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Posts tagged with “break-up”

Finally Letting Go of the Pain and Moving On after a Breakup

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“Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.” ~C. S. Lewis

Another year over and you’re still troubled by a relationship that ended last year or in years past. The whole thing is dragging on too long—why can’t you just get over it? But every time you think about it or bump into your ex, you feel ruined again

How about giving your feelings another shake?

Rattle them in any direction—a new one. If it turns out to be the wrong direction you …

7 Ways to Cope With the Grief of Heartbreak

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“Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.” ~C.S. Lewis

Shock. That was the first feeling. Shock and disbelief.

This isn’t really happening. Denial.

Look into her eyes. Slow realization. I’m not dreaming. Fear.

Wave upon wave of torrential sadness. Messy.

We’d been in a long-distance relationship, and as far as I was aware, everything was inutterably perfect. I was as happy as I’d ever been; I was in love.

For months, I’d been planning to travel across the country to see her. …

When You Don’t Feel Good Enough for Someone Else

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“Your outlook on life is a direct reflection of how much you like yourself.” ~Lululemon

I recently started going through what has been the most difficult situation I have ever had to bare in my life: the end of my twelve-year relationship.

I have gotten to know the darkest and most hidden places inside me, and pain so deep that I did not know we as a species were capable of feeling it.

It has been through this process and my will to endure, survive, and overcome that I have had to dig deep to find meaning and answers.

I …

You Are the One: 5 Helpful Tips for the Brokenhearted

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“All the wonders you seek are within yourself.” ~Sir Thomas Browne

Anyone who has ever gone through some sort of heartbreak knows what awful pain it can cause, both physically and mentally. It can be devastating, shattering, and overwhelming for your spirit.

In the beginning of 2012 I had my heart broken by a person who I thought was “the one.”

Between tears and desperate calls, I found myself searching the Internet for remedies to get over an ex. I knew I was a strong person, but I just couldn’t see anything becoming brighter or better ever.

I constantly …

From Broken Heart to Open Heart: When Breaking Up Is a Good Thing

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“When you blame others, you give up your power to change.” ~Dr. Robert Anthony

On March 18th, 2011, I received an email that forever changed my life.

“You got me—I’m seeing someone else.”

That’s the only line I remember. I had noticed that my boyfriend at the time had been acting “strange” and confronted him on it. He fessed up to me in an email while I was at work. There was nothing I could do and nowhere I could go.

I felt that burning sensation on the back of my neck. I wasn’t sure what to …

Relationships That Hurt: When Enough Is Enough

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“Relationships are like glass. Sometimes it’s better to leave them broken than hurt yourself trying to put them back together.” ~Unknown

There was a time when I was quite black-and-white with relationships. I either trusted you implicitly, assuming you’d never intentionally hurt me, or believed you wanted to cause me pain and questioned everything you did.

Once you moved yourself into the latter category, there was no going back.

Eventually, I realized I was limiting my relationships by not recognizing the grey area, where people are human, they make mistakes, and they need forgiveness and understanding.

From there I …

Be Gentle with Yourself When Dealing with Heartbreak

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“Relationships are like glass. Sometimes it’s better to leave them broken than try to hurt yourself putting it back together.” ~Unknown

I’m sitting in the nail salon near my apartment, perusing Vogue and making small talk with the woman who is cradling my hand and filing my nails. We’re catching up on our lives; I tell her I’ve been in Phoenix for the month. She nods and, in broken English, inquires about him.

I’d like to say my subsequent tears are a rarity, but lately, they seem to have a mind of their own.

I sit across from my best …

Learning to Stop Clinging to People: Know That You Are Loved

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“As long as you make an identity for yourself out of pain, you cannot be free of it.”   ~Eckhart Tolle

I have a heart condition. Not one that you could see on an x-ray, or even one that you would find in a medical textbook.

For as long as I can remember, I have felt like my heart has had a gaping hole in it—and I’ve been stuffing anyone, anything into that space to try and feel a little less empty. A little less alone.

The first day of my freshman year, I met a girl.

We spent the rest …

7 Ways to Manage a Break Up and Work Through the Pain

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“Most of our troubles are due to our passionate desire for and attachment to things that we misapprehend as enduring entities.” ~Dalai Lama

Some breakups are so bad that they make you hate the sunshine. It’s up there gleaming, looking down on you, being all sunny despite the fact that you feel like a slice of hell. The suffering is relentless. The sky is ugly.

The ending of my last relationship was awful. I think it hurt as bad as it did because this wasn’t some random young woman who had just walked into my life. This was someone whom …

Letting Go and Starting Over When It’s Hard

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“Letting go isn’t the end of the world; it’s the beginning of a new life.” ~Unknown

This June marked twelve years since I got divorced and moved 1,000 miles away from my hometown. It’s an anniversary that I usually remember, but not one that I tend to dwell on… until this year.

This year, the memories of the demise of my first marriage were hovering at the forefront of my mind.

Maybe it’s because I saw a friend who is roughly the same age I was, going through similar hard decisions. Maybe it’s because my spouse and I were struggling …

How to Love Without Losing Yourself

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“We love because it is the only true adventure.” ~Nikki Giovanni 

Last night I sat with an old friend who has recently broken up with his girlfriend. He’s sad. She’s sad.

I don’t think it was time for them to give up yet; he’s exhausted and disagrees. He says he thinks that he just loves to love. When you love to love, he says, it’s impossible to separate the act of loving from the person that you’re actually supposed to love.

He thinks that he’s too much in love with the idea of love to actually know what he wants. …

Dealing with a Break Up and Learning from the Experience

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“Why worry about things you can’t control when you can keep yourself busy controlling the things that depend on you?” ~Unknown

Relationships end, everyone knows that. The tough part is actually dealing with suffering, accepting, letting go, moving on, and processing a whole lot of other feelings at the same time.

Six months ago my ex-boyfriend decided to end our relationship because he couldn’t forgive me for a mistake I’d made.

During the first weeks of our breakup I decided that it would be best if I just gave him some time to think things out. I accepted the …

How to Overcome Loneliness

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“Man stands in his own shadow and wonders why it’s dark.” ~Zen Proverb

After my ex-girlfriend and I broke up several years ago, I never felt more alone in my life. I hung up the phone with tears streaming down my face as I stepped into my new reality.

I only had one friend in the world, who happened to live fairly far away, so most of my newfound singlehood was spent alone.

It was difficult for the first few weeks due to all the painful emotions that usually come with a breakup, but after a while the pain went …

Knowing When to Walk Away from Unrequited Love

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“Love does not obey our expectations; it obeys our intentions.” ~Lloyd Strom

To say that love hasn’t obeyed my expectations would be the understatement of the century.

I have not been lucky in love. I’ve been blessed with some amazing moments over the years, but somehow have managed to choose partners who did not want what I wanted, did not feel what I felt, and did not want to walk beside me into a future together.

I have really had to sit with this and try and figure out what part of this was my doing, and how to change …

Lost Love: What It Means to Move On

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“‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” ~Alfred Lord Tennyson

I met a special someone. It was my first taste of love and I was sheepishly drunk with it. His were eyes I could look into forever, and he had a voice I could hear till the end of time. It was absolutely frightening.

We were colleagues. I unwittingly got involved in his life and eventually found myself wanting to get even more involved.

After a period of ambiguous yes-no-maybes, he exited the picture for good. He never wanted to talk about it, …

How to Deal with a Break Up

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“No feeling is final.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke

I met him the last semester of college and was instantly attracted to him.  I was definitely attracted to him physically, but it was the way he sat in class with such quiet confidence and mystery that made me long to know him.

I practically drooled all over my desk whenever he spoke, but couldn’t even bring myself to say, “Hello.”  One night out, I saw him standing by the bar. I told my friend that I had a crush on him and she promptly gave me two choices: Go speak to him …

How to Let Go of a Past Relationship: 10 Steps to Move On Peacefully

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“The amount of happiness that you have depends on the amount of freedom you have in your heart.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Nine years ago my heart was in a million little pieces that formed the basis for a million regrets.

I had my first serious relationship in college, when all my insecurities came to a head. My ex-boyfriend had to juggle multiple roles, from therapist to cheerleader to babysitter.

The whole relationship revolved around holding me up. I realized this soon after it ended—that I’d spent three years expecting someone else to love me when I didn’t love myself. The …