Are you blaming yourself for your past relationship ending? Do you feel like you are the on that’s solely at fault? Do you feel like you were the one who sabotaged it and led to it ending?
If you’re feeling terrible about the past relationship ending and can’t stop blaming yourself, watch this above video for some guidance and insight on moving forward. You don’t have to carry the heavy burden of blame for your past relationship ending.
All of the advice about moving on from breakups and divorces is wrong. It’s so frustrating because all it does is keep you stuck in the past.
So many people say cliched things like things will get better, it’s all happening for the best or time will heal all wounds.
Most people just sit there and do nothing! They just wait for time to pass. Or worse, they go on and live their normal life. Start dating again and live their best life.
So they go back to their regularly scheduled life and try to live it as normal as possible only to find that it’s hard. Meeting someone and moving on with their life is challenging if you’re still stuck in the past.
You can try it but you won’t be showing up fully. You won’t show up with an open heart. You’ll be showing up with one foot in the past and one foot in the present.
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The one thing that people miss in the letting go process is making peace with the past. I love Eckhart Tolle and all the wisdom teachers out there who are beating the drum of present moment living.
Yes, ideally, if you stopped thinking about the past and lived in the present, then you wouldn’t be pulled back by you past. You wouldn’t feel the heavy emotional weight and baggage of the past. You wouldn’t ruminate on the past.
Except if you’re like me, you’re human! I simply couldn’t bring myself to the present moment when I had so many thoughts and memories of my ex. I wanted to continue the life that we had planned together. I wanted to pursue the dreams. All the memories and dreams we had, I didn’t want to let go of.
My mind couldn’t stop re-thinking, re-playing and re-living all the past memories of my relationship. The past is a powerful drug that is hard to let go. Your mind is addicted to what you once had because of the certainty, the pleasure and the comfort of past times.
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Unlike what the wisdom teachers tell us, I don’t believe you simply can live in the present moment. You have to do some work on making peace with the past.
I’m also not a fan of traditional psychology and therapy when it comes to dealing with the past in relationships. Psychologists bring up a whole other can of worms. When I started visiting one, I went all the way back to my childhood and family history. She started opening up all kinds of boxes I had no interest in opening.
It blew my whole life open and I went into a tailspin with my life feeling completely out of control. I’m ultimately grateful for this experience but I wish I could have just worked on letting go of my ex.
Today, when I work with people, I take the middle way. I help them make peace with the past by using the tools of forgiveness, creating a healing ritual and working on closure of past events. I also help them tell a new and more empowering story about that past relationship.
I detail the process in my free ebook, 7 healing rituals. Sign up to the newsletter and you’ll automatically get this guide.
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If you’re enlightened, you’re probably not reading this blog and you’re doing just fine living in the present moment.
If you’re human, then you likely need to make peace with the past in order to live in the present moment. The past holds keys as to what’s keeping you stuck. You have to carefully examine the relationship and the story you’re telling yourself and dig out the elements of your past that are keeping you stuck there.
If it’s been years and you don’t know what to do, please consider looking at the past to see what’s still causing you grief, what’s still unresolved and what you need to make peace with.
To let go completely:
If you haven’t done this or hadn’t planned to, please consider hiring a coach to help you figure out what’s keeping you stuck and then help you move forward and actively let go.
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It was only when I went into the past and examined the problems in my relationship with my ex, I began to notice the open wounds that required care and healing.
I did the care and healing in the present so that I could repair the damages of the past. You can’t fix things by going back to the past but you can fix them here and now.
Examine and understand the past but do the healing and letting go work in the present. You can live in the present moment but actively work on healing the painful past moments of your life. If you don’t go back and discover what needs to be healed, it will be challenging to live in the present moment.
To live fully in the present, make peace with the past.
If you need coaching to figure out what’s keeping you stuck in the past, please consider a root ritual coaching session here or reply to this email.
Divorce is never easy, irrespective of whether the decision is mutual, the marriage was abusive, or the relationship was short-lived.
Things are much harder when kids are involved, but being child-free, it is not my story to tell.
What I can tell you is how I learned certain life lessons when my marriage ended, lessons I would never have learned otherwise.
So if you are going through a divorce, have been freshly divorced, or are simply considering one, take a look at what you stand to gain from your loss.
Of all the things in the world, empowering is a word one would never think to associate with the failure of a relationship that is supposed to last forever.
However, that is exactly what it is, especially if your marriage was not healthy. In my case, I was unable to be true to myself when I was married.
Even something as personal as coloring MY hair was a problem for my partner. It goes without saying then that writing about mental health, a topic dear to me, was not something I was encouraged to do.
So guess what I did after my divorce? I started blogging about mental health and dyed my hair red.
Uncoupling is what enabled me to be true to myself on every level.
I used to be a directionless writer, today I have found purpose as a sociocultural and mental health blogger.
It’s a common assumption that only certain people can get PTSD, like soldiers back from war, or survivors of violent crimes. However, anyone can get PTSD because the definition of trauma varies from person to person.
An event that barely affects me might scar you for life, and vice versa. And I learned this personally because the way my marriage fell apart caused me Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder aka PTSD.
A therapist diagnosed me with it after a suicide attempt and low-functioning depression landed me in her office. It took a while, but I’ve learned to function pretty well in spite of my deep-rooted trauma.
Some days, I’m surprised I’m able to even breathe, but it never fails to astound me how far I’ve come along in my recovery. Trauma can be reduced and managed with the help of therapy and coaching.
If anyone had told me I would lose my life partner and survive the heartbreak, I would have laughed in their face.
I am a highly sensitive person and honestly, struggle with codependency issues.
So when I was officially single again, I didn’t think I had it in me to heal my heart and rise from the ashes. I had crumbled and I thought I was always going to be broken.
My psychologist proved me wrong by teaching me how to build my resilience, that is, my ability to bounce back. And if someone as weak as me could become emotionally strong, so can you.
Given that I also have traits of Borderline Personality Disorder, a condition that makes it hard for one to have emotional stability, there could be no better proof of the fact that over time, resilience can be learned by anyone.
Like most of us, I too used to believe that true love is unconditional.
This is nothing but a toxic lie perpetuated by pop culture, and I snapped out of it only because my marriage failed. We all know marriages end and divorce rates are on the rise, but for some reason, we all think we will be the exception.
Psychological reasons aside, I think the primary reason behind this is that we have romanticized till death do us part to an unhealthy degree.
It’s unrealistic to think that love is unconditional and marriages should last forever — every relationship is built on the foundation of some condition or the other, and it’s perfectly normal for a relationship to run its course.
Like me, once you see the illusion for what it is, you’ll be thankful for this much-needed reality check that will change your entire life for the better. Of course, true love exists, but is it conditional? Yes, and that’s a good thing.
Just like your job, your marital status doesn’t define you. Your self-worth does not rely on whether you are single, married, separated, divorced, or widowed.
The most important thing you need to remember is this: you are not divorced, you have been divorced. It is an event of the past, not a label that you need to define yourself in the present. I learned this empowering life lesson not in therapy or from personal experience, but by reading a piece of writing of the inimitable Bhavana Nissima.
The second I realized the truth in her words, I felt powerful and back in control. There’s no denying that it hurts to get a divorce, but sometimes, the best thing we can do for ourselves is accept reality and do our best to work with what we can.
No matter how bad it gets, life goes on and time heals most wounds. At the end of the day, you are all you have, and the most important relationship you need to work on is the one you have with yourself.
I have learned to put myself first without feeling guilty about it, and I hope with all my heart you learn to put yourself first too.
My name is Mahevash (pronounced Ma-hey-vash) and I am a blogger, author, and poet. I talk about culture, society, and mental health so that you and I can help make the world a better place — and be whoever we want to be. You can find me at https://www.mahevashmuses.com/.
I met a wonderful woman in my most recent travels to Bali.
She was in Indonesia because her brother had just passed away. Her brother took his life because of a painful breakup and rejection of a young woman he had fallen in love with.
I was in Indonesia because I had fallen in love with Bali and maybe…to have been there for her during one of the most painful times in her life. As we spoke about grief and loss, our affection for each other began to grow.
At that time, we were living with rose-tinted glasses, like lovebirds without a care in the world. Time was on our side and the world was filled with promise and possibilities. It was pre-pandemic, pre-Corona times in early 2020.
Only when we both left Indonesia, did we realize that there may be something there more than a passing interest in each other. We both valued simplicity, spirituality, and living closer to our families. We both were from the East but living in the West. We both had experienced profound loss and heartbreak. We both had been divorced.
As she returned to Europe and got back to work, I stayed back a little longer in Asia. My plan was to head back to India for the spiritual experiences and cheaper cost of living. I wanted to go back to Kerala to spend more time with a Swami I had met late last year.
When I was visiting Malaysia where my family lives and is originally from, I found myself in the worldwide lockdown and shutdown during the coronavirus pandemic of 2020.
Initially, the distance was wonderful to allow love to bloom. We had plenty of time for video calls, twice daily Whatsapp calls and lots of love-filled texts throughout the day. We would be together soon, we both kept telling ourselves and each other. In the meantime, all I could do was keep sending my love virtually and local chocolate cupcake delivery through the internet.
We celebrated our one month anniversary which became 3 months and most recently, became 6 months. While our love for each other has grown over time, our optimism about being able to see each other hasn’t.
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With each passing month and with more countries tightening restrictions and making it virtually impossible to travel, I wonder if and when I can ever get to Europe to see her.
To top it all off, I have an American passport which means I can literally travel to 15 countries and most of these countries aren’t in Europe. Asia and Europe has pretty much stopped Americans from traveling to their countries so I’m stuck at the moment.
I happen to be in the one country that I can be in the moment, Singapore, with very few places to go. I ended up here by a fluke and through an odd exception. Most of Europe is out of the question for someone with an American passport so I have no idea what to do next.
This pandemic feels like our generation’s world war. We are living apart in different countries around the world unable to travel, not because of any enemy threat, but a viral one. We are not able to see each other, be with each other, or love each other.
We are not alone in this struggle either. Plenty of couples around the world have been separated due to the virus. In fact, there’s been a movement to help unmarried couples reunite, with its own set of hashtags #lovenottourism #loveisessential. You can read more about it here.
Organizers are trying to remind the European Union that couples are not visiting each other because of tourism but because they are in a relationship with each other. There have been some successes as you can see in this article but not all countries are allowing for an unmarried couples visa. Even if they are allowing you in, each country has varied requirements about what’s sufficient for couples to meet each other.
This is a fascinating time for someone who used to practice US immigration law, where I helped reunite hundreds of fiances and spouses. I never thought that I would be on the other side of the immigration system, trying to unite with a loved one. I also never imagined a day would come that the U.S. passport would limit the countries I can travel to but here we are.
The travel restrictions have brought us closer together as distance does make the heart grow fonder, but also making us question if this relationship is viable. Can a couple be together if they are not physically able to be together? Should we keep trying? Should we keep waiting? Should we meet other people? Should we move on?
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Right now, we are choosing to stick together and see what laws change and how soon. We are choosing to stick together because we know how hard it is to find relationships and people who are compatible with each other . It’s no easy task to find someone you get along easily with. It’s not easy to find someone with your shared values and the same outlook on life.
Life seems a little unfair at the moment. On one had, I met the person of my dreams. On the other, a worldwide pandemic is keeping us apart. Were we just a passing fancy that will remain memories in each other’s hearts or will we get together soon and live happily ever after?
I’m not sure what the answer is but I will keep you posted. In the meantime, if you have any thoughts or travel strategies, please do feel free to share.
Also, everything that I did to attract and find this person in my life can be found in this book that I wrote a few years back. Pick up Does True Love Exist today (affiliate link).
I couldn’t process the unbearable pain of a breakup and my ultimate divorce.
I have never felt the depth of intensity of emotional pain as much as I did then.
It was so scathing that all I wanted to do was hide from the world.
My inner world felt like the combination of a raging hurricane, a bullet shot to the heart, and like drowning in a tsunami.
This probably sounds quite morbid, but the unbearable pain of a breakup felt like all these things.
My divorce crushed my spirit and soul. It crushed me emotionally and also helped me realize something that nothing in life had ever prepared me for.
I was incompetent and clueless about my emotional being.
Until that point in my life, I had actively denied my emotions. As a child, my parents told me in no uncertain terms that boys didn’t cry and to be more like a man.
Looking around my family, I noticed that all the men didn’t show emotions.
I thought that to be a man was to bottle up my feelings. When I was married, I regularly felt intense pangs of emotions and reminded myself that I had to be emotionless.
Of a long series of mistakes in marriage, it was probably my biggest one. Whoever knew emotions were that important?
Not only did I not know that emotions were essential, but I also didn’t know how to process them. I didn’t know what to do with them.
Emotions have such an overwhelming influence on our lives, and I wonder why it is that society doesn’t teach us much about them?
Why isn’t everyone required to take a class called emotional regulation?
Anyway, if you’re going through the unbearable pain of a breakup, I’m here a simple message for you today.
The key to surviving and thriving through your breakup is learning how to process your emotions.”
It’s going to be tough if you’ve never had any practice or experience processing emotions but no better time than when facing your most unbearable pain of a breakup for you to start working on your emotions.
There’s nothing wrong with emotions.
They make you feel terrible, but they are not evil, bad, or have any sinister intentions. Emotions are there for you to get insight into your life. To be human is to have emotions. To be a healthy human is to be able to process emotions ell.
There’s nothing wrong with feeling bad.
One of the first things I hear from people who reach out to me is just how intolerable the emotional pain of a breakup is. They tell me it’s the most unbearable pain they have experienced. They tell me that they hurt beyond words.
I feel for them and feel their pain, and I want to say to them that it’s ok to feel this bad. It’s important to your grieving, letting go, and moving on. There is nothing wrong with feeling bad.
Imagine you had some incurable disease. What you’re doing is feeling the pain of that incurable disease and then feeling bad for feeling the pain of that incurable disease.
You’re wanting to hide that pain from others, keep that heavy pain to yourself so that you can show the world that you are fine. You want to be strong, so your ex and your network of people don’t see you in this hurt place.
The way over it is through it.
The way to get over the pain is to get through the pain, which means that you have to be willing to feel the unbearable emotions, process them, and then release them. You can’t step over it or avoid it.
Let’s say you’re feeling bad about feeling bad, so you do something like find another relationship, distract yourself or find some other unhealthy vice. What you’re doing is avoiding doing the work. You are going to be carrying around unresolved pain and trauma for years of your life just because you feel bad about feeling bad.
Get curious about the pain.
“Let your curiosity be greater than your fear,” Pema Chodron has said, and it’s one of my biggest lessons from her book When Things Fall Apart (affiliate link).
In the book, she suggests that we get curious and examine the things that are paining us. Let’s examine our emotions and look at it with interest. Let’s try to learn from it, understand it, and see what it has to say to us. Instead of simply feeling our emotions, we can think of our emotions as a sweet friend that we are trying to understand and extend compassion to.
It’s this very idea that makes you into a spiritual warrior. One of the most powerful passages from Pema Chodron’s book is this one.
“To stay with that shakiness — to stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness and wanting to get revenge — that is the path of true awakening. Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic — this is the spiritual path.”
I talk about it more on my Youtube video.
What this passage means to me is that the person doing this deep emotional work is walking the path of the spiritual warrior. When you catch yourself going through all the emotions, that’s when you’re doing the work. In this place of anger, bitterness, sadness is where the spiritual warrior operates.
If you find yourself in this place of facing a breakup and dealing with unbearable emotions, then now is the time to face the emotions, process the emotions and let go of the heaviness of the emotions that are consuming your life.
At the end of the day, you’re going through a grieving process. This is what grieving looks like. You have to process in order to let go. The heaviness of the emotions will decrease over time if you continue doing the work of processing your emotions. There is light at the end of the tunnel.
You will not only come out healthier because of processing the unbearable pain of a breakup, but you’ll become more resilient in life. The people who are able to get through the hard stuff can process their emotions better and can be more open to love in the future.
The people who can’t process their emotions, suffer, and want to harm themselves or pick up unhealthy habits. Remember, emotions are emotions. There’s nothing bad about emotions and nothing to be ashamed of.
Face them, welcome them, speak to them, understand them, and process them. Go through the pain you’re feeling so you can let go of these unpleasant feelings.
If you need some support, reach out for coaching here. If you’re seeking some advice, send me an email here. For my book on letting go, pick up The Sacred Art of Letting Go here. (affiliate link)
Did I think I could find someone better than my ex?
My ex-wife is an amazing woman who overcame so many challenges in her life to become the woman she has become today.
She is a doctor, beautiful, smart, outgoing, organized, and charming. She was a great cook and great host. She had a great laugh and enjoyed living life to the fullest.
How was I ever going to find someone better than my ex?
Believe it or not, I was devastated about the divorce because I thought that the most amazing person I could find was going to be in my past.
When someone is so beautiful, smart, and gregarious, how could I ever compete?
I didn’t want second best.
I already met the most wonderful person and spent years with her so how would anyone else ever come close?
If you are feeling regret about letting go of your ex, I want you to listen particularly close today.
I’ve made it to the other side.
I struggled for years to let go but was finally able to. Letting go of my ex was my life’s biggest struggle but with all the work I did, I have become a free and happy person once again.
I started dating and found it frustrating for sure. I never found anyone that even came close to my ex until the person I am with today.
The Gods must have decided to throw me a bone by bringing this miraculous woman into my life.
We met in the most unbelievable circumstances while a friend was waiting in the transit lounge on the way to Bali.
Yes, my woman friend met her. My friend met this beautiful village girl in an Asian airport and told me about her.
I was with my friend one day when my friend decided to call this beautiful Asian girl. Said beautiful Asian woman was doing her hair at the hair-dresser.
Within an hour call, I suddenly found myself on the call with her as well. What started as one call with her at the hair-dresser’s has turned into one of the most beautiful relationships I’ve ever had.
She too is amazing.
Then, I realized that she’s actually more amazing than my ex in this way.
She’s perfect for me.
She may not be as smart as my ex, ambitious as my ex, a go-getter like my ex but we fit each other like a jigsaw puzzle.
She’s a simple girl who told me that her number 1 priority in life was being happy. Ummm…yes, please!
So although she is not necessarily better than my ex in any objective way, she is better than my ex in the way that it counts most. She’s a great fit for me.
We share similar values, views of the world and have similar life goals.
In my view, since I found someone who is a much better fit for me, I found someone better than my ex.
If you have come out of a relationship or have been out one for a while and feel like you won’t meet anyone better, I’m here to tell you otherwise. If you’re still hoping your ex comes back, I have good news for you.
The only thing that’s in the way between you and someone who’s a great fit for you is your belief about your ability to find someone who’s right for you.
Here are 4 things you can do to improve your prospects of finding someone who’s better for you than your ex.
1. Let go of your ex completely.
I’m glad you’re here because I’m going to teach you how to let go of your ex. I’m going to show you how to forgive, change the story about your past, and get to the root cause of what’s keeping you stuck.
If you need support and want to move on sooner, consider hiring me to coach you. I’ve been where you are and can help you get over your breakup and get your life back.
2. Believe it’s possible to find someone new.
Change your beliefs about love. This is going to be challenging if you came out of a bad breakup or divorce. You’re going to have painful and twisted beliefs about love to start with. This is going to require adopting a new set of beliefs and practicing trusting people again.
I wrote two books to help you along on your journey to find someone better than your ex. Pick them up Does True Love Exist or Love After Heartbreak in the Amazon store today (affiliate links).
3. Improve yourself and rebuild your self-worth.
The most important thing you can do to find a better partner is to become a higher quality version of yourself. If you’re vibrating at a higher frequency, you’ll attract people who are at your energy level. In addition to raising your vibrations and your worth, do the inner work of self-discovery, self-examination, and improvement.
Work on improving yourself daily and raising yourself worth. For my book on raising your self-worth, read this book on Loving Yourself After Heartbreak (affiliate link). Watch this video here.
4.Know who it is you’re looking for.
You can’t find someone better or find someone compatible until you know who it is you’re looking for. You need to spend a few minutes outlining this person. I found the person I was looking for because I outlined them in this dream partner worksheet, got clear on them and envisioned them daily.
Do this worksheet and listen to this to audio meditation more than once. Do this worksheet weekly or monthly if you’re able to. Visualize the person you want on a daily basis.
You can absolutely find someone better than your ex by finding someone who’s a good fit for you.
But remember, this is going to take some work. I’m not sure if I mention this enough in my articles. Reading my articles or knowing what the process is not enough.
I wish you the very best on your relationship journey and wish you all the love and happiness you’re looking for.
It’s going to require active steps, daily habits and work on your part. If you do the work you will reap the rewards of a new love that you never imagined possible.
If you need support or coaching in this process, reply to this email or fill out the coaching inquiry form here.
