donnie6,

I have been there. We all have been. Many times over. And this sort of heartache comes in many forms. A loss of a relationship. A loss of a loved one. A loss of a job. A loss of finances. And yes, we often feel broken in those moments. We all experience pain, sadness, guilt, shame, loss, hopelessness, etc. Understand your suffering is not yours alone. We all have experienced it. But you also have a choice. You can choose to live in your suffering… or you can dig deep… find that fire in your belly… and choose to start living again.

It seems impossible now. But I guarantee you… that once you let go of your attachments… find balance and happiness… and really start living… you will look back at this experience and realize that it hurt… but it made you smarter and stronger and that if you can overcome this… then you can overcome anything. Life isn’t about what happens to you. It’s about how you choose to let it affect you. And you will have a much better understanding of your inner strength.

You can feel sorry for yourself as long as you want to. There is no shame in it. I’ve felt horribly sorry for myself for weeks or months. But feeling sorry for yourself will not fix things or make things better. And the only person who can change your life is… you. No one here can do it for you. But then that is the magic part… once you remember that… once you remember that you can control your feelings and emotions and how you interact with the world… then you will reduce the amount of dependency you have on external stimuli to make you happy and find the path to a much more rewarding and abundant happiness
Here are the things I used to help find myself again.

1. Read Lovability by Robert Holden. I prefer the audiobook version. I would listen to it at least 15 -20 times as you will get something new out of it ever time. It is wonderful to listen to on very long walks. When you are feeling alone and sad. When you want to know why. You will not understand it at first… but it slowly sinks in. You are lovable. You are made from love. You are loved. You were meant to love.
2. Exercise. We need to put that pent up anxiety and angst to work. Building a healthier body is a great outlet
3. Eat healthy food. You only get one body. Start taking care of it.
4. Sleep. Get on a sleep schedule. Read all you can about sleep. Essential for sanity and life.
5. Write out life goals. DO NOT INCLUDE GETTING MARRIED OR GETTING YOUR EX BACK. Writing things down will give you a sense of where you want to be. Now is the perfect time to set goals as nothing is holding you back (except our current belief in ourself and life).
6. Set small challenges for yourself. Make sure you can do them. Make them small at first. Something silly like I will walk 10,000 steps each day this week. Track it. Reward yourself. Set a slightly bigger goal. Eventually you will learn to love these challenges and achieving them will give you confidence. Make sure you make them SMART.
a. Specific – target a specific area for improvement.
b. Measurable – quantify or at least suggest an indicator of progress.
c. Assignable – specify who will do it.
d. Realistic – state what results can realistically be achieved, given available resources.
e. Time-related — specify when the result(s) can be achieved.
7. Pick a hobby you have always wanted to try. It doesn’t matter how silly it is. And you don’t have to be good at it. If you always wanted to paint or write poetry or plant a garden, you have all the time in the world to do it. Pick up kickboxing. Learn to cook. It doesn’t matter. The goal here isn’t to be good. Just do something you are interested in.
8. Find your spiritual side. I don’t think it matters if this involves attending church, temple, mosque, or any combination of. But we are spiritual creatures. Explore it. And understand that it all is a process of love.
9. Nurture your relationships. Appreciate your friends and family. They sound like they have been an amazing gift to you. And a tremendous source of love. Embrace that

There are a bunch of other things you can do as well. These are my personal favorites to go to. But the general theme is find things that remind you about love… and get you back into growing. I don’t know if you have taken any driving classes… but one of the things they teach you is to look in the direction you want to go… not the object you want to avoid. Your body does the rest. The same thing is true in life. As long as you keep staring in the past and at rejection and failure… you will stay there. The trick is to find something different to look at… something bigger and infinitely more abundant. And step by step, you will get there.
Don’t get overwhelmed. Just focus on small steps and small victories. The trajectory will take care of itself.

-Zen-