When Love Walks Out the Door: Six Tips For Intelligent Survival

When you are in love - or believe yourself to be in love - and love walks out the door, you are not only justifiably devastated, but you may be devastated to the point of paralysis, palpitations, pain that can associate with physical nausea, and above all, a sensation of not being able to continue with this deep, bottomless pit that has formed at the center of your being. The yawning Hades, whose blackness spreads before you, is only known by those who have been there.

Ideas of some of the things you can do to help yourself back to the road of equanimity, if not inner peace and contentment, or even happiness, follow:

1. As you examine the relationship that has just ended - as most people tend to do ad nauseam, to the point of sorely trying their friends' patience, because of the desire to understand why it ended, or what you did that was wrong, or what you could have done differently - ask yourself what truly positive thing you could learn from this most painful experience. This questioning process that almost always takes place on an inner level can lead you to the beginning of the road to recovery. Perhaps you could learn that this is not the way to allow yourself to be treated. Perhaps the learning has to do with always telling the truth, or always being transparent with your own beliefs, likes, and dislikes, and not hiding them in order to be liked or loved. Perhaps you could learn that simply loving another human being does not guarantee love in return - or at least not everlasting love.
2. Ask yourself if the love you felt for this person who has just abandoned you, was a love that made you feel free, or a love that made you feel anxious and dependent. If it was the latter, ask yourself if you truly think it is a positive thing to feel that way, when you are supposed to be in love and therefore in the best place any of us can be. Is it possible that something so good can make you feel so miserable? I refer to how you felt while the other person was still your partner, was still with you, not how you feel now, that the other person has left. And if you agree that this is not the way one should - ideally - feel when one is in love, then ask yourself what is wrong with your scenario. In other words, why did you feel so anxious and dependent? The answer is quite simple: anxious and dependent love has its roots in neediness, and we are needy when we have not yet begun to love the self. So we love others in the hope (unconscious) of being able to love ourselves as we see the reflection of their love for us in their eyes. I have explained this in greater length in the first of the Related Articles below). Understanding this inner neediness takes you another big step on the road not only to recovery from the painful loss of the relationship, but also to finding yourself.
3. Ask yourself if there is anything in your life that truly gives it meaning. In other words, do you feel a passion for something? Does something that you do, give you a sense of purpose, or mission, or fill you with excitement. If so, a big part of your problem is already solved, because by dedicating yourself to that, you will be able to get over the worst of your feeling of being bereft. Such a sense of purpose and meaning in life is as fundamentally important as breathing. Therefore, if you have no such sense, or if you would like to have it, but don't know what it might be, please read the second article below in order to learn how to implement something like this into your life. Having a sense of purpose and meaning in life canot be stressed highly enough. If you resolve this one, you will have come a long way.
4. Ask yourself how well you know yourself. How comfortable you are with yourself. Because if you do not know yourself, or if you are not comfortable with yourself, you will find great difficulty maintaining a viable and healthy relationship, and you will tend to attract to you partners who are on the same wave-length of not being very aware of themselves. Make an effort to walk down this road a little bit every day, in order to change - to broaden - this aspect of yourself, so that future relationships can be very different. Also read the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth articles below.
5. Ask yourself how much of what is going through your head right now is blame. If you are blaming the other person for how terrible or awful he/she is for doing this to you, after all you did for him/her, please know that this blaming will take you no where. It may very well be true that you have been treated badly, but what must be learned from this is that for some reason you have allowed it. The other person is not in your control, but you are. To begin to walk down this road, read articles 7, 8, and 9 below.
6. Ask yourself what choices you have today. That's right. What can you choose today to make things better for yourself? Understand that everything you do and think, and that how you act and react is your choice. This is a long topic, there are many things to be said about it, and so I simply want to leave you with this thought: you always have a choice. Even when you are in pain. You can choose how you think about your pain, you can choose to remain immobilized, or you can choose to do something about it, such as, for example, right now, read some of the related articles below, to begin the process of bringing yourself to another level. Not of suppressing the pain, but of beginning to understand how you don't really have to be here, and of implementing some of the tools that will help you leave this place inside of you, to one where the sun shines every day. I encourage you to look at articles 10 - 14 below.

Related Articles:

1. I Need You...I Need You Not. Does Love Imply Needing?
2. Finding a Meaning For Your Life
3. Tending Your Inner Garden
4. Do You Like The Person You Are Alone With?
5. The Unexamined Life
6. Giving Birth To Yourself
7. Choosing To Wallow in Relationship Pain?
8. Anonymous Reader and Relationship Woes
9. Relationship Pain
10. Book Review 2 - Happiness Is A Choice
11. The Greatest Quality in Life
12. All You Have Is Now
13. No One Can Control Your Emotions
14. Taking the State of Your Energy into Your Own Hands
15. Losing the Connection: You Still Love Each Other, But No Longer Connect
16. Your Parents, Your Children, and the Marital Bed
17. The Mirror of Relationships
18. Transparency in Relationships
19. Are You in Love or Do You Love?
20. Emotional Unavailability: An Introduction
21. Committed Relationships: Use Them to Grow Towards Understanding and Real Love
22. Marriage in the 21st Century: Could Cutting-Edge Spiritual Psychology Make it Viable Again?
23. Finding it Hard to Love Yourself? Check Out Your Boundaries

Photo: Blue Bay Beach, Kiwengwa, Zanzibar