Heartbreak - Letting Go and Moving On
By Sonya Green
Loving someone requires exposing our most sensitive and vulnerable self.
We allow ourselves to give the best of ourselves – the fragile,
secret, private parts of ourselves. We expose and offer the most valuable
part of ourselves. To have this rejected is to have ourselves deemed unworthy
and unlovable. Often, we convince ourselves that the pain of heartbreak
is about the loss of our lover, but the reality is that we are in pain
because someone declared that, ‘Our love was not valuable’.
At a core level we are love, and our ability to love and be loved is who
and what we really are. To be dismissed on this level is interpreted as,
‘I am nothing, I do not exist and most painfully, I am not worthy
of love.’
We may not make this connection right away, we may not want to look at
it at all. If it comes down to this, then there is one glaring reality,
and that is that we must believe this is true. Could it be that it is
not our lovers rejection of us that destroys us, but our own belief that
we are unlovable – unworthy – nothing?
At first we may want to focus on the behaviour and feel victimized by
a betrayal or lies. We may go through many stages like anger, revenge,
guilt, violence, depression or jealousy or we might feel unattractive,
sexually inadequate, boring or stupid. For many people it comes down to
insisting that the lover must come back. If he comes back, everything
can be reversed, it can be a big mistake and you can be put back together
again.
If we peel away the layers and keep asking ourselves where the pain is
coming from, we will find that it is not the opinion of another person
that causes the pain, it is within our acceptance of the opinion.
People have been coming and going throughout your life. You have probably
been in love before and you have probably been hurt by love before. People
leave, you leave, and sometimes it goes smoothly and easily and sometimes
it’s painful or heartbreaking. Love comes in many ways and many
degrees; it can subside and fade away or it can end abruptly and traumatically.
People may have loved you more than you loved them, and you may have even
been loved by someone who you didn’t even like very much.
I don’t know why it is that we can’t comprehend that:
‘Love is not gathered it is self generated.’
People do not give you love, and they do not take love away from you.
You choose the degree of flow between yourself and another. Someone else’s
love will mean nothing to you unless you choose to accept it. Love is
inspired to radiate from you, but you are the source of that love. It
is an infinite supply and its circulation is governed by your choice to
give or receive.
The other great misunderstanding is the belief in a ‘One and only’.
This is a man- made concept, not a natural law. Love is a natural state
of being, if we peel away conditioning and fears and a lifetime of accumulated
emotional baggage than we would be operating more freely from a place
of love most of the time. The idea that love is only real or valid when
it is a partnership relationship is very, very limited and downright damaging.
We become tunnel visioned and grossly restricted in a belief that there
is only one person or one love available to us. Not only do we expect
all of our love to come from only one person, but we also expect that
they must love us exclusively and forever.
We change, they change and life changes, but we still insist that love
will never change. We insist on an impossible promise and self-destruct
when the promise is broken. When friends move on we accept it because
we did not have unrealistic expectations to begin with. Our children grow
up and move on and we encourage it, we don’t take it as a betrayal
nor do we interpret it as rejection of ourselves.
Divorce or separation is devastating for sure, and if it is initiated
by a cruel act then it’s natural to feel a great range of negative
emotions. If it comes suddenly or unexpectedly then it will be a shock
and it will take time to come to terms with it and work through it. It
is very confusing and difficult to accept when you are still there, still
in love and still committed, but they are not.
Your life may be impacted right across the board, and you will grieve,
and all of your emotions are valid and you will need time to work through
them. You will need to do whatever you need to do to get through it. You
will grieve and you will cry, you may be scared and angry, and you will
probably go through many months of extreme emotional ranges. It will level
out, and it will become manageabl,e and at some point it will just be
a sad melancholy that floats past on occasion.
Sometimes though, it lasts forever. If you can’t let go or you won’t
let go, it can overtake your life and leave you cold and bitter- it will
destroy you. No-one does this to you, this is a choice and it is a decision
to live a tragic life based on your inability to acknowledge your own
beauty and value. The irony here of course is that your rage is still
directed at your partner for treating you the way you now continue to
treat yourself.
One person’s ability or inability to love you does not make you
any more or any less than you are. Your value as a lovable and worthwhile
person is not determined by the opinion of only one other person. Your
supply of love, and your ability to love, is not in the control of another
person. And your love was never meant to be restricted, to be exchanged
with only one other person.
Overcoming heartbreak will require reclaiming your energy. As tempting
as revenge is and as comforting as hate may appear, it all keeps your
energy attached to someone else. You may need to begin by reclaiming your
physical energy; eat well, breathe and move. If you are physically exhausted
your mind and emotions are harder to control. The mind, body and spirit
are all connected and one will rob the other if one is energy deplete.
Only love can replenish love, even if you feel you are faking it at first,
it is most important to get back your flow. Be loving with yourself, treat
yourself the way he should have treated you, and treat yourself the way
you wanted to treat him
Acknowledge the love you share with family and friends, and allow that
to expand. Try and stretch loving moments and experiences – take
compliments and kindnesses, imbibe beauty and extend pleasure. Recall
your energy and bring it back into yourself. Love the lovable and love
the worthy, and if you really do believe there is only one love and you
are capable of loving that one person forever – then make that one
person yourself.
Excerpt form reinventingmyself.com
Copyright Sonya Green
webmaster@reinventingmyself.com