“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.” ― John Lennon
You’re going to be more than okay.
It’s very normal to abandon yourself in a toxic love in the effort to keep the relationship. And that’s usually when we start to fall out of love with ourselves. When this happens we hand over our whole self-worth and significance to another person, and before we know it our mood and happiness becomes entirely dependent on them.
When that relationship ends we don’t know how to live, let alone how to be happy without them. The truth is you’re going to be more than okay – there is so much light and happiness ahead if you chose to let go, and fall back in love with yourself.
Stop fighting the old.
Don’t try to understand why the person did what they did. You can spend years analyzing and still never know. Why they did it is not important. What’s important is the right now. The new.
Trying to fight the old is a battle you will never win because your wasting all your energy that you can be using to build the new, to innovate the life you actually want to live.
Refuse to entertain your old pain.
The pain I felt when my ex betrayed me will always be a part of me because it shaped me and taught me much more than a happily ever after ever could.
Some love isn’t the kind that results in the fusing of two lives into one, but instead can give you new life, a life that has more love than you have ever seen. Understand that some love is meant to change your life rather than give you someone to grow old with.
Learn to let go.
You cannot move forward with your life with one foot on the brakes. Sometimes we don’t want to let go of our pain because it’s the only thing still attaching us to our ex – let go of your pain and you let go of our ex, sometimes we’re not ready for that.
I held on to the hurt for a long time. But the energy it took to hang on to the past was holding me back from living my life fully. When your heart is broken open, new light gets in. Embrace it.
Forgive.
I know that heartbreak feels like a stab wound to the heart, but understand that someone can be madly in love with you and still not be ready. Forgive them. Someone’s past, their demons, whatever the reason is, some people are not ready for love and happiness and will push you away.
Understand that they haven’t done the work to be ready and you cannot convince or inspire anyone to do the work, you are only responsible for yourself.
Love them from afar.
When someone touches your heart, they will infinitely be there. But when your mood became entirely dependent on them, it becomes a toxic relationship and you lose the love for yourself. Don’t be frustrated if you still love them, just be sure to love them from afar.
Understand your worth.
The first step to falling back in love with yourself is understanding what you are and are not willing to compromise on. Never abandon yourself in the effort to keep someone or something.
Don’t regret anything.
Mistakes are inevitable in a life worth living. As long as you learn from them, mistakes are very important. They teach you exactly what you want and who you want to be.
Maybe you fought with your ex too much, maybe you argued with them at inopportune times. But your anger was fueled by your passion and emotions for them. You cared. You loved them. Don’t regret it.
All that pain and frustration shaped you.
You cried, you laughed, you were alive, and that changed your life. All that pain produced understandings that have created a new level of living.
You now have a chance to be happier than you have ever been before – you can realize everything that is holding you back and create a life that you want to live.
Learn to love your edges.
You loved your ex’s edges, all their roughness. Their imperfections were perfect to you. Why can’t you do that for yourself? There’s nothing you loved more than holding their hand and whispering words of reassurance in their ear, because you knew they weren’t broken, they were just bent. Do that for yourself. Love those gory bits, grow into your own wrongness.
Crave more from yourself.
You confronted your ex a lot. You craved more from them – you had opinions and big dreams for the future, you wanted the best for them.
You never let them get away with slacking on their talents – do the same for yourself. There is a more extraordinary love out there that you would never know if it didn’t end it with the last one. But the extraordinary has to start with you – fall back in love with yourself and let everybody else come searching for you.
