Seven steps to healing the lovesick heart.
We’ve all had them. Those icky, sticky, yucky feelings of love gone wrong. The sense of loss. Of abandonment. Of feeling devalued and discarded. Of being ”˜less than’ the light of love in our lover’s eyes. We’ve all had them and sometimes, those feelings linger for longer than is healthy for us to reclaim our sense of self-worth, of beauty, of joy in our essence of being alive.
EMBRACE yourself. You’ve got all you need to hold onto
is a seven step process that guides you through letting go of the love that was (and will never be again) into loving what is and will always be within you. You. Whole and complete. Living the 3Ms of self-eMPOWERED YOU! Magnificent! Miraculous! Marvelous!
EMBRACE:
Engage your heart. Still your mind.
Mindfully watch your words and actions.
Be honest with yourself.
Reacquaint yourself with you.
Allow yourself forgiveness.
Celebrate yourself.
Explore your world.
1. Engage your heart by stilling your mind. Meditate. Walk. Do something to get out of your thinking telling you your heart is broken. It isn’t. It’s just hurting because your breathing and thinking is tied up in thoughts of what he did to hurt you. It wasn’t about you. It was always about him.
In your meditation whisper:
Like me, he is seeking to be loved and this is the only way he knows how.
Like me, he has experienced pain, sorrow, and sadness and is looking for a way to avoid feeling them again.
Like me, he only knows this way he is choosing to behave.
And if you can say nothing else, repeat a hundred x ten times a day: I forgive him. I release him.
2. Mindfully watch everything you do and say. Become conscious of your choices knowing that they are always a reflection of your thinking and your thinking will always create how you are feeling and your experience in this moment.
Ask yourself — what do I want to feel in this moment? What is my intention for the day? Tell yourself you are capable of having what you want by reminding yourself what you’re capable of”¦
I wish to feel peace.
I want to feel peace.
I can feel peace.
I choose to be at peace in this moment now. In my choosing peace in this moment, I create the path for peace to appear in the next moment and the next and the next. I am the source of my thinking, my feelings, my actions and I choose to be responsible for my choices.
3. Be honest with yourself. Your healing will only progress to the degree that you are willing to be completely honest with yourself.
His actions were never about you. His actions, words, what he did were always about him.
You do not matter to him. He was not ”˜out to get you’. He was out to get what he wanted to make his life have meaning.
It wasn’t personal. He didn’t set out to hurt you. He set out to protect himself. He set out with the belief that ”˜you’ were a way for him to feel good about himself. You couldn’t be his way to feeling good about himself. You are not that powerful. Making him feel good about himself is not your job. Feeling good about yourself is your job. It is your responsibility. You get to choose how you feel about yourself. Be honest — are your choices making you feel better about yourself or worse? Is your thinking giving you what you want or is it taking from you what you need to Love yourself exactly the way you are?
4. Reacquaint yourself with you — remind yourself about who you were before he came into your life. Remember the things you did that said — I am a magnificent human being.
Did you used to volunteer at a hospital? At a homeless shelter? Did you used to do things that created value in your life, that created value in the world around you? Remind yourself of your power to do things that make a difference. If you could do those things then, you can do those things now. Let go of ”˜used to’ and get doing. Remind yourself of those things. You need to get moving. Get doing. Get being who you believe yourself to be. Who you say you are. Do them now. Do them again and again. Get involved and get into action.
5. Allow yourself the gift of forgiveness. Forgive yourself. Forgive him. Forgive anyone and anything who ever hurt you.
Holding onto pockets of unforgiveness limits your experience of your life free of his abuse. Forgive him. Remember, it wasn’t personal. He didn’t set out to destroy you. He was just doing what he does and you happened to be in his path. He has since, ”˜gotten over you’. He is off doing what he does in someone else’s life. What’s in it for you to hold onto his bad behavior after he’s gone? Forgive him. Forgive yourself. You didn’t know this would happen. You didn’t know you would be so hurt. So broken. So sad. And it’s okay. Forgive yourself and breathe into forgiveness all the loving kindness you possess.
6. Celebrate everything about you. Celebrate your magnificence. Your brilliance. Your light — even when the voices inside would tell you you’re not — celebrate yourself for all you’re worth! You are worth living it up for. Take yourself out on a date. Do something fun and whacky. Go to the zoo. Go bungee jumping. Take dance lessons. Learn a new skill. Celebrate everything about you in everything you do.
7. Explore life. Life isn’t about searching for the right answers, or the perfect you. Life is in the experience of living it. It’s about exploring your beliefs, what beliefs you want to hold onto and those you need to let go of because they’re not working for you any more. If believing he hurt you causes you pain, let go of the belief. If thinking of him makes you sad, explore new thoughts.
Life is in discovering where you’re at is exactly where you are meant to be. Explore this place you’re at right now. Explore your perimeters., Explore your life beyond this place where you find yourself caught up in living small, living less than your dreams.
Get up. Get moving. Quit talking about him. Quit explaining to yourself and anyone who will listen why what he did was so wrong. Wrong or right, it is what he did and all the explanations in the world will never make sense of his nonsense — so give it up. Let it go. Engage yourself in your life. Engage yourself in shining so bright upon your path the whole world lights up around you.
EMBRACE what is. And, if the thought it should be some other way interferes, embrace it and love it to death, or at least until it doesn’t hurt you any more to believe it should be some other way. It isn’t. It can’t be. Embrace what is, love yourself as you are and let yourself go to that place where you are free to explore and experience life on your terms. Free to love fearlessly. To live with abandon. To dance in the rain and run naked through wildflower strewn meadows. It is, and always has been, your choice to embrace what is and live it up for all you’re worth!
Are you willing to do it? It is your life. No one else can live it for you.
Dear Rosa,
Before I came to LF I was on a pretty disordered site on MSNBC site owned by Sam Vaknin and there were some good people there who gave me somem good advice and one of the moderators who was NOT as disordered as Sam (one of only 1 or 2 there) told me to go NC with my egg donor MONTHS before I saw that as an option. I came up with every excuse of why I couldn’t do this, why I had to save her. I was NC with the P-son and the TH-P and even son C (he was still married to the P-DIL at the time) and I could NOT EVEN IMAGINE going permanent NC with egg donor. How could I(? She was my MOOOOOTHER!!!! She loved me. I loooooved her?
There was no way I could (AT THAT TIME) go NC with her. It took a long time and LF to get me to see that it was the ONLY WAY.
Now, I know that co-parenting, and family situations with KIDS can keep 100% physical NC from being possible unless you wantto write off a young child that you may be protecting, but you (that’s the universal “You”) can go EMOTIONAL NC with the P that you have to deal with. You can adjust your own emotional self so that the P is not able to penetrate your internal WALL OF SAFETY. You can KNOW they are liars and abusers and unless they actually hit you, (in which case you would have to press charges with the law) you can keep them from emotionally injuring you.
Back in my days doing wild life photography we frequently had poison reptiles that we filmed and even handled, but we did NOT allow them a chance to bite us. We knew what they were, handled them with diligent CAUTION keeping in mind that they were POISON. We filmed big cats, and rhino, and elephants but we used SAFETY and CAUTION and didn’t risk getting hurt! We were prepared to defend ourselves if necessary. There were occasional smaller injuries from cat mostly, and my sperm donor’s GF lwas STUPID once and she knew better, had grown up in the wild life business, and let a “pet” jaguar we had living in the house maul her very seriously. SHE KNEW BETTER and fed him while he could get to her, so as soon as he saw the food, he forgot the food and went after her. 75 pounds of cat, claws and teeth, is a LOT OF CAT! He won the battle. She didn’t die but was scarred for life and gravely injured. Even still, she was LUCKY she got out the door into the yard and when he followed her, he was in as “strange” environment and quit chasing her and became confrused. In fact, at that point, he was so confused and upset he wanted her to comfort him. Almost psychopathic-like, wasn’t it? He ended up in the Monroe LA zoo in 1966.
When we do have to have physical contact with psychopaths we must always consider them like a “tame” wild cat, they can TURN IN A SECOND and become dangerous. We must be aware of their moods and what will likely set them off on a rant. This particular cat was fine as long as you had him in his cage when you fed him, or didn’t try to take a toy away from him. Even if that “toy” was your purse,, the couch, or your foot, you didn’t try to take anything away from him. It was HIS until he got tired of playing with it and moved on to something else, or you distracted him from it. We kept pieces of torn tee shirt all over the house in easy reach so if he was doing something you didn’t want him to do, you waved a piece of cloth at him to distract him from whatever he was destroying. We can also DISTRACT psychopaths someitmes from something they are destroying that if we tried to take away they would attack us.
Rosa, you are doing that with your brother’s P wife where the child is concerned. But you don’;t spend your emotional life bemoaning the fact you can’t get her to change, or trust her, or get your brother to see what she is. There may come a day though, when the child is either out of danger or you know you can no longer protect her that you end up going NC with her mom, maybe your brother, etc. or maybe the child. Who knows, but you are doing the best you can and I personally think doing VERY WELL. I am proud of how you have grown and learned over these last couple of years. I have received a lot of good advice from you, validation and seen you share good advice and valoidation with others. Thank you for being here. And thanks for being such a good example for us all!
Thank you so much, OxDrover.
Those are very kind words.
I have learned a great deal from you, as well.
Yes, my mother and I have gone ENC (Emotional No Contact) with my brother’s wife, and it is working better than it was.
But we are not the ones who have to live with her.
She is no longer able to gaslight us, so that is a good thing.
However, P sister-in-law is starting to nudge me in the arm when she talks to me.
A lot of MEN have done this to me during conversations, but NEVER a woman.
So, that’s something new she has started doing to me.
She better not nudge too hard, because I’m in much better shape than she is…even though she is bigger.
I am not afraid of a physical altercation with her….AT ALL 🙂 ..
I don’t understand the reason for all of this nudging me, though……trying to get some kind of a reaction out of me????
Too much testosterone????
Bizarre.
Dear Rosa,
The nudging you is AGGRESSION. One of the things I learned when I was working oxen is that there is NO ACCIDENTAL “bumping” with cattle. AND they knopw EXACTLY where the tips of their horns are every single minute an an “accidental” bump even a TOUCH is a drisplay of dominance, and the APPROPRIATE RESPONSE WITH OXEN is to take a club and knock them to their knees by hitting their horn right at the base of the horn where it joins the skull (it will not harm them, but rings their chimes) I guaarentee that once or twice of this treatment with oxen and they are CURED of even coming close to you on a dominance issue.
Unfortunately you are NOT allowed to do this with your SIL, but the poking you IS A DOMINANCE display that she is doing to TEST just how much she can get away with. She may even start poking harder and harder.
Since you have to PRETEND to play nicey with her, I do suggest that you say something like “Suzie, you may not be aware that you are poking me with your finger for emphasis whe34n we talk but it is uncomfortable for me, so PLEASE DO NOT DO THAT AGAIN.”
That way you show her that your boundaries are there but you are doing it in a way that PRETENDS you bdon’t know what her REAL MOTIVE IS,, “to pick a fight” and so be careful to do this in front of a BIG CROWD so that if she gets “offe4nded” she will be the one to look like an ass. I.e. PUT HER ON THE SPOT! HEE HEE oh, I am such a biatch!
Yes, these psychopaths are very much like wild animals.
The only difference is that wild animals treat their babies better.
Hi Rosie and Oxy . I read Shanmoo’s letter to R, very powerful words, but about the third paragraph I thot what a waste of energy because R has crumpled it up and thrown it in the trash by then. But it was good for her to write it out for herself. But a spath wont read what they dont understand, it’s just crazy jibber too them. At least thats what my X did. Rosa is so right about No Contact making them mad, it’s frustrating for them to NOT be in control. Got to say it one more time {no contact is our only weapon and ultimate salvation}..I am still weeding out people in my life that bring stress and chaos into mine. People I adore but hey, if they live on drama street 24/7 and seem to thrive on it, then I am tuning out, it’s not easy but life is too sweet and short.
Dear Henry,
Absolutely, life is way too short and sweet to let these arseholes screw it up! When we get right down to it, those people who are always “drama” queens and kings are just not worth the effort even if they are sometimes “fun” to be around, the price is way too high in drama for the few calm or fun times we are with them.
That gives us more time to spend with the productive and good people in our lives when we are not sidetracked with those toxic People.
Life is THREE TIMES as “long” and there is “more” time each day because we are not WASTING so much time being pithed, being mad, being confused, trying to figure out this or that! Not only is lfe better there is MORE OF IT in the same 24 hours a day and it is ALL GREAT! Hey, what’s a broken leg, or a flat tire? NOTHING because4 you know the tire didn’t do it on purpose and the leg didn’t snap because it wanted to hurt you! It’s ALL easy to handle no matter what happens.
oX I think you can understand when I say I used to be a drama queen or king [take your pick]..I was a sponge for someone else’s drama and chaos and I would turn my self into a pretzel trying to fix their drama [problems] ..but guess what happens when you get toxic people and loved one out of your life? You go set outside with your weiner’s and a glass of tea and listen to the turtle dove’s..sure is quite and calm and sweet..
so HELP!
I am leaving in 30 days. I still have all the stuff- I don’t think anyone is going to come get it and I really don’t want to stick the landlord.
The sheriff won’t take it, I can’t store it because the vehicle isn’t in his name and I have his wallet and clothes that he will want when he gets out.
I won’t take it with me and I won’t mail his personal effects from where I am going because that would be what: pointless???
What do people who go to prison do with their stuff? I really feel stuck with it. I can’t legally do anything with it and I can’t legally dump it?
The damn attorneys can’t figure out to do anything except dump it on the landlord who is a friend to me. The wife won’t come get it. And I can’t pay anybody to take it.
I am thinking about writing him a letter and enclosing the numbers from his cell phone and asking him to call some girlfriend to come get it, but that breaks no contact.
I feel like if I let him have his stuff back, he has no incentive to track me down hoping to find some of it and a “supply”.
Weigh in on this?
silver – pay for 2 months sotrage. give the key to his lawyer and explain the terms.
or
ask someone who should know – besides the ahole lawyers, what your legal obligation is.
of course EB will probably knwo what to do.
and so you have made a decision! 🙂
xx
@shanmoo, great letter, I’m glad you wrote it — even if just for you. I didn’t love myself, and that was my big downfall. I’m happy you are not moving to the same area he’s in. Who needs that? Good for you!!!!! Thanks for sharing!