Most of us have been trained to believe that when a relationship ends, we lose the love of the person who we once felt so loved by. This belief is an instant misery-creating lie that is simply not true. The truth is, love is impossible to lose. Yes, you feel pain because of this divorce, but not because you've lost your former person's love.
You hurt because endings of any kind are sad. You hurt because you have lost the dream of what could have been. You hurt because the loss stirs up your own fears and past pains. You hurt because there is an empty space in your life that wasn't there before, a space that you've been told is the loss of love, but it's not.
The space you feel is an opening for more love to come into your life -- starting with the love you have for yourself, and then expanding to include all the love that the world is just salivating to give you. Love is everywhere, when you are open to receiving it, and when you know where to look. Opening to love can be hard during a divorce, but I know no better medicine than love for mending a bruised or broken heart.
If you are interested in taking yourself off the pain train and moving into a space where you can honor your sadness and at the same time feel more love, happiness and possibility, then read on and put these two love-generators to work for you:
LOVE GENERATORS
1. Tell yourself the truth. You are not losing love. You are ending a relationship.
Do yourself a BIG favor and be honest about why your relationship ended, and don't make it about love.
Love is an easy excuse when you don't want to be real about why your divorce is necessary to stay true to the most important partner in your life: you.
Love is indestructible. It may get masked or deeply buried under feelings of anger and disappointment, but even in the most gnarly circumstances, love never disappears, it just goes into hiding.
Relationships are dynamic, they are always changing form and sometimes in order to be happy, two people have to go their separate ways -- which has nothing to do with love. Relationships end not because the love dies, but because the intimacy, trust, respect or connection fades, because the contract with each other completes, or because you each want and need different things from life. Not all relationships are meant to be forever, if they were, you'd never meet anyone new.
ACTION: Make a list of all the reasons why the ending of this relationship is good for you, necessary for you to live the life you were destined to live. Then, take an act of self-love and state the reasons out loud. Self-honesty is self-love.
Know this. You are loved. Always. And that love starts and end with you. It's ridiculous to give the power of feeling loved away to another, when you have the power to feel loved at will inside of yourself.
2. Mourn the loss of the dream, not of the person. And remember your dream didn't die.
We often cause ourselves more pain than needed during a divorce because we misplace our mourning energy and end up grieving more than we need. We've already established that the love lives on, so you can take "loss of love" off your mourning list. You can also take off "grieving the loss of my ex-person" -- because they are not dead, they just aren't sleeping next to you anymore. What is dying and important to grieve is the loss of the dream you had for this relationship. Your hopes, intentions and co-created dreams came to a crashing halt when the choice was made to end the partnership, and the loss of those dreams is where much of the pain lies. But when you aren't clear that it's the lost dream you are mourning, you get all caught up in trying to change and control things you can't.
ACTION: Be sad. Get angry. Move into acceptance and surrender that this particular dream is gone. But don't stay stuck there. Keep your mind out of dramatic thoughts like "My relationship is over!" or "I'll be alone forever!" or "What if he finds someone else and loves her more?" Thoughts like these create unnecessary pain -- kind of like poking your tongue into fresh dental work. Ouch! It hurts. Don't do it.
Move your focus from what you can't control -- bringing the old dream back -- and dive into what you can, reconnecting with the dream you have for your life! The ending of one dream means the beginning of another, and you still have the power to dream forward the life your heart and soul want.
When you dream yourself forward, you create more love in your life because you are telling yourself that you are worth dreaming for. And you are. Yes, the dream of your former relationship may have ended, but your dreams for yourself didn't, so why would you give up on yourself? If you aren't dreaming yourself forward, who will? Love yourself enough to move towards your dreams.
About Christine Arylo
Popular author of the new book Madly in Love with ME, the Daring Adventure to Becoming Your Own Best Friend, and Choosing ME before WE, Every Woman's Guide to Life and Love Christine Arylo, m.b.a., writer and speaker teaches people how to put their most important partnership first, the one with themselves, so that they can create the love and life their hearts and souls crave. Arylo is the founder of the International Day of Self-Love (Feb 13). Check out her free Self-Love Kit at ChooseSelfLove.com