“A thousand times we die in one life. We crumble, break and tear apart until the layers of illusion are burned away and all that is left, is the rush of who and what we really are”

 – Teal Scott

 

I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced a break up that wasn’t chaotic and life altering.

One moment the relationship is filled with joy, passion, and affection; we can’t imagine spending our lives with anyone else. The next moment everything is shattering into bits and pieces. Anger, jealousy, fear, pain, and hurt starts to seep in, and we say and do things to our partner which ends up poisoning our hearts. Sometimes we see this end coming, and deny the inevitable, hoping in the heart of hearts some miracle will save our relationship from ending. Despite all our protest, denial, and resistance, the relationship ends and we fall apart.

When we lose a significant relationship, we experience what feels like a mini-death. We feel as if a part of us has been lost which we’ll never get back. I remember how it felt to this day when my relationship ended. It was as if my heart was being ripped out of my chest. I remember struggling to breathe. The foundation – this relationship – to which I built my life upon suddenly collapsed, and I remember the feeling of falling into a dark, endless abyss, with no hope of getting out. I felt like who I was and what I wanted my life to be was annihilated right before my very eyes, and there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it. Losing someone I loved with all my heart felt so surreal, it was as if I was trapped in a horrifying nightmare I couldn’t awaken from no matter how much I tried.

Losing a loved one, either by death or break up, shatters our heart and world into millions of pieces. Sometimes we are wounded so deeply we experience an endless and unimaginable pain and suffering deep. We just want to go back in time and “fix” our mistakes. We ruminate on what we “could have” and “should have” done to save the relationship. We become filled with rage, harshly blaming ourselves or our partner for “ruining the relationship”. We so desperately want them back we even make unrealistic bargains with God, or speak of empty promises to save the relationship.

Breaks ups can cause everything in our life to become drastically altered, and it really never goes back to being “like it was before”. Some of us stop talking to our friends, while others’ struggle to perform in their job. We may change social activities or give up certain hobbies all together. We may lose our homes, our children, and our sanity. Most of us lose our sense of safety and security in this world. We sometimes lose faith in others, in humanity, in “true love”. We may decide to protect our hearts by coating it in the thickest armor possible to keep anyone from hurting us again.

Our friend and family, despite their loving intentions, may tell us “he/she doesn’t deserve you”, or “you’ll find someone better”, or my favorite “there are plenty of fish in the sea”. These statements usually leave us feeling angry or annoyed by dismissing our grief and minimizing our hurt; regardless of how truthful these statements may or may not be. No matter how much people console us, the truth still remains: we lost a significant person, the relationship is over, and our heart feels broken.

Despite all of this, it is not only possible to make a comeback from a bad break up, but to make one that is truly meaningful, powerful, healing, and deeply transformational. Too many people fail to learn from their break ups, and continually repeat self-destructive cycles in all of their subsequent relationships. It took me 10 years of trial, error, and heartbreak to finally learn what about me continues to create the same themes and patterns in every intimate relationship.

 

Opening Your Heart to Loss:

Ironic I know.

We have a natural reaction to avoid pain at all costs, and one sure fire way we try to avoid the pain of loss is to close off our heart to others. We create giant walls, impenetrable armor, and impassable barriers designed to protect our heart from ever experiencing such pain again. We vow to never allow ourselves to experience this hurt again; to never be stupid enough to “fall for such things tricks again”.

While all of these do in fact buffer the pain of heartbreak, they are only short-term solutions to a long-lasting problem, and never really lead to authentic healing. When we engage in avoidance and distraction, we’re only picking at the scabs of our wounded heart, and tend to make the problem much worse in the end.

So how would opening our hearts help us make a comeback from a break up? Sounds pretty crazy right?

Because opening ourselves to the loss of the relationship acknowledges how much our heart hurts, how afraid and confused we feel, and how much we valued the relationship. There is a lot of tensions that is released when we open ourselves up to the pain of loss.

This is the power of unconditional acceptance.

We not only accept the loss of the relationship, but also accept our full emotional experience connected to it. We acknowledge and embrace all our sadness, anger, despair, confusion, emptiness, loneliness, jealousy, heartbreak, and hurt; but also the happiness, joy, and appreciation of the relationship too. Why? Because we’re being open, vulnerable, and authentic with ourselves and our present experience; no bullshit, masks, or facades to cover it all up.  

Something I found helpful was to write down all my thoughts and feeling about the relationship: how the relationship ended, what I regret doing or not saying, why I think we broke up, my fears and uncertainty of the future, how it had impacted my life, etc. While writing is what worked for me, it may not for you. Some may want to seek the trust and support of therapy to share and express their thoughts and feelings. What’s important is to get everything out in the open instead of stuffing it down, hoping the hurt and pain with magically go away.

Once we are willing to accept both the loss of the relationship, and how it affects us, we can start the path of healing and making a strong and meaningful comeback.

 

 *Special Note: Be mindful you don’t get stuck in intense emotions like anger, depression, helplessness, fear; or in self-critical, judgmental, or wishful thoughts. It is easy to become attached to these emotions and thoughts as a means to validate our experience, but they tend to hook us into toxic, self-defeating patterns which prevent true healing from occurring. While anger, sadness, bargaining, and fear are natural reactions to experiencing significant loss, and it’s important to acknowledge and validate them, they can trap us like a spider’s web and hinder our capacity to move forward in our lives.

 

What Did This Person Teach You About Yourself?

As I was able to work through the intense emotions, I started to see, understand, and accept my role and responsibility in the relationship. I started to understand more clearly how I communicated to others; the various tricks I used in to get my needs met; how I depended on external validation and acceptance; how I enmeshed my self-identity into the relationship; my expectations of the relationship; my unwillingness to assert my boundaries, needs, and feelings; what I attached to and why; and how I disengaged from the relationship to protect myself from experiencing any more hurt and pain.

I began to notice how these patterns were in fact recurring themes in every significant relationship I’ve ever had. I saw with greater clarity and awareness how these themes went all the way back to my childhood, and how they played out in my relationships since. I began to understand how my fear of hurt, of rejection, of not being “good” enough, and of abandonment triggered all these old, habitual patterns; making me unwilling to fully committing my heart to another person, and continually prevented me from experiencing true love, intimacy, and fulfillment.

Take a moment to reflect on how you have changed since the end of your relationship. What do you know now about yourself that you didn’t know before? What did you learn from the mistakes you made, and how you can correct them for future relationships? Also, take this opportunity to explore what you really desire in your relationships; what really brings you alive with another person.

 

Practicing Compassion, Forgiveness, and Gratitude:

Compassion – for ourselves and for others – helps open our hearts to forgiveness, and is the first step towards healing and making a comeback. Compassion is the unconditional love that comes deep from within our hearts, nurtures all pain and suffering, and healing our broken heart. It is like the unconditional love a dog has for its’ owner. No matter what the owner does, the dog will always slobber him/her with tender love, attention, and affection.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean you will forget this person or the hurt caused by the loss. You will never forget this person because they have touched your life forever. Forgiveness means choosing to remember the “good times” spent together, and a willingness to letting go of all the anger and pain it once caused us. Forgiveness is the key to helping us to proactively move on and forward with our lives.

When we allow compassion to seep deep into our wounded heart, permitting it to nurture our pain and suffering with unconditional love, we are more willing to let go of all the hurt; all the negative judgments and fear; all the anger and betrayal which binds us to the past, and prevents us from truly healing in an authentic manner.

Cultivating compassion for myself and forgiving my partner was the most agonizing and challenging feat I have ever done when coming back from the break up, as I imagine it is too true for most of you. I struggled to find forgiveness in my heart and couldn’t even stomach the idea of offering myself compassion and forgiveness.

As we continue to cultivate compassion and forgiveness, we begin to understand the universal experience of loss – how we and billions of other humans throughout history have lost those they love most – and that no matter what loss is going to hurt because we choose to open our hearts to love.

Through our healing process we experience a profound gratitude for the preciousness of every moment, of every relationship, of life itself. We start to recognize and appreciate what this relationship offered us in return, even when it’s over, and we carry our gratitude forward in every aspect out our lives. I am so grateful for how much I have learned about myself, how deeply I’ve changed and transformed, and how open and full my heart is to others throughout a long and arduous healing process.

Not only is it possible to make a comeback from a bad break up, but you can comeback stronger, more courageous, more daring, and more confident in yourself; carrying this into every aspect of your life.

If you discover you are having a difficulty time with a recent break up or would like some guidance and support about how to move forward with your life, Contact me for a free 15-minute phone consultation or you may request an appointment below.