She was demure in her speech, experienced in matters of the heart and open to dating again.
It was enough for us to continue conversing over the holidays.
She too had experienced deep and profound heartbreak that made her lose faith in relationships. She too hadn’t dated in years and had lost faith in love.
She told me that she was “over it” and was ready to move forward. The past few years, her family had listed her dating profile had corresponded on her behalf.
It hadn’t gone anywhere and she was ready to take back the reigns of her dating life.
Our connection started with heartbreak and ended with us both knowing that our families only lived 10 minutes apart from each other in Singapore. We bonded.
So began my most recent dating adventure.
How did I find myself here? How did I pull in someone who was highly compatible?
Let me count the ways.
It took me a minute (and by that, I mean years) to find someone who I was looking for.
Here’s what I did:
1. Yes, visualize. I had an idea of who it is I was looking for in a couple different ways. I had the qualities up on a vision board (cheesy, I know) and I had regularly been thinking about this question in the past. This is over the top but I created this worksheet that I filled out every so often. You can use it too. Print and fill this out so you too know who it is you’re looking for:
How can you materialize the person you want when you have no idea who that is. This worksheet will help you think through some of the qualities in the person you want.
When she asked me who it is I was looking for, I started saying a bunch of qualities on this sheet and realized that she matched every one of them.
2. Yes, value-ize. I just have to throw this out there. You can be compatible in many different ways but none of it matters as much as values.
As I got to know this East Coast woman, I verified our values by inquiring about hers. It was only upon realization that many of our values met that I realized this could be a real possibility.
Personal interests and hobbies don’t need to match as much. She loved television and I loved to write. We just figured I’d write while she watched tv although I did catch an episode of Stranger Things with her. Strange.
Anyway, check the values that the other person has. Talk to them about what they value in life. What qualities and characteristics are important to them.
Values are a critical component of the life coaching world. I just bring up these conversations in every area of my life!
3. Open your heart. I’ve been working on this for years. I’ve had to let go of the past and all the anger and resentment of the past. I’ve had to let go of the beliefs and pain of the past.
If your heart’s been bruised, you have to let down the walls that are protecting your heart.
The practices to do so are spiritual and emotional in nature.
You have to invite love and compassion into your heart.
You have to let go of resentment and anger from your heart.
Be a magnet for love and compassion. Be conscious of the state of your heart.
You feel gratitude in your heart.
You can feel happiness in your heart.
You can feel joy in your heart.
Many types of spiritual practices can help you open your heart.
Therapy and the ancient texts of almost any religions can help you rid your heart of the anger and resentment.
4. Open your mind.
I don’t know what about meditation helps so much but it does.
A regular meditation practice either focused on your mind or on your heart allows for your thoughts and feelings to simmer.
When you’re in a place of calmness and consciousness, it makes love easier to come into your life.
When your mind isn’t on overdrive and overthinking how to attract someone, someone gets attracted to you.
Don’t be consumed with drawing in a lover. Even worse, don’t consume your time thinking about how this person should be and what the time-frame of this new relationship will be. Don’t plan the wedding on the second date.
Yes, visualize but then let go.
Let the process take it’s path naturally.
5. Take chances
If you’ve had your heart-broken and found yourself in a place of profound sadness, you’re really not going to want to do this.
Do what?
This process!
I can tell you that every step of the way was a challenge for me. I was trying to get out of this in every way I could.
I was trying to consider what couldn’t work and what didn’t work.
I was looking for ways to end things quick; searching for reasons why this wouldn’t work and why we weren’t compatible.
Her love of Ayn Rand made me run for the hills but I didn’t. I stayed put.
You basically have to take risks, take chances and do the opposite.
You have to push ahead despite your old fears, beliefs and experiences of your past.
It’s hard but this is what it’s going to take.
You might feel like you’ve been part of this movie before and it’s going to end tragically but as you know, not every movie ends the same.
You can’t watch one movie and assume all have the same ending.
Forget ahead creating a new movie for yourself. There are new people, new parts, new characters and new experiences to be had.
The happiness and love you want is waiting for you.
You just have to move ahead despite yourself, your beliefs and your past.
There are a million reasons for you to leave, as Lady Gaga, would say.
Look for the one reason to stay.
Want to learn more about finding someone and attracting them into your life? Pick up my latest book, Does True Love Exist, on Amazon today.
It’s been close to 3 years since I separated and later on, divorced from my husband.
We were only officially married for 1 year and half but unofficially together for 7 years. He was my best friend. I looked up to him and secretly felt I could not keep up to his ability to be successful.
Three years ago, l lost sight of everything meaningful in my life, and spiraled into self- sabotage and rebellion. When we broke up, I took it upon myself to change as a person, because I thought that was partly the reason my marriage had deteriorated. What I came to realize is it was the marriage with myself that I never allowed to heal properly. Before we can love someone wholeheartedly, we need to love and accept ourselves first.
Year one taught me survival through various avenues of meditations, traveling, one-on-one coaching, researching topics of interest (self-help), and continuous self-introspective writing.
Year two opened the doors towards discovering who I am, my true self and layers of my mind that contributed to my years of “unconscious” living (along with the help of therapy.)
Year three helped me accept that I am already in the place I need to be and learning to accept myself as I am as well as being more compassionate with myself. It is also more of a “free” year, where I am living day by day and just being with myself not doing anything in particular as previous years – I am actively watching myself “just being me.” (As weird as that sounds!)
I am very clear about the mistakes I made back then.
Marriage is when two imperfect souls can accept each other just as they are and grow as persons and as a unit simultaneously. Marriage is compromise, love, empathy, understanding, strength, vulnerability and maturity amongst the obstacles and difficulties thrown at us by the universe.
Divorce is just another new beginning to look at yourself and reflect on what went wrong.
It’s an opportunity to learn about yourself and to appreciate your previous partner as another teacher in your life (once you move past the anger phase, because you do experience it – and it’s totally normal!)
I learned more about me, then I did after any other difficult time period of my life.
It was hard for me in the first few months, as I am a sensitive individual. Time went so slow, my loved ones spent hours calling me, inviting me over for dinner, and sharing countless words of wisdom. I felt I was experiencing an outer body experience.
Surprisingly, work became more interesting because I drowned myself to avoid feeling pain. I often woke up earlier and fell asleep earlier than usual. I started experiencing anxiety attacks and I started praying frequently again. This only reaffirmed my desire to create change for myself. I am eternally grateful for the spiritual coach who guided me during this time and opened up doorways for my self-improvement (my healing).
Here are my tips to work on healing from your heartache while improving yourself and loving yourself:
1. Don’t lock yourself up indoors.
When we feel down, we feel lifeless, we are walking zombies and we do not want to get out of bed. My godfather told me, “When you feel sad: get up, grab your purse, open the door, and hear it slam. Then, come straight over to our house. No matter how many times. Get up and get out.” You have no idea, how much I have listened to this. Once you are out, you won’t suddenly feel thrilled but after 2hours of engaging with others, laughing or in-depth conversations of moral support, you will feel better.
2. Set intentions and be compassionate with yourself.
If you have no other options, because we tend to close up, then set an intention to be compassionate with yourself. For example, I have very few intimate friends, so I did often stay at home, in bed with the lights off. But, I knew I couldn’t stay there forever. I set a realistic intention to give myself a minimum of 3 days at home. Day 3 came and I would get up to go out or do an activity such as writing, visiting loved ones, going for a walk or seeing a movie.
3. Allow yourself to feel.
Do not avoid it. If you need to talk to someone (you trust) for hours to get things off your chest, do so. We are creatures of service; another person will listen to you and help you feel relaxed. If you don’t have someone, I recommend writing down every thought going through your mind. If you suddenly feel the need to cry or laugh, don’t hold it back. Feel it, watch it, and release it – whatever feeling it is, will go away on its own. Don’t avoid thinking or feeling by working overtime or going out every chance you get as an escape. In the long run, this will bring more harm because pain gets buried and will resurface when a new relationship or situation comes around.
4. Get help from a professional outsider: a coach or therapist.
I met a wonderful life coach through a mutual friend. She guided me in every session, hearing me out, giving exercises, written homework assignments and insight. Sometimes we need another’s eye and expertise to comprehend what we are going through and provide you tools to move forward. There were so many topics and tools I would have never thought of without her. She opened my mind to study myself and be understanding that this new life experience would allow me to reach my goals of healing, true love and self-acceptance.
5. Take a seminar or a class.
When you find yourself as a student again engaging in adding skills to yourself professionally and/or as a hobby – you are left with an overwhelming feeling of accomplishment, giddiness and success. It will make you feel so much better and you will begin to notice you forget about your sadness because you are doing something loving such as an exercise dance class, meet up group, meditation or yoga seminar.
6. Don’t do rebound relationships.
I have done these in the past, though I didn’t do it after my divorce from my last partner. I have found that you are still in a tender phase and you need to work on those feelings of hurt, discomfort and loss. Sometimes, we think we are ready and what we really need is to meet new people and be friends first. If the right partner comes along, you will know it. Don’t rush, take your time.
7. Don’t stay in contact with your ex/exes.
My last ex found it annoying I stayed friends with previous exes. He use to say, “Exes can’t be friends.” I use to debate this all the time. I found it brought me more harm than good, even affecting my marriage. Growing up as an only child with little or no family, we tend to make our friends our family. I couldn’t let go of certain relationships because I was scared to be alone. In past relationships, I had keep my exes as friends but by doing so I only kept it as “yellow” light just in case the flame would revive. In order to move on, we need to keep a distance. Otherwise, we are prolonging pain or in some cases, engaging in relationships with no ties – where there is always one person that gets attached and gets hurt. No matter how much we love or loved that person, we need to let go and accept the one relationship worth keeping is the one with ourselves.
8. Do pray or meditate.
Religion and spirituality continue to be the most contributing part of this healing and self-transformation equation. If you belong to a particular religion, prayer is universal – give it to God. If you are not part of any religion, being spiritual is another tool. Spirituality isn’t all about a religion. It is also about belief in yourself, your inner center, the universe and the stars. I went to free meditation seminars on Sundays during year one and even pulled up some good mediattions and mantras from YouTube. Meditation frees you to – give it to the universe. For me, giving myself to God and the universe through prayer and meditation allowed me to feel peace again, especially in those sad or anxious moments during and after my divorce.
Taizha Diaz, also known as Spiritual Dahlia, writes on her blog here. You can also keep up her work on Facebook.
Hi, I’m Vishnu
I help people overcome their devastating breakups and divorces and find love again. Instead of visiting the Himalayas, sign up below and join me. I am taking a writing break but will be back soon.
This guide is free. A ticket to the Himalayas is $2000. Your move.
