Heartbreak

Yesterday, a client who is navigating a painful relationship transition with their beloved asked me, “Is there a chance we will get back together?”

This was my response (edited for confidentiality). Sharing here in case it may help any of you who are in a similar place.

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It’s a great question.

Of course, there is a chance. There is much more of a chance, with you doing this amazing, powerful work of being clear about what you want and what you do not want, in relationship and for yourself in your own life.

Of course it’s possible. If each of you wants this relationship to survive, and even thrive – this third thing you have both created together — and you are both willing to do the work to love yourselves, to own your own feelings and your own choices, to let go of care taking or saving one another, to come from the pain and knowledge of how it feels NOT to have one another in your lives, and to be true each to yourself, to be in the practice of absolute integrity with your own needs and wants, and to learn to love unconditionally… … yes, it’s possible.

You will, of course, always be in relationship with one another. It’s just what shape that relationship takes, and that is a thing that changes constantly, because you are both growing and changing daily.

The relationship that is central to any other kind of love arising or succeeding, the one that is with you always, the one you cannot lose, is the one you have with yourself.

What can you do to nurture that relationship?

Consider what it is you would be willing to do for this love with this other person, and feel into whether you can bring that same level of longing, dedication, integrity, and powerful emotion, to loving yourself. Romancing yourself. Nurturing yourself. Comforting yourself. In your body, just as it is right now.

Allowing yourself joy and laughter and pleasure and support from loving, trusted people in your life, people who can help you, hold you, love you, right now. Even as – especially as – you navigate these tidal waves of emotion. Express them in tears and movement and sound and writing, and let them move through your body and back out into the cosmos.

The thing is, there will always be a question about the future. The future is always uncertain.

What you are experiencing now is a breaking open, as much as breaking up, and sometimes that means you get to the place where you can actually feel what matters most, and make your choices based on that simple truth.

Is being in a committed relationship with one another, what will serve you both best? I can’t say.

You already know, that no matter how well you love, no matter how powerfully clear you get with your Yes and your No – you cannot make this relationship happen, or repair, or grow, by yourself. No matter how much you may want that.

It’s totally okay to want! And to long for! And, there is something magical that happens when you can fully allow yourself to do just that, just to be in longing, without going to trying to make it happen or imagining it fulfilled.

The practice now, the deeper practice, is to sit with the discomfort. Be with the questions, without having to answer them. Allow them to move in you. Allow the feelings that they bring up, to rise up and move through you, as overwhelming or as subtle as they may seem in the moment. Let go of story and physically, energetically FEEL.

These feelings are not bottomless. They cannot destroy you. They are waves, and you are the infinite ocean through which they move and dissolve, arise and fall again. This is the way to the oneness that you long for. Oneness with yourself. With the Beloved. With Everything That Is.

Stay with it. Stay with yourself. Continue to build this sacred trust with yourself, and come back to the present moment when future thoughts – and past thoughts – arise.

Be with yourself right now. Feel what is true in your body. And: breathe.

Surrounding you all with oceans of love,

– Anne