by Debbie Hampton | Jul 10, 2016 | Letting Go, Present Moment
I married my high school sweetheart right out of college.
After eighteen years of marriage, eleven moves, and two sons, he went to one state, and the kids and I went to another. Ending the marriage felt like a colossal failure that I’d avoided as long as I possibly could.
While there were more than enough painful memories from before the split: screaming matches, physical violence, affairs, and a restraining order, we didn’t stop the madness there. Oh no.
Rooted firmly in our respective corners, now next to our lawyers, every issue, no matter how small, became grounds for a full legal assault. We even had to have lawyers oversee the division of the five paper bags of family photographs. In the years that followed, I became well acquainted with my lawyer’s office and the local courthouse. Naïvely, I’d thought a divorce was supposed to put an end to all the bickering.
After a Divorce-Court ugly trial lasting a week, it was over — or so I thought. I tried to move on with my life. I started dating, making new friends and carving out a single life for myself.
The memories of hurtful times and the ex’s lawyer’s hateful depiction of me in court played on an endless loop in my head and heart. These scenes got added to the mental movie already getting airtime of taking care of my brother as he wasted away and died of AIDs. Then, the documentary of a tumultuous three-year post-marriage relationship and bad break-up got added to the playbill.
With a pill popping incident in 2007, I tried to commit suicide which resulted in a serious brain injury.
While healing from the suicide attempt, I realized that I had been torturing myself with my painful memories. I had been doing it to myself! While this point may be obvious to some, it was a huge revelation for me.
Yes, my brother went through a horrible illness and died. Yes, there was no shortage of ugliness from the marriage and divorce and hurt from the subsequent relationship. All of it really did happen — no denying that — but I was the one keeping the hurt alive and bringing it into my present. If I was doing it, I could also stop it.
It really boiled down to making the decision not to torture myself anymore.
How Re-playing Painful Memories Makes Them Stronger
Because of neuroplasticity, the scientifically proven ability of our brains to change form and function based on repeated behaviors, emotions, and thoughts, the more I dwelled on the sad memories, the more I reinforced them. In your brain, neurons that fire together wire together. Like a fish tale, each recollection adds a little more punch and grows more charged each time you remember it.
At the basic level, a memory is made up of slight shifts in the neuronal pattern that comprises that memory. Every time you recall it, your brain reconsolidates the sequence incorporating and filtering it through who you are, what you know, and your mindset at the time of remembering.
The act of remembering changes a memory. So, as I became more depressed and hopeless and replayed the painful memories, they became darker and contributed to and reinforced the downward spiral of depression in my brain.
Four Ways To Diffuse Painful Memories
The good news is that the reverse is also true. Neural connections that are relatively inactive wither away, and you can consciously influence your brain in a positive way. I made the memories stronger and more painful. I could make them weaker and more loving. Here’s how you can too.
Here are 4 ways to release the painful memories of the past.
1. Pair Positive Thoughts With Negative Memories
By pairing positive thoughts and emotions with negative memories and feelings from your past, you can change their role in your present, and physically alter the memories in your brain. Remember, memory is an active and ongoing process of neurons firing filtered through your present state.
In his book, Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom, Rick Hanson writes:
“To gradually replace negative implicit memories with positive ones, just make the positive aspects prominent and relatively intense in the foreground of your awareness while simultaneously placing the negative material in the background….
Because of all the ways your brain changes its structure, your experience matters beyond its momentary, subjective impact. It makes enduring changes in the physical tissues of your brain which affect your well-being, functioning and relationships.”
2. Actively Forgive Yourself and Others
Extending compassion and forgiveness to myself and others was a necessary step in my healing journey and letting go of the pain. I found solace in the thought: “I was (they) were doing the best that I (they) could with who I was at the time.” This single concept allowed me to find forgiveness that I thought impossible.
Forgiveness is a gift that you give to yourself. You do it for you, not the other person. The receiving individual doesn’t have to deserve, want, or acknowledge it for you to reap the benefits. Research has shown forgiveness to be positively associated with many measures of physical and mental health. To hold a grudge, harbor hostility, resentment or anger creates stress within your brain and body. Stress shrinks your brain, decreases serotonin levels, contributes to depression, and plays a part in almost every disease.
From your brain’s perspective, forgiveness requires making a deliberate decision to move beyond feeling hurt or wronged. It takes consciously shifting your perspective and attention and pairing sad or disappointing memories with more positive, better-feeling thoughts (like my quote above). The practice of forgiving, when done repeatedly, over time actually rewires your brain and builds new neuronal pathways.
After decades of hoarding resentment, grudges, and hurt, I had a lot of forgiving to do. First of all, I had to forgive myself. That was hard one. Forgiveness must be extended to yourself before you can give it freely to anyone else. I began reading and practicing forgiveness meditations and exercises to extend compassion to myself, like I would a friend, for the first time ever in my life.
I sent long emails to the exes forgiving them for “whatever I felt like they needed to be forgiven” and asking for forgiveness for “whatever they felt I needed to be forgiven.” I began to feel lighter and happier. It was as if I had set down weights that I did not even know I’d been carrying around for a long, long time.
3. Reframe Your Thoughts
As explained, you see your memories through the filter of your present thinking. So, if you consciously work with your thoughts and beliefs to change your current perspective, you can view the past differently. For a minute, try to drop your habitual story lines and emotional investment in a memory. The details, who did what, really don’t matter in the end and won’t help you move past the pain. They only fuel your anger, hurt, and sense of injustice. Broaden your perspective, try on different points of view, and try to be objective.
Focus on yourself here. In any situation, the only thing you ever have control over is you. Instead of looking for external sources and pointing your finger there, turn the finger back around to you. Take an honest look at your contribution to the situation and your behavior. Ask yourself what you could do differently going forward and what are the possible lessons or good things that could come from this. To get different results, you have to do something different. Not them. You.
Byron Katie has a wonderful series of exercises she calls “The Work” in which you analyze any situation with the four questions and “turn it around.”
4. Meditation
Some philosophies make meditation out to be way too complicated. To me, meditation is simply training to consciously control the mind — not what originates in my mind, but my reaction to it. The goal of meditation is to passively observe what runs through your mind and not identify with it.
In meditation, you are learning to consciously choose your reaction to your thoughts and memories, with the objective being to eventually not react at all. Although you can’t expect to control the thoughts and memories that pop into your head, with awareness and intent, you can choose how you respond to them. Herein lies the ability we all have to be free from the pain of the past and find peace.
On a physical level, a person is altering their brain function by learning to change their response to their thoughts in meditation. Through neuroplasticity, a regular meditation practice strengthens and expands calm nonreactive brain circuits.
So when meditating, you just let the memories and feelings bubble up – the good, the bad and the ugly – without labeling or judging them. It can be unpleasant, scary, painful, and absolutely no fun, but it is good work essential to healing, letting go of the past, and becoming a whole, healthy, happy person.
You have to feel it to heal it.
Debbie Hampton recovered from decades of unhealthy thinking and depression, a suicide attempt, and resulting brain injury to become an inspirational and educational writer. On her website, The Best Brain Possible, Debbie shares how she rebuilt her brain and life to find joy and thrive and wants you to know that you can do it too! Quickly learn the steps to a better you in her book, Beat Depression And Anxiety By Changing Your Brain, or go to the edge of sanity and back with her in her tell-all memoir, Sex, Suicide and Serotonin: How These Thing Almost Killed And Healed Me.
by Vishnu | Jun 14, 2015 | Love and Relationships, Vulnerability
by Priyanka Yadvendu
When I was twenty-four years old, I met a man at a bar on a girl’s night out. My girlfriends and I were about to leave the bar and head home. It was a normal night filled with drinking and dancing the night away.
As I came out of the restrooms, I locked eyes with a set of sparkling brown eyes. He stood a foot away and smiled. The alcohol pulsed through my body.
But even before I consciously knew, my soul knew. My heart commanded me to not go anywhere and against my wishes, I smiled back.
He asked me to dance and we made small talk. I don’t remember anything about our conversation, except that I kept thinking how tall he was. He was six feet three inches. I am five feet tall and even with my heels, I felt like a dwarf.
We switched numbers. He called me and we went our first date. Everything that could’ve gone wrong went wrong. He suddenly changed the location of our first date minutes before I was to head to the restaurant. A band played loud music literally right in front of our table. I couldn’t hear a word he said.
After dinner, he paraded me across San Jose downtown in my brand new heels. My feet bled and we had to sit down at a park. (Several of these moments inspired key scenes in my debut novel Enchanted Silence!)
While sitting on that bench, we spoke about our views on marriage which would determine the fate of our relationship.
He confided he didn’t wish to get married. He came from a family of divorces and had mostly been involved in flings throughout his life. I revealed I saw myself being happily married with children in my future.
Despite our differing views, we kept on meeting and eventually fell deeply in love with each other. That day on that bench, neither of us could have predicted that.
We were perfect for each other in every way. We shared a love for adventure and possessed intellectual minds. We had a goofy sense of humor. We both even shared a fear of intimacy and commitment.
But four years later, that main difference wedged its way into our relationship. Today, I know we had to happen because I had to learn and grow from this experience.
Here are seven honest lessons I learned from falling in love with a commitment phobic man:
1. Don’t be afraid of being vulnerable.
I am uncomfortable expressing my emotions. I can be crumbling inside, but I will barely show it. Being the oldest in my family, I feel a sense of responsibility and commitment. It was ingrained in me that being emotional is not what gets the job done.
As a result, layers of emotion and pain were stuck energetically in my body. This carried into this relationship. I believed that I had to be guarded and hold myself together all the time.
If I cried or broke down in front of him, I believed he wouldn’t want me anymore. I would come across as weak.
But you cannot be truly intimate with someone until you learn to be intimate with yourself. Daring to show your true self is the key to a meaningful relationship and having a true connection.
2. Relationships are mirrors.
He had a deep seated fear of intimacy. That became blaringly obvious over the years. He would often cite divorce statistics and avoid the topic of marriage. I never knew too much about his childhood and the relationship he shared with his father.
He barely dropped the walls to let me in. But why had he come into my life? Although I wanted marriage and children in my life, I was terrified of commitment and relationships. I had drawn sturdy walls, too.
The difference was he was openly a commitment phobic and I was a closeted one.
Every relationship teaches you about yourself. This person is aligned to your soul and meant to stir different parts in you so you can turn inwards and clear your inner blocks and fears.
3. Love without attachment.
During this relationship, I had a pattern of striving for happiness and self-worth through him. When he called me, I felt happy. When he didn’t call me, my mood plunged. My state of mind completely changed.
I found that I started overanalyzing and over thinking. He does not like me. He is getting bored of me.
And then I would drive myself crazy on whether I should text or call him. Is it too much? Am I being lenient?
When he did respond to me, I would breathe a sigh of relief yet hold resentment towards him. And I would not express these feelings to him and instead become cold.
When you become your own source of love, you do not love someone else from a place of fear and attachment. When you want to express your feelings, you do it. When you want to text or call him, you do it.
When you want to show love, you do it. You don’t do these things expecting anything in return. You do it because that is your desire and this comes from a beautiful space within you.
4. Keep your ego out of the picture.
This one is tied to the previous point. My ego came into the way sometimes. When he didn’t call or show me love the way I wanted, my ego reared its ugly head.
I used him to validate my self-worth and when he didn’t respond the way I wanted, I became angry with him. I turned icy cold and shut him out.
I am not saying you must accept wrong behavior or let someone walk over you. Rather, be conscious that you are not perfect and neither is your partner. It’s about not judging yourself when you respond from a place of control, fear, or insecurity.
Peel the layers of ego off and instead be real with yourself. Observe yourself, ask yourself why you are responding the way you are, and do the inner work.
5. Is he capable of loving you?
During our relationship, he always treated me beautifully. I was blessed in this respect. Because of his support, I was able to realize my dream of writing a novel.
But because his fear of intimacy and commitment was greater than his love and respect for me, he was never able to drop his protective walls and let me in completely.
He kept me at a distance. This created emotional turmoil in me. I questioned myself and our relationship a lot. Though he was a good person, he didn’t love me the way I wanted to be loved.
When someone does not love you the way you want, it does not mean that person is not a good person. It means they have to sift through their own emotional baggage and clear their fear and blocks. And that is not your responsibility to fix.
6. Learn to receive.
Giving is an important part in a relationship. However, receiving is equally important. One of the most beautiful things I learned from him was learning how to receive. I was used to being the giver in my relationships with my loved ones and friends.
I found it difficult to receive actually. I remember he once remarked how I didn’t know how to take a compliment. It was a simple comment, but it stuck in my head.
I didn’t know how to receive because I did not know how to give love to myself. I didn’t know how to be intimate with myself.
If you have trouble receiving love, then start practicing becoming comfortable with opening yourself and receiving love. Treat yourself to a massage or favorite meal. Look at yourself in the mirror and compliment yourself.
7. Forgive and lead with your heart.
When you go through a challenging relationship, you want to just close your heart and shut off. But it is during this time that you must keep it open even more.
When you are walking around with anger and resentment towards that person, you are only hurting yourself.
If not for that person, you will need to forgive for your sake. It is the only way to move forward.
I took the time to process all my pain and anguish. I did whatever soothed my soul. I woke up several nights drenched in my sweat. I ate take out. I spent hours crying on the phone with my best friend.
Don’t try to avoid the pain. Dive deep in this process so you can fully heal yourself and keep your heart open. Because then you will be opening yourself up to beauty and love in all its forms in your life.
If you came out of a challenging relationship, keep your heart open. This was meant to awaken your soul so you can create an amazing relationship with yourself!
Priyanka Yadvendu is passionate about supporting women to listen to their enchanted silence to live an inspired life. Her upcoming book is Enchanted Silence, represented by Holloway Literary. To savor a peek of the first chapter and enjoy her free e-cards and helpful resources, visit http://www.priyankayadvendu.com/
* Photo credit
by Vishnu | Mar 29, 2015 | Courage, Forgiveness, Love and Relationships, Present Moment
“Surrender to what is. Let go of what was. Have faith in what will be.” Sonia Ricotti
It’s not easy to love again after heartbreak.
I know because heartbreak has been my divine teacher.
And it’s taken me a very long time to come to terms with my breakup, accept my divorce and let go (mentally) of the person who occupied so much of my life.
It’s close to four years now and I FINALLY feel ready to move on.
Ready to let love into my life again.
Ready to open myself up again.
How I got here
When my marriage ended abruptly, my life began unraveling for a couple reasons. One, I loved my ex-wife, and despite our many challenges together, I was hopeful as ever of a love that would heal, transform and reignite. I felt it was only a matter of time before our differences would darken and our hearts would shine.
Two, my life unraveled because I couldn’t accept such a drastic change in it. Maybe I took love and marriage for granted. Or maybe I had the old-school version of relationships stuck in my mind – that relationships lasted no matter how challenging or tumultuous they were. The only solution, I believed, was to stay together and keep trying. And in the meantime, we had to keep working through the kinks.
Although divorce was what I ultimately came to accept, it was after much kicking and screaming on my part.
I didn’t want to let go of someone who I had come to see as part of me. Despite our differences, I had always felt soulfully connected to her.
Naturally, when she left, my soul felt empty and my life felt broken.
I went from a state of shock and pain to sadness and loss.
Much of this is chronicled in this blog, and much of what I’ve written describes how to come back from such dark and tragic places in our lives.
For me, the process of healing and letting go has taken place at a snail’s pace.
Over the past few years, my mind continued to replay the ups and downs of our relationship. Of course, during periods of grieving, your mind can hardly remember the downs.
You mostly remember the good times, the happy times and the joyful times.
I remembered the laughs, dreams and hopes we shared.
And every city or restaurant we had visited together triggered a reaction in me.
Every current conversation or movie triggered conversations and chatter of the past.
I saw her name everywhere and heard her name everywhere, including in magazines, books and movies.
I was clinging and holding on for dear life to this lost love. I felt that losing her was losing myself. This dying relationship felt like my own mortality.
It was not easy, as you know, to pick up the pieces, get through each day and move on.
The path back to myself has been long and treacherous. The path back to love has been fraught with tears, sorrow and sadness.
The path to moving on has required that I find the courage to let go of the past, accept the present and step into who I am today. The path to myself required that I put myself together after being completely broken.
It’s required that I stand up and step into my soul + my life.
If you have gotten out of a soul-crushing, life-crushing relationship and find yourself on the bathroom floor crying out to a God that doesn’t appear to exist, I bow to you and welcome you to join me on this journey to healing.
Your heart may be fractured, but your soul is about to emerge – stronger, more vibrant and more courageous than ever.
You may feel as though your breakup has shattered your life, but that doesn’t mean there’s no hope for living today.
To the contrary, if you go through this journey of healing you can find peace today, gratitude for what happened and joy in future possibilities.
Cracking open a fragile heart can unleash a timid soul.
You can become courageous again and be ready to open your soul to something new.
If you’re ready to let go and move on, let me take you through my own healing process.
9 ways to let go of your past relationship so that you can heal and open your heart to love again
1) Acceptance of what is.
For the longest time, I couldn’t accept heartbreak or divorce.
I had always believed our separation was temporary and that we would get back together one day.
Same with divorce. Even months and, I would say, years after the divorce, I thought there was hope for our relationship.
You might see this as positive thinking, delusion or denial.
See, heartbreak had caused so much personal pain that I just did not want to accept it as true. The divorce had caused so much emotional and family turmoil, I wished it would simply go away.
I was really fighting change and uncertainty – it was the first time in my life I felt like I had no control over a situation. So I tried to remain positive, visualizing and dreaming our relationship back together.
Of course, what I was really doing was denying this reality.
When you’re in denial about something in your life, you can’t move on.
When you refuse to accept uncertainty or events that are out of your control, you’re going to remain stuck.
If you’d like to move on from heartbreak, or anything really, surrender to the situation – let your life feel out of control for a bit. Trust that it will get better and that you’ll see light down the road, even if you’re in darkness now.
You may not know how to get out of the torture you’re feeling, but now there is a way out. It will come together as you go through the healing process.
Allow your intuition to shine the light and lead the way while healing.
Sometimes acceptance and surrender require simply standing back and not doing anything – not resisting or denying what you’re experiencing.
It’s acknowledging your situation as it is. It’s sitting with it and accepting it without an answer or action plan.
2) Showing up to grieve.
You don’t have to hide, deny, suppress or run from your emotions.
Allow them to unfold and wash over you.
Show up to grieve – face grief boldly and courageously.
There’s nothing to be ashamed of – you’re entitled to feel hurt, sad, angry, devastated or any other feelings you’re experiencing.
In my case, I felt an avalanche of emotions and feelings for a couple of years after the divorce. I didn’t make them go away or hide them.
Lots of tears, sleepless nights and therapy numbed the pain and helped me come to terms with loss.
Sharing the pain with others, although I didn’t do this much at first, definitely helped me carry the burden of the breakup’s pain.
Show up and face your grief.
There’s nothing to be ashamed of in feeling everything you’re feeling. It’s normal. It’s human. And again, if it’s overwhelming, reach out to your inner circle or professionals to help you deal with the emotional weight you’re carrying.
3) Taking responsibility
You can take on a bitter attitude your entire life and curse your no-good &$^&@#@ ex for the pain and heartache she caused or….
You can take responsibility for your part in the relationship.
For much of the earlier stages of my grief, I blamed my ex. She did this…or didn’t do this…Most thoughts concluded with the feeling that it was her fault and I was the innocent victim.
Of course, it’s never this way. Both sides in a relationship gone sour are at fault.
You don’t have to blame yourself for it, but instead accept responsibility for it.
And if you think there’s nothing at all wrong with you and it was all your ex’s fault, try to take a more objective view. If you still can’t, you may not be ready to move on.
I now realize that I was living unconsciously in my relationship. I’m not sure what I was thinking or who I was back then, but it wasn’t the person today who came out of that relationship.
I was living a life of ego, anger, unrealistic expectations, control and non-communication.
I can justify all these things in my life and blame these many character flaws on others (hi parents!), or I can choose not to and take responsibility for them.
Only when I began to realize what I had done wrong could I continue the healing process.
When I was dead-certain it was all my ex’s fault, I was stuck in my ego and my healing. I couldn’t move on until I took responsibility.
Once I started taking responsibility I could also stop playing the role of “victim.”
When you play the role of the “victim,” your view of the relationship and your steps forward are skewed.
When it’s all the other person’s fault and you feel like you did nothing wrong, you’re likely not being honest with yourself. And more importantly, you’re stopping yourself from moving on.
If you can’t admit that you had a part in how this relationship ended, you can’t go through the other steps of healing I describe below. You’re likely stuck on being “right” rather than choosing to move on.
The longer you choose the state of denial and blame, the longer it will take for you to heal.
4) Forgiving yourself.
Once you take responsibility for your part, be willing to forgive yourself.
The goal here isn’t to hold yourself up to some gold standard, criticize yourself or remind yourself how much you screwed up.
It’s to forgive yourself for acting and behaving in ways that were not healthy. You most likely didn’t know what you were doing and you’ve grown because of your unconscious behavior.
Once you realize it wasn’t healthy and you see your mistakes, you’ve given yourself the gifts of awareness, insight and growth.
When you forgive yourself and bathe yourself in compassion, you can let go of the hot coals of anger and resentment you’re carrying.
In order to forgive, you have to ignore what others have said to you about yourself and the internal story you’re telling about yourself.
If you feel blame and guilt, you have even more reason to forgive yourself.
You’re not perfect, you’re human.
Even if you broke up with the perfect person and it was all your fault, forgive yourself. You have learned, grown and become the person who can do better the next time.
5) Forgiveness and saying thank you.
Harder than forgiving yourself is forgiving your ex.
Actually, you not only need to forgive your ex, but everyone else you blame in the relationship – his friends, her family, your parents, her parents and anyone else you believe bears responsibility for the parting of ways.
Forgiving isn’t easy and you’re never going to reach the ideal place of forgiveness. Forgiving when it feels right won’t work because it will never feel right.
Forgiveness is a process – one that, if you’re to reap the benefits, requires your participation.
You forgive even if you don’t want to. It’s true what they say about forgiveness – ultimately, forgiving others is a way to let go of the resentment and anger within. You’re really forgiving for yourself.
Set an intention to forgive.
Then write a letter (which you don’t send) to your ex, forgiving him or her for all the person’s wrongs and hurtful actions toward you. Forgiving your ex for breaking your trust, breaking your heart, taking advantage of you.
Forgiveness is a miracle-inducing action that will allow the vibrancy of the pain you’re feeling to subside.
One of the first things I did in my journey to healing was to forgive my ex. I didn’t want to at the time, but I forgave anyway. And I continued forgiving her throughout the healing process.
After you begin your mission of forgiveness, you can truly heal by becoming grateful to this former person in your life.
Once you see how he or she transformed your life and improved your being, you can’t help but be grateful. Express that gratitude by writing or sending a silent wish to the person.
I am more grateful to my former wife today for our relationship.
Although our relationship was a struggle, it broke open the floodgates to conscious living, finding my truth and myself (even my purpose). It has led to my greatest personal development, character development and spiritual awareness.
This relationship broke my heart wide open so that I could see my soul and, today, live from this place.
I am thankful.
6) Bringing yourself back to the present.
When you have suffered a breakup and are trying to get over it, something that sabotages your recovery is living in the past – which I did a lot of.
As I’ve talked about, my resistance to change and my inability to accept life events made me want to go back and relive the glory days of our relationship.
I thought constantly about all the good times, the shared laughs, the highlights and the happy times. I longed for a time and day that no longer existed.
When you get in the habit of living in the past, though, the negative and painful times also pop into your mind.
Imagine living a life that has nothing to do with today. I was doing that for a couple of years; continually reliving the past because I felt safe there and took comfort in knowing that my future life could be like my past life.
I was being nostalgic and sentimental; I had a better sense of myself in the past.
Who was I, after all, without my ex and my past?
Letting go of past living is scary, but so essential to moving on.
Life is beautiful, rich and filled with so many lovely experiences. You can’t really experience the beauty of life if you’re not here at this moment.
Catch yourself going back to the past and become aware of your tendency to daydream about the good days.
Pay attention and create present moment awareness in your life.
Think of your past as a movie, with scenes flashing into your mind, but try to avoid jumping back into those scenes and reliving them.
You’ve already suffered enough. By not living in the present moment, you’re allowing your past relationship and your ex to repeatedly harm you.
Choose yourself. Choose today. Choose the present moment.
7) Soul lessons. Life lessons.
As you move forward, don’t forget the lessons of this relationship. And the lessons from life’s lowest point.
If you haven’t learned any lessons, don’t rob yourself of the opportunity to grow and gain more insight.
As you take responsibility for your part, what have you learned about yourself?
What do you need to change? What do you need to let go of? How do you live more in alignment with your true nature? How do you live a more authentic life? How do you connect and relate to other people? How can you communicate better?
Ask yourself these questions and get curious about how to make improvements in your life and future relationships.
Life has taught you a heavy but invaluable lesson. Do life and your former relationship justice by walking away from it with wisdom.
Ask yourself what the relationship was here to teach you and glean the answers from this question.
8) Cultivate compassion and love.
As you come back to the world of new relationships and new possibilities, cultivate more compassion and love in your life. First, for yourself.
Learn to have a passionate affair with yourself (I wrote this manifesto about how to do so) so that you’re embracing your darkest parts and your wounds.
Don’t beat yourself up over what happened. Treat yourself as you would your gentlest and kindest friend.
Allow love to infuse the thoughts, emotions and feelings in your life.
Establish a spiritual practice to help you generate love from your internal being.
From your inner core, imagine love spreading outward toward others. Imagine love from within expanding from you to the entire world.
Breathe in compassion. Breathe out anger. Breathe in compassion. Breathe out judgment.
Breathe in love. Breathe out the past. Breathe in love. Breathe out the pain.
9) Step into your life with courage.
Once you accept what happened, go through the healing process and are ready for a comeback, be ready to step out of your broken heart and into your life.
What I mean by this is to embrace everything that has happened to you and then find the courage to move forward.
Find the courage within for each step of the journey toward healing and then the courage to come out of healing.
Take small steps toward living a new life. Small steps in saying “yes” to coffee and “yes” to meeting new people.
Small steps in reacting differently to people, in changing your past behavior and in improving who you are as a person.
Yes, your past happened – own it – but the future is happening now and you can write how that goes.
You’ve come out of heartache and failure – you know what it’s like to be at life’s low point, but this has certainly prepared you for life’s glory days.
You’ve experienced crisis. Now you’re ready for brilliance.
Coming out of your shell to meet your best life takes courage. Take those small steps of courage to live an inspired, love-filled and soul-rich life.
Did you enjoy this post? Please share it with your friends and family who have experienced heartache and are trying to move on.
* Photo credit.
by Vishnu | Dec 6, 2014 | Change, Love and Relationships
“The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.” Unknown
Time doesn’t heal all wounds.
Neither does vodka, when it comes to getting over a break up.
Your life won’t just get better. And you can’t just move on.
Or find another lobster in the sea.
I haven’t had many break ups in my life.
Just one.
But the one I did experience wasn’t a breakup. It was a knockout.
It was a personal tsunami, hurricane and flash flood, all rolled into one Full Throttle ride at Magic Mountain.
It made me question my existence.
The breakup violently shook me to the core and turned my life upside down.
It made me question my identity. It led to a career change. A move. A change in lifestyle. A spiritual awakening. This blog.
While today I am grateful for my break up, divorce and my ex for everything, both during and after our relationship, I wouldn’t be entirely honest if I didn’t say the break up was like swimming in a shark-filled ocean without scuba gear, oxygen or the ability to swim.
I felt naked, breathless and like life was eating me alive.
Are you getting over a breakup in your life?
Your break up has likely left you with a shattered heart, anger, frustration, helplessness and feelings of mourning: the most unimaginable pain and loss.
While I can’t make the pain subside or dry your tears of grief, I can offer you a process that will help you recover from the heartbreak you’re experiencing. And no it has nothing to do with shotguns or harming your ex!
Here’s what worked for me on my journey from heartbreak to joy.
Here are 10 practices for getting over a breakup:
1) Own your pain.
Stop resisting your pain and your pain will stop resisting you.
Following my breakup, I didn’t want to experience pain. I did everything possible to avoid it. I tried to deny that the relationship had ended. I didn’t want to accept the truth. I wanted to believe a future for the relationship still existed.
I found creative, unhealthy and distracting ways to avoid accepting what had happened. I used denial and excuses to avoid the pain of loss.
But let me level with you – you can’t move on until you’ve experienced the pain. You’ve got to embrace your feelings.
Although you’ll suffer and feel the pain’s sharpness for a bit, it won’t last.
If the thought of experiencing pain makes you feel scared or vulnerable, I encourage you to let yourself go there. Feel the pleasures and the sadness of the past. Experience the sorrow and the physical piercing, and cry about the helplessness you feel.
When you let yourself feel the deep, throbbing pain that washes over you, you realize that pain no longer holds you captive. You’ve confronted it, welcomed it and experienced it, and will watch it reduce in intensity.
When you experience pain, you transform your sorrow to your joy.
2) Create your team of personal healers.
This was probably my biggest mistake when I went through my divorce.
I was in so much pain and was so embarrassed that I decided to go through the process alone. I didn’t want to open my heart or show my weaknesses to anybody. That was hard.
When you share your pain with others, your burden becomes a little lighter. Sharing allows you to let go of the pain that you’re holding on to so tightly. It allows you to breathe a little easier and recover a little quicker.
As you can tell from this blog, I’ve come a long way.
I went from hiding my pain from everyone to sharing it with you.
You don’t have to blog your sorrows to the world or write about them in your next country song.
Create a support network of friends and family who understand you. Share your pain with people you trust and who will understand what you’re going through.
If you find the pain unbearable, talk to a therapist or grief counselor.
Think about working with a coach to help you overcome the grief and start taking positive actions to improve your life.
Try not to shut out others; be willing to let them in. People are more understanding and helpful than you think.
3) End all communication with your ex.
If you’re serious about moving on and healing, you must let this relationship go. One of the best things you can do for yourself is to let go of your ex.
This is something that I got right, and I’m glad I did not communicate with my ex much after our separation and divorce. Everything we needed to say to each other, we said during the relationship. It didn’t work out and things ended.
You will have a million and one excuses to speak to your ex, but in reality you have no good reason to continue the conversation. You can be friends down the road, but not now. Your ex doesn’t need your help; he will manage just fine. You don’t need anything back from your ex, or need to give anything back to him.
Unless you’re facing a pressing legal matter or a situation that could seriously affect one of your lives, resist the temptation to contact your ex.
Your healing can start only when you’re willing to say goodbye. And you can’t say goodbye to someone still in your life.
4) Treat yourself with the utmost care and love.
Now is the time to take care of yourself. The best way to do this is to treat yourself as though you are someone who is suffering and in pain (which you are).
Treat yourself like you just came out of a trauma or life-changing circumstance (which you did).
If you’re feeling pangs of self-loathing and self-hate, you might want to treat yourself badly, but resist this urge. Do not eat badly, be around harmful people or stop taking care of yourself.
Start doing things that make you feel good physically, emotionally and mentally.
If going on vacation to a certain spot refreshes you, do it.
If hanging out with certain people brings you peace and calmness, make the time to be with them.
Eat better, exercise, get involved with your passion, and start taking care of yourself.
5) Slow down.
You know how you were too busy for life itself? Well, now that your relationship is over you have a lot of down time.
Even with children, you might find that you have a clearer schedule because the kids are spending half their time with your ex.
You don’t have to pack your schedule and run around town in a mad rush to avoid your pain or your healing.
Create more time in your life by declining invitations, saying “no” to additional commitments and reducing your current commitments.
You need time, so find a balance between work, family and yourself.
Slowing down is one of the gentlest and kindest things you can do for yourself when getting over a breakup. If you have a job that doesn’t allow you to slow down, consider whether now is the time for a career change. Or even just a career sabbatical.
At the same time, don’t slow your life to a hare’s pace. You don’t have to go to work, come home to a few shots of bourbon and hit the covers.
Slow down, but live your life. Take life at your pace, not life’s pace.
6) Write away your tears.
Every therapist, mental health professional and self-help guru you come across will tell you to journal. There’s one reason you hear this advice so often – it works.
As you know, I decided to not only write for myself in a journal, but also for you through this blog.
When you’re writing, you’re thinking about your experiences, you’re processing your feelings and you’re putting your life down on paper. You’re watching the process of suffering and healing that you’re going through – essentially, another form of mindfulness.
Sit down daily or a couple of times a week and write about your experience with heartbreak. How are you feeling? How are you healing? What are you thinking about? How are you able to move on? Reflect, think, process and write!
7) I’m sorry and I forgive you.
One of the most important things you can do to move on from grief and pain is to examine the relationship and its many ups and downs. What stood out about this relationship? What hurt, and what do you feel guilty about? What part did you play in ending the relationship, and what was your partner’s role?
Once you’ve reflected on or written about the mistakes and choices you both made, write a letter of apology and forgiveness.
Take responsibility for the things you did, and ask for your partner’s apology in writing. “I’m sorry for x.” “I’m sorry I behaved like y.” “I’m sorry I was z in our relationship.”
You may not be ready to forgive, but the sooner you reach the point of forgiveness, the sooner your healing starts.
You’re not forgiving for your partner’s sake, but for yours. When you hold onto anger, pain and bitterness, you suffer. Sadness, sorrow and rage fill you.
Let go of those feelings by writing a letter of apology. Oh yeah, and one major point – do not send the letter!!
In the second part of the letter, you have the opportunity to forgive your partner. “I forgive you for doing x.” “I forgive you for having said y.” “I forgive you for being z in our relationship.” Forgive your partner for all the ways they hurt you, for all the mean things they said and for all the things they did to make your life miserable.
While you’ll probably resist writing a letter like this, just trust me on this one. I wrote a letter early on in my divorce (within the first month) and found it to be the most helpful thing I did in terms of moving on.
When you ask for forgiveness, and you forgive yourself, you let go of so many toxic emotions and scars. By letting go of the pain, you truly begin the healing process.
8) A spiritual practice for in-the-moment living
If you’re not a spiritual person, don’t be afraid of this suggestion.
If you think words like “meditation” and “mindfulness” are for hippies who spend their free time at Deepak Chopra retreats or who listen to Thic Nhat Hanh audio books during their commutes to work, you’re probably right.
But almost anyone can practice meditation and mindfulness.
And you don’t have to take part in either of those practices. You just have to find a practice or an exercise that helps you live in the present moment (in the now) for a period of time every day.
Meditation is the natural means of achieving this, but if you’re just not into meditating, try any practice that helps you stay present.
Yoga, your favorite sport, walking, reading or even eating can become mindfulness practices. If you focus on the task without thinking about the past or future, you have the right idea.
Remember, as Eckhart Tolle has said, “The past has no power over the present moment.”
But reducing the past’s power takes work. It requires that you be present and focus on the now.
Stay present. Let go of the desire to relive and experience good times and bad times from a period that no longer exists.
To move on today, practice letting go of yesterday.
9) Lessons in growth and learning.
While you must let go of the past, do not overlook the lessons it can teach you.
What did you learn about yourself? What did you learn about the way you handle relationships? What was your role in the relationship and the way it ended?
What wounds did your ex open within you?
What did you learn about your character? Your personality? Your communication skills?
An ability to reflect on and understand the mistakes you made, as well as determine what you can improve upon, will help you move on to your life’s next chapter and relationship.
Be honest with yourself as you journal about mistakes you and your ex made, unhealthy behaviors in your relationship and your role in ending it.
What do you need to work on? How can you improve?
10) What are you thankful for?
When you get to the point of thankfulness in your healing process, you’re ready to move on.
Everything happens for a reason. Even your rocky and bittersweet relationship served a purpose.
You had good times along with the bad. You had happy memories along with the sad ones.
Everything that happened made you strong. Because of your ex, you’re probably in a better place now.
Are you ready to acknowledge the reasons you’re grateful to your ex? Are you ready to accept that this relationship led to happy times and positive outcomes?
You know more about yourself. You learned things about yourself you never would have known. You gained insight about relationships and wisdom about people.
You’re ready to move on with your life and complete the healing process. You can do so once you recover and let go of the past.
If another relationship is in your future and you’ve done the healing work that I talked about, you’ll be in a much healthier place to love again.
If you need more guidance for getting over a breakup, check out my book, The Sacred Art of Letting Go here (affiliate link).
Photo credit @slalit.
by Vishnu | Sep 21, 2014 | Love and Relationships, Personal Development, Spirituality
Where have you been all my life?
“Love will immediately enter into any mind that truly wants it.” Course in Miracles
Have you found love to be difficult, challenging, confusing, or painful?
Do you wonder why love isn’t appearing in your life? Why does love seem to have bloomed in everyone else’s life, but not in yours?
Here’s the thing—you might be thinking that love is independent of everything else that’s going on in your life. You can be the way you are and live your life with ego, fear, and lack, but still expect that love will show up.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Until you deal with some of your internal blocks, fears, and judgments, love will seem far away and hidden.
How you view the world, how you view each person, and how you treat others in all your relationships determine the ways in which love shows up in your life. Your internal judgment, ego, and unkind behavior, even if held only in your mind and heart, affect your relationships.
More than likely, you need a radical shift in your perspective, behavior, and mindset to create a space of love.
If you’ve been thinking, ‘I need more than love; hell, I need a miracle to find the man of my dreams,’ you’re in luck. (It just may take a bit of work.)
Create miracles in your love life.
Gabrielle (Gabby) Bernstein’s book, May Cause Miracles, could be the heart opener for which you’re looking. It was for me.
Do you need a love miracle?
It helped me realize that love is not something for which you go outside looking. Love is something that you first must cultivate inside yourself.
Let me explain.
The book helped me see that many of my thoughts about love and relationships were steeped in my own ego, fears, judgments, and resentments. My internal world, mindset, and self-talk literally created my external relationships and determined the people whom I drew into my life.
Gabby reminded me of the Course in Miracle’s powerful teaching: “Your task is not to seek love but merely to find all the barriers within yourself that have built against it.”
Her book is filled with affirmations, meditations, and tools for shifting your mindset and altering your perspective on love altogether.
She teaches us to consider love holistically. In any situation, the only thing missing is love. When there is fear, there is no love. She considers miracles simply shifts in perspective from fear to love.
When you continually shift from fear to love, you will experience more love in your life in all your relationships—including romantic love.
Are you ready for a miracle-minded approach to love?
Gabby’s book is a 40-day guide for subtle shifts that let you see everyday miracles in your life. Following, I review the six days in week 4 during which she talks about relationships.
Here are six ways to shift your mindset to love so that you’ll see more miracles in your love life.
(For the exercises and daily practices required to live a miraculous life, pick up May Cause Miracles (not an affiliate link), and check out the end of each chapter.)
1. Witness your ego’s drama.
Gabby states that it’s the ego that convinces us that we’re alone, and that encourages us to complete ourselves by finding someone else. Our egos are the reason that we go out looking for a romantic relationship to feel whole.
The ego consumes our lives and, especially in romantic relationships, judges, attacks, compares, and makes our significant others feel more special. Our egos encourage us to feel different and special, and to elevate ourselves in our romantic relationships as well.
Gabby suggests that we become more mindful of our egos in all relationships. Start by witnessing your ego’s false perception of others.
Ask yourself who you judge and attack in your mind. Who do you elevate and make more special? How do you make yourself feel more special? To whom do you compare yourself?
2. Surrender your ego.
It’s very difficult to overcome the ego, which is so pervasive in our lives. Gabby encourages us to surrender—to release ourselves from our egos’ grip by releasing our egos to our inner guides (our voices of love, our internal teachers).
Release your ego for healing to your spirit and inner guide. Go within yourself and choose to see everyone as equal. See everyone as love. Ask the inner guide to teach you love through every encounter you have (not just with your romantic partner).
When you find yourself comparing or judging others, surrender and respond by saying out loud, “I am willing to see love instead of this.”
When you want to make someone feel special or put yourself on a pedestal, say out loud, “I am willing to see love instead of this.”
Surrender to your inner guide to heal your ego and to see the oneness in everyone.
3. Use kindness when the ego runs wild.
Use the tool of kindness to remind yourself that you come from a loving, kind place and that thoughts of kindness will help you remember your truth.
On Day 24, Gabby suggests making kindness your primary goal and to allow genuine altruism and authentic love.
Whenever you judge, feel separation from others, or start attacking others in your mind, use an affirmation like “Kindness created me kind,” or something similar.
Look at your thoughts and actions—are they unkind? Become aware of unkind thoughts. Reflect on how they make you feel, and forgive yourself for your unkind behavior.
“By continuously acknowledging your ego’s behavior, you will weaken the bad habit and transcend the ego’s need to judge,” writes Gabby.
Continue to infuse your day with kind affirmations and intentions so that you are more kind to people.
4. Be aware of your thoughts and judgments of others.
When you judge or attack someone in your mind, you likely do so because you feel a place of lack. Your judgment of others can mirror what you feel about yourself.
“When we send love toward what we want, we feel better about ourselves and thereby experience more love in our own life,” Gabby writes.
Start looking at all your relationships as assignments—opportunities for spiritual growth.
Infuse with loving thoughts all your encounters with people whom you meet each day. Be grateful for the lessons and the growth that different people teach you.
Remember that each person you come across gives you the opportunity to strengthen your miracle mindset through the choice to embrace love over fear.
5. Be happy or be right? The F word.
While the ego refuses to forgive, you can use the F word (forgiveness) to restore your faith in love. “Forgiveness is the answer to true serenity and peace,” writes Gabby.
If you’d rather be happy than be right all the time—forgive. Forgiveness lets you wipe clean the slate and begin anew. It embraces oneness and love in all your relationships.
Consider repeating this affirmation from May Cause Miracles daily:
“With each holy encounter, I choose to forgive and release my ego’s false projections. Forgiveness reminds me that we are one. Each time I have a false thought toward someone, I will choose to forgive the thought and remember that we are one. In turn, I forgive myself.”
Every time your ego is bruised or your mind attacks or judges someone, fall back to peace by forgiving. Chose peace and happiness over your ego (and being right).
6. Honor the moments when you chose love.
As you expand your loving intention toward everyone, spread kindness to others, and forgive others throughout the day, you’ll feel a sense of peace passing over you.
Honor the moments when you’re transforming and growing.
Continue to see love in your most difficult relationships. Find peace and healing in every relationship and encounter that you have. Chose the difficult path of letting go, overcoming, and forgiving. Transcend your fear through your faith in miracles.
Think of every moment that you chose love as a holy moment—a divine encounter. Sit with these moments and let them help you become a more loving person.
In your meditations and prayers, ask that others in your life be guided, protected, and healed from fear. Desire that others have the same happiness and oneness that you have in your life.
Gabby’s book and message are reminders that you can’t simply focus on one special or romantic relationship. Everything in the universe is tied together. How you show up for your neighbor or a total stranger is how love will show up in your life.
If you’re not seeing love and you don’t know why, could it be because you’re not showing up in your most loving, kind, and non-judgmental self each day?
If you’re operating from a place of ego, fear, and lack, you’ll see that in your romance.
Alternatively, if you show up with kindness, love, and abundance, you’ll find that in your relationships, too.
The work to be done is within you. Make the necessary changes to become the loving person whom you’re capable of being. Return to your truth.
You’ll not only start seeing improved relationships, you’ll also miraculously stumble upon the romantic love and partner for whom you’ve been looking.
If you know someone who is looking for love in his or her life, please consider sharing this post via Twitter, Google+, or Facebook. Thank you.
Photo credit @benurs
