Tiny Buddha

Tag: divorce

  • Healing After Heartbreak: How to Turn Your Pain into Your Greatest Superpower

    Healing After Heartbreak: How to Turn Your Pain into Your Greatest Superpower

    “Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light.” ~Spike Milligan

    Ever since I was a little girl, Disney films, story books, family, and friends unconsciously conditioned me to believe that the definition of happiness was a knight in shining armor galloping into my life to rescue me, sweeping me away, soothing all my problems as we ride off into the sunset to live happily ever after.

    However, it’s fair to say, that fairytale didn’t play out how I’d expected in real life. Nor does it for most, if any of us.

    For much of my teenage years, I had a turbulent relationship with my dad, who was absent a lot of the time (both physically and emotionally), as he battled with a toxic relationship with alcohol and mental illness. He was inconsistent, distant, and showed little interest in me or any of my achievements as I went through school and university.

    The story I told myself and the belief I adopted was that I clearly was not enough for this man, my own flesh and blood, to love me and to want to play a part in my life.

    I never recognized or processed all the negative emotions around him; the anger, hurt, resentment, and sadness that resided discreetly and comfortably in a deep dark corner of my heart, waiting for an opportunity to make their ugly appearance years later.

    I was twenty-three when I met the man that would years later become my husband. He was consistent, present, and loveable—all the things my dad was not. He loved me and made me feel like I was enough.

    Finally, my knight in shining armor had arrived—albeit not on a horse, but in a dark bar one Saturday night dressed as Spiderman. Regardless, I was sure it was going to be just like the fairytales.

    Like everyone else in my friendship group at that time, we progressed our way through the game of life like it was some kind of tick-box race:

    • Good job (tick)
    • Find a partner (tick)
    • Get engaged (tick)
    • Buy a house (tick)
    • Get married (tick)

    In all those films I’d watched and books I’d read, this was the equation for happiness. I’d seemingly completed the game successfully and nailed the equation. I’d gotten all those things I’d been yearning for, yet something was missing. I felt like I’d been cheated somehow. I didn’t feel truly happy, I didn’t feel really fulfilled, and I found myself asking: “is this it?”

    After a lot of contemplation and sleepless nights, I pressed the self-destruct button on my life and made the decision to walk away from my marriage and home. My friends thought I was mad. My family questioned my sanity. Somedays even I questioned my own decisions, but something deep inside me—my intuition, an inner knowing maybe—told me that I was not where I was meant to be.

    I reluctantly followed that pull, even though I was stepping into a terrifying unknown. My future looked dark and all the hopes, dreams, and plans that I had quickly fell to a thousand little pieces at my feet.

    I subsequently went from 0-100mph into full distraction mode. I threw myself into a new job, went traveling on my own, I dated, and from the outside I looked to be coping brilliantly. On the inside, however? I was far from brilliant. I felt lost, scared, and lonely, with an overwhelming feeling of failure with a sense that I just wasn’t “enough.”

    All those limiting beliefs and stories I had been telling myself since I was twelve bubbled up to the surface, and in my mind, had all been validated in one fell swoop.

    Crushed, I found I was frantically grasping for the things that once made me feel loved, safe, and secure, and there was nothing there. It gave me no choice but to go inward and be my own savior— my own knight in shining armor.

    This was the start of a journey of deep healing, rebuilding, and self-discovery—my comeback story. With the right support from a counselor and a coach, I processed and healed the wounds in my heart from my dad, and later from my divorce, which had unsurprisingly unearthed a lot of past trauma.

    I made a commitment that I was going to see this through no matter how tough and painful it was. I owed it to myself. I changed and transitioned, many times. I peeled back all the delicate layers of my heart and held each one up to the light with a compassionate curiosity. I had to break wide open in order for me to stick myself back together piece by piece.

    I took time to get to know myself. I healed and grew stronger and wiser. I expressed forgiveness and gratitude. I accepted all of myself. I learned to love myself. And slowly but surely, my natural confidence blossomed and spilled out. I realized that the more love I gave to myself, the more I had to pour into others.

    Self-love was the answer. For my whole life I had been looking to other people and external things to validate me, make me happy, and make me feel loved, when all along that was my job. I first needed to be enough for myself.

    I learned that it’s not about what you get in life. All of that ‘stuff’ is impermanent. Your looks? They’ll fade. Material stuff? Doesn’t mean anything, and you can’t take it all with you. Your job? Can be taken away. People? Can leave you. It’s who you become that’s really important.

    So, I made peace with my past and arrived at a place where I felt grateful for all of it. I then decided I was going to use every challenging experience to learn, grow, and become the best version of myself I could be.

    All healing begins with the ability to love yourself first—the ability to accept and acknowledge all of yourself and all your experiences, the good and the bad. Like water weathering a rock over time, your experiences have shaped you into the incredible, unique person that you are today.

    Forgiveness is another critical part of healing. You must find it in yourself to forgive others when they were doing the best with what they had, and to also forgive yourself for the mistakes you made when you were doing your best. If you don’t forgive, you are the person who suffers. It’s like walking around with an open wound; until you heal it, you will continue to bleed over every aspect of your life.

    After a lot of inner work, I healed and found the courage to shine a light on the biggest shadow that resided deep in my heart: that in some way I just wasn’t enough—not loveable enough. It pains me to see those words in black and white now, because they are no longer my truth.

    I carried the worry that people would judge my path because it looked different for too long. I chose to embrace the change, let go of caring what other people thought, and became the person I wanted to be. The person I always was underneath all the conditioning, limiting beliefs, and stories I’d made up as a result of my experiences.

    I thought, “What thoughts would the best version of me be thinking? How would she speak to herself? How would she treat others? How would she show up?” And I chose to become her.

    Since stepping into my authentic self, I have attracted the most incredible, diverse, inspiring people into my life. I had to choose to love some people from afar, but now I see how it was necessary in order for me to grow and evolve into the person I was always meant to become. The woman I am now proud to be.

    Don’t get me wrong, I still have days where I can wake up with a heavy heart or feel sad, but I’m human, and healing is by no means a simple or linear process. The difference is that now I am prepared with the mindset, awareness, and tools to approach challenging days with grace and self-compassion.

    We have been conditioned to think that a relationship ending means we are a failure. Yet, a relationship ending can often be evidence of strength, bravery, and empowerment. It can be the moment we stop settling for mediocrity and we finally say “enough” and choose ourselves.

    Although they do not feel like it at the time, endings are powerful containers for growth, learning, expansion, and exciting new beginnings.

    Yes, I lost a relationship with someone who I thought would be my forever person; we didn’t gallop off into the sunset and live happily ever after like I had expected we would. But through that messy, painful process of healing and re-building, I found the most secure, fulfilling, and loving relationship with a person who is going to be by my side until the day I take my last breath: me.

  • When Life Gets Hard: 4 Lessons That Eased My Suffering

    When Life Gets Hard: 4 Lessons That Eased My Suffering

    “In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.” ~Viktor Frankl

    When life goes sideways, it can be hard to take one more breath, let alone find meaning.

    Trust me. I know.

    In the same year, I had breast cancer, chemo, radiation, and a divorce I didn’t want. There’s more to the story (there always is), but in essence, I lost everything—my health, my love, my home.

    During all of this, I lost sight of myself, quit trusting myself. I was sure I was to blame for everything.

    At the same time, within twenty-four hours of leaving the house I loved, six friends had given me the keys to their houses, telling me I always had a place to stay. My family showed up for me in ways that had me weeping.

    Also during this time, I had two powerful dreams and one still small voice—these three messengers told me the very things I needed to hear to go on.

    My first dream involved someone cooking something delicious in a kitchen. I couldn’t eat what she was making, because taste often goes awry with chemo, but I remember the cook saying, “Honey, there’s more sugar than salt in this recipe.”

    In other words, life’s sweetness would return. Just give it time.

    The second dream I had is that I dropped deep into the earth where every last bit of me was burned away. All that was left was a fierce and shining bone.

    This dream promised me that there was something deep inside that was indestructible, and it had everything to do with fierceness and light.

    And that still small voice? No matter what was happening, deep inside there was this wise and quiet Me who refused to let me be hurt anymore. What do I mean by that?

    I knew I needed something to help me survive, but this grounded Me knew I needed to be intentional about how I chose to survive. Because I wanted to make myself better, not worse.

    I began to write and record mini-meditations. I called them “A Hit of Hope.” A friend told me that the best place to record was in a closet, so there I sat, on top of my shoes, talking into my phone—using my voice and my words to name my pain and to convince myself that things would get better.

    Any human being will have pain and trauma. Any human being will have things happen to them that they would rather avoid. But as long as we are alive, we can know that life will go sideways. In big and small ways, we will suffer. So as much as it pains me to say this, why suffering happens is irrelevant. The only question we can answer for ourselves is how we will choose to be in the midst of pain and suffering.

    While there are still days when the bus of emotions can run me down, and while I have made more than my fair share of missteps in my recent journey, I have learned a few things along the way.

    1. When there are big, and out-of-control life events, radical self-love and emotional recovery are the first order of business.

    When you are hurting, put down the metaphorical gas can or salt or knives. Don’t make the fire any bigger or the wounds any deeper than they already are.

    What do I mean by that? Make choices that keep your head clear, choices that keep your body and spirit safe.

    For instance, a friend of mine, who was going through a divorce at the same time, was told by his best friend, “Just get roaring drunk, and stay that way for three months.” While that might help numb the pain, that kind of behavior would only create more problems in the long run. It would be far more healing to embrace journaling, yoga, or some other form of self-care.

    Also, even if you messed up, don’t beat yourself up. Can you admit to how you contributed to the situation? Absolutely, but think of yourself like a kid on the playground. More scolding and finger wagging usually does little to help the situation. Often, it’s a big ol’ hug that is needed to stop the tears. So, get centered, get settled, and heap loads of love on your hurting self.

    2. You get to feel every ounce of what you are feeling.

    Do not be ashamed of your feelings. A Buddhist concept relates to this: first and second darts. The first dart is the emotion (sadness, fear, anger), and because we are human, it is right and good to let those emotions flow through us.

    The second dart is our reaction to our emotion. Why do I always do this? If I were a better person, I’d… You know the drill. Feel your feelings, so that they can rise up and flow away, leaving you calm and clear.

    3. There is no time to lose, but there is no need to hurry.

    What in the heck does that mean? That bold statement doesn’t mean you should fly into manic or panic mode, but there is nothing like a life-threatening illness to remind a person that this now matters. In fact, this is the only now you are assured of getting. “You never know what’s coming,” a friend often says.

    The idea is to live each day fully. To make the small choices, the day-to-day decisions that bring you the most joy, the most delight. This might mean starting that novel or business, calling that friend you’ve been missing, getting on your bike or yoga mat, or climbing that mountain and yodeling until the grizzlies roar back in response.

    Simply put, there is not one day, one decision that will magically poof us to the good life for the rest of time. There are the small choices that add up—and either bring us toward more wholeness or continue to tear us to bits.

    4. Meaning is what helps us to survive.

    This last one is something Viktor Frankl, a survivor of four Nazi death camps, pointed out. In the worst of the worst, it can feel almost impossible to find meaning, but doing so is essential. It’s here that the why matters.

    When life assails, it can be easy to ask, “What’s the point?” To feel adrift. Untethered. Rocked this way and that by wind and wave, all threatening to pull you under.

    You have to find your why, your meaning, your sense of purpose or intention. What can you—you—do that makes life feel fuller, richer, more vibrant and alive?

    For me, it was helpful to think about active verbs. I wanted to move, create, heal, serve.

    What did this look like? I would work out each morning, because that helped me to feel strong in my own body. Then I would sit down and write my meditations, getting lost in the joy of doing something creative. This process not only healed my own struggling spirit, but I hoped it might do so for others. When I posted them, I did so with the intention of letting them serve others.

    If you have a hard time finding your own sense of meaning, take a look at your life. What do you do that makes you lose time, something you get lost in? That’s often a great indication of what brings you meaning. Or what is something you do that makes you feel better when you are done? How can you incorporate that into your life more?

    If you are still struggling, ask a friend to help you brainstorm. Or take a walk, and let your mind wander along with your feet. Your spirit often just needs some time, space, and quiet to speak deeply to you.

    This might sound like fluffy advice, but it’s not. As Frankl famously said, “He [or she or they] who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”

    To be clear, this isn’t easy, nor does it happen in a day, a week, a month, or even a year. But create the right conditions and good things are far more likely to come.

    Last week, I happened to be sitting on my front porch. When I got up to go inside and make myself tea, I noticed my orchid in the front window.

    A friend gave it to me before I started chemo. Every morning, I look at it as I sit inside and write, but this was the first time I’d seen it from the outside. From this new perspective, I could see a gathering of buds, pressed up against the window, the direction from which the light comes.

    The soon-to-be blossoms were hidden entirely by the pot and the leaves when I sat inside in my leather chair.

    That orchid offered me a message, just like my dreams. Those flowers showed me a deep and profound truth: sometimes, the blossoming is on the other side.

  • How I Stopped Feeling Unworthy of Love (And Finally Learned to Receive It)

    How I Stopped Feeling Unworthy of Love (And Finally Learned to Receive It)

    “I hope you find love, but more importantly, I hope you’re strong enough to walk away from what love isn’t.” ~Tiffany Tomiko

    When I was in my early thirties, I briefly dated someone right after my divorce.

    It was one of those fast and furious things that had no label and left me wondering if I made most of it up in my head.

    It wasn’t the first time and it wouldn’t be the last. How many times had I ended up feeling rejected and abandoned? I was trying so hard to impress a partner, but no matter what I did, I only seemed to push them away.

    Tearfully, I shared my pain with a spiritual advisor and psychic and asked for her guidance.

    She suggested I consider the joy that might come out of pleasurable and easeful partnerships. She asked me, “Briana, why don’t you shift your energy and focus to that aim?”

    But it wasn’t so easy. I was attached and hung up on this guy. Why didn’t he love me like I loved him?

    Another thought popped into my head, which I hadn’t realized was there before.

    Before I could voice it out loud, she said, “Oooohhhh, Briana. I can hear you already. You think if you’re not in pain, then your art and other creative works won’t be any good.”

    I burst out into another round of sobs.

    Because it was true. I did think that way.

    I thought I performed at my best when I was at my most miserable, and if you took away my misery, I would not only be common, but worse yet… mediocre. I would truly be the bad artist I always thought I was.

    Every aspect of creative expression would become cliched, trite, and uninteresting. There wouldn’t be anything special about me.

    And so I would become unlovable.

    The drama proved my worth, one way or the other; the drama of performing well enough to earn love. 

    It wasn’t until four years after that conversation that I finally stopped clinging to my pain.

    Because I realized that pain didn’t make something (love) more authentic—it just made it more difficult.

    Maybe you know where I’m coming from. Maybe you feel that you, too, need to “chase” a relationship and suffer for it to really matter. For you to really matter.

    That’s just not true. There is a far better way to build relationships, and that’s what I would previously have called “boring” and “too easy,” but actually is about respecting your own, authentic self and opening up to love.

    Here’s what I’ve learned about letting go of feeling unworthy of love and finally learning how to receive it.

    1. Take off your mask.

    Like me, you might believe that to attract a lover and be worthy of love, you have to pretend to be a perfect partner, through things like making them feel wanted and desired, looking beautiful, and being funny, witty, smart, and interesting all the time.

    All of these tactics might very well appeal to a potential partner. Certainly, it might make them interested enough to get to know you better, and maybe even date you for a while.

    But none of that means it will soften their heart and make them fall into a soul-shaking relationship with you.

    In fact, while I used to think that I needed to pretend that I was something I wasn’t so that I’d be worthy of love, I just kept deterring the other person.

    Why?

    Because while the glitz and glamour are appealing, it also, on a deeper level, left me completely unavailable.

    In the same way, you are pushing away a partner by performing all the time.

    You see, your partner is going to feel as if they have to perform just as well, and while that may be exciting in the beginning, unless the mask comes off, it also gets exhausting very quickly.

    A loving partner will be less concerned about how many degrees you hold or how much you make at your job and more concerned that you’re passionate about what you’re doing.

    A loving partner doesn’t care how many facts you can recite. They may enjoy your company if you’re a great conversationalist, but that won’t necessarily make them feel something for you.

    The way to a partner’s heart is to make them feel safe enough to explore and experience their own authentic self.

    You do that by feeling safe enough to express yourself—without someone else’s permission.

    Because if you don’t communicate that you’re comfortable in your own skin, this partner won’t feel comfortable or safe opening up to you, either.

    And if a person can’t open up to you, warts and all, they can’t fall in love with you. It’s as simple as that.

    When you put on a performance instead of taking off your mask, you unconsciously communicate a fantasy of reality, because that feels safer than vulnerability. And then you energetically and non-verbally tell your partner that you can’t handle their vulnerability, either.

    And isn’t it freeing? You, in all your vulnerability, are the person they want and need in order to be their own, true self.

    2. Get in touch with your own feelings.

    What many of us do when we feel unworthy of love is numb our emotions and pretend we feel something other than we actually do.

    But a loving partner wants to know you’re angry when you’re angry and why you’re angry.

    Guess what happens if you’re acting one way, while feeling something else? That’s right, drama.

    If they think you’re angry, but they are not sure, because you’re trying hard to plaster a smile on your face, say, “I’m fine,” and stuff it down, you’re not really fooling anyone, just confusing them.

    Your energy and your verbal expressions are going to contradict one another, and that is the seed of dramatic conflict.

    And this type of drama is so annoying because you are effectively keeping a partner at bay, and refusing to connect with them, for fear that they wouldn’t like the “real” you.

    But because they can’t access “the real” you, there’s no real glue holding them there, and they wind up leaving you anyway.

    So show them what you feel, while letting go of the fear that they will reject you for doing so. By reconnecting with your emotions, you show up as your authentic self and make it safe for them to love you.

    3. Be open to meeting someone with the same level of consciousness.

    Around the end of August last year, I started dating someone. He wasn’t originally what I would have imagined for myself, but he turned out to be exactly what I need.

    Right from the get-go, things went really well; we talked for hours on end, and I felt an instant connection.

    There were butterflies, yes, but not the kind of gut-twisting, obsessive sensations I have had in the past, which usually means I should run.

    This was more like, “Ah, you fit nicely… and kinda feel like home. What took you so long?”

    He shows up with fresh flowers, texts me “good morning,” and sees the humor in situations like that time my cat got jealous and bit him when he tried to kiss me.

    While before, I would have instantly dismissed this type of relationship as being too easy (and the lack of drama would have shown me that it wasn’t real love), I now see it for what it is:

    A relationship in which partners join together from a place of inspiration, as opposed to a fear-based need to be filled up with the other.

    This is a partner who already has a higher level of consciousness and is looking for purposeful building. There’s no drama, there’s no chasing, and there are no games or acts.

    This is the key to feeling worthy of and receiving love—finding a partner who is open to the same. The criterion for attracting such a partner, however, is that you are ready to meet them.

    I wasn’t ready four years ago. It took me that long to go from believing that relationships had to be a rollercoaster of emotions to opening up to a loving partnership.

    Ultimately, it’s about you finding your authentic self and realizing that this version of you (the real version) is so worthy of love and should be loved. That’s the premise for a relationship that, instead of being soul-sucking and anxiety-ridden, is the perfect space for self-growth and joy.

  • If You Want Closure After a Breakup: 6 Things You Need to Know

    If You Want Closure After a Breakup: 6 Things You Need to Know

    “We eventually learn that emotional closure is our own action.” ~David Deida

    When my last relationship ended, I didn’t really understand why. After eight years together and still feeling love for each other, my partner walked away saying he didn’t feel able to commit.

    He didn’t want to work on the relationship because he felt that nothing would change for him. So, I had no choice but to let it end and do everything I could to pick myself up from deep grief, intensified by great confusion.

    Now, over a year later, I still cannot give you a definitive reason as to why we broke up. I do still think about the breakup and occasionally it can bring up emotion, even now.

    But these days, instead of that burning need to understand and make sense of it, I have a more distanced curiosity when I think about the reasons we ended. I think this might be that elusive state we call “closure.”

    This reflection led me to explore what closure means: why we strive for it and why it feels so hopeless when we think we can’t reach it. Do we ever truly have it and where does it come from?

    What is Closure?

    When we say we want “closure” at the end of a relationship, what do we actually want?

    I have discovered that when people talk to me about needing closure, what they generally tend to mean is that they want answers and understanding about why things ended the way they did.

    Heartbroken people often believe that they will get the closure they so desperately desire, if only they could make sense of why. They expect that this knowledge will help them stop the overthinking and relieve them of their painful emotions.

    I used to believe this too, but experience from my previous crushing divorce taught me it doesn’t work like that. Closure must come from within because if you look to your ex or anywhere else to find it, you will be left frustrated and helpless and you will prolong your healing process.

    So, let’s look at some truths about closure that explain why it has to be an inside job:

    1. Your ex’s responses will lead to more questions.

    At the point of my breakup, my ex and I had a couple of conversations that involved me doing a lot of asking why, but not getting many answers. He couldn’t really explain; he told me “It’s not you, it’s me,” and when someone gives you that as their reason, there is nowhere you can go with it.

    For the person leaving it probably feels like the best way to end it. But for the person left, it’s deeply unsatisfying, and our natural tendency is to desperately ask more questions: “What’s wrong?” “Can I help you with whatever you’re going through?” “Can we fix it somehow?” “Can we at least work on it?”

    It’s important to know that when we are still in love with someone, nothing they can say will us give closure. The answers will never feel enough, they will only lead to more questions and more longing.

    2. “One last meeting” extends the pain.

    If there is still communication after a breakup it’s tempting to ask for one last face-to-face, to help you understand and gain the closure you seek. But for all of the reasons above, this will not help.

    A meet-up is often an excuse to get in touch because the ending feels too painfully final. Sometimes there’s a veiled hope that by seeing them for “one last talk” they may rethink or have doubts about leaving.

    Nobody is ever wrong for seeking closure this way, but before deciding to meet, check whether you are really hoping for reconciliation. Consider how your pain might be prolonged if you don’t get it.

    3. Your closure can’t come from their truth.

    You cannot rely on the words of the person who broke your heart for your own closure. Not because they are being deliberately dishonest (except for specific cases when they are), but because there is never just one truth at the time of the breakup.

    The answers you receive from your ex may bring you a little bit of understanding or peace at first. But if you depend on them for your closure, and then the reality shifts, it can set you back and bring even more pain.

    I allowed myself to feel deeply reassured by my ex’s assertion that he left because he needed to be by himself. So, when he told me two months later that he was dating again, it left me utterly devastated because I had allowed my peace of mind to come from his words and not my own healing. I had believed “It’s not you, it’s me,” then felt the gut punch that it actually was me.

    However, as I started to move through the healing process, my growth allowed me to shift my perspective on the meaning I gave to this revelation. I learned to reframe the deep feelings of rejection to create my own, more empowering, understanding of why we ended.

    You cannot cling to reassurance from someone else’s truth or explanations, because they will not hold lasting meaning for you. Your closure will only have a strong foundation if it comes from your own truth.

    4. Moving on should not be conditional.

    You disempower yourself when you believe that you can only get closure via your ex-partner. In doing so, you are effectively allowing them to say whether it is okay to move on.

    If you require an apology, changed behavior, an explanation, empathy, forgiveness, or anything else from them before you can move forward, what happens if those things never come? Are you okay with potentially spending years waiting for someone else to fix your pain?

    Whatever your ex-partner tells or withholds from you, however they acted back then, whatever their current situation or future behavior, is far less relevant than your response to any of these things.

    Your ability to gain closure is unconditionally within your control, and it becomes far easier when you stop focusing on your ex.

    5. Closure is not passive—what you do counts.

    We have a common understanding that “time heals a broken heart.”

    While it’s true that the intensity of grief emotions can lesson over time, what really makes a difference to your speed of moving on, is how willing you are to do the inner work to change and grow.

    As you gain closure, you’ll notice you are no longer so emotionally triggered by the same external situations. However, this doesn’t happen because anything out there is different; it’s because you are different.

    When you learn to heal an internal wound, shift your perspective, and change your responses to events, you gain peace from the inside. This is not dictated by time; it’s up to you how soon you want to make these changes.

    6. Closure is not a one-time event.

    There is a misconception that closure is something we finally “get.” The word itself implies that it’s a conclusion to everything related to the breakup. Because of this belief, we find ourselves constantly wondering when we will “have it.”

    Instead, if we see it as a process rather than a one-time event, it takes the pressure and expectation away from reaching this end goal. Creating closure is a continual journey of self-awareness, learning, and checking-in on our progress. We don’t just wake up one morning with a clean slate for a new life.

    Reframing closure this way also relieves us of judgment about how we should feel. It’s common to regard new emotional triggers, after a period of good progress, as unwelcome. They are negatively seen as a sign of a setback, but they are just highlighting where we still need a little more healing.

    Allow Yourself Achievable Closure

    The way we view closure matters. Compare the statement “I’m gaining closure every day” with “I don’t have closure yet.” You know straight away which feels kinder, more healing, less self-judging.

    I recently asked people what closure looked like to them, and I found that most believed that it is something you reach when you no longer think about or have emotions around your breakup.

    I wonder how realistic this thinking is. Perhaps it’s healthier and more attainable to claim we have closure, not when our thoughts and feelings have completely gone, but when they no longer have power over us.

    In my experience, becoming at peace with your breakup ultimately comes from healing through growth, and choosing to focus on what is within your control. This is the kind of closure that doesn’t come from an ex-partner, a rebound relationship, or any other external source. When you gain closure this way, it cannot be taken away from you.

  • How to Release Your Attachment When You Can’t Let Someone Go

    How to Release Your Attachment When You Can’t Let Someone Go

    I’m gonna be honest here, I can honestly say that I’ve never had any cords of attachment to a person, place, or thing—that is, until recently. This cord crippled me and broke me down to a point where I questioned who I was and my own personal strength.

    I think before I tell my story it’s important to know what exactly a cord of attachment is and how it can hurt you. A lot.

    Afterward, I’ll tell you why cutting cords is not very effective and what you need to do instead.

    What is a Cord of Attachment?

    People come in and out of our lives constantly. Some are blessings, some are lessons. The latter come to teach us things about ourselves. They help us dig deep and heal old ugly wounds that we’ve buried for years.

    Some people stay and some leave.

    However, some of the ones who leave us, leave a mark. A deep mark. A cord if you will. For whatever reason, we just can’t seem to let go of these people. We think about them constantly, cry over them, and are borderline addicted to them. For most of us, this is a past lover.

    Are you with me here? Can you feel me?

    This is a cord of attachment. This person has left such a tremendous impact on our lives and we just can’t let go. It doesn’t matter if this person was toxic or not, the cord is rooted firmly and we’re completely attached.

    My Story

    In 2015 I moved to Guatemala from Canada and fell in love with the country and the people. I decided I was going to stay for the long haul. This was my new home.

    In the small town I lived in, the dating scene was almost non-existent. And then my second year in, a new man from the US showed up in town. He was tall, dark, and handsome and fun to be around. We dated for over a year and then he returned to the US.

    We stayed in contact (and still are in contact almost daily) and traded our romantic relationship in for friendship. Sounds easy enough to do right? Wrong.

    I was okay with being his friend and though I secretly wished we could be more, I knew it would never happen. We were so incompatible in a million ways, independent of the fact we got along really well. We just weren’t meant to be.

    But I couldn’t let go. I was addicted to him. All of him. I was so ridiculously attached to him it was borderline toxic to me.

    After a year he moved back to Guatemala and I knew this was going to be hard for me. We weren’t dating anymore, he was free to see whoever he wanted. I knew I couldn’t bear to see it or find out he was with another woman.

    So I did the only thing I knew would help me. I left the country and moved to Mexico to heal and to be away from him. The cord of attachment I had to him was so strong it was killing me.

    I began my healing journey in Mexico.

    Some would say I ran away from my problems. It may seem that way. I ran away to save my soul and my heart. It was something I had to do. I also knew I had to cut this cord once and for all.

    Guided Meditations Just Didn’t Work

    I tried to listen to guided meditations on cord cutting and while they seemed to make me feel better, they were temporary fixes. Band-Aids if you will.

    I journaled daily. I would make lists of all the things I wanted in a man and a list of all the reasons why “John” wasn’t good for me.

    I wrote, I cried, I called friends to talk to, cried some more, listened to meditations nightly, yet nothing seemed to work. I just couldn’t cut this cord and it was emotionally exhausting.

    And then something dawned on me.

    Why Cutting Cords Doesn’t Work

    Every time I practiced a guided meditation, the cord would sever and I would feel good for a day or two, then I’d be back to where I started. Attached, addicted, and miserable.

    I realized it was a temporary fix and the wound went much deeper. I realized I needed to fix me at the root.

    But not only that, I also realized I needed to not just cut this cord but completely obliterate it right at its root.

    I needed to find out where this attachment came from, what my deep wound really was, heal that, and destroy the root.

    Cord cutting simply helps you break free at the moment, in the present. It doesn’t take away the pain and hurt. That’s something we need to work on. Find out what it is, where it came from, and heal from it completely.

    Where My Pain Comes From

    I discovered that my pain and deep wound comes from a childhood of abuse and never being loved. I gave myself and my love away to anyone who would give me any sort of attention. My longing to be loved so badly was destroying me in so many ways.

    And I had no idea.

    “John” filled so many voids for me, regardless of how toxic our relationship was at times, and I clung on to that. He treated me well, put me up on a pedestal, and gave me all the attention I’ve been craving all my life.

    I didn’t want to let go. It felt so damn good.

    But it wasn’t good. It was toxic to me and breaking me down every day.

    I reached out to a therapist friend of mine because I desperately needed to talk to someone who could help me with this. I knew I needed to heal, and fast. But I honestly didn’t know how.

    She helped me sift through all my childhood trauma and the patterns I was following into my adult life. She helped me see the cord for what it really was.

    The Cord I Created and Why Cutting It Just Won’t Work

    This cord is something I created myself because of my need for love, attention, and affection. The object at the other end of the cord made me feel good. Filled a dark lonely hole in my heart.

    I needed to relearn how to love and appreciate myself for exactly who I was. I had to remind myself that I don’t need a person to fill my voids and that it was up to me to do that.

    I also had to learn how to destroy this cord, not just cut it.

    When you cut cords, the roots are still attached to your soul offering the cord a chance to regrow. Think about how you cut down a dying plant and then new sprouts and leaves form. We cut off the dead in order to make room for regrowth.

    It works the same way with a cord of attachment to a person. We can keep cutting the cord but eventually, the leaves will branch out again and form new growth.

    This is why we need to completely destroy the cord, right from the root.

    How to Destroy Your Cord of Attachment

    You first need to heal from the wound that has created this cord. Find out what still hurts you and shows up in the form of other people.

    Was it something from your childhood, high school, or an old boss? Dig deep and pull this hurt out, have a look at it, and then do what you have to do to heal from it.

    This will take time. How much time is up to you.

    While you are healing you need to address this cord that’s still sticking out of your chest. That’s part of your healing journey.

    Instead of cutting it, you need to pull it completely out of your chest and imagine yourself burning the root. When the full root has been pulled, seal the wound in your chest with the most beautiful material you can visualize.

    I use rose gold.

    Journaling is Important

    Write out your feelings. It’s so important to write out how you feel. Too often, we keep all our pain locked inside so no one can see it.

    But this is not effective and is hurting you more than you realize. Write all that sh*t out and get it off your chest, out of your heart, onto paper, and then burn it and let it go. Thank me later!

    So many of us have so much healing to do, yet healing is a long, hard, and somewhat ugly journey. If we don’t ever heal, the same patterns will keep repeating themselves in our lives and we will never truly be free or happy.

    Do yourself a favor, heal.

    I began my healing journey in 2012, and though I’ve come an awfully long way since leaving my abusive relationship then, I am still constantly learning about myself, healing, and growing.

    It’s a never-ending journey, it’s exhausting and beautiful all at the same time.

    If you are still being haunted by the ghosts of your past, I want you to know you don’t have to be anymore. You can be free from them all. Make a commitment to yourself to start a healing journey.

    You’re so worth it!

    A Year Later

    I won’t say my healing journey is over, but I can say my cord of attachment no longer exists. I’m attached to me now and how much I love and respect myself. I still have a long way to go but I’m ready to move back to Guatemala where my heart truly is: with the people, the culture, the freedom, and the land.

    “John” and I still talk almost daily but I can see him in a totally different light now. I can safely say I see him as my friend. Nothing more, nothing less. And I’m perfectly happy with that.

  • Why I’m in Therapy Again, and Not Ashamed to Share It

    Why I’m in Therapy Again, and Not Ashamed to Share It

    “Emotional pain cannot kill you, but running from it can. Allow. Embrace. Let yourself feel. Let yourself heal.” ~Vironika Tugaleva

    Ah, therapy, my old friend. We meet again.

    I thought I’d released you from my life. I thought I no longer needed you to maintain my sanity.

    I was wrong.

    Third time’s a charm, as they say.

    The First Time I Went to Therapy

    I was eighteen when I had my first encounter with therapy. My parents had just divorced under pretty devastating circumstances, and my first serious relationship had crumbled at my feet.

    It was a double betrayal.

    My parents had hidden their divorce from me. I found out on our “family holiday” that we weren’t actually a family anymore. Plus, my partner had secretly been seeing another woman. He started dating her publicly less than a week after our five-year relationship ended.

    I was young, impressionable, and distraught. My whole life felt like a lie.

    I spent weeks wrapped up in the safety of my bed, emerging only to find comfort in food. I dropped out of university. My partner had isolated me from my friends due to his controlling and coercive behavior, which left me feeling totally alone. Everything felt pointless. I had no idea what to do with myself, and my thoughts were starting to scare me. So I sought help.

    Finding a therapist was easy. A quick Google search was all it took.

    But it took a long time to build up the courage to make an appointment, fill out the pre-session questionnaire, and actually walk into the building.

    I remember feeling so much shame. I thought I was weak and ridiculous for not being able to handle my emotions or deal with what was happening—but I also knew that my mental health was on seriously shaky ground.

    So I went.

    I walked into the therapy room, shaking like a leaf. My heart (and my mouth) were melded shut for the first few sessions. My therapist had to carefully wrench it open to encourage me to open up.

    Finally, I did. And when I unburdened myself of all that had been weighing me down, I saw it on her face.

    Judgment.

    At the end of the session, I walked out of that room and never went back. My worst fear—that someone would see the truth about what was alive inside me and judge me because of it—had been realized. I cursed myself for thinking therapy was a good idea.

    And so I tried to forget about my wounds as I unconsciously carried them into the next phase of my life.

    The Second Time I Went to Therapy

    Six years later, I started having debilitating panic attacks on a daily basis. The problem was I felt more than a little resistance to the idea of going to therapy again.

    By this time, my anxiety had steadily increased to the point that it became a normal part of my everyday life.

    I expected to be unable to sleep, constantly feel exhausted, and be plagued by fearful, intrusive thoughts. I got used to the fact that I couldn’t relax, always felt irritable, and lashed out at the people I loved—despite desperately craving their support—because I was in so much emotional pain.

    And honestly, I thought my anxiety was my edge.

    I was completing my master’s degree, and I thought intense stress made me work harder. It felt like a sign I was on the right track. I worked day and night, utterly consumed by my projects. In my head, I was achieving top grades because of my worrying.

    So I put the idea of therapy out of my head until eventually, I hit my breaking point.

    I had a terrifying panic attack while driving at top speed. Unable to breathe, I pulled over to the side of the road to keep myself (and other drivers) safe. It was my third panic attack that day. I’d finally had enough and knew I couldn’t live like this anymore.

    I needed help.

    I was still nervous about going back to therapy. But I was also ready to dig—to excavate all the junk I’d been hauling around and declutter my mind.

    Instead of going with the first therapist who popped up on Google, I did more research this time. I interviewed different people until I found a therapist I vibed with. And because I wanted to be the ‘perfect’ client, I went above and beyond in my therapy work (a big part of which was working on my perfectionism and my need for external validation. Go figure).

    I had a breakthrough. I found a deep sense of inner peace for the first time in my adult life.

    My therapist introduced me to mindfulness, meditation, and yoga—healing tools I’m still learning, practicing, and teaching to this day. For that, I’ll be forever grateful.

    The Third Time I’m Going to Therapy

    These days, I’m in a very different place.

    I’m in tune with myself. I listen to my body. I take time to be still. I do everything therapists tell you to do to stay well. I’ve traversed the territory of my suffering, including childhood trauma.

    And yet, I’m still human. I struggle.

    Specifically, I notice a dynamic playing out in my relationships. I feel intense anxiety about not being enough for my partners and not being worthy of love.

    I worry that they’ll find somebody better and want to leave me. I convince myself that they hide things from me and must be secretly planning their escape. I mourn the loss of love before it’s even happened. No matter how much my partners tell me otherwise, it’s still an issue.

    After much reflection, I know why—I still don’t feel like I’m enough.

    Although I can now recognize it, I need to work on changing that pattern. That’s where therapy comes in.

    The difference is that this time, I know where to go for help. I know what type of help to ask for. And, crucially, I feel zero embarrassment about saying I need that help.

    The first two times I went to therapy, I stayed quiet and stewed in shame. Here are three reasons I’m telling people about it this time around.

    1. Suffering is a universal human experience.

    To be human is to suffer.

    It’s almost impossible for us to live a gorgeously rich, fulfilling life and emerge from it completely unscathed.

    If we open our hearts, we suffer. If we live our truth, we suffer. If we stand up for what’s right—guess what—we suffer.

    Our experiences might not look the same. My story isn’t your story. But the core emotions underneath are what we can relate to.

    You might not have had a nervous breakdown at university, for example, but you might have had one at work. You might have had one after having a child. You might even have just realized you’re heading toward one.

    Maybe you’ve had a panic attack and you know how that feels. Or maybe you can’t stop yourself from worrying, no matter how hard you try.

    Our universal experiences connect us to each other.

    When I reveal the depth of my suffering, people open up and show me theirs. We dance in our shared humanity and release our burdens together.

    Remember this mantra: It’s okay not to be okay. It’s okay to admit I need help and support. We all suffer. Admitting I need help isn’t weak; it’s a brave act of reclaiming my mental well-being.

    2. Hearing others’ stories normalizes our struggle.

    Listening to other people’s stories—on their blogs, podcasts, or books—helped me to accept, and seek help for, my own suffering.

    All too often, I wish I’d heard those stories sooner.

    When I was twenty-two and running my own business (after reading The Four Hour Work Week), what if I’d known that the book’s author had planned to end his life and still suffers from depression? Would I have put so much pressure on myself to be successful?

    Would I have continued to measure myself against him, thinking I wasn’t doing enough? Or would I have seen him as a fellow imperfect human being and perhaps been more vigilant in managing my mental health?

    It’s impossible to know, of course. What I do know is that when people share their stories, it helps others who are going through something similar. Instead of judging them, we feel seen and understood. We feel less alone.

    It normalizes suffering. And it normalizes talking about, and getting help for, that suffering.

    Remember this mantra: There are plenty of people out there who are experiencing (or have experienced) what I’m going through. If they got through it, so can I. There’s hope for me.

    3. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.

    The third and most important reason I’m sharing my journey into therapy is simply that I’m not ashamed of it.

    I’m no longer concerned with being perfect, masking my truth, or only showing a polished facade.

    What’s far more important to me is to show my humanity. To acknowledge my imperfections. To love my flaws. To let my clients and students know that I’m a work-in-progress.

    We live in a superficial culture that values appearances above all else. But if all we care about is how our lives look on the outside, we never get to actually live them. We end up spending more time worrying about how many ‘likes’ we get on our Instagram pictures than we do being present in the moment we take them.

    In my experience, the road to freedom is letting go of worrying about what others think.

    So much of my anxiety was caused by perpetual imposter syndrome. I wanted to be seen as someone who was bulletproof. Someone who navigated the world with ease and confidence. Someone who was wildly successful (without really trying) and looked good doing it.

    I worried about being “found out.” I thought if people knew how much I struggled with anxiety and depression, I’d be seen as a fraud and would be exposed as a failure.

    But the people who love and appreciate us for who we really are? Who see our vulnerability and accept us anyway? Those are the people we want in our world.

    Remember this: There’s no shame in suffering. The people who love me will support me when I need it. It’s safe to be who I truly am and let people see the real me.

  • It’s Not “Failing” to Leave a Toxic, Abusive Marriage

    It’s Not “Failing” to Leave a Toxic, Abusive Marriage

    “Forgive yourself for not knowing better at the time. Forgive yourself for giving away your power. Forgive yourself for past behaviors. Forgive yourself for the survival patterns and traits you picked up while enduring trauma. Forgive yourself for being who you needed to be.” ~Audrey Kitching

    I have always been an extremely glass-half-full kind of person. I always see the best in everyone, and not only the best but also the unlimited beauty and potential. And my god, it’s glorious!!

    I met and fell in love with a charming man. I was on a trip to Alaska to visit a lifelong friend and met Mr. Wonderful at a gathering. He was attentive, charismatic, and made me feel like a queen. I was hooked. We were married four months later, and five months after that I had my second daughter.

    I didn’t see the red flags. Looking back, I ask myself how I could have been so naïve, so trusting, so blind. Slowly but surely, though, my world changed.

    First, it was little things, like coming out to check on me at night when I was breast pumping milk to see what “I was up to.” Then there was the name-calling and shaming if I wanted to dress up and go out with friends to a dinner. I wondered if other wives got called sluts too because they would wear a pretty shirt.

    There came a day when it became difficult to see the beauty in myself, and in him. Everything changed that day. And it never was able to return back to how it was before. The person that had vowed to love me, to cherish me, to protect me, and be there for me cut me to the core with words that will never be undone.

    “Nobody else will ever want you,” he sneered, his eyes filled with scorn and disgust. “A mother with kids from two different dads,” he chuckled to himself. “You are a slut, a whore, a sperm depository.”

    I curled up on the floor, in the fetal position, feeling as though he had stabbed me with a knife in the gut. I was sobbing, but I don’t remember hearing the sound.

    “Why are you saying this?” I gasped.

    “I read your journal,” he yelled, referring to an entry about my past lovers, as if that justified his cruelty.

    Stress does strange things to a person. I had recently broken out in painful boils on the left side of my torso and under my arms. They were excruciating. It hurt to lower my arm all the way down.

    “You are a fat, lazy, boil-infested bitch.”

    I remember at that moment shutting down. Going inward. A part of me disconnected in order to stay alive.

    Days turned into weeks. I felt myself dying inside a little more every day. I became withdrawn, and as time went on it took more and more energy to smile and pretend life was normal.

    Many friends didn’t understand. I remember them having shocked looks. “But I thought you were happily married,” one said, seemingly unable to comprehend the nightmare that had become my life.

    I gave up trying to talk about it, to explain. I felt it was my fault. Somehow I had attracted this, and perhaps somehow I could make him happy if I just did the right things and earned enough “Brownie points”—if, for example, I stayed home from social events and remained “on duty” with our baby all the time. Eventually I learned there were never Brownie points. Nothing seemed to make him pleased.

    One evening, he became angry with my older daughter, who was born blind in one eye, and called her a Cyclops. I remember wrapping one arm around my sobbing daughter while trying to bounce a baby on my hip. I was so exhausted from sleep deprivation and postpartum depression, it was all I could do to stay standing.

    I had never felt so alone, so isolated, so hopeless.

    I got the children settled to sleep, and I made a choice that night that I was finished.

    The next few days were a blur of his hateful and cruel remarks, as he knew I would not take him back; it was truly over. I knew I had to take a stand for myself, and if not me, for my children. They deserved better. I knew I did too, but I couldn’t see it at that time.

    It has been five years since we separated. I am resilient, and for that I am grateful.

    I am still an optimist, and I still see the beauty in everyone. I take a pause now, though, and I evaluate situations more carefully. My trust takes much more time to be earned now than it did eight years ago when I fell in love too fast, without knowing the real person behind the charming facade.

    Many people, including my parents, were disappointed in my failed marriage. Many sent prayers that it would be healed. For a long while, I felt like a failure.

    I have come to realize there is no shame in ‘failing’ in a marriage, especially if that marriage is toxic and harmful to your soul. I appreciate those thoughts and well-intended prayers, but at the end of the day, an abusive person who is not willing to self-reflect is not likely to change. The best thing to do at that point is to extricate yourself while you have the strength to do so.

    Recovering from trauma takes time. It has taken a lot of courage to look at my vulnerabilities and why I attracted such a relationship in the first place. This doesn’t mean I blamed myself. I just recognized that I had a strong need to feel loved and accepted, even if I was in an unhealthy situation, because I never felt loved and accepted as a child.

    It’s taken half a lifetime, but I’ve finally learned that everything I need is inside myself. I am complete on my own.

    Still, I have to work almost daily at forgiving, acting with grace, and ensuring that I am not compromising my needs or my right to be treated with dignity and respect in order to make him happy. I am still learning to stand my ground and expect respectful treatment when it comes to co-parenting.

    I will forever be grateful to the supportive network of family, friends, and a counselor who saw me through that incredibly rough time. A broken heart, shattered self-esteem, and deep postpartum depression did not disappear overnight.

    With the bravery it takes to self-reflect and learn from what appears to be a very unfortunate circumstance comes unparalleled growth. The self-forgiveness opens up opportunities for deeper self-love and self-compassion, and a much deeper understanding of my own humanness and how my past shaped me.

    But with time, self-love, self-forgiveness, and self-acceptance, I am a stronger and more empowered person today in spite of that experience. I am a phoenix, transformed by the fire. I will continue to see the beauty and unlimited potential in people, and I still choose to see the glass as half full. I do daily forgiveness work for myself and choose to move forward with love and grace, honoring my journey and my experience for what I have learned.

  • How to Stop Punishing Yourself for Your Breakup

    How to Stop Punishing Yourself for Your Breakup

    “The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves.” ~Pema Chodron

    After you come out a meaningful relationship that you didn’t foresee ending, you begin to think about everything you did wrong.

    If you were not the one who wanted to the breakup, you may spend a lot of time blaming yourself and wondering about what you could have done differently.

    You might begin to believe you’re solely responsible for what went down and that you deserve to spend years in relationship purgatory by yourself, mourning the loss of the person you loved.

    You might take all the responsibility and blame as you spend months and years alone.

    You may tell yourself terrible things about yourself and what a monster you were in the relationship.

    Then you’ll probably feel guilty about everything you did and assume that the relationship ended only because of you.

    And you may feel ashamed, unworthy, and unlovable because the other person was so good and you weren’t.

    This kind of unhealthy thinking puts all the blame on you and removes all responsibility from your ex.

    Your ex moves on and maybe even finds love soon after, while you spend an inordinate amount of time reflecting, hurting, and punishing yourself for what you did.

    These are all things I experienced when my marriage ended.

    I was such a mess after the marriage, carrying a big brunt of the responsibility, blame, and guilt.

    I felt like I had committed a crime against my ex for how badly I’d treated her, how intensely we’d fought, and how dramatically the relationship had unraveled at the end.

    If I had been better, wiser, kinder, and more giving, I believed, we could have stayed together.

    These feelings and thoughts kept me hiding for years, replaying the events of the past. I mentally attacked myself and felt bad about myself for years afterward.

    I stayed home, locked myself up, and suffered silently, believing that no one would ever want me again and I was unworthy of loving or being loved.

    I didn’t think there was something wrong with her, the relationship, or both of us. I took the sole responsibility for everything that went wrong. I put all the blame squarely on myself.

    Everything I did, I magnified in my mind and scolded myself for. Everything she did, I excused, justified, or found ways to blame myself for.

    I later realized this was all a figment of my imagination, these self-harming thoughts. Sure, I had played a large role in the way this relationship had ended, but I wasn’t solely at fault.

    If you’re blaming yourself for everything and feeling guilty about a relationship gone wrong, I want to remind you of the following seven things so you can stop punishing yourself for the past.

    7 Ways to Stop Punishing Yourself for Your Breakup

    1. You were doing the best you could.

    If you knew better, you would have done better.

    You were acting on the tools you had at the time. You likely were not intentionally or purposefully sabotaging the relationship or your partner.

    We each do our best under the circumstances we’re in.

    If you had the ability to be more understanding, less critical, or more forgiving, you would have done that, but you couldn’t have at the time.

    At one point in my life, I thought that feelings were terrible, so I wasn’t willing to open up about how I felt about things with my ex. I thought stonewalling and shutting down were more effective at resolving issues than talking them out (trust me, they’re not).

    I also thought it was effective to threaten a breakup when things weren’t going right or casually suggest a divorce in the middle of an argument (it wasn’t).

    This wasn’t right or fair but it was the place that I was at in my life. If I had known a better way, I would have done that. If I had the skills to communicate better, I would have used them.

    You and I grow, develop, and improve as people and partners over time.

    The good news is that partner you were yesterday doesn’t have to be the partner you are in the future. I’m not the person of yesterday, and I am thankful for that.

    You can be better the next time around.

    2. You are not solely responsible for what happened.

    Remember, there are two people in a relationship. You did your part and your ex did theirs.

    You can’t take the blame and responsibility for both of you.

    It takes two people to dance, two people to make a relationship work, and two people to make a relationship come to an end.

    You may put your ex in a completely positive light and view all your actions with negativity and judgment. Try to see the situation more objectively. Give credit and blame equally to both of you. You and your ex contributed positively and negatively to the relationship.

    You can’t take 100% of the responsibility when you were only 50% of the partnership.

    3. You deserve the same forgiveness you’ve given to your ex.

    You deserved to give yourself as much of a break as you gave your former partner, if not more.

    You’ve likely been unusually harsh and critical of yourself, absorbing all the blame for what went wrong.

    You may be used to being hard on yourself because loved ones were hard on you when you were growing up, but instead of harshness and blame, choose compassion.

    You may have done things without knowing, unintentionally, and without trying to hurt your ex.

    You are a human, growing and making mistakes like all people do.

    Your past errors do not have to be life-long regrets.

    You can use the things that you did unconsciously as learning and growing tools to become a better version of yourself.

    4. Get more curious about what happened.

    Instead of blaming yourself, get curious about the experience you had with your ex and identify the root cause of what happened.

    I began to get curious about my upbringing, my past wounds, and why I showed up in the relationship the way I had.

    I gave myself a break when I got more curious about how I became the person I was in that relationship and why I behaved and communicated the way I did. Instead of blaming, I got help through counselors and friends to understand myself more.

    Become a student of your pain, suffering, and blame so you become wiser about yourself.

    You can’t do anything about the breakup, but in the aftermath, you can do the work to understand why you showed up how you did so you can do better in the future.

    You can find self-awareness and wisdom in the past. .

    5. Release comparisons and judgments.

    We’re taught from a young age to compare ourselves to others and to judge ourselves. These self-sabotaging habits are especially hurtful after a painful breakup.

    Comparing your life to your ex’s life and comparing yourself to friends who are in relationships won’t help you move on.

    Neither will judging yourself and putting yourself down for what happened in the relationship.

    Instead of comparing yourself to others, think of this as a path of growth.

    Compare yourself to yourself. Observe how you’re stronger, wiser, and smarter about relationships today than when you were in your past relationship.

    Also, flip self-judgment into gratitude. Instead of judging yourself harshly, be thankful for your development. Be thankful for the experiences that helped you evolve as a person and a partner.

    6. Affirm your worthiness for being who you are.

    You’re feeling as badly as you are about the previous relationship because it’s opening up wounds about your own worthiness.

    Instead of beating yourself up, can you cultivate and reaffirm your self-worth? Can you remind yourself that you’re more than your relationship and what happened with your ex?

    Regardless of what happened between the two of you, you are worthy for just being yourself.

    If you don’t believe that, then maybe your relationship was an opportunity to recognize the feelings of unworthiness you had before it even started.

    Once you see the wounds more clearly, you can begin working on them.

    You can remind yourself that you’ve brought so much good into the world, have been helpful to many people in your life, and you likely exude compassion and kindness to many.

    Remind yourself that you are more than the narrow shoebox of being a partner in a relationship.

    7. Take credit for the good that came out of this relationship.

    No, it wasn’t all perfect, and there are some things you can take responsibility for in your past relationship, but what can you take credit for?

    If you blame yourself for all the bad things, don’t you also have to take some credit for the good things that happened?

    What positives came out of this relationship?

    How did you grow as a person in your past relationship?

    How did you mature and become a better version of yourself?

    In my relationship, one positive thing that happened was that we both helped each other achieve our professional goals and advance in our careers. We also both recognized self-sabotaging patterns and behavior and went on to work on ourselves.

    Through our partnership, we exposed each other’s wounds, which enabled us to do the work to heal them. We could now show up better for ourselves, our loved ones, and future partners with more self-awareness and understanding.

    You too deserve just as much credit as the blame you’re assigning yourself.

    Reflect on the high roads you took in the relationship and, after it ended, the good you did. Think about how much both of your lives have improved, if they have, and whether you both came out as wiser, kinder, more open people.

    —

    You don’t have to punish yourself for the rest of your life and take all the blame for what happened. You don’t have to go about filled with guilt and shame for what you did to your ex.

    If you can see that you were doing the best you could, look at the many good things came out of the relationship, and see your past as an opportunity to grow, you’ll be able to release the heavy weight of your past and move forward with a wiser and more open heart.

  • We Have to Own Our Part to Heal Our Broken Heart and Find a Deeper Love

    We Have to Own Our Part to Heal Our Broken Heart and Find a Deeper Love

    “True love does not only encompass the things that make you feel good, it also holds you to a standard of accountability.” ~Monica Johnson

    I remember the confusion I felt as it slowly began to register to me that he had indeed read all of my messages and was indeed ignoring me. Even though my eyes were telling me this, it still didn’t make any sense.

    Just the day before, he’d initiated contact, called me beautiful, and wanted to know the details of my day. We’d talked all day that day, as we normally did. But this was a new day. And he ghosted me. He discarded me.

    It hurt like hell. My heart felt like it had literally been ripped out of my chest by the Hulk. It was forceful and it was intense.

    This absolutely could not be happening. So I ashamedly sent a few more messages, but he still ignored me.

    My tears flowed like a steady spring rain. My head hurt. I didn’t want to eat. I didn’t want to sleep. I didn’t want to do anything but see a notification from him, proving me wrong. Proving to me that he did not ghost me, that this was a terrible dream.

    But that solace never came.

    For the first few days after this, I craved him like my favorite dish.

    But then I started to realize that this man who’d shared so much intimacy with me had just left me with no explanation. No goodbye.

    So I became angry.

    I was slowly going through the grieving process. Denial. Sadness. Now anger. I was about to enter my next phase, which was acceptance. I reached this phase through accountability. I realized that even though the way he exited our relationship wasn’t mature, I wasn’t innocent.

    I’d been needy, desperate, and clingy, and I’d hung my self-esteem on his “hey beautiful” texts like a person gasping for air. He was my air. His validation is where my self-worth started and began.

    I began to realize that I had pushed and pressured him. I had made him the source of my joy. I had put a heavy burden on him. I was taking love from him and not giving him love in the way he needed it.

    It would have been easy to play the victim, to say “woe is me” and hate him. It would have been easy to be resentful, bitter, and full of venom.

    But instead, I chose the road of accountability.

    I extended him grace and realized that as humans, we are always doing what we feel is best for us at each moment. I extended him forgiveness and I forgave myself.

    I looked back over the last months and realized that I had abandoned myself. I had abandoned the self that was secure and had outsourced my self-esteem to him. It wasn’t fair to him. He hadn’t signed up for that.

    Yes, he could have handled it better. He could have had a conversation with me. He could have done all kinds of things. But at the end of the day, that’s his cross to bear. My cross is that I had to begin to heal from this experience, I had to grow from this experience, and I had to evolve into a woman who was ready for true, genuine, reciprocal love.

    I knew, deep in my heart, that he was the catalyst. So I thanked him. I released the hurt, anger, and confusion. It turned out that ghosting experience was the best thing that could have happened to me because it put me on the journey to true love.

    Through this experience I learned:

    -The importance of knowing your worth in a relationship

    -To recognize and understand my boundaries

    -That it’s okay to be selfish and put your needs first in dating

    -What it really means to love and accept myself

    The day I thanked him in my heart and released the pain from that experience I learned so much. That day mostly taught me how living as a victor will attract the deepest love you have ever felt. I’m so happy I didn’t listen to my ego and stay in victimhood. I conquered. I took accountability.

    If you choose to see what you gain from breakups, even the ones that break your heart into a million pieces, you will be much closer to experiencing a love so strong it will knock you off your feet.

    If you want a deeper love, you need to be whole. Wholeness requires healing.

    So many people are walking around as empty zombies, full of resentment and bitterness. Usually this happens when we’re unable to take responsibility for our part in a hurtful situation.

    I understand you may have been cheated on, lied to, left in the cold, used, or, like me, you were ghosted. But do you see how in some ways you might have ignored red flags, or you were not firm in your boundaries, or how you sought validation outside of yourself, or were clingy, or pressured the other person into a relationship?

    I am not blaming you. I am not making you wrong. I am asking you to take accountability for how this situation can teach you where you are wounded, and use it as your catalyst. After you’ve come out the other side you will be so much closer to transformative love.

    The purpose of accountability is not to negate what the other person did or to make you feel regret, shame, or guilt. Those emotions do not serve you; they only keep you stuck in a downward spiral.

    No, accountability is about realizing you have more power than you think. In many cases we get our hearts broken because we give our power away. We make others responsible for our happiness, joy, and worth. It’s not fair to them.

    When we put people in this position, they may feel cornered. They may feel they have no other option but to run. That doesn’t condone immaturity or insensitivity. But odds are, they don’t mean to hurt us; they just don’t know what to do. It happens. If we dry our eyes and ease our anger we will see that this situation provides an opportunity to take a deep look at ourselves and recognize just how much love we are giving ourselves.

    In order to get love from anyone else, we have to love and heal ourselves. We then are able to attract whole and healthy people who are ready to love us like we truly deserve.

    Guess what?

    The next man I met became the love of my life. And six years later, he has never ghosted me.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Healing After an Affair: How to Get Through the Pain of Infidelity

    Healing After an Affair: How to Get Through the Pain of Infidelity

    “I will breathe. I will think of solutions, I will not let my worry control me. I will not let my stress level break me. I will simply breathe. And it will be okay. Because I don’t quit.” ~Shayne McClendon

    It was a Wednesday afternoon in late July, and I felt like my entire world was coming to an end. My husband of almost eleven years had become distant, and during a phone call on my lunch break he told me he couldn’t do this anymore. That evening he told me he no longer loved me and wanted a divorce.

    It wasn’t until several weeks later that I learned about another woman and reached a low I never thought possible. What just happened to my life? Just a few short weeks ago I was laughing, smiling, and enjoying my life to the fullest. Now I could barely get out of bed.

    I spent the next several months feeling like I had no control over my own emotions.

    I’d see pictures in our home where he no longer lived and break down sobbing.

    I’d hear songs while driving and literally have to pull over until I could pull myself together.

    I’d hide in my room for hours at a time so our children didn’t see mommy crying.

    I wasn’t eating, I wasn’t sleeping, my work was suffering, and I was barely making it through my day. I wanted to make this pain stop, to sleep until I figured out that this was all a bad dream. It never happened.

    I had to face the fact no matter how much I wanted it to change, the facts were the facts: My husband was having an affair and I had no idea what to do.

    I had spent my whole life saying if I were ever cheated on, I just kick him to the curb and never look back. So why was I feeling like I didn’t want my marriage to end? No one ever tells you that this conflict might come up, and no one tells you this is completely normal.

    I began reading everything I could find. I was desperately trying to make sense of a situation that made absolutely no sense to me.

    We were happy. We were the couple everyone wanted to be. I beat myself up wondering how I missed this coming. I wondered why I even cared, and why I would want to save a relationship that was causing me so much pain.

    Was I so selfish that I never saw how unhappy he was? Could I have prevented it from happening? How was I going to become a single mom? How were our kids going to get through this? And the biggest question: Am I going to just give up without a fight?

    That question changed everything for me. I decided, right then and there, that I would not just give up.

    I was a fighter, and no matter the outcome, I would give my all. While I knew I couldn’t make any choices for him, I also knew I couldn’t live with just giving up on him and my family. This man I knew and loved for so long had to be hurting too.

    The information about affairs online is absolutely overwhelming. My search engine became my best friend. As the questions came, I would type them in and search through the thousands of articles for hours and hours. Below are the top ten things that would ultimately give me back control over my own life.

    1. Stop and breathe.

    It sounds so simple, yet when you feel like you’ve just been punched in the gut, breathing can seem like the hardest thing in the world to do.

    When strong emotions came up, I learned to count backwards from a hundred by threes. A hundred (big breath in through the nose), ninety-seven (exhale through the mouth), ninety-four (big breath in through the nose). Counting by threes forces your brain to focus on something other than the intruding thoughts and worries.

    I did this a lot of this throughout the days to come. After a while, I finally felt as though I could control my own breathing no matter what was happening around me. At a time when I felt as if I had no control over anything, I finally discovered that I could control something: I could control myself.

    2. Start writing.

    Get a pen and paper, grab your computer, or put a journal app on your phone. Whatever works best for you, just start doing it. There is something about writing down whatever you are feeling that allows you to release some of the emotion behind it.

    In the beginning I felt like I didn’t have the energy to do this. Once I started writing, I realized how much of my energy I could get back by releasing some of the pain I was feeling.

    3. Eat.

    I literally stopped eating. The thought of food made me sick to my stomach. I had no energy and dropped an entire pant size in two short weeks.

    Eat anything. Soup and watermelon became my lifeline. Make it simple, make it nutritious, but make it happen.

    You need your energy to get through this, and I promise, you will get through this. I began to notice that when my body was getting the nutrition it needed, I was able to think more clearly and sleep more soundly, which leads me to the next tip.

    4. Sleep.

    Maybe you’re like me. All you want to do is sleep, yet when it comes time to go to bed you are haunted by thoughts and emotions you never knew existed. For me, going to bed was just a reminder that my husband was not there. We used to cuddle every night before falling asleep, and suddenly I was left with an empty bed.

    I learned about guided meditation and would use it to drift off to sleep. If I awoke in the middle of the night, I stopped fighting it, got up, and wrote, and allowed myself to cry. I would write and cry for hours until I had nothing left to say or feel and drifted back to sleep.

    5. Talk.

    I never realized how creative my brain was and how many false ideas and images it could conjure up on its own. We want to believe we know what is happening, and when we don’t, our brains create some pretty convincing visuals.

    Find someone, anyone that you can talk to. Make your intentions clear. I wanted to save my marriage. I didn’t want people telling me to forget about him, that I deserve better, to just move on. So I stopped talking to anyone.

    When we only have our own voice, we have no choice but to believe all the lies we tell ourselves. I would tell myself I must not be good enough, I must have been doing something wrong, maybe I’m not pretty enough, smart enough. The list is endless. We need our people now more than ever.

    I needed someone who could ground me when my brain was running wild. Whether that’s a friend, coach, therapist, or family member, just find someone you can talk openly with. Find someone who will listen without judgment.

    6. Get active.

    Maybe you already exercise daily, and that is great. I never exercised, ever. I hated it and I still do. But during this time I found the value in it.

    Yoga was easy and relaxing, and so was walking. I realized that it gave me some me time. It allowed space to clear my head if only for a few minutes, and those minutes were glorious. It didn’t always work. Some days I just couldn’t clear my head, and I learned that is okay too.

    I learned how to give myself grace. I learned that there is no perfect way to do or get through this. Just take one step at a time, keep putting one foot in front of the other, and don’t stop trying.

    7. Know that whatever you are feeling is normal.

    You will experience a rollercoaster of emotions that you never thought were possible. How can you possibly love and hate someone so much at the same time? How can you go from laughing to crying in a matter of seconds?

    You may feel embarrassment, shame, guilt, love, hope, and everything in between. The rollercoaster is real, and you know what, it is completely normal. This realization was one of the most freeing.

    No matter how you are feeling at this very moment, it will change, I promise. No matter what you are feeling, it’s normal. There is no right or wrong way to feel with this, it just is. It is just how you are feeling right now, and that’s okay.

    8. Know that this has nothing to do with you.

    It was all too easy for me to blame myself. It was my fault that he no longer loved me. I would learn that this never had anything to do with me.

    I did not make these choices for him. I did not do anything to cause him to make these choices. He didn’t ask me ahead of time. He didn’t even tell me that he was unhappy. These were choices that he made completely on his own.

    He was suffering, and when someone else boosted his self-esteem, he latched on as if it were his only lifeline. He didn’t realize how much he had been hurting over the years. All he knew was that he wanted to feel good, and because he didn’t know why hadn’t felt good before, he blamed me for his years of misery.

    He eventually learned that it was never about me. He learned that no matter how far he ran, he couldn’t out run his own demons.

    I later learned that while we can all work to improve how we show up in our relationships, nothing we are doing or not doing excuses an affair. However, since I wanted to save my marriage, I had to take a long hard look at myself and see where I could show up better in my marriage.

    I learned how to be a better listener. I learned how to be more compassionate and understanding when my husband was going through a difficult time. I learned the art of patience. And I learned what unconditional love really means.

    9. Make time for you.

    What did you enjoy doing before you were a couple? What hobbies or activities do you have on your own? If you don’t have any now is a great time to find one.

    Look at what is being offered in your community. Look at local schools. Did you always want to learn to cook? Take a cooking class. How about sewing, yoga, finances, painting, or computers? Take a class. Whatever it is for you, find something. Find something you can do at least one night a week and commit to it.

    Sometimes in marriage we forget who we are as an individual. Now is the time to rediscover that person. The added bonus to this if you are looking to save your marriage is that your spouse fell in love with who you were as an individual. Bringing that person back can be eye opening for the one who left.

    10. Give it time.

    Last, but definitely not least, know that this will take time. Research shows it takes an average two years to heal from the pain of an affair. I hated this advice in the beginning because I wanted to feel better right then. But time has helped me realize that it really is the best medicine.

    Right now all you can do is decide how you will spend that time. You can fight to find the blessings in disguise and learn and grow, or you can choose to become bitter and allow yourself to remain the victim of the cards that were dealt to you.

    I choose to fight, I choose to learn, I choose to grow.

    Change and healing didn’t happen overnight. Both my husband and I had to put in a lot of hard work. We read and listened to more information than I ever thought possible. We sought out therapy as a couple and as individuals to heal our past hurts and coaching to help move us in the direction we wanted to go.

    Ultimately, we learned that our communication had to improve. He needed to be able to communicate when he was upset about things, and I needed to be able to receive this information without becoming confrontational or defensive. His openness and honesty allowed us to begin our healing process and start restoring trust in our relationship.

    One day it dawned on me that I hadn’t thought about the affair at all for several days. I wept as I realized I had my life back, only it wasn’t the life I had thought I wanted a few years ago. It was a life that had become better than anything I could have ever imagined.

    Three short years later and both my husband and I will tell you we are happier than we have ever been. Our marriage is stronger than it ever was. Our connection is greater and our communication is better.

    Looking back on that day when I thought my life was coming to an end I now smile, realizing that for us, it was the start of a new beginning. While I never wish the pain we endured on anyone, I have learned that sometimes the greatest pain brings us the greatest blessings.

  • What Not to Say to Someone Who’s Going Through a Breakup or Divorce

    What Not to Say to Someone Who’s Going Through a Breakup or Divorce

    Comforting friend

    “Good friends help you to find important things when you have lost them…your smile, your hope and your courage.” ~Doe Zantamata 

    Divorce or the end of a long-term relationship is one of hardest, if the not the hardest, trial you might be faced with in life. Unfortunately, unless you’ve experienced it firsthand, it’s very hard to believe this statement.

    For most of my fifteen-year relationship, I didn’t believe it. Sure, I commiserated with friends who were suffering through breakups, but I did so with a superiority complex, a judgment about how they got themselves into that situation through relationship neglect.

    Thankfully, I kept thoughts such as this one to myself: “Wow, get over it already. It’s been a year, and it’s not like he died!”

    Since separating from my husband (and childhood sweetheart) a year ago, I’ve learned some incredibly humbling lessons about love, people, grief, and healing, and I feel compelled to pass some of this wisdom on, specifically my insight into how to be a good friend to someone who’s relationship is ending.

    Below, I share three hurtful comments that well-meaning friends said to me during my separation, and three things that I was lucky enough to hear from other friends that I still treasure to this day.

    1. Aren’t you over that yet?

    WHAT NOT TO SAY:

    “I thought it was you who ended it, so why are you still moping about?”

    “It’s been six months and you’re still sad. Why don’t you see a therapist and get some pills or something?”

    “You were much more fun before all of this happened.”

    “You’re sobbing quite loudly, and people are looking…”

    I get it. Friends are more fun when they’re not crying into their warm Mimosas at brunch. You naturally want your friends to be happy and to feel better soon, but the timeframe of “soon” is different for everyone.

    Sadness, anger, denial, and depression are all very normal and healthy stages of the grieving process, and healing may take weeks or, more commonly, years.

    We want and need to feel supported and accepted, regardless of our mood. Being around people (especially friends) who are unhappy can be unsettling, but please know that we don’t need you to fix us or even cheer us up. We just want someone to hold our hand now and then.

    The grieving process takes different lengths of time for everyone. Please respect that whatever you consider the right amount of time to be, even if it was right for you, might not be right for me.

    WHAT TO SAY:

    “You’re dear to me whether you mourn for the next ten years or if you get married again tomorrow. Regardless, I’ll be there to share your journey. Here’s a tissue.”

    2. It’s contagious!

    WHAT NOT TO SAY:

    “I can’t imagine being single again at our age.”

    “My partner and I are very secure. We haven’t missed Friday date night in four years.”

    “I didn’t invite you, as it’s only going to be other couples. I don’t want you to feel weird or left out.”

    “Don’t try and put any crazy ideas into my partner’s head. Keep your tantalizing dating tales to yourself please.”

    Divorce/separation can’t be caught like a cold or an STD. This might seem blindingly obvious, but when announcing the end of your relationship to your married/committed friends, their defensive or threatened reactions can make it seem so.

    When we swallow our grief and be vulnerable enough to share with you that our relationships have ended, we are not suggesting that you should do the same. It is not your cue to defend your relationship, or the merits of long-term partnership in general.

    We are not actively seeking new single-friend recruits to hit the club with, and we don’t want you to drink the divorce-spiked Kool-aid. Equally, we are not trying to seduce your significant other and steal him as an oftentimes flabbier and more hygiene-challenged version of our ex.

    Everyone’s relationships are different. Some work and others don’t for an equally innumerable amount of reasons. Your friend needs a shoulder to sob against not one with a chip on it.

    WHAT TO SAY INSTEAD:

    “You’ll never be a third wheel, and regardless of your relationship status, you’re our friend. Let me know how I can best support you.”

    3. The devil is in the details.

    WHAT NOT TO SAY:

    “What went wrong? Tell me everything!”

    “Did he cheat on you? Did you cheat on him???”

    “Are you getting the house, the car, the kids?”

    “I think I saw your ex yesterday at the store; he’s lost weight, hasn’t he? I wondered what he was doing with that beautiful blonde twenty-something…”

    Events as painful as separation can provoke extreme behaviors and reactions. Destruction of property, custody battles, wars over friendships or property, or beloved pets.

    I have been guilty of watching ‘car-crash’ TV too; however, most of us recently separated are not auditioning for the cast of the next Real Housewives!

    We’re not looking to relive the often heart-breaking drama for anyone’s amusement, so please don’t ask for all the gory details or even for an explanation. There’s never just one, easy-to-define reason a relationship ends; there’s rarely a neat single-sentence summary.

    It’s never black and white; instead, it’s grey and messy, and oftentimes the justification and reasoning is not even clear in your own head, let alone trying to justify or explain it to someone else.

    In the same way you wouldn’t hammer a recent widower for all the juicy details, please show a little restrain when talking with the newly separated. 

    WHAT TO SAY INSTEAD:

    “I’m so sorry you are going through this sad time. I can’t imagine how hard this must be for you. If you need a martini and a non-judgmental ear to natter to, I’m here, with no questions asked.”

    —

    A quick note; like me this article is intentionally a little cheeky and exaggerated in parts, but even if you’re guilty of some of the friendship crimes I’ve listed, fear not! This is not intended as persecution.

    As someone who slipped up in the past, I know first-hand that there is very little guidance for those closest to those experiencing the end of a relationship. Know that it’s never too late, though. Reaching out today with the right words can make a real difference.

    The past twelve months have been the most challenging in my life, and I’m very blessed and happy to say that I was (mostly) surrounded with loving and supportive friends.

    There were times when I feared I would never get my mojo back, never feel joy or love again, but I’m starting to laugh more and cry less, and am finally finding my feet again.

    Now, I look forward to being a supportive, caring, and nonjudgmental friend for others experiencing this long and tiring transition.

    For those just starting the process of separation or a little way down this path, know that you will get through this, little by little, day by day. Don’t try and rush your healing. Give yourself the gift of time and respect as you work through the muddy waters of heartache.

    No matter how dark and lost you feel, please take my word that eventually, at the right time for you, you will find happiness again. And the support from your friends along the way will be a reminder of how worthy of love you truly are.

  • The Key to Breaking Painful, Unhealthy Relationship Patterns

    The Key to Breaking Painful, Unhealthy Relationship Patterns

    Sad girl with heart

    “Forgiveness is just another name for freedom.” ~Byron Katie

    Aside from the fact that I was born on Groundhog Day, I didn’t know why I kept falling into the same relationship patterns, which inevitably led to heart-crushing breakups.

    I knew that I had a deep capacity to love, or so I thought, but it somehow wasn’t enough. I always ended up either feeling taken for granted or fighting desperately for my partner’s attention after the initial attraction phase wore off.

    I couldn’t help becoming someone else, someone I thought I needed to be in order to avoid being abandoned. This, of course, backfired, because it further lowered my self-esteem and caused me become even clingier and more neurotic.

    It was hard to not get down on myself for who I became in relationships. I didn’t know how to process the end of a relationship or how to separate what was my partner’s emotional stuff and what was mine, so I walked into the next relationship with accumulated anger, resentments, and taller walls around my heart.

    It was easier to blame the guy for being emotionally unavailable, withdrawn, selfish, and all the other names I called him. This went on for over a decade.

    Still, somehow my divorce was peaceful, and at times I even called my ex-husband in despair after a breakup, crying, “He doesn’t want me anymore.”

    He’d jokingly say, “Well, you shouldn’t have divorced me.”

    I knew what he meant. And I knew why I called him. It was the only relationship that didn’t blow up in my face at the end. I needed to see that I wasn’t a complete and utter mess and that I had something good to offer in a relationship, even if it didn’t last forever. We were able to remain friends who talked a few times a year.

    After my third heartbreak, I knew that something had to give. I became very depressed and lost hope for being able to have a happy relationship that didn’t end in divorce or a dramatic breakup.

    I kept asking the Universe, “Why am I not healing? What is wrong with me? Why do I end up falling in love with unavailable men and then clinging onto them for dear life?”

    I prayed all day, every day. My hope was eroding fast and my self-rejection was growing by leaps and bounds.

    The answer came in the form of one word: forgiveness.

    To be honest, I was not interested in forgiving anything or anyone. I wouldn’t even know where to begin or who to forgive. Instead, I just added more toxicity to my pain by letting resentments turn to hate. This gave me a false sense of power and the illusion of protection from further pain, disappointment, deception, and betrayal. I felt like I’d had enough of all of these.

    In my mind, forgiveness meant that I would die without receiving compensation for the ways I’d been wronged. That was just not okay.

    I sat on my throne of righteous indignation for a few more weeks. In the meantime, I was twisted up in knots over the guilt I felt from having hurt all my partners, which I didn’t know what to do with either.

    I wrote an email to my last boyfriend, which he didn’t respond to. That hurt even more. I got to feel what it’s like to not be forgiven for the mistakes you’ve made.

    Non-forgiveness may feel like power and protection, but it ends up becoming a lonely, self-made prison cell. At that point, I knew that I was creating more unhappiness and loneliness for myself.

    I finally gave in. Even though it took weeks for my ego to calm down and open to the idea of looking at who and what I needed to forgive, the thought alone started to make me feel lighter.

    Since my biggest pain revolved around men, I started with my father.

    In my last three relationships, I had relived the trauma I’d experienced with my dad.

    My father loved his younger sister more than any of us and was never shy about expressing it. As a little girl, I watched my father adore my aunt in ways I longed to be adored by him. She was a grown woman, only eight years younger than him, but he treated her like his beloved little girl he would bend over backward to please.

    What I got was mostly scolding, angry, disapproving eyes from him. I knew that he was capable of offering love to someone, but that someone was not me. My aunt had already filled that spot before I was born (not her fault) and there was nothing I could do to be daddy’s little girl.

    I felt helpless. He was the only father I had, and I was too young to seek other solutions.

    Of course, the men I fell in love with played this part really well: They all had a former lover they couldn’t get over, they had a wandering eye that left me feeling as if I weren’t enough for them, or they were burned out from showering their former partners with adoration and getting hurt in the end.

    They were wounded by those partners (and possibly their own mothers), so they either didn’t know how to connect intimately with a woman and commit to her, or they were too burned to risk going there again. Regardless, I was getting the short end of the stick despite how much I loved them.

    As I wrote my story, I started seeing the threads. I prayed for this pattern to be healed and lifted up from my consciousness, burned the pages along with it, and let go of the outcome.

    I waited for the process to start working and watched for signs. Nothing seemed different for a while. I was still grieving and feeling remorse for my own mistakes.

    Then I realized that I had to process my “love story” from the vantage point of my former lovers and forgive myself as well. The other side of the non-forgiveness medal was guilt. Both were toxic and blocks to my happiness.

    So I wrote about my mistakes and again asked the Universe to give me a clean slate. At this point, knowing that there was nothing I could do, I put all my focus on caring for myself and making plans to achieve my goals. I wasn’t in charge of the Universe and couldn’t dictate when the healing was supposed to come.

    A few days later my last partner called and said that he wanted to have a heart-to-heart conversation with me. I didn’t know whether he wanted to yell at me or talk about patching things up, but I agreed to meet. I had nothing to lose.

    I called a good friend and told him what had happened and all about my forgiveness process. As I was telling him the story, it felt as if the person who was talking was not me. My words were softer; there wasn’t a trace of anger or blame left in them.

    I heard myself say, “It’s no one’s fault, you know. We are all trying to find healing. Even my father. He didn’t know how to be with his daughter. His relationship with my aunt was safe. For some reason it was in the cards for me to experience that neglect so I could use it for something greater.”

    In that moment I felt my heart open. I saw the walls around my heart melt away in my mind’s eye. He was quiet for the longest minute. Then he said, “Banu, this is the most loving thing I have ever heard you say. I am speechless.”

    I can’t explain what a miracle is, but I now know they exist.

    My former partner and I had our talk, and I was able to hear his side without getting defensive or attacking back. I was no longer looking at him and seeing my dad. I could just see Jim as Jim, as the man I love and as someone whose healing I could contribute to by giving him the gift of seeing who he truly is.

    After our talk, as we started spending time together, I found myself actually seeing him for the first time. He was freed from the role he had to play for me in order to get to this place of forgiveness. He was free to be himself.

    The future of us? Who knows? We decided to take it one day at a time and rebuild trust. I no longer feel the need to make him do or be anything.

    My heart is at peace knowing that I now have something more to offer in a relationship than my projections and resentments from the past, which have nothing to do with the person I am relating to. I have to tell you, I feel like a new person.

    Your pain served a purpose and brought you to this place where you can also recognize your own patterns, if you’re willing to look for them. In a way, those unhealthy relationships were gifts because they provided clues as to what needs healing in your life. So give forgiveness a chance. That is the only way to wipe your slate clean.

    Recognize that we are all perfectly imperfect—we’re all working through our own patterns and trying to heal our pain—and that forgiveness is the biggest gift you can give yourself and anyone. I hope that you can have this. You are worth it.

    Sad girl with heart image via Shutterstock

  • The Beauty of Being Single: 6 Benefits of Solitude

    The Beauty of Being Single: 6 Benefits of Solitude

    “I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.” ~Henry David Thoreau

    Shock. Rage. Sorrow. Excitement. Terror. These are just a handful of the emotions one experiences in the aftermath of a separation or divorce. Emotional rollercoaster? It’s more like being hit with the speed and velocity of a bullet train.

    I should know. After twenty-five years of marriage to a kind and accomplished man, I found myself alone.

    Our decision to divorce was neither acrimonious nor cruel; neither sudden nor impulsive. Rather, our decision to file for divorce was an incremental process.

    We had more disappointment than hope, more unease with each other than affection and contentment. As difficult as it was to recognize the wrong turns we’d made in our two-plus decades together, we both realized that it was time for each of us to draw a new map.

    While my husband remained in the home we had lived in together throughout our marriage and the raising of our daughter, the path on the new atlas of my life led me back to Italy, the country of my birth.

    In retrospect, it was far easier to relocate to somewhere radically different from the place I’d called home for thirty years than it was to sit with the equally radical emotions aroused by separating from the person who knew me best.

    Once the bags were unpacked, the boxes unloaded, and the small apartment I’d rented in the heart of Rome redecorated, I had to contend with the alien feeling of a naked ring finger and a heart full of pain.

    The relief of our separation—no longer would I have to tiptoe around the mounting frustration and disenchantment between us—was short-lived; the rush of excitement at the idea of “a fresh start” evanescent as a shooting star.

    With a job from home, only a shoebox of an apartment to tend to, and no wifely duties, motherly chores, or social commitments, I had only one thing to do and one place to go—and that was inward.

    It was lonely in there. Where, I kept thinking, was that rock-solid husband of mine who was ready to jump onto the roof at a moment’s notice when the gutters overflowed?

    Who would take care of me when I was sick, keep me warm when I was cold, ease me into sleep when I had insomnia? Who would share the beauties of life with me?

    How could I live if I didn’t have a partner to love?

    I was in profound disbelief (it wasn’t really over); angry (how could my husband let me go?); worried (would I end up begging for scraps of food in Piazza Navona?); ashamed (I should have tried harder); resolved (I’d get him back and we’d make it work), and adrift (life was pointless).

    But then resignation arrived, and with it, a certain, glorious freedom. I was divorced, not dead. The questions I had? It was akin to asking a well where I could find a drink of water. And in their absence, new ones arrived: Who were my neighbors in the eternal city? Which interests could I develop? How could I create a routine that nurtured my values? And how could I march in single file?

    As I began navigating life alone, I discovered that, while enormously different, a great deal of solace and satisfaction can be found in solitude. If you’re going through a similar transition, consider the following benefits of flying solo:

    1. Your imagination will soar.

    It’s true: Creativity emerges from quiet and an open agenda. Having long been a writer—but also a wife, mother, homeowner, and full-time corporate executive—I long ago learned to write against distraction.

    In my new space, where the only distractions were those I created, my imagination was provoked in ways that I hadn’t experienced since I was a child. Without time- constraints and working to the tune of a television show I wasn’t watching, I found myself freer on the page, more productive, and thoroughly content daydreaming about a daydream.

    If thinking of a long, unstructured weekend day fills you with the blues, use it to your advantage. Creative expression, whether through writing, drawing, or dancing, often proves to be cathartic for people.

    Paint your way through anger, redecorate a room to lift your mood, or spend an hour imagining the places you have the freedom to explore in your new, unencumbered state.

    2. Your life will become entirely yours.

    Responsibilities have always been a large part of my adult life. From commuting to the office to hosting dinner parties for my husband’s colleagues, rarely did my former schedule allot much time for what I—and I alone—wanted to do.

    In the absence of these duties, I found a surplus of time, energy, and excitement to pursue my passions. A candlelight yoga class? An art-house film on a Tuesday that would have been otherwise dedicated to household chores? Cocktails on a school night? Yes, yes, and yes, please!

    I discovered the deliciousness of creating my own schedule and following what called to me rather than what was expected of me—and you are wholly free to do the same.

    What fell by the wayside during your relationship—friendships, hobbies, unread novels, moving to the city of your dreams—are exactly where you left them. Only now you have the time and devotion to give them the attention and energy they deserve.

    3. You will learn self-reliance.

    While I was the master of my own life, I was also the one solely responsible for making sure that such a life worked.

    Going from a dual income to one was daunting at first—until I recalled the gift I had for budgeting pre-marriage, which allowed me to buy my first apartment before I turned twenty. A leaky faucet, a flat tire, a frustrating day? I bought a toolset and watched YouTube videos, befriended our local mechanic, and learned that Rainer Maria Rilke was entirely right when he said that no feeling is final.

    The more self-reliant I became, the more confident—and happy—I felt.

    Should you find yourself in the same place, start slowly but stay determined. Pick one area of your life where you need to become self-sufficient, whether it’s in balancing your checkbook or learning to cook for one. Once conquered, attack the next…and next, and next, and next, until you find yourself surprised that at one time you depended on anyone else at all.

    4. You will befriend yourself.

    With only myself to please and take care of, I embarked on a new relationship—with myself.

    I was tentative at first, much as one is when they first start dating someone new. Would I like a glass of cabernet out of habit because it’s what my husband often ordered, or did I think a Viognier might be a better fit with this dish? Would I like to stay at home and take a bath, or venture out to a café with a newfound friend?

    The more I began treating myself with the kindness and attentiveness I showed toward my husband and daughter, the more I got to know myself on a deeper, truer level, realizing how much of what I did and what I ate and how I acted was an act of either submission or compromise.

    If you’re in a similar position, listen to your needs, honor your wants (within moderation), and tune in to what your heart is telling you. The more you take care of yourself, the better equipped you will be to deal with the conflicting emotions your newfound single status has likely stirred.

    5. You will learn the art of a healthy inner monologue.

    Marriage and motherhood don’t leave much room for listening to one’s inner voice—there’s enough noise as it is. Alone, I was introduced to a whole cast of inner players I had silenced out of necessity for years. Some of these voices were unkind—judgmental, condescending, or tempting me in unhealthy directions—but with time and practice, I learned to conduct inner dialogues that were loving, beneficial, and illuminating.

    As you set out alone, give yourself the time and space to listen to the voices inside of you. Silencing those that are cold or self-sabotaging will allow you to hear the tenderness and determination of others. And, with time, you will cultivate an ability to listen to what is best for you—and the backbone needed to ignore all the rest.

    6. You will find peace with your past.

    Those first few months alone were ripe with recrimination. If only I’d done this; if only he’d done that. How could I have done this; how could I have done that? I was reprehensible, a failure, destined for a future of take-out alone and two too many cats. But, again, with time (a true salve for most things), I realized that the old adage is true: Everyone we meet comes into our lives for a reason.

    My marriage was not so much a failure as it was a stepping stone on my journey. I had lost, but I had also learned.

    If you’re bearing similar grief, consider compiling a list of what you have gained rather than focusing on what you’ve suffered; what you look forward to rather than what you miss.

    If you’re anything like me, you’ll find that the greatest lesson of all is that the person you were looking for was right where they were supposed to be all along: within.

  • Grieving a Loss That Feels Like a Death

    Grieving a Loss That Feels Like a Death

    “Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim.” ~Vicki Harrison

    Most grief books are written to help you mourn the death of a loved one and learn how to deal with their absence in this world.

    Death is probably the most challenging thing a human can face. It breaks us down. It brings us to our knees. Some people are so significant in our lives that the mere thought of living without them feels incredibly overwhelming and incapacitating.

    Losing someone we love is hard. Accepting loss is extremely challenging. So how do we cope with yearning and adapt to the emptiness following a divorce or huge breakup without feeling like a loser or the psycho who cant let go?

    It’s an unfair misconception to think that those who have a hard time letting go or are taking longer than usual time to move on are somewhat weak.

    Psychology agrees that when a major relationship or marriage ends, the person who was left may feel grief as painfully as someone who lost a loved one to death. Sometimes the pain can even be stronger.

    Divorces and breakups can sometimes be worse than death, because the person who died to us is very much alive, haunting our every thought.

    I remember how lost I felt right after Mr. Big broke things off with me for the 87th time. I remember packing my car with all my belongings and driving from San Francisco back to Los Angeles with our eight-month-old son in the car crying the entire six hour drive.

    I felt as if he had died. My whole world collapsed. I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to support our son.

    I wondered how he would turn out without his father in his life. Would he feel unloved? Would he wonder why his father cut him off his life? Would he blame himself or think he wasn’t good enough for his dad?

    So many questions rushed through my mind while I drove through the vast freeway back home.

    I felt humiliated. I felt alone. I felt a variety of feelings and emotions. But the one that I always remember is the feeling of loss. I had lost everything I ever thought I would eventually have. The family, the life and most importantly: the man. The man I had loved for five years had died.

    His body was still there but his soul was gone. Everything I ever thought of him was gone. His words were gone. His spiritual presence was gone.

    There is a lot more to life than a physical body. Millions of people have experienced the death of their loved ones without ever having to plan their funeral.

    When I arrived home it was time to pick up the pieces and move on. At least that’s what everyone around me was telling me.

    They expected me to shake everything off and move on with my life as if my son’s father didn’t exist. As if our story didn’t happen. But accepting the death of someone in our lives is a process.

    I kept going back and forth between missing him and hating him for leaving. At times the mixed emotions felt like I was literally sinking into insanity. One moment I would cry and the next I would yell.

    Nobody told me that grief does that to people, and because I didn’t know what I was feeling was normal, I felt even more alone.

    I had never heard of the five stages of grief until I went to see a therapist, because the pain was so unbearable. It’s then I learned that a person goes through denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance after the death (or loss) of a loved one.

    Unlike what I originally believed, there is no specific order to these feelings. You may feel as if you are on an emotional rollercoaster as you are jumping from stage to stage. Its important to know that this emotional ride is normal, and if you get the proper help you will get off of it alive and stronger.

    I know what it feels like to not want to get out of bed. I know what it feels like to not want to take a shower, or brush my teeth or even eat.

    I know what is like to lose twenty pounds in six weeks, to lose friends and to lose your dignity begging someone to take you back. I know the feeling that the world has ended and you were left behind alone and miserable.

    I have been there, so believe me when I say that there is hope.

    There is, in fact, a light in the end of the depression tunnel. But the only way to get to that light is to walk through it. There is no way of getting around the process, and the earlier you begin the journey of mourning and healing, the sooner you will reach peace.

    The journey is long, but there is no race and no competition. It’s a journey with yourself. There will be days when you will feel stronger than ever and some days will bring you back to your knees.

    Just remember: The rollercoaster is the journey. So even when you are down, feeling as if you’ve made no progress, remember that progress is being made every day you choose to be alive.

    Progress is being made every day you choose to not call the one who left you.

    Progress is being made every day you choose to take another breath.

    You are alive. You are strong. You will survive.

  • How to Hold a Broken Heart (So You Can Get Through It)

    How to Hold a Broken Heart (So You Can Get Through It)

    Broken Heart

    “Sometimes this broken heart gives birth to anxiety and panic, sometimes to anger, resentment, and blame. But under the hardness of that armor there is the tenderness of genuine sadness …This continual ache of the heart is a blessing that when accepted fully can be shared with all.” ~Pema Chodron

    I remember a few years ago when I was going through a bad break-up. It wasn’t the longest relationship of my life or even the deepest. But it had so much potential and it ended in the most cursory of ways.

    Already a few drinks deep, I FaceTimed a friend who lives in D.C. and we had a long-distance whiskey together. As I teared up I asked him a favor, prefacing it as such: “I’m guessing it’s the case. I know this sounds dramatic. But I need you to tell me that I’ll find ‘the one’ and settle down at some point.”

    He looked at me, paused, and said something I’ve never forgotten. He said, “You will love again. That I know. Whether it’s one person for a long relationship or many people with shorter ones, I know you will fall in love again.”

    As a long-time Buddhist practitioner, I have studied and experienced the heart’s amazing resilience and ability to rebound and offer love, again and again. Yet my friend’s words hit me in a new way.

    I began to realize that the ability to love is innate. We love love. We all want to love, and while there are times when we feel devastated by loss, the heart ultimately heals and once more shines forth, hoping to connect anew.

    And maybe that means we love one person for the rest of our days, or many, but the heart’s ability to love is not something I have ever questioned since. That said, when you’re broken-hearted, it’s hard to contact your ability to love unconditionally.

    Now, if you’re like me when you go through a major break-up you have a particular set of things you do to distract yourself from that pain.

    You might hole up and binge-watch a television show. You might drink a lot, either at home or hole yourself up at a local bar with a handful of supportive friends. You might attempt to rebound quickly, filling your time with endless dates or casual sex.

    Whatever your form of distraction may be, you might have found what I found: these distractions are temporary and when your show ends/you sober up/you wake up next to someone you don’t really like your pain is there bigger and badder than ever.

    In my experience, big emotions like heartbreak aren’t meant to be avoided; they’re meant to be felt. It’s a bit like standing at the edge of the ocean and having a giant wave come crashing down on you. You can kick and fight and pull against it, but it will only drag you further out to sea.

    Instead, you can look at it and dive headfirst coming out the other end, perhaps even feeling refreshed. The same goes for heartbreak. The more you kick and fight against it, the more you will get dragged into the very depths of that misery. The only way is through. You have to let the emotion roll over you like that wave.

    The main practice I recommend is one I do for heartbreak moments both big and small. I place my hand on my heart, drop the story line around the underlying emotion, and rest with the feeling of the emotion itself.

    Instead of getting lost in the mental maze of “Why did she do that?” “How can I get her back?” or “What did I do wrong?” I acknowledge those thoughts then bring my focus back to the emotion that exists right beneath their surface.

    As Pema Chodron says at the beginning of this piece, I let myself go past the anxiety and panic and touch the genuine heart of sadness that exists underneath. From that place of vulnerability and authenticity, I find the energy to once more connect with others from a place of wholeness and love.

    Years after that emotional talk with my friend, when I went through a similar break-up, I knew that the best way to see myself through to the other side of my broken heart was to take the time to rest.

    I would notice the pain of missing that person and the sinking feeling that occurred in my body. When that would happen I would lie down and breathe into it. I wouldn’t entertain the story lines that came up. Quite the opposite—I would return to the sinking feeling.

    And then, as if I had said some magic spell, the sinking feeling would lift and I could go about my day once more. I could connect with others, offering my vulnerable and tender self authentically. By diving into the heart of what I felt, I ended up feeling liberated. Today, I love again. Tomorrow, I hope to do the same.

    Broken heart image via Shutterstock

  • The Pain Won’t Stop Until You Accept What Is

    The Pain Won’t Stop Until You Accept What Is

    “Accept what is, let go of what was, and have faith in what will be.” ~Sonia Ricotti

    Life is sometimes ridiculously hard. It sucks. It rips out your heart and your entrails, spins them around the room, and stuffs them back in unceremoniously through the hole from which they were ripped.

    And it expects you to smile and carry on. People expect you to carry on. Because that is what we think people do.

    I felt like this a few years ago when my marriage ended. Luckily, I had good people around me. They didn’t expect that from me.

    I, on the other hand, expected me to get right back on that horse. I had to keep going, to be stronger. To not let it affect me that much. So I berated myself. I got angry with myself. I hated myself (because that was exactly what I needed, right?)

    The thing is, when you are in the thick of it, you don’t know what you need. You know there is pain and you want it to stop. Please, please, just stop!

    And then there is the anger. This is the hurt you don’t understand yet. Hurt without compassion, hurt without direction.

    It explodes. It finds a way, a way out, somehow. Eventually.

    My expectations were so high. Or should I say, it was my hopes that were high. It had to stop.

    I couldn’t function until it stopped. I couldn’t forget until it stopped. And I wanted to forget so much.

    I wanted to forget how I felt now. I wanted to forget how I felt before—because then I wouldn’t miss it so much. I wanted to forget the good things she did because remembering caused pain.

    Conversely, I wanted to forget the bad things she did because those memories caused pain, too.

    In addition, I wanted to forget every small little detail of the stupid things I’d said and done that I wished I hadn’t, the things I went over and over and over in my head. Those sharp, jagged memories I just couldn’t switch off, each one like a fishhook being carefully placed beneath my skin, then mercilessly torn from its grip.

    I scurried desperately for refuge inside my head. I stayed in there. Outside were people.

    People would want to talk to me, to make eye contact. I was incapable of either. I was scared.

    I was frightened and ashamed and I didn’t want to see caring in someone else’s eyes. I didn’t want to hear kind words. I didn’t know how I would respond.

    I didn’t know if I would break down in tears, descending to that place I hated where I was a pathetic, whining fool who brought it all on himself. Or alternatively, to the place where I got so angry at how I was treated that I didn’t want anyone to see the look in my eyes. To see the raw anger and furious energy that burned inside of me.

    I didn’t want to be seen. Being seen asked questions. Questions I wasn’t ready to answer.

    It was like a living volcano raging inside me. I went to counseling because I needed an outlet. I needed to get it out.

    The hope inside of me that we would get back together restricted me from talking to people close to me. “What if we got back together?” What if in my pain and my hurt I said things about her, how would people see her when she came back? That would make it difficult for her.

    In retrospect, I think I knew it was over, deep down, but I was still fighting what was. This false hope also gave me a reason not to open up or face things.

    I look back with gratitude that I somehow found the wisdom in the bottom of that cold, dark place to take that step, to actually do something.

    All of my life I had bottled up feelings. I had been strong. I had controlled my emotions.

    I wasn’t a walking unfeeling marble statue. I did let loose some emotions. But I never really fully let go.

    I never allowed myself to feel it all completely. I never surrendered. I was always fighting reality.

    When I finally relinquished my hold on trying to control everything, it all changed. I allowed it to fall, to break free. I held nothing back.

    It was here, in this moment, I finally grasped that accepting where we are is the most important step in any change process.

    It was the only way through any journey of pain, to allow yourself to feel it without judgment. From the maelstrom of confusion, darkness, hail, wind, and rain in my mind, the storm started to pass.

    It was like waking up lying on a beach after a shipwreck. Battered and bruised, feeling empty inside, lost, lonely, not knowing where you are, where you are going or how. But in the center, deep inside, there is a calm. Something that whispers, “The worst is over.”

    Suddenly, I was able to sleep again. I woke each day without that feeling of readying myself for battle. My food tasted better.

    I still had the hurt, but it was dulled. I still had the memories, but the sharpness around the edges began to blur a little. I had still to figure out what my life was going to be like without her in it, but I had survived.

    All of this I allowed when I surrendered.

    When I stopped fighting reality my mind calmed, and I understood that what has happened outside of me “is what it is.” I cannot change that, only how I respond. Accept.

    My prolonged and persistent pain was coming from my refusal to accept this. When I stopped fighting what was, when I stopped trying to fight against the waves rather than letting them carry me to shore, I finally found peace. Surrender.

    The reality wasn’t different. I still had to deal with my new situation, with my new life. But the storm in my mind had quieted. It was easier to see.

    What I learned here wasn’t just about a break-up. It wasn’t just about dealing with pain. For me, this was a massive life lesson.

    There are still many times when storm clouds amass in my mind. I remember not to fight the reality, whatever is going on in my life. I remind myself, “This too shall pass.”

    Everything is transient. Everything ends. Good and bad.

    So I wait during the bad times. I watch, I observe, I learn. I focus on what I can control and I don’t resist and fight what I can’t.

    And I remember to cherish the good moments because they too shall pass. Life is so much richer when we surrender to it rather than fighting it. It all starts with accepting what is.

  • 7 Reasons Your Breakup Is A Beautiful Thing

    7 Reasons Your Breakup Is A Beautiful Thing

    Woman Sitting Alone

    “Watch for big problems. They disguise big opportunities.” ~Ritu Ghatourey

    After many years of being the “dumper” in the relationship, I then spent many years being the “dumpee.”

    Even after I had worked through all of that karma that I had instilled upon myself, when it came time for my last breakup, it was finally a mutual decision. Still, it left me feeling lost and incomplete.

    I had never felt happier with any other man, and at the same time, I knew I deserved better. We both loved each other so much, but we found ourselves growing apart.

    It took a long time and a lot of healing in order to begin to function again, and to fill my life with love again. Except this time, the love came in a different form. It came in the form of loving myself.

    Along the way, I learned that a breakup can be a beautiful thing. Here’s why:

    1. You get space to analyze what went wrong.

    Without your partner around, you can look at the relationship as a whole.

    Notice how you contributed to it, which can be difficult to see at first. For example, maybe you got angry because he stopped calling as frequently, and you let him know it. And when he finally did call, perhaps you expressed your anger again rather than praising him for calling.

    Maybe she became more distant, and yet even with this factor, there is room for improvement with communication on both sides.

    After some time, look to see how you can improve yourself or make wiser decisions the next time around.

    2. It gives you space to fully heal you.

    Normally we spend our times healing from relationships we have had with specific people. But if we take the time to look at the bigger picture, we can look to see if there’s a certain pattern that keeps repeating.

    Are you dating women who remind you of your ex? Have you given yourself enough time to get over the last guy? Do you tend to date a certain type of person?

    Whatever it is, we now have an opportunity to fully heal that wounded and sometimes buried part of ourselves that’s causing the repeating behavior (or repeating bad boy), so that we enter the next relationship more whole and happy.

    3. It gives you time to take up a new hobby.

    I know there is something you’ve been yearning to try. Maybe you’ve thought about it every day for three years, or maybe you have forgotten about it. Remember it.

    What is it? Is it kickboxing? Cooking? Learning Italian? Finally having the time to read more? Play poker? Exploring your city? Exploring nature? Learn astrophysics? What is it? Give yourself the time to do that.

    4. It creates space for more risk-taking.

    Without having to worry about your partner’s reaction to something, you can go all out and do what you want. You can make bold choices just for you.

    Maybe give yourself that haircut that you’ve been wanting, but that your ex said he would hate. Or paint your nails with crazy patterns. Go all out and watch how your attitude shifts.

    5. Now you have more time to get in touch with your creative side.

    Creativity will add so much fun to your life. When you are creative, your soul thanks you. What could you do to get more in touch with your creative side?

    Maybe you’ve wanted to paint a mural of a monkey in your bedroom. Or do you have the perfect app that you’ve been meaning to create which will be so stellar you’ll be rolling in cash? What about that book you’ve been meaning to write? Or the flute you’ve been meaning to learn how to play? Well, now’s your chance! Get out there and go for it!

    6. Reconnect with old friends, and make new friends.

    This is a chance to go out and be more social than you’ve ever been. You may not feel like it right away; however, I can guarantee it is a fabulous distraction, and puts you in a position to move forward with your life.

    You never know who you could meet. You could have a new best friend by going out the one time you don’t feel like it, or you could meet your next business partner.

    These are people whom you may have never connected with, but by you taking that step and putting yourself out there, you are doing so much benefit for yourself. Your results will be better than you imagined.

    7. You now have a chance to “up your game” in your career.

    What does your career need from you, and how could you advance? Now you have more time to take on that extra project that leads to your promotion, or to finally start your new part-time catering or graphic design business on the side. Where could that take you? You’ll never know until you take that first step.

    —

    Although a breakup might seem devastating, in many ways it can be seen as a blessing. Something wasn’t working out, or wasn’t in alignment with your greatest and highest interest—even if it seemed like it, and even if you can’t see it that way right now.

    Allow yourself an appropriate amount of time to mourn your loss. After all, it is a major life change when you breakup with your partner. Once you are through mourning, the fog begins to clear.

    The universe loves to fill gaps. So as long as we fill our gaps with positive things, rather than negative ones, our lives can improve. We can learn the lessons and learn to accept the reality, and ultimately improve both ourselves and our livelihoods long-term.

    Woman sitting alone image via Shutterstock