. Find common interest groups in your community. Talk to a stranger on the bus or metro. Hell, give online dating a try!

    If you want to find love, you have to get out there and meet new people. Sure, each time isn’t going to be a fruitful experience, but that’s what it’s about. When good things start to happen (which they will) you’ll look back and understand all the effort was worth it.

    Now, this seventh step isn’t about obsessing over finding love to the point that it’s unhealthy. If you’ve followed the steps above this shouldn’t be a concern because you’re now feeling more confident in your own skin. If you get better at saying “no,” get clear on your values, and improve yourself, then you’re ready to find love.

    But if you’re afraid of being alone for the rest of your life and desperate to find a partner no matter how wrong they are for you, you’re not ready for Step 7. Go back and work through Steps 1 to 6 until you’re ready to find love for the right reasons.

    Don’t forget…

    Finding love isn’t easy. This plan can take a long time to master.

    But when you find that special person you’ll know that all the effort, struggle, rejection, failure, and time-investment was worth it.

    True love is a beautiful thing. It shouldn’t be degraded to a pipe dream for the lonely-hearts-club. True love is something that everyone should strive for because life is a lot more fun when we can share it with a person who brings out the light inside of us.

    If you haven’t found love yet, please don’t give up. It’s out there. And if you follow the right plan, I know you’re going to find it.

  • Why I Thanked My Ex and Now Appreciate the Heartbreak

    Why I Thanked My Ex and Now Appreciate the Heartbreak

    “How thankful I am today, to know that all my past struggles were necessary for me to be where I am now.” ~Unknown

    I met my ex-boyfriend, let’s call him Derek, through work. We were introduced through mutual co-workers, and then we hit it off and began dating.

    We had a connection right away, partly based on physical attraction, but also we laughed a lot together, and I felt cared for by him.

    We lived in different cities at the time, but would see each other every other weekend. We dated this way for a year and then talked about moving in together.

    We decided that I would uproot myself and move to his city because he had a steady, stable career and could not leave it. I had extreme anxiety about moving away from my friends and my life, but for several reasons, the fear of being alone being the major one, I decided to move.

    Living together was tough at first. We had different ways of doing things, but we figured it out—or so I thought.

    A few months in, I became severely depressed and my past anxiety came back in full force. I’d gained twenty pounds in four months due to extreme emotional eating. I used food in a desperate attempt to feel better, trying to fill the void any way I could.

    Six months after moving in together, Derek broke up with me one day when I got home from work. I was emotionally and mentally unstable and completely blindsided. I felt totally alone and given up on, and I had no idea what to do. I packed a suitcase, put my cat in her carrier, and left.

    There wasn’t one person I knew who didn’t support me during this time. I moved back to the city I had left six months earlier and lived with my sister for a month while borrowing money from my mom.

    I talked to my friends and family every day to try to feel better, and they offered their help as best they could.

    Support from most people though meant bashing Derek, the breaker-upper, and letting me know why I shouldn’t have been with him or why we weren’t meant for one another. For some reason, though, I knew in my heart that focusing on his negatives was not the way I needed get over him.

    Derek was not a bad person; after all, I had fallen in love with him not that long beforehand. He was not evil, nor selfish, nor a coward. He was necessary. He was in my life for a very specific purpose, which I now know was to crack my wounded, scared, anxious heart wide open for healing.

    The depression wasn’t enough to get my attention, and neither was the anxiety, nor the extreme weight gain I had experienced. I needed him to guide me toward an opening that I was completely blind to.

    Had I not felt my heart break a thousand times over at the end of that relationship, I don’t know what torture I would have put myself through or how long it would have taken for me to begin the healing journey I have been on since then.

    In putting myself back together, I knew I needed help. I knew I could not do what I needed to do by myself, nor did I want to. I wanted support, I wanted tools other than medication, and I wanted a different life than the one I had been living.

    I began seeing a spiritual counselor who helped me heal and learn to listen to my heart. We worked extensively on my wounds from childhood and my fear of abandonment, which came from losing my father to suicide at a very early age.

    I needed to come face to face with my inner self and recognize she was crying out for attention and love.

    In the past five years since getting help I’ve also changed my diet, the way I exercise, my view on my body, my friends, my relationships with my family, and view on romantic relationships.

    I now believe that every single person we come in contact with shows up in our lives for a reason. Had I not dated Derek, I would not have woken up to my life. I would have stayed asleep and continued to live in a way that did not nourish my soul.

    I never would have healed enough to allow another beautiful soul into my life—a man who is now my partner, who supports me in a way I would haven’t thought possible five years ago.

    Two years after my relationship with Derek ended, I was back working for the same company where he and I met and we had our annual meeting coming up. I would see him for the first time since I moved out two years before.

    I was nervous but knew the healing I had done around our relationship would help me. I had also practiced, in meditation, what I wanted our meeting to feel like when I saw him again.

    As I sat down in the restaurant and got settled at our annual meeting, I felt someone behind me come around for a big hug. It was Derek, and nervously smiling at me.

    I opened my arms and hugged him warmly, my heart beating out of my chest. I was scared I was going to get emotional, and that all of our co-workers would see me break down and get upset. Instead, I hugged him, smiled at him, and asked him how his family was.

    We chatted pleasantly for a few minutes and then I paused. I looked him in the eyes, feeling a fondness and said, “I need to thank you.”

    He looked at me with shock and asked what for. I told him about the journey I had been on since our breakup, the healing I had done, and the forgiveness I was able to feel. I owned up to my part in our relationship being unhealthy and told him if it hadn’t been for him, I may not be alive today, happy, and connected to myself.

    He had no words for a moment. Then he said he was afraid that I was going to be upset, and that he felt extreme guilt for how things ended, but he didn’t know what else to do at the time. He also shared that he’d learned since then that he needs to communicate better with people and work on understanding.

    I know some people hear my story and think there’s no way they could ever forgive their ex or be friendly or open to them again. And please understand that forgiveness does not mean condoning. I chose to forgive Derek for me. I needed to forgive him in order to properly learn and grow from our experience together, but that doesn’t mean I don’t recognize there were things he could have done differently.

    If you were treated badly, cheated on, talked down to, or lied to, I understand the pain, but I also invite you to open up to the idea that we are in charge of our lives and what we get from our experiences.

    We each have the opportunity to look under the surface of our pain and see the end of one thing as an opportunity for another. We can take our heartbreak and turn it into heart growth. It’s begging for us to do so, in fact.

    If we can infuse gratitude into our pain, we will experience miraculous shifts in our lives. My hope for you is this: that you can move through your pain, heal your heart, and one day, when you run into that person you once dreaded seeing, you can look at them, recognize yourself, and say “thank you.”

  • 3 Limiting Beliefs That Make It Hard to Get Over Your Ex

    3 Limiting Beliefs That Make It Hard to Get Over Your Ex

    “The broken hearted are the bravest among us—they dare to love.” ~Brené Brown, Rising Strong

    Are you finished grieving your breakup and want to get over your ex once and for all?

    Don’t get me wrong. Grieving is important. Actually, it’s imperative.

    But there is such thing as grieving for too long. When we get stuck in a downward spiral of negativity it gets harder and harder to get out. Our guilt over the way things turned out and regret over what could have been become heavy burdens to carry.

    I was there last year. After the toughest breakup of my life, I grieved in a not-so-healthy way. I lived with my ex-girlfriend for a month before moving out of our apartment. Every day I drank beer and smoked pot all afternoon in my ex-neighborhood’s park. At night, I cuddled with my ex-cat since we were breaking up, too.

    Day after day, the same routine.

    Until I finally got the kick in the rear end I needed. It came from a close friend. He sent me a blunt text message telling me to get off my ass and get back to living my life.

    After that, I started paying attention to the limiting beliefs that had been holding me back, getting comfortable with their presence, and being curious about how I could get past them.

    One of the biggest obstacles when we’re recovering from a breakup is getting over our limiting beliefs.

    A limiting belief is something we tell ourselves so many times that it seems true, no matter how false it might be. Limiting beliefs creep into our lives like chronic back pain, until one day we accept them instead of trying to fix the problem.

    Here are three limiting beliefs that are preventing you from moving on from your ex, and some tips to get past them.

    1. “My ex was my soul mate.”

    “But we were soul mates, kindred spirits. How can I move on knowing that I’ll never find someone like them again?!”

    I get it. Many of us want to believe in fate, soul mates, and happy endings.

    But this isn’t a Disney movie and you need to move on with your life.

    I don’t say this to be callous. I say this because you need to hear it. Your friends and family can’t say it to you because they’re afraid of hurting your feelings. But I’m a stranger, and I want to give you the same kick in the butt that got me going.

    Listen, you’re not totally wrong. Maybe your ex was your “soul mate.” But I think where we get confused is thinking we only have one soul mate on this planet.

    What if we decided to believe we have multiple soul mates? What if we believed we have soul mates all over the world?

    When I started to believe there could be other soul mates out there, I began to meet new, wonderful women who I made genuine connections with.

    We have to keep in mind that some relationships have expiration dates. It’s not our fault or the fault of our partners. It is what it is. Sh*t happens and the world keeps spinning.

    Soul mates, just like relationships, come and go. You have more soul mates out there, I guarantee it. But, if you stay locked up in your house watching Netflix, I also guarantee you’ll never find them.

    2. “I deserve to feel guilty.”

    “It’s my fault the relationship ended. I pushed them away. I didn’t know what I wanted but now I see I made a mistake. I can’t get over this guilt!”

    I get it. Hindsight is always 20/20. You’re looking back and wishing you had made different decisions. But guess what? Unless you have a DeLorean and mad scientist, you can’t change the past.

    I want to repeat that.

    You. Can’t. Change. The. Past.

    If you believe that, why aren’t you allowing yourself to move on?

    Nothing good is going to come from beating yourself up over something that happened that can’t be changed.

    Believe me when I say these next words:

    You don’t deserve to feel guilty.

    Even if you lied, cheated, or weren’t emotionally available to your partner, you don’t deserve to continue feeling guilty.

    Sure, you should feel bad for a time. You screwed up. But you can’t take it back so it’s time to get over it.

    If you were a crappy partner, start asking yourself some tough questions. What needs weren’t being met in your relationship? Do you know what your needs are? Do you love yourself? Do you have healthy relationships with friends and family? What do you want more than anything in your life? What’s stopping you from getting it?

    Sure, it would have been better if you could have talked to your partner about your true feelings and broken up before things fell apart, but that didn’t happen. C’est la vie.

    Still, it doesn’t mean you deserve to feel guilty. You made mistakes, and that’s okay. That’s part of being an imperfect human.

    If you feel guilty, look deep and see where that guilt is coming from. When you find the source you can start to find solutions. You’re single now. Take this time to work on you so the next time you get into a relationship, you’ll be confident not only that you’re with the right person, but you’ll also be confident in yourself and what you truly want.

    3. “Love conquers all.”

    “But there’s still love between us. How can I move on when I love my partner? All you need is love, right?”

    When my ex and I broke up last year, without a doubt there was still love between us. But we knew our lives were moving in different directions, so we decided to break it off after five years together instead of growing resentful.

    Our friends and families couldn’t figure it out. “If you guys still love each other, how can you not work it out?”

    But we stuck with our decision despite the pushback. Now that I’m eight months out of the breakup, I’m still confident it was the right decision.

    Here’s the thing:

    Love does not conquer all. Love is not enough.

    Boom! Did I just blow your mind? It’s like finding out frozen yogurt isn’t really good for you. How can that be, you say? Impossible!

    Believe it.

    Love is beautiful. Love makes us happy, fulfilled, and purposeful. When a relationship ends and there’s still love there, it’s hard to let go.

    Still, as cliché as it is, it’s better to have loved and lost than never loved at all. When we love someone else we learn so much about ourselves. We allow ourselves to be vulnerable, open, and true.

    Just because you broke up doesn’t mean the love has to die. Let it be. Love that you loved and move forward. Staying stuck in the past because you believe love can save you is pointless.

    Love isn’t a relationship savior; love is a relationship enhancement.

    You will love someone else again even if it doesn’t feel like it right now. But if you don’t let go of your ex and start looking for love in new places (including self-love), you’re going to stay stuck for a very long time.

    Final Thoughts

    Limiting beliefs are tough to overcome, I know.

    But if you’re reflecting on the three limiting beliefs I’ve mentioned or if other ones are coming up for you, then you’re taking the first step to overcoming them.

    Once you know they exist you can take action. And when you start to take action you’ll begin to move forward. I promise.

    Breakups are brutal. But if you’re tired of grieving and ready to move forward with your life, remember to take it one day, one step, one choice at a time.

    Make the choice to go out with a friend for dinner instead of staying home feeling sorry for yourself.

    Make the choice to go to the gym instead of creeping your ex on Facebook.

    Make the choice to read a book like Rising Strong instead of drinking beer and smoking pot all day.

    Getting over a breakup is a choice.

    I believe you are capable of moving forward with more confidence, purpose, and authenticity than you’ve ever had.

    But it’s going to take hard work to get past your limiting beliefs.

    Are you up for the challenge?

  • What to Do After a Breakup: A Brief Guide for the Newly Single

    What to Do After a Breakup: A Brief Guide for the Newly Single

    “Even in the loneliest moments I have been there for myself.” ~Sanober Khan

    Last year, I decided to leave my boyfriend, who I had a loving and wonderful relationship with. I left for logistical reasons. I didn’t like the city I lived in or my job. But my boyfriend was happy there, so he stayed and I left.

    The world doesn’t prepare you for a broken heart. There aren’t benefits you can apply for when the person who’s been beside you for years one day isn’t. The reality is that unless you’re married, people understand your feelings for a moment when you tell them about your breakup, but not much longer after the moment passes.

    I will be so bold and compare losing a partner to losing a family member. Growing out of your teens and into your twenties is a big transition. And when you date someone through that time, they play a crucial part in that growth.

    This is what happened to me. I became a “falsely independent” adult woman. What I mean by falsely is that you feel independent, but really, you’ve just replaced your family, and any person you grew up leaning on, with a partner. And when that partner is gone, it’s time to start adulthood all over again. For me, it starts here.

    When you’re single, no one notices if you’ve eaten that day. Nobody tells you to come to bed when you’re staying up late working on a project. Nobody notices if you’ve worn the same sweater three days in a row, or if you need to trim your bangs.

    One day, months after my breakup, I woke up hungry and tired, wearing the same old clothes, and had hair hanging in my face. I realized then it was time to grow up and be my own partner.

    In the last year of being single, I’ve figured out a few ways to be the kindest, most loving partner to yourself that you can be.

    Invest in Your Friendships

    When in a happy and healthy relationship, we tend to let old or potential friendships fall by the wayside.
    Just make sure, like in any successful relationship, to give as much as you receive from your loving friends.

    Sometimes the best type of friend will let you vent for hours about your broken heart or the fifteen different guys you’re trying to date at the same time, but make sure you spend time listening to him or her as well. They might have a lot to say too, even if you feel like you’re going through more.

    When you find out that you and a new coworker have a mutual interest in running, and they say, “We should go running sometime,” instead of saying “For sure!” and then never giving it a second thought, take out your phone, type their phone number into it, and take them up on the offer.

    Make New Memories in Old Places

    For a long time, I had an impossible time walking around the city. It felt like my ex and I had kissed on every corner, shared a meal at every adorable café, taken a photo with every monument, biked around every park… brutal.

    I started going out of my way to make new memories in these same spots. I took an oddball tinder date to that adorable café, and for some reason, it’s easier to think of his eyebrow ring than old memories with my ex.

    I went to that same park with three friends. We drank ciders and played “Never have I ever.”

    That corner we kissed at for the first time? That’s now the finish line where I set my new PB for a 5k. Walking around the city has never been more peaceful.

    Give Yourself Cry Space

    This might be the most important thing I’ve learned in one year of mourning a relationship. Even a strong, independent woman like myself has a secret heart under my ribcage that is made up entirely of mush.

    It doesn’t matter if people understand how significant your breakup is. If it hurts you to think about it, then you need to let yourself cry, scream, pout, watch sad movies, listen to sad songs (and “our” songs), or stay in bed for a day.

    Have you been feeling sad, but burying it away and going through the motions of your day? Bad idea. Those sad feelings accumulate, and they will eventually come pouring out of you, and most likely at a really inconvenient time. Like when you’re at work. Or when you’re in the middle of giving a presentation. Or when you’re on a date with someone new. Trust me, I’ve been there.

    Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’ve just lost the most significant person in your life. Your best friend. Your confidant. The one you thought was “the one.” You’re allowed to cry about it. Not only for the first week, but for as long as it takes.

    Throw Yourself into a Hobby

    Possibly the greatest benefit of breaking up with somebody is all of the free time you gain. You no longer spend hours and hours gazing into your loved one’s eyes, talking about nothing. Now is the time to gear up, get out, and start all things you’ve been meaning to start.

    Don’t know where to start? I like running. This year I ran a marathon. I also learned how to surf, learned a language, took up hip-hop dancing, read more books, and tried kickboxing.

    I know it’s tempting, but don’t make drinking or smoking your new hobby. Yes, it numbs that shattered heart of yours, but it isn’t benefiting anybody, especially not beautiful you. Plus, you likely won’t meet as many people at a bar as you will surfing at the beach.

    Celebrate Yourself

    My ex-boyfriend supported and loved me unconditionally, and he was vocal about it. It’s been tough for me to get used to radio silence when I say things to myself like “I did really bad at work today” or “I look so ugly in these clothes” or “I can’t sign up for that race. I’m not good enough at running.”

    In these moments, my partner used to chime in and make me feel like a million bucks. But that’s my job now. Yes, it’s embarrassing, but hey, no one has to know. I give myself pep talks in public bathrooms, I write notes in my iPhone, I ask friends to compliment me if I need it. Trust me, it helps.

    Personal Touch

    My ex-boyfriend and I worked, lived, and spent our free time together. I had probably an average of twenty minutes per day when I was out of arm’s reach from him.

    I have never been a “touchy” or “huggy” person. But in the last year of being single, I have become the cuddliest person around. I will take any opportunity to hold a hand, give a hug, or link arms with the person I’m walking beside.

    Don’t feel bad about this. You’re not strange. Humans need physical touch. Skin-to-skin contact can bring premature, dying babies back to life. Science says that if we go for long periods of time without being touched by a fellow human, it will negatively affect our mood, confidence, and physical health. Don’t be afraid to ask for a hug. If you feel like you need one, you probably do.

    —

    We live in a world where we are asked to get over trauma quickly. When I left my ex at the airport last year, I knew it would be hard. But I didn’t know it would be so hard, for so long.

    There is no rulebook on how to be okay after a breakup. But if we can make a nest in life where we feel okay enough to get outside, get social, and get close to others, then there is a chance we will be okay, and we might even find love again. And even if we don’t, then at least we’ve fallen in love with ourselves.

  • Love Hurts: Buddhist Advice for the Heartbroken – Interview and Book Giveaway

    Love Hurts: Buddhist Advice for the Heartbroken – Interview and Book Giveaway

    Note – The winners for this giveaway have been chosen. They are:

    • Jennifer Moore Hardesty
    • Margie Lynn
    • Dr. Mac
    • Ryan
    • RB
    • Justme
    • Rogério Cardoso
    • Fernanda Garza
    • Benjamin E. Nichols
    • Terri Cross

    When you’re dealing with heartbreak, it can feel like the pain will never go away.

    You may know, intellectually, that everything heals with time, but in that moment, when you’re suffering, it’s hard to hold onto hope.

    Like all humans, I’ve experienced my fair share of loss, and I’ve felt scared, depressed, alone, betrayed, rejected, regretful, and angry—with other people, with myself, and with the world.

    Losing someone or something that has become a part of your identity can feel like losing a limb, and how do you go on when you’ve lost a part of yourself?

    I’ve learned that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer to that question. There’s no magic solution that helps us grow, let go, and move on. There are, however, lots of things we can do to help ourselves when struggling with the many nuanced emotions that come up when we’re grieving a painful loss.

    Tiny Buddha contributor Lodro Rinzler has tackled these varied challenges in his new book, Love Hurts: Buddhist Advice for the Heartbroken. 

    This “short and compact first-aid kit for a broken heart” offers simple, practical wisdom to help you take good care of yourself and work through your pain. 

    With chapters that offer advice based on what you’re feeling, Love Hurts may just what you need to get through your hardest days and find a light at the end of the tunnel.

    I’m grateful that Lodro took the time to answer some questions about his book, and also that he’s provided ten free copies for Tiny Buddha readers.

    The Giveaway

    To enter to win one of ten free copies of Love Hurts: Buddhist Advice for the Heartbroken:

    • Leave a comment below (you don’t need to write anything specific—“count me in” is sufficient)
    • For an extra entry, share this interview on one of your social media pages and post a second comment with the link

    You can enter until midnight PST on Sunday, March 19th.

    The Interview 

    1. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what inspired you to write this book.

    I’m a meditation teacher and author. I grew up in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition, started meditating at the age of six, and have been teaching meditation for the last sixteen years under the guidance of my teacher, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. I’ve written six books on the topic and co-founded the network of meditation studios known as MNDFL.

    On an outer level, I wrote this book because I work with a lot of people who are suffering from heartbreak and I wanted to talk to them directly, knowing that I couldn’t sit down and have tea with everyone.

    On an inner level, for a man in his thirties I have known a lot of heartbreak. Yes, the romantic kind, but also from too many people who have died, many around my age, and from every day reading the news and my heart breaking anew, seeing how many people are perpetuating horror and terror on others due to discrimination.

    On a secret level I wrote this because I needed to understand how heartbreak works, and writing is how I process information. That’s why I birthed this book.

    2. Your book isn’t just for people who are healing from a breakup or divorce; you define heartbreak in much broader terms. Who is this book for?

    It’s for humans. We all experience heartbreak. It might be personal, such as a breakup, sure, but it might also stem from job loss, the death of a loved one, or just not feeling like we’re living up to our potential. It might also be more societal, in reaction to hatred playing across the news.

    It’s odd because in some sense, I’m constantly rooting against my own book; I don’t want people to need a book on heartbreak—I want them to feel happy—but so many of us are experiencing heartbreak right now so I’m glad it’s available as a resource.

    3. I love how you sectioned the book based on what readers may be feeling or experiencing. What made you decide to write the book this way?

    When you’re heartbroken, you can’t sit down and read a ten-step plan for healing; heartbreak is messier than that.

    It’s this simple term that encapsulates so many strong emotions, including anger, despair, frustration, loneliness, and more. The underlying emotions of heartbreak—despite what caused it—are all too similar, so I knew I could address those, even though I could never dream of all the scenarios that might spark heartbreak.

    In that sense it’s a bit like a choose-your-own adventure book, where you can read about whatever you’re dealing with on that particular day.

    4. The section heading that most jumped out at me reads “If you feel like you have no right to be heartbroken.” Why do you think some of us feel this way, and why is this not true?

    So many of us feel ashamed of our heartbreak. When I would meet with people to hear their heartbreak stories, people were so shy at first. They would come in and think they would be talking to me about their last big relationship.

    I would ask the question, “What is your experience of heartbreak” and the flood gates would open. They would then start talking about their dead cat, or their high school sweetheart from decades before, and at some point note that they felt totally confused as to why they were heartbroken about this thing that was ages ago or, based on societal standards, “not a big deal” but it was their honest experience.

    Whatever breaks your heart, breaks your heart. It’s quite simple. The last thing we need to do when we feel heartbroken is judge ourselves for feeling that way.

    5. What, in your experience, are the most important things we can do to take care of ourselves when dealing with heartbreak?

    Even the simplest of self-care acts make a big difference when we’re struck down by heartbreak. I recommend:

    • getting more sleep than you think you need
    • eating well, or at least eating (we often forget to when we’re depressed)
    • meditating
    • exercising in whatever way makes sense to you

    6. How does meditation help us cope with our losses and heal?

    There are many types of meditation out there. To get going, I often recommend mindfulness, where we are bringing our full mind to one thing such as the breath.

    There have been a lot of studies done in recent years about this form of meditation. It’s proven what the Buddhists have known for 2600 years: Doing it for even short periods every day increases focus and resilience and leads to a better memory and reduced stress.

    While I appreciate science backing up the practicality of meditation, here’s what it has done for me:

    It has helped me show up fully for every aspect of my life.

    It has helped me wake up to where I get stuck and shut down my heart.

    It has helped me be more present with simple activity in my daily schedule.

    It has helped me get to know, befriend, and ultimately love myself.

    Having established that foundation of love inwardly, I have been able to be kinder, more compassionate, and loving toward others. When I am with friends or on a date with my spouse, I am there, fully. When I am in a painful situation, going through a break up or holding my father’s hand as he died, I am there, fully. It has allowed me to be present with the wide variety of pleasures and pains that life brings.

    Meditation has been an incredible gift to me, particularly when it comes to showing up for my own and others’ heartbreak.

    I’ve discovered that the main way to move through heartbreak is to look directly at it and not flinch. To stay with our discomfort is the best way to move through our discomfort. For me, the best way to learn to stay with all the difficult emotions that come up around heartbreak is meditation.

    7. What do you think is the biggest mistakes most of us make when healing from heartbreak?

    Whenever I would meet with people about this topic, I would ask them how they take care of themselves in the midst of heartbreak. Indubitably, every single person would answer by saying, “Well, the thing I do that I know I shouldn’t is…” and then they would fill in the blank. “I over-eat sweet foods.” “I reach for a bottle of alcohol.” “I go online and find someone to hook up with.”

    When strong emotions come up, we don’t necessarily want to look at them; we want to run away from them and act out in a similarly harmful and habitual way. When you feel like that, I recommend taking a breath, coming back into your body, and seeing if you can stay with the energy of the emotion itself, as opposed to the storylines around it.

    8. What has helped you let go of anger and forgive after being hurt or rejected?

    In my own experience, one thing that helps me when I am suffering is simply to be heard, to be witnessed. When we sit one-on-one in the presence of each other we experience one another in a very human and honest way.

    Sometimes the best way to see ourselves through our heartbreak is to be with our heartbreak, and being with other people who can hold the space for that really helps.

    9. What is the main message you hope people take from this book?

    That you will heal. It may take more time than you would want it to take—and that’s the nature of heartbreak—but even the seemingly devastating emotions that come with this experience are impermanent and that is extremely good news. Because when you do heal, you will love again.

    You can learn more about Love Hurts: Buddhist Advice for the Heartbroken on Amazon here.

    FTC Disclosure: I receive complimentary books for reviews and interviews on tinybuddha.com, but I am not compensated for writing or obligated to write anything specific. I am an Amazon affiliate, meaning I earn a percentage of all books purchased through the links I provide on this site. 

  • Sometimes a Breakup Is a Gain, Not a Loss

    Sometimes a Breakup Is a Gain, Not a Loss

  • The Two Biggest Mistakes Newly Single People Make

    The Two Biggest Mistakes Newly Single People Make

    “Don’t rush into any kind of relationship. Work on yourself. Feel yourself, experience yourself and love yourself. Do this first and you will soon attract that special loving other.” ~Russ von Hoelscher

    If you’re single right now, this is your moment. And by single I mean not dating, not sleeping with people, and not engaged in romantic mingling of any kind. I mean truly single.

    When we’re truly single we have a chance to transform like never before. We have the opportunity to face into our pain, transmute it, and turn our heartbreak into our greatest lesson.

    Two of the biggest mistakes newly single people make are these:

    • Jumping back into a relationship without healing, reflecting, and working on themselves
    • Staying single but numbing the pain with distractions like drugs, food, alcohol, or TV

    Yes, transformation can happen in relationship, but being single allows us to get to know who it is we truly are without the fear of outgrowing our partner.

    Most people think they’re ready to start dating far before they actually are. That’s because we do anything we can to avoid facing our pain. Being in relationship feels really good. We want someone to love us, often desperately when we don’t truly love ourselves.

    A month after my last breakup I sat in my cozy studio with eight other women. One of them said that she had gone through a traumatic breakup and a year later she was just getting to the point of being ready to date again. I remember thinking, “What?! That’s sooooo long. I’m going to heal faster than that.”

    I’m approaching the ten-month mark of that breakup, and I’m just getting to the point where I feel like I’m open to dating again. You can’t expedite your healing. Healing will take its slow old time, even if you commit yourself to it. The deeper the wound sometimes the longer the healing process can take.

    Once I got over my judgment of being single and started to embrace it, the length of time stopped mattering so much. What mattered was me healing the parts of myself that had been traumatized. I earnestly wanted to do this part right. I wanted to do it right for myself and I wanted to do it right for my future relationship.

    It’s taken me almost a year to become solid enough in myself again where I feel ready to inch myself open for relationship. This is because I acknowledge that the kind of relationship I am interested in is one that is deeply intimate, soul-connected, and mature.

    I have to be ready to give myself to someone in this way. I have had to turn down dates because I know I’m not ready to give what someone else deserves.

    But during this time I’m doing incredible work in getting to know myself. I’ve been able to see myself more clearly than I ever have before. I see my wounds. I know where I need to love myself more. I know what I need to let go of. I know what I need in a partner. I know that I know when I will be ready. I don’t need to rush it. 

    When you’re truly ready to date you’ll know it. If you’re reaching out to connect with others to avoid pain you’re not ready.

    There were many times in my past where I’d come home at night and feel lonely so I’d begin browsing dating apps and setting up dates. I lacked true love for myself and self-confidence. I was reaching out when I felt unworthy instead of understanding where those wounds came from. I wanted someone else to fill that void for me instead of doing the hard work myself.

    If you’re single now this is your opportunity to get to know yourself. You can shed the beliefs that are no longer serving you. Maybe you feel a new life churning within you, but you’re afraid because you’re stuck in your head trying to figure out how to bring it to life. You can learn to trust yourself, to hear your intuition, to start taking steps to live that blossoming life within you.

    It’s your chance to learn from your past partners. You can discover why you acted the way you did in your past relationships. You can spot the patterns. You can find out why you keep attracting the same fundamental qualities in partners. You can see why it’s not quite working.

    From this place you get to find out what you truly want in a relationship. What is it you value? What are your deal breakers? What do you want your relationship to feel like? What do you want to experience together? 

    All of this information will empower you to choose a partner who will be the right fit. But most importantly, you will now know who you are, and that is the most incredible feeling. Something magical happens when you know yourself.

    You begin to recognize that the love you have been looking for outside of yourself has been within you all along. The desperate need for a partner starts to fall away. You become content being single. You start to love your life. You enjoy your own company. You think you’re the best. Who wouldn’t want to spend time with you?

    This is the place we want to choose a relationship from. The place where we aren’t needy. The place where we are already whole. The place where we aren’t willing to sacrifice the most important things to us.

    If you’re single right now, and you don’t know yourself this well, get off the dating sites. Politely decline when someone asks you out. Commit to loving yourself before you ask someone else to love you. If you do, I’d place a big bet that you’ll end up with a love you could never have dreamed of. That is worth all of the patience in the world.

  • When You Can’t Stop Thinking About Your Past Relationships

    When You Can’t Stop Thinking About Your Past Relationships

    Woman lost in thought

    “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” ~Jon Kabat- Zinn

    Over the years I’ve talked to a lot of people about that one love, the one who got away, the one who it didn’t work out with, the one with whom the timing was bad.

    I’ve had these conversations with people from all age groups, including people in their seventies. I’ve had my own journey with all of the above as I traveled toward finding a life partner.

    It seems whether you stay together or not you’ll likely be in each other’s minds for quite some time in the form of thoughts, memories, or dreams. If you’re lucky they’ll be sweet, but sometimes they’re sad, hurt, confused, or angry dreams.

    Some people really struggle with this. They want their ex-lovers out of their heads forever, relegated to a dark and distant part of their minds.

    It’s as though they want them stored away in a box in their mind that they never have to open again. And I get it. Who wouldn’t want to be able to mentally exorcise a person who is associated with a painful and confusing time of your life?

    Some people are frightened or confused by the thoughts, memories, and dreams that occur, as they think remembering on old relationship means they’ve made a mistake in their current partner choice or that they haven’t moved on.

    In my case, I had daily thoughts about a couple of old relationships for about eighteen years. Yes, you read correctly, eighteen years. The thoughts would often take the form of self-recrimination or sense-making.

    “Why did that happen? Why did I do that? Why did I put up with that for so long? Why did I go back to him?”

    Essentially, these thoughts seemed to be focused on the question “What was wrong with me?” Others would be about an ex and all his decisions and choices—essentially asking “What was wrong with him?”

    Some thoughts would be re-doing the past—how I could have handled it, what I should have done, what could I have done better.

    Sometimes they would just be memories, triggered by going to certain places or someone asking, “Have you ever been here, done that,” etc. Sometimes my mind would wonder what it would be like if it the relationship had worked out.

    I’ve generally been accepting of thoughts, memories, or dreams of past relationships popping into my head. I’ve never seen it as a sign of not being ready to be with someone else, and rarely have I tried to get rid of the memories. Mostly I think it’s because I accepted that this is what minds do when something major happens.

    Getting vulnerable, intimate, and allowing yourself to form an attachment to someone is a major event for your mind. When it doesn’t work out, your mind interprets it as threatening.

    Your mind recognizes the hurt feelings associated with a breakup as a threat and then starts a plan to protect you from ever experiencing such a hurt again. So it throws it thoughts, memories, and dreams at you from time to time—in part to help you process the relationship but also to remind you to be careful to not get in the same situation again, in order to protect you from hurt.

    Also, minds tend to believe that by thinking and worrying they can make sense or find a solution to the breakup, the “what went wrong” of it all. Again, the mind is always looking for the facts to protect you in the future. Sometimes it’s helpful, sometimes it’s just seems annoying and repetitive.

    What can you do to handle thoughts and dreams about past relationships?

    1. Accept that it is normal and natural to have thoughts, memories, and dreams about your exes.

    Don’t read too much into it. Just see it as what minds do.

    2. Avoid acting on thoughts, dreams, and impulses associated with exes.

    Don’t call, message, or make a decision to get back together based on random thoughts or dreams. This is probably not a sign; it’s just your mind doing what minds do.

    3. If you feel strong emotion with the thoughts, memories, or dreams, write it down.

    Writing it down allows us to take one step back and defuses the emotion somewhat. Then engage yourself in something fun or interesting. Get busy.

    4. Know that eventually you will think less and less about it.

    In the acute stage of a breakup you almost can’t stop thinking about the relationship, but over time the thoughts become less prominent and less painful. Trust that this will continue to happen over time. This will happen more quickly if you don’t engage regularly with your ex. Let the distance help you disengage.

    5. Avoid punishing yourself with self-critical thoughts.

    Like “how could I not see that, I’m stupid,” etc. Remind yourself that it is normal to want to be loved.

    6. Reflect on the positives the relationship gave you.

    All relationships teach you something. Remind yourself it was not a waste of time; it was just time, it was just part of your story.

    One of my significant relationships ended with a great deal of hurt because of cheating and lies, but I don’t regret it. I learned a lot in that experience—life lessons that I keep with me even today.

    For example, I learned that I could survive betrayal and the emptiness that comes with the loss of love—that the pain lessens in time. I learned that when the cost is too great, you must let go of love, even if a part of you may not want to. And I learned that in addition to love and attraction, you need to have shared values.

    Still, knowing that I’ve learned from all my relationships doesn’t make it any easier to stop thinking about them.

    For example, I spent quite a bit of time wondering why someone said, in breaking up with me, that he needed to spend more time with his dog. (Yes, that really did happen.) That memory came with a special combination of disbelief and hurt for some time. These days I think that story is kind of funny in a “was that the best you could come up with?” kind of a way.

    These thoughts, amongst others, are now faded memories that I take with me in life, the good and the bad. I see them each as just another chapter in my story. They are part of me, but they don’t define me.

    Some relationships endings are particularly painful. If you are significantly troubled by an old relationship—if you have difficulty disengaging from an ex-partner or have been affected by serious relationship trauma such as domestic violence—it’s a good idea to see a psychologist or relationship counselor to help you work through the letting go and moving forward.

    No matter how hard your breakup, one day it will be just another chapter in your story too.

  • What to Do After a Breakup to End Painful Relationship Patterns

    What to Do After a Breakup to End Painful Relationship Patterns

    couple is walking in the rain under an umbrella, abstract colorful oil painting

    “When writing the story of your life, don’t let anyone else hold the pen.” ~Unknown

    After my kids grew up and I moved to the city from the suburbs, I became somewhat of a professional dater. I was determined to make up for lost time after over a decade as a single mom, and I was optimistic about my future.

    My hopes were dashed almost immediately. Relationship after relationship crashed and burned, rarely lasting more than a few weeks. As soon as they’d walk out the door, sometimes within minutes, I’d fire up whatever dating website I was on at the time and begin again.

    I’ll never forget writing a new profile with a box of Kleenex on my lap and taking breaks to cry. I went out on dates feeling like the walking wounded, thinking that was the best thing to do. Just get back on the horse as soon as possible.

    After hundreds of dates and a long-term relationship, I found a better way to navigate breakups. The next time a relationship ended, I was determined to take the opportunity to build a better life for myself instead of simply running out to see who I could date next.

    Breaking up is tough. It can be one of the most miserable experiences of a person’s life. If you’re going through a breakup, it’s important to give yourself the chance to process it emotionally. If you take the opportunity to understand your part in creating the experience, you stand a much better chance of having a more fulfilling relationship next time around.

    The first thing to do is mourn the relationship. This is not popular advice, but it is good advice. We all want to get to the good part, and this is definitely not it. The thing is, if you don’t do it, you’ll have a mess on your hands that will infect your future if it’s not cleaned up.

    Not taking the time to grieve is like throwing your dirty laundry in the closet and never washing it. It gets it out of the way for the time being, but it’s a poor long-term strategy.

    Ancient cultures honored the practice of mourning. In their wisdom, they understood that mourning is part of life and helps us to heal. We’ve lost that in our day, but I think that mourning can be truly beneficial.

    When your relationship has ended, set aside some time to be alone and sit down. Cry, journal, yell, really let yourself feel what’s going on inside you. Face the fact that your relationship has ended and feel the anger, sadness, loneliness, and hopelessness, whatever comes up. You may be afraid that you’ll never come out of it, but you will.

    Locate the feelings in your body and welcome them as best you can. Lie down and put your hands on the place in your body where you feel intense emotion. It may be your chest, your stomach, or your throat. Practice breathing white light into these places and visualize them healing.

    Plan to spend at least a couple of days on this. Resist the urge to rush out with your friends, go back to dating, or hit the bars right now. There will be plenty of time for that later. See this through so that it doesn’t lurk in your heart, and once you are done, you will be done.

    Please treat yourself with compassion during this time. Take long baths, get plenty of sleep, and be sweet to yourself.

    As tempting as it may be to numb out with drinking, eating, shopping, or whatever your distraction of choice may be, try to minimize this. Waking up with a hangover, a stranger, or a huge credit card bill will only add to your troubles.

    A breakup is the perfect time to do some soul-searching. You’ll have some alone time and your emotions will be front and center. Since breakups are so painful, I hope that you’ll take this opportunity to discover how to make your life better in the future.

    Once you’ve mourned the loss of your relationship, take some time to evaluate all of your most significant relationships. Start by looking at each of your parents or primary caregivers, then your most recent relationship, and finally, your last three relationships before that one, for six relationships total.

    Use a separate sheet of paper for each person and create two columns: “liked” and “didn’t like.” Fill out a sheet for each person. After doing this, write down the traits they all had in common on a fresh sheet of paper. For instance, you may notice that these people didn’t keep their promises or had short tempers.

    After you’ve written about them, make it about you. Write down what you did that you liked and didn’t like. Finally, ask yourself why you continue to participate in behaviors you don’t like. Were you on automatic pilot? Did you know at the time that what you were doing wasn’t a good idea and do it anyway?

    When I did this exercise, I realized that many of the men I’d dated had kept me at a distance, just as my parents had. It seemed to be my default setting in relationships. I was afraid to really let anyone see me and have a chance to possibly disapprove of me, so I remained aloof and chose unavailable partners.

    I also saw that I had remained in relationships long after I knew in my heart that they weren’t going to work. I simply couldn’t bring myself to face what was happening.

    After you’ve had a chance to reflect, pick five things on your list that you’d like to change and write about what you need to do to create a new experience in your next relationship. Do you see a common thread in these relationships? Have you been engaging in behaviors that aren’t working for you?

    As long as you continue to believe that life is happening to you, you’ll continue to get the same results. Ask yourself how you’re contributing to the state of your relationships and determine what things you’ll do differently in the future.

    I decided to be more proactive in my future dating experiences by asking more questions and taking the time to get to know someone new before jumping into a relationship. I also became more vulnerable and honest about what I was looking for on dates instead of just hoping we’d be on the same page.

    Once you’ve done these things, you’ll have a much better idea where you stand and where you’d like to go next. Take the time to do this thoroughly and you’ll bring more clarity and understanding to your next relationship.

    No matter how awful your last relationship was, how wrong the other person was, or how ready you think you are to find someone new, you must look at your part in this relationship or you’ll be very likely to repeat your experience.

    Be willing to accept responsibility for your life, your past and your future. The common denominator in all of your relationships is you. You were there for all of them.

    If you have a pattern of being cheated on, mistreated, or dumped, you owe it to yourself to take a closer look at why these things happened. This doesn’t mean that the other person was blameless, but you’re the only one you can do anything about.

    If you don’t want to keep dating these types of people, take a closer look at what’s been happening. Do you have a pattern of tolerating mistreatment from those you date? Do you overlook red flags early on?

    At what point did you see that things were heading south? What, if anything, did you do about it? Did you speak up, or self-abandon? Did you hang on and try to save a broken relationship? Did you try to change him or her?

    Before you start dating again, sit down with a pen and paper and ask yourself these questions.

    Be willing to examine your actions, but don’t beat up on yourself. You were doing the best you could and it won’t help to judge yourself harshly or rehash every detail of your relationship looking for all your “mistakes.”

    This is a process of self-discovery and finding a better way, much like looking in the mirror and correcting your form at the gym. Treat yourself with tenderness and compassion.

    A breakup is a very real loss and should not be minimized. If you make the effort to learn everything you can, breakups can serve you by providing insight that will help you create a better relationship next time.

    Most of us are encouraged to move on immediately after a breakup, but if you try to do that without laying a good foundation, you’re more likely to get into another relationship that ends up not working. After taking the time to mourn your loss and learn all you can from it, moving on is the best thing to do.

    When the time comes, it helps to get closure, purge any remaining relics of the relationship, and set a course for your future.

    First, write a goodbye letter to your ex (no need to mail it, this can just be for you) or sit in a chair with another chair facing you where you can imagine him or her sitting and have a conversation for closure. Get everything out and don’t hold back. This is for you. You don’t want to carry these thoughts and feelings with you into the future, so deal with them now.

    Next, go through your home and pack up all of your ex’s belongings, gifts he or she gave you, and any reminders of the relationship.

    Set a date on which you resolve to begin dating again. Take photos for an online profile, buy new clothes, new bedding, or get a new hairstyle or a makeover. Do something new, take up a hobby, make new friends.

    Finally, sit down and write a paragraph about what you want your next relationship to be like. How would you like to feel in this relationship? Write about what kind of person you want to be with. Don’t hold back, write down everything you would like to experience.

    Going through a breakup is one of the hardest things we humans face. Making an effort to understand what happened and your part in it will go a long way toward helping you have a better relationship next time around. You’ll be much better off taking the time to reflect than running out and looking for someone else immediately.

    As for me, I forced myself to follow this very process after my last breakup and I was able to have a much better relationship when I got back to dating. I’m convinced I never would have been ready for it if I’d just kept up my gig as a professional dater.

  • To Fully Heal Your Broken Heart, Make Sure You Do This

    To Fully Heal Your Broken Heart, Make Sure You Do This

    Broken heart

    “Grief is healthy and it is healing.” ~Richard Moss

    When I was a little girl there was this belief floating around in my head that there was only one person. One person who was my soulmate. One person who could love me. I think the belief was formed by some concoction of Disney movies, religion, and American culture.

    What’s worse than this belief is that I somehow found myself afraid that I wouldn’t even have one person. I was afraid I would be alone. Forever.

    I don’t know when I adopted the belief that I wasn’t enough, that I might not find someone, that I was unlovable. My mom did her best to reassure me, but it didn’t quite do the trick.

    Self-love is the work we have to do ourselves. No one else can give us that gift, no matter how young we happen to be. 

    Into my third decade of life I did the deep work that led me to discover what it actually meant to love myself. My life transformed in so many incredible ways, and then I no longer worried about whether there was someone out there who would love me. I knew I was lovable, and by more than one person.

    At some later point I met a man. I liked him, but there were some red flags. He was a bit flaky, and he lacked the ability to communicate maturely. I was about to walk away, and then suddenly everything changed. The red flags turned green, and we pranced off into the moonlight.

    That red lack-of-communication flag never really turned green. Nothing had actually changed. He just hid who he really was until he felt suffocated and invisible. After almost a year of living like this he left me with no warning.

    For a long time I felt so much pain that my entire being melted into sorrow. I fell into a deep depression and reached out to a spiritual teacher who wrote me this:

    Please do not indulge any thought that attacks yourself or even your ex-boyfriend. Grief is healthy and it is healing.

    I wrote back to this teacher that I wasn’t indulging in negative thoughts, that the pain was so overwhelming that I felt no anger, just the deepest sadness I’d ever felt.

    I spent a lot of time in bed feeling my pain, crying, and thinking. This was a man who I was building a life with. This was a man I opened my whole heart to. This man showed me love and support like I’d never experienced before. And then he swiftly took it all away. As I lay in bed for days with a churning mind the stories began to surface in whispers:

    See, I am unlovable. He didn’t think I was worth loving.  I’m not enough.

    And the stories grew louder.

    “Please do not indulge any thought that attacks yourself.”

    The stories we tell ourselves that deny the essence of who we are may be so deeply rooted that we’re unconscious of their presence. I was attacking myself. Each time I allowed these beliefs to hold an ounce of truth I was attacking myself.

    So I worked on loving myself instead. I worked on seeing the truth of who I was in each moment. The truth I found was this: I am worth loving. I am enough. I am lovable. I am beautiful. I am whole. All of this is true right now, in every single moment I am living. 

    A few months into my grief, the anger began to surface, and I started to vilify him. I was tired of feeling the pain, so my mind created stories about him to make me feel better. I told myself he was incapable of loving me, that he couldn’t allow me to be fully me. I thought about how he was a selfish person for treating me the way he did.

    “Please do not indulge any thought that attacks yourself or even your ex-boyfriend.”

    My teacher was right. Those stories didn’t do my ex justice. They didn’t honor the time we shared together. And they didn’t actually serve me. They were a weak tool to help me avoid my pain.

    The truth is simply that he wasn’t my person anymore. And that didn’t make him wrong. It didn’t make him bad. I didn’t have to turn him into a villain to heal my wounds. I didn’t have to diminish my pain or justify his actions. I could simply allow for the pain and allow for the healing.

    “Grief is healthy and it is healing.”

    That breakup took me down, down, down. It made me forget who I am so I could find myself again. It was the greatest gift I have been given in a very long time, and it took me many months to recognize the gift at all.

    Grief is healthy and it is healing. I didn’t need to make up stories to ease my pain because the more I hid from it the more it had a hold on me. Instead, I chose to let the pain wash over me. I allowed it to teach me. That’s how grief can become a gift.

    We don’t need to hold on to old lovers, torturing ourselves with “what-ifs” that don’t serve us.

    We don’t need to condemn ourselves for being imperfect, for being too much, for not doing all the right things.

    And we don’t need to denigrate the people we have loved because they hurt us.

    I have never been more confident that I will have an incredible partner in life one day. You can too. But first you have to let go of that story, whether you’ve adopted it as a child or created it to feel less pain as an adult. Stop shrinking yourself down because you won’t let go.

    Allow for the grief so you can begin to truly heal. Through healing you will grow more fully into yourself, and from that place you will discover the truth. Release the burdens of storytelling. You don’t actually need them. You are strong enough to heal on your own.

  • 5 Things You Need to Tell Yourself After a Painful Breakup

    5 Things You Need to Tell Yourself After a Painful Breakup

    Girl on a swing

    Have you ever experienced a breakup or divorce but still loved the other person you were saying goodbye to?

    I met my ex-girlfriend on a rooftop in Istanbul. I had just sold everything I owned to travel the world, and she was a tour leader in Asia.

    She was everything I had been searching for: beautiful, confident, and funny. I followed her to India and China. She followed me to Australia. When the money and visas ran out, we moved back to Canada, found an apartment, got a cat, and shared a strong, healthy relationship for over five years.

    And then, just like that, it was over.

    There was no huge fight, yelling, or name-calling. It was just an honest discussion about the direction we saw ourselves going into the future. Unfortunately, our visions didn’t align. So we had to ask the tough questions:

    Do we stick it out and hope that things fall into place?

    Or do we part ways?

    We chose the latter, and it was one of the hardest decisions either of us had ever made.

    What followed was a month of living in the same apartment until we settled logistics like finding a new place to live, selling the car, and deciding who would keep the cat. We slept in separate beds. We talked, cooked, and went out to our favorite restaurants. We still loved each other but that only served to make our decision even tougher.

    I struggled a lot. I couldn’t bring myself to write or work on my business. I shut down. I drank and smoked too much. I cried in the shower. I second-guessed our decision constantly.

    But we stuck with it. I figured I had two choices: stay sad and depressed or put my head down and start moving forward. I chose to move forward. And here’s what I told myself to help get me going in the right direction.

    Time Doesn’t Heal

    “I realized, it is not the time that heals, but what we do within that time that creates positive change.” ~Diane Dettman

    During my breakup, friends and family loved to throw out the often used cliche “Don’t worry, time heals.”

    But guess what? Time doesn’t heal. It’s only an excuse people use to justify sitting around in their pajamas watching Netflix and eating ice cream out of the bucket with a side of red wine.

    Sure, if you wait long enough, perhaps time will heal. But how much of your life are you willing to sacrifice to get there? Six months? A year? Ten years?

    We have one precious life on this little blue planet, with no guarantees of an afterlife. It’s a waste to believe that time will magically heal our sorrows.

    It’s easy to stay stuck in sadness and depression; it’s hard to move on from someone we still love. But you have to do it. You have to take action because life isn’t going to wait for you.

    Get rid of the notion that time will heal because it’s not going to help you get where you need to go. Instead, do something. Get out of your house and meet new people. Take up a hobby you’ve been putting off. Train for a marathon. Start doing yoga. Do anything. Just don’t wait for time to heal your pain.

    Love Isn’t Always Enough

    Friends and family couldn’t wrap their heads around my breakup. “If you still love each other, can’t you make it work?” they would ask.

    We grow up with a belief that love can overcome any obstacle. I blame the likes of Harry and Sally, Edward and Vivian, and Sam and Annie. Romantic movies always end happily because love conquers all.

    But real life isn’t so simple.

    My ex and I still love each other, but we both understand it’s not enough. There were fundamental things about our visions of the future that didn’t line up. Take having children, for example. If one person wants kids and the other doesn’t, that is a fundamental difference that cannot be changed. Sure, nobody knows how the future will pan out, but it’s not fair to “settle” for the sake of love. Otherwise, there will be regret and resentment later on in the relationship.

    Things like the decision of having children, the city you want to live in, or your core values are fundamental parts of a relationship. If the fundamentals don’t align the relationship could be doomed, and you could be delaying the inevitable until one day you really do have a yelling match and break up in anger.

    My ex and I decided that we didn’t want to get to that point even though we still loved each other. We ended our relationship amiably before resentment and regret reared their ugly heads.

    So remember: love is wonderful, beautiful, and fulfilling. But it’s not always enough.

    Grieve, But Not Too Much

    It’s important to grieve our losses. Whether it’s the loss of a relationship, loved one, job, or whatever, we need to take time to be sad. We need to get in touch with our feelings and understand what we’re feeling. Labeling and being aware of our feelings is imperative in every area of life. So when you’re sad, be sad.

    Like I said earlier, I grieved in an unhealthy way. But at the time it felt good to numb the pain. I recognized what I was doing. I knew it wasn’t the best way. Still, I did it.

    And I’m happy I did. After a month of unhealthy grieving I was done with it. My productivity hit rock-bottom and I couldn’t stand it anymore.

    There are many ways to deal with grief.

    For me, I needed to start creating and writing again. I needed to travel, explore, and have adventures. I needed to connect with other people who had similar experiences to help me realize that I wasn’t alone in my pain.

    So go ahead. Grieve.

    Just don’t do it for too long or you might find yourself grieving for a long, long time.

    Don’t Do It All On Your Own

    A friend of mine sent me a blunt text message:

    “Stop drinking wine, sobbing with your ex, and move on with your life. You have a goal. Now get off your ass and make it happen.”

    Bang! We all need friends like that from time to time. We can’t do it all on our own, no matter who we are or who we’ve been in the past.

    My friend reminded me of the importance of keeping my friends and family close. Sometimes in relationships we become so enamored in our romantic partners that we neglect our relationships with friends and family.

    But when a relationship with a lover ends, who is going to be there to catch you when you fall? Who’s going to give you a listening ear, shoulder to cry on, or tough love?

    We can’t get through loss by ourselves. We need others to prop us up and push us forward.

    Keep your friends and family close, all the time, because some day you will need their love.

    No Matter What, It Was Not a Waste of Time

    It’s too easy to look back on a “failed” relationship as a waste. “Well, there goes five years of my life!” If you’re getting out of a long-term relationship it’s something that crosses your mind.

    But think back on the person you were when you first got into your relationship compared to the person you are today. Chances are you’re a different person, for the better. You’ve lived, loved, and most importantly, learned.

    Don’t look at it with the mindset that you have to start over again. You’re not starting over because you’ve grown, matured, and become a better person during your relationship.

    For me, I learned how to communicate better—skills that will continue to serve me moving forward. I learned to speak French, lived in a new city, and made a career transition. I met awesome people. I took swing dancing lessons and learned about French Canadian culture. All these things happened because of my ex-girlfriend.

    It’s easy to look back on a broken relationship as a waste of time, but when you really start to think about it you’ll realize that it’s anything but a waste.

    —

    If you’ve recently experienced a painful breakup or divorce, I’m sorry. I feel your pain. I know what you’re going through isn’t easy.

    Spend time reflecting and getting in touch with your feelings. Grieve. Be sad. Cry. Talk about it. Cry some more.

    Then move on.

    Sounds over-simplified, I know. But ultimately, being stuck in a rut is a choice.

    If your choice is to move forward I hope you do so with more confidence, purpose, and authenticity. I hope you’re able to tell yourself some of the things I’ve mentioned above.

    Live. Thrive. Life is short so make the best of it.

  • Dealing with Rejection: It Doesn’t Mean That You’re Not Good Enough

    Dealing with Rejection: It Doesn’t Mean That You’re Not Good Enough

    “The best way out is always through” ~Robert Frost

    I was trembling as I hung up the phone. He’d dumped me.

    It was as if, while I was watching a murder mystery at the edge of my seat, the electricity had gone out. Poof! I wasn’t going to get to see the end of the movie, and I had no control over when the lights would come back on.

    I felt the fangs of rejection sink into my heart like a merciless tarantula. My mind, which is normally going 500 miles an hour, came to a halt. Suddenly I felt nothing. Frozen. I had no thoughts. Total shock. The poison of the rejection spider slowly oozed into my bloodstream, paralyzing me in my seat.

    “Get up! Get up now!” I heard the voice in my mind say. For some reason, it seemed as if moving could unfreeze my emotions.

    I did get up, but stood there as if I was listening to the strange noises coming from the kitchen in the middle of the night. Waiting for someone to tell me that I was “punked” and that he was going to call me back to tell me that it was just a silly joke. Then we were going to make up and live happily ever after. That did not happen.

    “We create what we defend against.” ~Marianne Williamson

    We had a few close breakup calls before, and I always felt like I dodged a bullet when we ended up in a smooth place. Apparently, we had used up all the close calls reserved for us.

    It was official: I was just not good enough. I was too broken to be loved. No one was going to love me forever. Um, can I get that in writing as well? I did. An email followed his phone call. It was as official as an IRS letter arriving on a Friday afternoon.

    The words I had dreaded, protected myself against at all costs from the man who had professed his undying love for me: “Banu, you are too this and that. So I am out.” He said he was sorry.

    Clingy is not sexy, nor is desperate. I had become both. All because I had not done the work to correct a limiting belief that runs in almost every human being on the planet: I am not good enough.

    In the following days and weeks, as my emotions defrosted in the scorching heat of heartache, I felt a strange sense of relief. Finally, it had happened. I was still alive. Still breathing. Still able to work, bathe, and feed myself.

    There was no news coverage on CNN about how my heart was broken, nor did the ending of my relationship break the Internet. Life went on for everyone as usual, except for me. It was the beginning of my freedom and I didn’t know it.

    I had feared being broken up with all my life because, deep inside, I believed that I wasn’t good enough. That belief was so deeply ingrained in me that I had finally created it.

    I was always the one to end a relationship because the fear of the other shoe falling would tap out my nervous system sooner than later. The guy could barely recognize the confident woman he fell in love with, who now was an emotional wreck, clinging to him for dear life.

    “A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.” ~Jean de La Fontaine

    I am convinced of one thing: People come into our lives as mirrors of who we are.

    If we don’t recognize our worth, causing us to seek validation and approval from others, the world mirrors that, and we meet people who don’t see our worth either.

    Rejection seemed like death to me. It was. It was the death of my old self and the birth of a new era of new choices, thoughts, and beliefs about my own self-worth.

    It was unfair to tie my sense of self to the approval of one man. Unfair to both parties, in fact. What if he had died in a car crash? Was I going to become worthless then?

    The gift of getting dumped was that I saw that I could still stand on my two feet and manage not to turn to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain. I allowed myself to feel, journaled to process what was coming up, and paid attention to the self-negating stories I was telling myself.

    You would think that it would be devastating when you are rejected for the very things that you perceive are your biggest flaws. It wasn’t.

    The blessing is that, once we get through the disappointment, anger, and pain, if we are willing to look at the truth of the situation, we will find the door that has been left unlocked, leading us to freedom and our self-worth.

    And it is not the “He was a jerk anyway; it’s his loss” kind of freedom. It’s the “I am worthy of love, and I’ll be darned if I leave my sense of worth in someone else’s hands again” kind.

    It’s about making a commitment to value ourselves, and living as if we do. This affects our choices, from what we eat, what we wear, and how we behave to how fast we get up after we fall.

    “The world is a mirror, forever reflecting what you are doing, within yourself.” ~Neville Goddard

    Looking back, I could see that I had set myself up for rejection so that I could learn that my own self-rejection hurts more than someone else’s.

    I had been unknowingly rejecting myself for the things he recited as he said his final words. He was a perfect mirror.

    And the healing wasn’t going to come from someone telling me how wonderful I am fifty times a day. It was goi­ng to come from me believing it and living it. The importance of self-love and self-appreciation was the lesson.

    Through this experience, I got some insights into rejection by a love interest, which you might find helpful:

    1. Everyone experiences rejection.

    Even the hottest, most intelligent, most successful people on the planet get cheated on or broken up with. If you think that your size 10 body, your negative bank balance, or your dead end job are the reasons why you might be rejected, think again.

    If physical perfection or success could guarantee that we never get broken up with or experience heartache, no fashion model or mogul would know what rejection feels like. That’s not the case, is it? It’s a common human experience, and though it can be painful, what hurts more is the belief that rejection says something about our worth.

    2. Trying to be something we’re not just to please someone else is essentially rejecting ourselves.

    Because then we don’t get to discover who we are and be that person. We get stuck in the role we know they want us to be. We cheat ourselves of an authentic existence.

    What people like or need is strictly personal to them and dependent on where they are in their lives. If someone rejects you because they want something else, that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. It just means they’re not the right match for you.

    3. Once you experience rejection and work through it, the fear loses its sting.

    If someone chooses to not be with you anymore, and you use the experience as an opportunity not to reject yourself, you are getting to a place where you will know that you will be okay no matter what.

    You get to a place where you think, “Too bad it didn’t work out. I can see what I need to heal and change more clearly now. It hurts, but I am okay.” You can only go up from there. Unfortunately, we can’t get there without going through it.

    “The best way out is always through.” ~Robert Frost

    Rejection is a part of life. If you have experienced it, consider yourself lucky. You now know that you can survive it. If you have not, believe me when I say this: You will be okay. And perhaps, as it did for me, rejection can lead you to a deeper sense of self-love and self-acceptance.