Healing from Heartbreak

I believe being able to be comfortable alone is important before getting into a partnership. 

After a breakup it can be helpful to take some time to process the heartbreak (this time period will depend from person to person)… If your goal is to commit to a long-term relationship and you don’t reflect on what contributed to the breakdown of your last relationship, chances are you will only repeat the same pattern.

I think the relationships we have with others is a reflection of the relationship we have with ourselves. A relationship is like a mirror - it asks you to be vulnerable, it reflects your flaws, your triggers and it holds you accountable. Being able to maintain a long-term relationship asks you to raise to new standards of behaviours, new ways of relating, and to take accountability for your own conditioning around attachment. 

After losing many people in my life in 2018, I decided I was tired of living afraid. I booked a self-love retreat on the other side of the world, in Bali. A full 30 hours of flights later, I met women I didn’t know to spend a week cohabiting. It was the boldest move and the best decision I could have made. Through this personal project of seeking real confidence, I opened my mind to so many new possibilities. Since then I’ve embarked on two other retreats, each one of them bringing me incredible clarity into my most authentic self and allowing me to connect to other women in ways that are fulfilling my need for community and sisterhood. Sometimes what we need is simply a place ‘safe enough’ to be vulnerable and being met with tenderness. Being held in a space where there is no judgement, just love and acceptance... and it does not have to be exclusive to a romantic relationship.

Sometimes it’s easier to pretend a relationship is 'perfect' than to take accountability for how you might be enabling unhealthy relational patterns. It’s easier to put all our energy on others, our love and the blame then to look at ourselves in depth. But you can’t be covering up deep wounds with band-aids.

There is one thing I learned through meeting my pain with compassion : there’s a great story waiting for you if you give yourself a chance. It is not a fairytale where you get saved. You heal by learning to love yourself, the humanity and imperfections, the insecurities, the successes.

Every time you get rejected, it is a chance for you to look inward and redirect that energy into your dreams. You get more clear on what you do desire and what you won’t tolerate... It is not an invitation to convince them of your worth.

On the difficult road of heartbreaks, you can learn to befriend your emotions. Someone loving you can’t fully change how you feel about yourself, it has to come from within. When you enter a relationship to avoid feelings of loneliness, it puts you at risk of overlooking ‘red flags’ and it doesn’t help you build a strong foundation for a healthy relationship. Feelings of loneliness might be a signal you feel disconnected from yourself. This can be an opportunity to seek a love that isn't conditional to external factors and to embark on your own self-love journey.