Tag: ex

How My Ex and I Created a Beautiful Friendship

When my ex-wife and I separated in 1999 and divorced two years later, I never imagined that we would one day spend a week together as friends.

Over the past quarter century, our lives had rarely crossed, except on the day our divorce was finalized and at our daughter’s wedding in 2012. Yet here we were, sitting across from each other, talking not just about the past but about the paths that had brought us here.

It wasn’t just nostalgia. It was an excavation. Over the course of our week together, I realized that my memories of our twenty-year relationship had become skewed over time, focused on the fractures that led us apart rather than the ties that had bound us together.

Through conversation, we began unlocking memories from our youth. She reminded me of the nine months we lived with my father after both of us contracted mono during our first year of college. Her stories filled in missing pieces and added new depth to my memories.

We also revisited the challenges and events we’d both experienced during our time together—moments of joy, struggle, and growth that had shaped us in ways we didn’t fully understand back then. Time and distance gave us the clarity to piece these moments together in ways we couldn’t have before.

For me, the first step back to friendship came about three years ago. I needed her permission to restructure an old pension, which required a detailed financial agreement. I sent her a carefully crafted proposal. Her swift response caught a mistake I had missed, but what stood out was her immediate assurance: “I trust you implicitly.”

That moment—her trust, so freely given—meant the world to me. It marked the beginning of a slow rebuilding of the mutual respect that had once been the cornerstone of our relationship.

Since then, life has brought us together in unexpected ways. Two years ago, our daughter asked for financial help, and I was the one who reached out to her mom on our daughter’s behalf. That conversation, the first in over a decade, felt like opening a door that had been closed too long.

More recently, I’ve been there to support her through her father’s passing and the end of a long-term relationship. In turn, she has listened as I’ve processed the unraveling of my second marriage and found my footing in a new relationship.

This week together felt like clearing away the rubble of a collapsed house to find that its foundation is still solid. We talked about the ways we had both changed, the lessons we had learned from failed relationships, and the new awareness that comes with time.

In helping each other process our shared past, we laid to rest ghosts that no one else could have exorcised for us. These were moments only we could give one another—unspoken truths we now had the tools and perspective to understand.

I’ve come to realize that healing isn’t always about finding closure—it’s often about finding new ways to hold the past with compassion. It’s a pattern so many of us fall into—hoping things will improve instead of addressing the reality. Recognizing this in ourselves isn’t easy, but it can be the first step toward living more authentically.

At sixty-three, I’ve come to see that life is rarely black and white. It exists in shades of grey. Relationships—whether marriages or friendships—are rarely all good or all bad. I carry immense gratitude for what we shared in our youth, the growth we’ve both achieved, and the chance to rediscover the friendship that lay beneath it all.

Reconnecting with my former best friend has been a gift. As the years pass, those who share our early chapters become rarer, making these connections all the more vital—not just as a link to our past, but as a reminder of how far we’ve come. These shared histories remind us who we were and help us understand who we’ve become, anchoring us in ways that feel irreplaceable.

We’ve already begun planning the next chapters of this friendship. She’ll visit me in the US soon, meeting my current partner, and doubtless, we’ll spend more time together when I’m next in the UK. What we’re creating isn’t just a rediscovered connection—it’s a living, evolving bond that carries us forward.

Sometimes, healing doesn’t mean repairing what’s broken to its original state. Instead, it means clearing away what collapsed and discovering something new in its place—a friendship that can stand the test of time.

In clearing the rubble of our past, I found a friendship that could endure. I wonder how many of us might discover the same if we found the courage to begin.

January 30, 2025
How My Narcissist Ex Was a Catalyst to My Healing and Self-Love

“It’s okay to let go of those who couldn’t love you. Those who didn’t know how to. Those who failed to even try. It’s okay to outgrow them, because that means you filled the empty space in you with self-love instead. You’re outgrowing them because you’re growing into you. And that’s more than okay, that’s something to celebrate.” ~Angelica Moone

I thought I had married the love of my life. I had never felt a connection so strong before. I was sure he was my soul mate, and I thoroughly believed he was my twin flame—my one and only.

I can’t even begin to tell you the horror that started to unfold after we got married. The accusations that my beloved other started to hurtle at me. That I didn’t care about him and I didn’t love him enough. He was convinced I was having affairs behind his back, and conspiring against him, and was clearly out to take his money.

I was not just perplexed by this, I was shattered. How could he not see that I loved him unwaveringly, without question, and that I never even considered having eyes for anyone else? And trying to take his money? That was incredibly bizarre because I discovered, contrary to his initial proclamations, that he hardly had any.

Yet I didn’t care. I loved him. I tried to love him, and I was convinced that my love would be enough—that he would know that I loved him, and we would soon return to the comfort and the knowing that our love for each other was real, safe, and forever.

No matter how much I tried to love him, things were spiraling out of control. I couldn’t be five minutes late from the supermarket without suffering his wrath. Life outside of “us” was getting smaller and smaller.

If I looked out the window, I was thinking the wrong thing or looking at something the wrong way. If I didn’t take his hand when we were together, I was advertising that I was single. Visiting friends or family or working outside of the property became as possible as flying to the moon.

Eventually it happened: I stopped trying to love us back to unity and fought back. Initially to try to stop the despair that he didn’t trust me, then for my literal sanity, freedom, and autonomy. Without these things I was losing my soul.

None of it worked. As my attachment to him became more panicked and devastated and I was losing control of my reactions, his abuse accelerated, and then I realized I was coming close to losing my life.

I had complicated post-traumatic stress disorder. I shook. I sweat. I couldn’t eat. I could barely sleep. Everything and everyone I cared about was turning away from me.

I had married a narcissist. I didn’t realize it at first, because back then, fifteen years ago, not many people were talking about narcissism.

I had always believed that narcissists were arrogant people who were “up on themselves.” I had no idea that they were people who presented in our lives offering the love, total acceptance, validation, and “life” that we thought we had wanted our entire life. I had no idea that someone like this could enter my life and they would feel so right to fall in love with.

The day that the word “narcissist” popped into my head, and I googled it, I nearly fell off my chair. I was ticking every point that was so “him” off a list of traits and behaviors. I was in shock.

Entitled—tick. Can’t take personal responsibility for wrongdoings—tick. Has hair-trigger reactions to things that most adults don’t get bent out of shape about—tick. Argues in circles in ways that make your head spin—tick. Pathologically lies while looking you straight in the eye—tick … and on and on the list went. I needed to get to the punch line: Could a person like this be fixed? Could they get well from this disease?

I searched high and low; I turned over every possibility and read all the research I could find. The answer was a flat “no.” Then, believing there is always a solution, I was determined to heal him, to fix our marriage, to return to the dream of the “one and only” that I just knew he must have been.

It didn’t turn out well. In fact, it turned out terribly. Now I was experiencing things I never believed I could or would: Mental and emotional abuse that had me curled up in a corner. Physical abuse that had me fearing for my life. Financial abuse that was ripping my life to shreds. At times, for self-preservation, I had to escape. Eventually, I left him and relocated.

But I wasn’t getting better away from him. I was totally unprepared for feeling so haunted. By the fact that he was in the home I had bought, seeing other women and seemingly having a great life while I was so empty, devastated, and traumatized that it hurt to breathe, it hurt to live, and I thought that I was going to die.

I returned to him countless times. Either because he would contact me and promise to change, or I missed him so much I couldn’t function.

Every time I returned, it got worse. The makeup periods were briefer, and the explosions more damaging and horrifying. Then, I broke. I had a complete psychotic and adrenal breakdown. I was told I would never heal from it and would need three anti-psychotics to be able to function, but I would never be the same again. I was told I now had permanent brain and nervous system damage.

Of course, he didn’t care. He did what he had always done when I needed him—he discarded me. It was then that I decided to die. So, I started trying to formulate how to do this in the kindest way for my family and son.

However, my soul had a different idea for me. A voice in my head kept insisting, “No, there is another way.” I thought it was just my madness speaking. I argued with it, but it wouldn’t let up. In desperation I walked into my bathroom, fell on the mat, put my hands in the air, and shrieked, “Help me, I can’t do this anymore!”

In that moment the most incredible thing happened. It was like my head parted and the blinding truth entered me. I had never known such clarity in my entire life. Maybe you have to be “out of your mind” to really know the truth?

The voice in my head told me that my husband was a catalyst. He was never meant to grant me my “self” and my “life”; rather he had come into my life to show me the parts of myself that were unhealed, that I hadn’t healed yet, to generate my true self and true life.

A whirl of incidents and truths flashed into my mind. The ways I was so hard on myself and was always needing more, saying to myself, “Melanie, I can’t even like you (let alone love you) if you don’t get your to-do list all done, if you don’t lose ten pounds, if you don’t look like this or that … “ and how he had treated me the same—as not good enough, right, or acceptable.

How I had always kept busy rather than “be” with myself, care, validate, and love myself. How I had terminally self-avoided and self-abandoned my inner being, and how I had yelled at him, “You don’t even know who I really am!” yet had never taken the time to have a real relationship with myself.

On and on, the realizations came hard and fast. And I knew, he hadn’t treated me how I had treated him; he had treated me how I had really felt about and treated myself.

I knew that if I let go of him, healed, and came home to my inner self, I would recover. I would save my sanity, life, and soul. I knew I could heal, get better, and do better. I knew that finally my life and love could be real and work.

I knew this because in this divine intervention experience, I had been thrust into a vision in the future where I was healed and whole, and I had felt it for real. I saw who I was. I saw what I had and most importantly, I felt who I had become.

He wasn’t the healer of my wounds; he was the messenger of them instead.

I let go. I turned inward. I healed.

This I now know at the highest level of truth: A twin flame, as the nemesis who reflects back to us our unhealed parts in intensely painful ways, offers the greatest love of all—the returning home to ourselves. From there my life has blossomed, from this true relationship with myself, life, and others in ways that I could never have previously imagined.

I am love. I am self-acceptance. I am free.

July 12, 2022
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.

May 12, 2019
Before You Send That Message to Your Ex, Consider This

“If the hurt comes so will the happiness. Be patient.” ~Rupi Kaur

What if I said instead of messaging our ex, we had a different choice, a choice that will be even more fulfilling than acting on the urge to share whatever we’re feeling right now?

It’s been over a year since I last spoke with my ex. While I’ve thought about him and missed him, I’ve known that getting in contact wasn’t the right thing, and so I haven’t taken any action to reconnect.

For the past few weeks, however, my thoughts have been seeping in, focusing on the good times, the fun times, and how, when we were at our best, he made me feel like the most important person in the world.

What’s been different this time is that these romanticized thoughts have coincided with a period in my life when I’ve been having a difficult time, and with that, my willpower to abstain from reaching out has been weaker.

Recently I felt a knot in my stomach, an overwhelming urge, like I couldn’t get through another moment without speaking with him. My chest tight, heart thumping, unable to relax, tears flooding, a messy anxious feeling that needs him.

In my moment of weakness I took to notes on my phone to write everything I wanted to say. I imagined how he’d be there for me and give me the love and support I’ve been craving. Tears flowed as I typed, the anxious pit in my stomach now at bursting point waiting for me to send the message to become relaxed once more.

But what if our need for connection is leading us to the wrong places? What if we are seeking the familiar, but it’s actually chaos, dysfunction, and drama—not something positive or healthy?

Within our brains are neurotransmitters called dopamine, which act as messengers communicating reward, motivation, and body regulation. What’s interesting is that dopamine is not only released from pleasurable experiences—say for example love, hugs, and kisses—but also when we’re trying to get out of a difficult experience. So, that feel-good chemical is not only released during the good times, but can also be released during the bad.

Growing up with alcoholism in my family, violent outbursts and drama were a regular occurrence. It’s only in hindsight that I’ve realized I’ve been drawn to relationships full of extreme highs and lows, the exact replicas of chaotic times of my past. I’m not a scientist, but I’d guess that I’ve been reaping the benefits of a whole lot of dopamine during those roller coaster relationships, like my mind is addicted to drama!

As I sat thinking about the text message I wanted to send, my mind raced with anxiety and questions. What would his response be? Would I even receive one at all? Would he say loving, supportive words like during our good times? Or would he be annoyed that I’d made contact? Ruminating, ruminating, ruminating, the what if’s, is this the right thing?

In one moment of clarity (and luckily before hitting send), with the guidance of my therapist, I took a step back from the situation to see what was really going on. My brain, now hardwired for drama, was seeking a hit, the perfect distraction from feeling the sadness of what’s currently going on in my life. Dealing with the anxiety and drama of making contact with my ex felt a lot easier than just sitting with my emotions.

Being in this state, I gave myself permission; I could still send the message, but on one condition: I had to wait as long as I could, at least overnight and if possible a few days. Then, if I still wanted to send it that would be completely okay because I’d be doing it out of choice rather than impulse.

Using the time wisely, I spoke to someone trusted, who I could rely upon. They didn’t offer advice; they just sat and listened to everything I had to say about what I was going through.

Slowly, the anxiety dissipated and that bursting pit in my stomach subsided. And I cried. That big ball of emotion I’d been stuffing inside was finally released. Even more beneficial, I didn’t have any of the worry about how he would react or be with me, which allowed me to concentrate on fully feeling.

The next morning, filled with clarity, I chose not to press send. While I had the perfect vision of what I had hoped to get from contact with my ex, I knew I couldn’t control his response.

I also realized that making contact would have only been a short term ‘fix’, and when the initial feeling of anticipation subsided, I would be left feeling the exact amount of pain that had led me there in the first place.

You might not be addicted to drama as I was, but there’s a good chance that your desire to text your ex is really an attempt to stop feeling whatever uncomfortable emotions you might be feeling—sadness, disappointment, or maybe fear of what’s down the road.

Texting your ex might seem to help temporarily, but those feelings will still be there after you hit send. And you may even feel worse if they don’t respond, or don’t respond how you hoped they would.

There are no right or wrong answers when it comes to what we should do. But we need to give ourselves the opportunity to act out of choice rather than impulse, or as I nearly did, due to a need for to drama to distract me.

In the time we take to make our decision, we can do what we need to make ourselves feel nurtured, and if necessary reach out to a trusted person who we know will 100% have our backs. After that, it might be a lot easier to make the healthier choice.

Be kind to yourself.

March 21, 2019
A Letter to My Exes: I’m Sorry You Never Knew Me

“Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It’s about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen.” ~Brené Brown

To all of my ex-boyfriends, ex-lovers, and especially my ex-husband, I am so sorry.

I’m sorry because I never gave you the chance to really know me. I hid myself from you. I showed you the smallest version of myself because I didn’t trust you to meet me in my strength, my bigness, and my desire. Well, in truth it was I whom I did not trust with my strength, bigness, and desire. I was scared to be in my full expression, afraid that I would die if I were to really presence myself.

I didn’t know I thought this; I didn’t know I was driven by fear and shame. But I was.

I wasn’t courageous enough to be vulnerable and exposed. I needed you to want me, so I tried to fit the mold of what I thought you needed me to be for you. I convinced myself that I was happy to be the object of your desire. I thought I was okay with the way you touched me, and the way you judged my body as an object.

I didn’t know any other way to be with you, but each time I allowed this to happen, allowed myself to be an object for you, a part of me died.

This is the irony of being driven by fear. In being afraid that I would die if you saw all of me, I killed parts of myself in the simple act of hiding from you.

It was a slow, painful death.

I blamed you.

If it was your fault that I felt small in the world, I didn’t have to look at my own limitations and flaws. If it were you who weren’t enough for me, then I wouldn’t have to look at my own fear of not being enough.

My dissatisfaction with you was not your fault. It was mine. I had a fantasy of what a relationship would look like, and I tried to make you into the object of my imagined relationship. No real connection could emerge when I hid myself while trying to make you into the man I thought I needed. I’m sorry for only wanting my wishful version of you, rather than the real you.

I wanted you to be better, but you seemed happy with this small version of me. I resented you for that. How could you be happy with “small” me?

I cooked, I cleaned, and I performed well in bed, never expressing my truth, my passion, or my desire. When I felt hurt by you, I led you to believe that I was okay with everything. I never told you. I never let you see my pain or how I was impacted by you. I just tried to be better for you, to be less of who I was and more of who I thought you wanted.

I took your satisfaction with “small” me to mean you didn’t want me to be big and self-possessed. But I never asked you. I never even let you know that there was more to me. I never gave you the opportunity to know the depth of who I really am, and for this I am so sorry.

By staying quiet and complicit, I led you to believe that I was my mask. That my body and mind were all that there were, and I hid my soul from you.

I never let you see the immense bigness of my heart or the power of my spirit. I never let you touch me deeply in these hidden places, and I took your lack of trying as lack of interest. So I pretended that I was okay with this, that a surfaced connection was enough for me.

It wasn’t.

I wanted you to know all of me. I wanted you to see the vast and endless range of my being. I wanted you to touch every single part of who I am. I wanted your soul to make love to mine, and I never let you have the chance because I hid all of that goodness from you.

I am so incredibly sorry.

From the far reaches of the universe, where my soul touches the hands of the divine mother and father, I am sorry.

And to my future lovers, I promise to never rob you of the opportunity to really know me. I will be revealed to you, fully and wholly. I promise to let you know who I really am and what I really want. And I promise to meet you there, too, seeing your vastness and immense power. I will gift you the opportunity to lift me up with your masculine strength as I will embrace you with my feminine openness.

No more games. I am here for real love, a love that is deep and powerful and expansive—a love that is aligned with the greater good.

July 31, 2017
How to Move On When Your Ex Already Has

“Like a sandcastle, all is temporary. Build it, tend it, enjoy it. And when the time comes, let it go.” ~Jack Kornfield

I picked up the butter cookies and a small postcard-sized painting I had brought for her.

I took the third-floor hotel elevator down.

Closing my eyes, I took several deep breaths.

The elevator ride was less than five seconds, but our time spent apart was five years.

Five years after the divorce I had flown up to see her again.

I’m not sure what led to this meeting. We had emailed each other a couple times out of the blue, and before you know it, we were meeting.

It could have been our final goodbye, the closure we needed. Or maybe even in the back of my mind, it was the new beginning that I’d secretly imagined.

I don’t know. I walked out to see her after a five-year hiatus. In our memories were the international long-distance romance we had, the difficult marriage we had endured, and the painful divorce we had gone through together.

When we initially parted ways, she was still pursuing her education and getting adjusted to life in America.

Yet, today she was different. She spoke of her new travels, new experiences, new house, and new job.

She talked about the ups and downs of the different relationships in her life.

Close friends, social events, and the search for the “one”—her “one”—were her focus.

As we spent the day together, a startling but simple realization came over me.

She had moved on.

Life was on the up and up. She seemed to have let go of everything we had shared.

She was a bird that was soaring, while I felt like a bird that hadn’t gone very far from the same branch I was still sitting on.

She seemed to have moved on like our past had never happened. I was holding on like it was still happening.

I realized it was way past time to completely let go of what we had shared.

She had moved on, and I need to finally move on as well.

If your ex has already moved on, perhaps my lessons will help you do the same.

Shift your perspective on the relationship.

Whatever story you’re telling yourself about the relationship, you need to retell it. You may be holding onto the sad and tragic version. You were left behind as the victim, as your ex was the heartbreaker who didn’t give the relationship a chance.

Shift the story to the one that is the most empowering for you. How about a story of how you both gave it your best? You fought, you loved, you laughed, and you cried. You tried over and over when things didn’t seem to work. You fought, forgave, broke up, got back together, and finally called it off for good.

You both gave it your all but it didn’t work out. It wasn’t for lack of trying. It was you coming to the conclusion that you were different people, both good people, who were incompatible for each other. You both helped each other grow and become better versions of yourself.

The more you can flip your perspective on your ex and the relationship, the easier it will be to move on.

Release blame, anger, and resentment once and for all.

If you haven’t completely let go of the relationship, you may still be holding on to instances of on injustices by your ex. You may still be feeling betrayed, hurt, or angry about something your ex did.

Until you can let go of these feelings of resentment on anger, you’re not going to be able to let go or move on.

You’re not going to lose anything by releasing these feelings, but you will gain your peace of mind and freedom.

Let go for yourself.

Even if your ex was entirely at fault and deserves the worst kind of karma, you’re not going to get caught up on it. You are not the universe’s policeman.

Your ex is human and made mistakes. You’re going to release the resentment and anger and forgive your ex for what they did.

If you made mistakes, you have to be willing to forgive those too.

When you don’t forgive your ex or yourself, it keeps the past injustices and pain still burning like it happened today.

Forgive for yourself. Forgive for your peace of mind.

Thank your ex for how far they brought you forward in your life.

Instead of focusing of how much better off your ex is doing or how you’re falling behind, while they are moving ahead, reflect on how far you’ve come yourself.

While our marriage was difficult and our divorce was soul-crushing, honestly, I grew so much from this relationship. I had so many insights about myself, made drastic life changes, and became an entirely new person.

You can either compare and mourn or thank your ex and appreciate how far they’ve brought you along.

You might not have welcomed the pain, but it’s likely made you into a newer and improved version of yourself.

Remind yourself of how far you’ve come.

Yes, when you’re comparing yourself to your ex, you might feel bad about yourself and like you’re stuck, but it’s not wise to compare yourself to someone else. If you feel a need to compare, then compare yourself to where you were before.

In my case, I was stuck in dysfunctional relationship patterns, I was carrying around a lot of emotional baggage, and I was stuck in a soul-crushing career.

Regardless of where she’s at today, enough therapy and learning has helped me become a new person. I have many more tools to navigate life, and I’m doing work that sometimes doesn’t even feel like work.

I’m living more in line with my values today and have the freedom to pursue my creativity and writing.

You don’t have to be soaring like your ex.

Just remember that you’re not stuck crawling like you were in the past.

Remind yourself that today is the only thing you can do something about.

You cannot change the past, the relationship, or your ex.

You cannot go back and un-do your mistakes or do something different.

There’s no point in wallowing in regret, past disappointments, and failures that you can’t do anything about.

Focus on what you can control—the changes you make today.

You can become the person you’re capable of becoming today.

You can create the life you want today.

Keep bringing yourself to the moment you can do something about: the present moment. In this moment, you can shift your perspective. You can make different choices. You can create the life you want.

Live less in the futile past and more in the hopefulness of today.

See the uncertainty in your life as an adventure.

The most difficult part of my marriage ending was the uncertainty of my life.

See, when you’re married or in a relationship, you have a location. The world identifies you in a certain way. You know who you’re spending your weekends with or who you have to plan the holidays with. You know who you list in the relationship column of Facebook.

Yet, after a breakup, all these questions are uncertain and more than likely, unknown. I’ve discovered that I, and humans in general, hate uncertainty.

We would rather tolerate an unbearable situation than the unknown.

You can view uncertainty as a tsunami about to happen or a surfing vacation in Hawaii.

The more you see your future life as an adventure that is filled with excitement and novelty, the easier it will be for your to welcome in the life waiting for you.

Pursue the life you visualize every day.

You can get stuck focusing on where your ex is at or what your ex is doing, but this is neither healthy nor productive.

Instead, get super clear on what you want.

What is the life you envision for yourself every day? What values and principles do you want to guide your life?

How would you like your life to look each day?

Now, you may not be able to create that life instantly, but you can start doing small things each day that get you closer to the life you want.

If you envision spirituality in your life each day, create time for a spiritual practice or class.

If you see creativity in your life each day, make time for your creative ventures.

If you see self-care as a necessity for your best life, reduce your commitments and take better care of yourself.

You might not have the life you envisioned right now, but if you start taking small steps each day to live the life you want, before you know it, your visions will be your reality.

What’s helped you let go of the past when your ex has already moved on?

May 15, 2017
Why I Thanked My Ex and Now Appreciate the Heartbreak

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May 7, 2017
3 Limiting Beliefs That Make It Hard to Get Over Your Ex

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

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

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

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

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

Day after day, the same routine.

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

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

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

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

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

1. “My ex was my soul mate.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. “I deserve to feel guilty.”

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

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

I want to repeat that.

You. Can’t. Change. The. Past.

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

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

Believe me when I say these next words:

You don’t deserve to feel guilty.

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. “Love conquers all.”

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

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

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

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

Here’s the thing:

Love does not conquer all. Love is not enough.

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

Believe it.

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

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

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

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

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

Final Thoughts

Limiting beliefs are tough to overcome, I know.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Getting over a breakup is a choice.

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

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

Are you up for the challenge?

May 1, 2017
When You Can’t Stop Thinking About Your Past Relationships

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

5. Avoid punishing yourself with self-critical thoughts.

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

6. Reflect on the positives the relationship gave you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

January 5, 2017
The Key to Letting Go of Your Ex: Love Them More

“The more anger towards the past you carry in your heart, the less capable you are of loving in the present.” ~Barbara De Angelis

My first love broke my heart into microscopic little pieces. I honestly didn’t think I’d survive. Losing him was like losing a limb. I couldn’t function.

Yet, by the time that he and I had parted ways, our connection was already severed, bleeding, broken—hanging on by threads we both imagined were there.

When we met, we were idealistic, open-hearted, trusting teenagers. Three years later, we were both addicts, self-harming in our own ways, and both in the habit of using words—those words first uttered in times of gentle intimacy—like weapons against each other. We were at war—with each other and with ourselves.

Together, we had become the worst versions of ourselves. But this is what made it so much harder to let go. Sure, we were sick, mentally and emotionally, but we were sick together.

I kept thinking I was “over him” until, three years later, I realized I hadn’t thought about him for a whole week. Until then, I thought of him multiple times a day, especially when I walked by places we had frequented together. The city around me was a minefield.

In those three years, I was with someone else. He was the polar opposite of my ex. I realize now that I subconsciously thought choosing someone I was incompatible with would protect me from future harm. Maybe it did. But it also kept me from passion and intimacy.

Maybe it sounds like my broken heart healed organically, naturally, over time. It didn’t. About a month before I finally stopped thinking about my ex every day, I had an epiphany.

I can’t remember what sparked it, but I remember exactly how I felt when I realized: He and I were not going to be together again. The only thing more shocking was my subsequent realization that I’d spent three years expecting that we would be!

I realized that he and I had done horrible things to each other and that, regardless of our initial connection, I didn’t want memories like that with someone. I didn’t want to remember my partner voicing all my worst self-judgments. I wanted someone to feel safe with. And we could never feel safe together.

Shortly after the dissolution of my second relationship, I had another epiphany: I was an addict. I smoked cigarettes. I drank too much. And I’d been using mind-altering substances in a way I thought was social, but was, truly, escapist and excessive.

It wasn’t until I rid myself of my other addictions, and faced the demons I had without those crutches, that I realized I didn’t really love my ex. I was addicted to him.

I thought I needed to learn to love again, but I didn’t. I had never truly loved. I got high on idealizing him, crafting him into this perfect savior who would save me from all my pain and all my insecurities. Then, I stewed in villainizing him, blaming him for tearing up my life, my innocence, my confidence. But he was just a human being, and I never saw that.

I did to him what I did to myself. I expected perfection, and when I realized it wasn’t coming, I poured hot, thick judgment all over everything. I couldn’t face my authentic, real, natural self, so I couldn’t face him that way either.

When I began to greet the woman in the mirror with open-minded, open-hearted acceptance of what was there, I suffered. I suffered because she wasn’t like TV, because she had flaws, because she would never be perfect. I suffered because I realized how much time I’d wasted trying to be perfect.

A time came when my reflection no longer triggered revulsion within me. That was my first experience of what I call “love.” I saw someone whose beauty surpassed the pictures on the magazines. I saw a woman who was beautiful because she was a raw, real, organic part of everything.

When I saw myself that way, I could see the rest of reality that way. I finally saw my ex that way—flaws and all, beautiful because he was a part of this interconnected moment. Beautiful because he was real, human, flawed, just like everyone else.

That was the first time I ever really loved him. I loved him that way where I wanted him to be happy, with or without me—that way I’d heard people talking about, but never understood what they meant.

When I finally loved him that way, I didn’t need him to be mine. I didn’t need him to be a part of my sad story anymore. He had his own story. He was more important than the role he’d played in my own, personal melodrama.

I realized that I had spent years craving love with all my being, and I had been translating those cravings into desires for my ex. I thought I was heartbroken about losing him, but I wasn’t. I was heartbroken about losing this “love” thing that I thought came from him.

But love didn’t come from him. Love came from me. It was always inside of me, this feeling of being connected to the world. I mentally hired him as the deliveryman of that feeling and suffered for years, because he wasn’t coming and bringing it.

I didn’t need to learn to love again. I needed to learn to love.

Now, I can experience the feeling of love when looking at a sunset. I can feel it while having a really good conversation with a friend. I feel it often while writing. I feel it sometimes in crowds of people.

I feel love in those places because I let myself feel it, because I’ve come to define love as an awareness of my connection to the world, and I allow that connection to take endless forms. Because of that, I’m no longer begging, pleading, desperately for people to love me, and I am not obsessing about past relationships lost.

Our relationships are just vessels for something bigger—for real love, for an awareness of our connection to life. Of course, each relationship is different, so we will experience that connection uniquely with each person, but we are experiencing connection all the same.

I have come to believe that heartbreak is an incredible opportunity. It’s a chance to observe the difference between true love and addiction.

It’s a chance to separate our desire for love from our expectations about where love comes from. Heartbreak is an opportunity to look at what we believe we’ve lost and realize that, maybe, we’ve never actually found it.

Maybe this seems counterintuitive, but if you’re trying to stop loving a person in order to get over them, try loving them more. Try loving them so much that you don’t need them to be yours. Try loving them so much that you see the real human being instead of just idealizations and villainizations.

Try loving yourself this way too.

Of course, it will still hurt, because pain is a part of loss. At best, you will have lost a relationship, and that is still painful. But if you allow yourself to lose a relationship without losing love—without losing your awareness of your connection to the world—then your healing process will open doors to profound self-discovery rather than suffering, and eventually, to a higher level of intimacy with others.

Learning to love showed me how much I have to give, and it’s more than I could have ever imagined. If, like me, you move onto another relationship after healing, your capacity for intimacy and connection will far surpass what you experienced in past relationships.

Like this, heartbreak can actually strengthen your future relationships—but only if you take that opportunity to look within yourself.

As Gangaji said, “let your heart break, for your breaking heart only reveals a core of love unbroken.”

September 20, 2016