Moving Through the Pain of Past Relationship Breakup.

Copyright (c) 2010 Katherine Bouglai

Whether you were the one to break up with someone or your ex has broken up with you, you need to give yourself the honor of grief over the loss of love. You are not doing it for them — you are doing it for you. If you don't take the time to grief, the consequences are even more painful when it comes to future relationships. Read on to find out more.

Have you ever had to break up with someone? Even though you may have still had feelings for that person, deep inside you knew that the relationship was no longer working for you and the two of you weren't meant to be together anymore. What were your feelings as a result of having to be the one to end it? Was there guilt, fear, self-doubt, perhaps even blame? Now think about the past relationship where your ex broke up with you. Did you feel resentful, angry or righteous? Did you want to blame him for doing it to you? Those feelings are not uncommon and when we go through the breakup it is easy to get involved in anger blame and guilt rather than the deep sadness or grief we feel due to the loss of love. We try so hard not to feel the grief, we would rather focus on anger and blame. We may tell ourselves that this person who had the nerve to "dump" us is not worth grieving for. Who does he think he is to treat us like that? But the truth is, you are not grieving for him, you ! are grieving to honor yourself and your feelings. Because if you don't, you will not be available to yourself and this will cause you to attract future partners who will not be fully available to you.

Imagine going through grief as a visual picture. Think of it as being in a boat drifting by the current on a cold dark river in the forest covered by a deep fog. The only way out is not to force anything but let the current take you through. If you try to take it into your own hands and move the boat faster or look for a shortcut, you are in danger of being stuck in the stale water, sinking or getting lost by taking the wrong turn. This is what heartbreak feels like, being stuck in grief for much longer than you need to. Then we try to escape by holding on to a new feeling, a quick fix or an addiction, we take the wrong turn and get lost again. Sometimes we go back to the old flame in hopes of getting them back without forgiving them for what they did in the first place, we go against the current and take ourselves back to the starting point of our grief. Sometimes we dwell on anger and resentments only to keep ourselves stuck in stale waters. Other times we do something hur! tful to ourselves trying to hurt our ex to get back at them. So when we eventually do get out of this and move on, we don't want to get into another relationship for a long time, because we don't want to go through this pain ever again. So we stay single for years and avoid any type of intimate interaction. Or we quickly move to a new person in hopes that he will make us forget the old one. Problem is, the new relationship is not based on intimacy or connection, it is based on trying to avoid something painful in your past.

So how do you grieve? There is one powerful remedy that can help you go through the grief. This remedy may prevent your pain from turning into suffering and it may even prevent your grief from turning into a long term heartbreak. And that is not letting yourself go through it alone. The good news is that you don't have to be alone while you're going through the pain of grief. It is very important to be around people who are willing to support you and not judge you or push their own agenda on you. It is very important to honor your needs and take care of them. Even though you need others to help you go through your painful feelings, it is still your responsibility to meet your own needs.