Britt,

You ask some really great questions, and I appreciate the skillfulness with which you capture your confusion into words. Breakups are difficult, and produce a grief that takes time and continued self nurturing in order to heal. Don’t despair, you’re healing, and there is always a path to joy.

Sometimes when we are in emotional pain, we get the false sense that this is just “who we are now”. So we start scrambling for ways to understand, diagnose and repair ourselves. As though we are at fault for our emotions, and so we desperately try to change. This can help distract us from the pain, but doesn’t really help it very much. You sound as though you are grieving, which is emotionally turbulent. There is self blame, fear, anger, regret… a huge plate full of difficult emotions. Those emotions color the view of the world around you. For instance, in your grief, when you notice the separation between yourself and a stranger, your regret reflects back at you as a feeling of being unlovable and forever alone. That is just grief, dear sister, and heals over time.

The solution is really to just accept that right now there is grief, right now there is pain, and stay alert in the present moment. You ask some big questions that make total sense, but they are also better left alone until the grieving subsides. For example, you have confusion about the pain, its causes, and how to heal. This confusion can easily propel the mind to ask “who am I? Is the universe trying to punish me? Is this a big lesson? Why am I so broken?” Those questions need no answer, they unfold with time and healing. They’re good, because they tell you that you’re alive, but the answers won’t really provide the relief you’re looking for.

Instead, perhaps consider being patient with yourself. Britt is bold, beautiful, and caring… and also, in this moment, filled with grief. Its like looking in the mirror with a mask on. There is a beautiful woman standing right there, but as you look at yourself, it is through a veil of painful feelings. So you don’t really see you, you see the mask… and say “who is that?” If you can accept that there is beauty and pain in your self-vision, then “fixing the errors in self” can take an obvious back seat to “caring for the girl in pain”. Slowly, patiently, the hurt of the past settles as we continue caring for our body and mind. Then many of the questions we’ve been asking answer themselves… because as we care for ourselves, the heart becomes strong again, and leads us home. Did I mention being patient?

Consider it like this: if you broke your ankle, would you be pissed at your body for not healing after two weeks? That in two weeks you say to yourself “every time I try to run, I feel pain and limp… what is wrong with me? Why is my ankle so stupid? Is my body just broken from now on? No one else is limping, they must see my limp and think I’m stupid and broken! What is wrong with me that I would break my ankle, I must not love myself. Is the universe punishing me for being such a bitch? I hate this dumb body.” Etc. Something tells me that you would not do those things, but would be gentle, stay off it, put a cast on it, and give it the time it needs to knit. Because the emotional body is less understood, and less tangible than a bone in the leg, it is often overlooked as a real wound.

So, stay off the ankle for awhile and just let yourself heal. Said differently, don’t seek the causes of who and why and what, just self nurture. Do nice things for your heart, feed it special fuel such as soft music, laughter, bubble baths, meditation, walking in nature, creating or viewing art, and so on. You can figure out who you are along the way… as you notice what actions fuel your happiness, and which drain it.

Patience, Britt. The feeling of “lost” and “unhappy” will settle… its all part of the game of love. You’re not a misfit, that part actually made me smile. You’re human, and do human things like feel pain… and just because others don’t appear to be limping doesn’t make you a misfit, it is just you limping. Time and space, sister, is often the greatest gift we can give ourselves. Well, time, space and chocolate chip cookies. Yum!

With warmth,
Matt