The Heartbreak Diet
Breakups are tragic yet we all have to go through it. The trick to surviving the end of any relationship whether it be a friend, a relative or the person who you thought would be your life partner is this…
If someone left you and you can’t get over it, say every morning and multiple times a day “Peace be with you, I release you.”
If someone has hurt you say every morning and multiple times per day “Peace be with you, I forgive you.”
If you have wronged someone say as often as you can “Peace be with me. Thank you for the opportunity to change.”
The reality is that no matter how much you tell yourself that you will never get over it, you will. Getting over someone is hard work. There’s no way around it. It’s meant to be that way. And we all have to do it in our own way and at our own pace. As Dr. Joe Dispenza explains it, “a memory without the emotional charge is called wisdom.”
The meaning that you derive from any experience is incredibly specific to you. Yet we are all guilty of judging how the other person handles it. But why? Why is it so important that you know what the other person is up to and how they are processing the event?
Reasons why you might care so much what the other person is doing:
Because you’re angry that you’re not in control and it’s natural to want to reestablish control
Because you feel jealousy or you fear that you loved more deeply than they did / do
This person was / is intertwined with your habits. Doing life without them seems impossible
You fear guilt or regret. It may seem like you can avoid those feelings if you keep them on a short leash
You have a fear of the future or the unknown
Desperation. You think if you just got a “do-over” that you could change your current circumstances
You feel a deep longing for this person and believe there may never be anyone who can take their place
You are a normal human being who feels loss and hope equally
You’ve lost something that you weren’t prepared to lose yet
You feel embarrassed
I’m able to write out all of those possible emotions because I have been through them all.
I once told a friend that I could never leave a boyfriend because “I wouldn’t be able to live through seeing them with someone else.” My friend’s response to me was “then that’s not true love.” When you really love someone you want them to succeed even if that success doesn’t include you.
I tried to further explain where I was coming from because it was truly not that I didn’t wish them happiness, I just didn’t know if I could handle seeing them happy and myself not happy by comparison.
That is when I finally acquired a new perspective. My friend said “why would you have to see it?” I’m forever grateful that she asked that question.
I feared my ex was moving on before I had time to do the same. I was seeing myself as a static character, someone who doesn’t grow and doesn’t find anything new. I feared witnessing the same heartbreak again and again for myself but of course that’s not how it works at all.
I learned how to say my daily mantra of “peace be with you, I release you” and I found that over the course of a few days it truly did bring me peace. I came to really mean the words that I was saying.
Initially I wrote an email to my ex of everything I wanted to say. Over the next few weeks I re-read and revised the email several times. I never sent it. By the last revision I found that I had erased most of what I’d written and just left it at “I’m happy we met and I wish us both the very best that life has to offer.” I found that with each relationship that exited my life I eventually ran out of steam to ask them “why?”
There doesn’t have to be something wrong with the other person for it to not work. The truth is that this is just as much their planet as it is yours. You can’t demand that people change for you.
Make a list if what you want from each relationship in your life. How many of those attributes does the person who you’re missing still fit into? This exercise may lead you to a better understanding of your grief and ultimately how you want to handle your connection to them.