The Paradox of Heartbreak: How I Turned Pain into Transformative Growth

It It was April 2016. I was 25, and enthusiastic about life. A work friend of mine took me along to a Lean Startup event one lunchtime, hosted by a small Melbourne startup. Upon arrival, I stood out like a sore thumb — half the people in the room were middle-aged white men in suits. The other half wore sneakers and jeans, as I’d later come to know, were startup folk.

The next day at work I received a call — it was Steve*. The following week we went for coffee under the premise of a ‘networking’ catch up, and I wasn’t surprised when he asked me out on a date. Turns out Steve and I had an apparent ‘moment’ where our eyes met at the talk. He proceeded to look me up in his attendee list, and after some quick ‘verification’ on social media, decided to call.

With nothing to lose, I said yes. After a couple of days flirtatious texting we caught up for dinner. The date followed a typical formula; bowling, drinks, dinner, and coffee. We clicked like two pieces in a puzzle. Beyond speaking about normal work or sports, our conversations were around thought-provoking topics including our purpose, personal rituals, science, and even psychology.

The evening flew, and by the end of the night, Steve walked me to my car like a true gentleman, before giving me a passionate kiss.

The Dance

The time following the initial date with Steve was magical; we spent days on end doing adventurous things such as hiking, mini-golf, and rocking climbing. He would sweetly drop clues on upcoming dates which kept me on the edge of my seat. We spoke on the phone and texted every day, between seeing each other constantly. The constant rush was fuelled further by last-minute workout sessions, surprise visits, and sneaky midday coffees in hidden Melbourne cafes.

On our third date, I was shocked to discover that Steve had mentioned me to his mum. He was the type of man to quote Stoic philosophy, and take time out from his friends to tell me that I had crossed his mind. Our connection grew deeper through our humour and a similar outlook on life, as well as my witty ability to quote references in mid-conversation, such as Adam Smith’s ‘The Invisible Hand’.

Though I was myself, there was a part of me that held back. Was all of this magic too good to be true? One night over dinner at home, Steve confronted my lack of apparent openness by saying “If you don’t open up, this will never work.”

And so I did.

The reason I was reluctant to dive head in was that I had seriously been burned in the past. Only when I started to open up to Steve did I realise that we both had endured a similar past. Fall head over heels for someone…invest…person does not commit…they continue to string you along… they go off and marry someone else. It was almost the exact same situation. As we bonded, I recall seeing Steve’s heartbroken reaction when I spoke about my past, telling me how much of a fool my ex was. We vowed not to repeat our pasts in this relationship.

Despite my best efforts and intentions, Steve eventually started backing off. By his 33rd birthday in September — four months after we had started dating, Steve and I had our first fight. I couldn’t understand why things started slipping.

Conscious of trying to validate that our meeting, connection, and emotions where more than infatuation, I did what most people would — I tried harder. Two weeks after his birthday, I sat Steve down, “We’ve been dating for like 4 months now, and I really like you. So, what’s going on between us?”

Till this day, I’ve never received a definitive answer to that question.

The Impasse

Following on from that initial discussion in September 2016, the next 18 months my ‘non’ relationship’ with Steve involved the following cycle:

• Us hanging out
• Me asking him to commit or to progress the relationship
• Him not being able to go all in
• Me getting upset
• Either him or I (mostly me) ‘breaking’ up and walking away
• Him reaching out again, or me coming back

Sprinkled in with some good memories, most of the time spent with Steve involved long, emotional conversations, and walking away.

What was worse was beyond emotionally withdrawing, Steve began to physically back away too. From sweet messages, regular conversations and lots of affection, Steve would send me one sentence every few days, and he would seldom hug, kiss, or touch me. We barely greeted each other with affection nor held hands in the street.

Similar to the fable of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, each time we went through this cycle our words carried less meaning and impact. Every time we broke up, we knew we would come back.

Despite my heartbreak, there was a part of me that intrinsically hoped that things would change; that Steve would be like the Steve I initially met, and he would start investing in me. But the more I tried, the more he would back away, often leaving me confused and riffed with self-doubt.

Over one-and-a-half year’s worth of discussions, Steve and I were never able to go away together, meet each other’s families, or celebrate milestones such as anniversaries. What pained me most was that we were playing in a grey area — and that grey area left a lot of room for ambiguity, loopholes, and hurt.

According to Gretchen Rubin’s ‘Four Tendencies’, every person adheres to one of four styles when responding to expectations. As a questioner, I logically and emotionally needed to understand why Steve couldn’t commit. Through numerous conversations I came to learn that:

• Due to family misfortunes and health challenges growing up, Steve’s parents were overprotective resulting in him feeling ‘enmeshed’
• Feeling different, being bullied, and fighting for his freedom made Steve insecure and determined to constantly validate his ego
• Three women who he was head over heels about in his past — devoting mad acts of love and service, ended up breaking his heart in the same way
• His rigorous discipline pertaining to his health, professional results, and seeking adventure was a by-product of ‘proving’ people wrong and validating his self-worth
• Success caused him to develop a “grass is greener” complex where he sought instant gratification, but once he had achieved ‘better’ he was often empty and unfulfilled
• He prioritised the ‘chase’ with women, but when good people loved him back, he would back away, sabotage the relationship, and hurt them
• He suffered analysis paralysis regarding relationships
• When people broke away from him, he would experience FOMO, regret, sentimentality, and then pull them back in fear of losing them

Regarding me specifically:

• Steve loved me but felt that something was missing (as I’d quote, he was lukewarm about me) — he said once that he loved me, but wasn’t in love with me
• He wasn’t head over heels — he was initially but not anymore
• He stopped emotionally and physically connecting with me in a bid to ‘protect’ me because any sign of love and affection would only lead me on and hurt more
• Given our non-committed state, he admitted to dating other women whenever I had asked and honestly acknowledged to have slept with some of them
• We weren’t together so although he was sorry that he had hurt me, I had no grounds to be upset
• He didn’t feel 110%, therefore, he didn’t act. He didn’t act therefore he didn’t feel 110% — he recognised this cause and effect but didn’t do anything about it

You’re selfless enough to not want to hurt me, yet you’re too selfish to fully love me, or let me go. I’m not sure if you’re even committed enough to be not committed. — Me

⇒ The Emotional Fallacy

On the outskirts, many of my close friends and family saw how much I was hurting, how hopeful I would get, and how I would return to a state of disappointment every time Steve and I went through this cycle.

Through the entire period, I tried to work through things on my end, and sought professional advice from numerous books, videos, and podcasts from relationship and psychology thought-leaders, saw a clinical psychologist, and even despite my scepticism, a spiritual medium.

They all pointed to one thing: He’s not treating you right. He’s not investing. So walk away.

Logically I knew this, but emotionally it was a totally different story. This scenario is known as a cognitive dissonance; where I justified Steve’s behaviour based on my interpretation of him. If the same situation had happened to an external family member or friend, I would have had the clarity to tell them to break away. Yet in my situation, I kept cycling the same merry-go-round.

Steve couldn’t be with me, yet he didn’t entirely want to be with me either. The state of ‘no man’s land’ or relationship limbo seeded hope and caused pain that ripped through my heart, self-confidence, and time.

Only recently I realised I continued to fight for the relationship that often felt a perverse fight alone because I saw his non-commitment as a fundamental rejection of me. And I couldn’t accept it.

This became clear in the last few times when I saw Steve and decided to return all of his gifts, cards, and drawings from the 2 year period in an A3-sized box. I watched the tears well up in his eyes, and realised that renouncing his gifts was not rejecting our memories or time together, but renouncing him. As I watched him, I recognised he was a mirror to the emotions I was feeling inside myself.

The Lessons

Connection Isn’t Enough

At the time of writing this, it seemed impossible to let Steve go because of our connection. I couldn’t imagine finding anyone with the level of emotional and intellectual spark, playfulness, and vibrant outlook on life.

We were compatible. Despite my hurt, I knew no other woman could replace what we had, or what I had to offer. I knew that. On Steve’s dates with other women, he confirmed that he often felt empty afterwards. He validated himself, but he wasn’t continuing to chase or pursue them afterwards, in fact, he wasn’t pursuing anyone.

The question haunted me if we had such an epic connection, why couldn’t we be together?

What I’ve come realise is this question isn’t the one that matters. The adage goes, “Love is a verb. What matters is how you show up for each other every single day.” And how Steve was showing up for me — if he was — wasn’t enough. I had vocalised this numerous times; how I wanted to be treated, but it seemed to fall on deaf ears because nothing changed. Steve recognised what he had to work through — we both did. But nothing seemed to shift the needle forward.

Consider how hard it is to change yourself and you’ll understand what little chance you have at trying to change others. — Jacob M Braude

Irrespective of how he kicked goals in his professional life or fitness, I wouldn’t extrapolate Steve’s success to how he treated me. According to international love coach Matthew Hussey, you can have an awesome connection with someone, but if they don’t invest back, it’s always going to be a one-sided streak.

Connection is the element that brings two people onto the dancefloor, but effort is what keeps them tangoing.

The words ‘I love you’ aren’t enough; they’re only words. What makes them enough is choice; constantly choosing to love. What are you going to choose? — Wong Fu Productions

Don’t Settle for Lukewarm

In a world of instant gratification and the immediate validation we get with technology, a paradox has occurred where our standards have dropped. Anthropology tells us that humans used to thrive in communities and get their needs met through a tribal network. In a modern, individualistic society, we now seek our needs from one person; our partner, making it virtually impossible for one person to fill the same shoes.

The consequence of this is that when we’re in a relationship, we live in a state of fear and scarcity. Fearing that we can lose someone instantly results in us not valuing someone on their effort or intent but on their potential.

The dangerous thing is that it’s common for people — in particular women to hope for change through a ‘one-day wager’. In most cases, it’s hope that their partner will become better. For me, it was even more dangerous because I had seen Steve’s effort in the past, and I was hedging my bets on a toxic gamble with time.

Brain research shows that the withdrawal of love activates the same mechanisms in our brain that are activated when addicts are withdrawing from substances like cocaine. By continuing to validate my knowledge or understand why Steve didn’t want to be with me, I was picking at the wound. I was simply adding fuel to the fire and getting my ‘Steve’ fix while feeding my hope.

There is no such thing as getting full closure; disinterest is closure in itself. As The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck author Mark Manson says, if somebody isn’t a f*ck yes about you, they’re a f*ck no.

Don’t be afraid of rejection. What was rejection soon becomes release. When you think you were prevented or stopped from having something, after a little while, you’ll realise you were being protected. — Bob Goff

Live by Your Standards

Your standards are the guiding principles of what you live by. They are the compass to what is acceptable and unacceptable in a friendship, family, or relationship. Though my relationship with Steve, I tried to uphold my standards only when those standards were broken.

It’s important to define your standards at the beginning of a relationship, in a communicative, non-confrontational way. For me, my initial chat around commitment in September 2016 contained my standards, however, they weren’t backed up with consistency when Steve couldn’t reciprocate.

Consciously or not, I made it acceptable not to uphold my standards whenever I accepted Steve coming back or came back to him each time we broke up. Bad behaviour and connection became normalised, which in turn continued to fuel the cycle. Upholding your standards involve a trifecta of integrity; your thoughts, words, and actions need to align. I needed to have my thoughts, words, and actions align with Steve’s investment, and not his words.

Specifically, this was important around the contentious topic of him dating other people. Logically it made sense; we weren’t in a committed relationship so it was still anyone’s game. But I wasn’t dating anyone else. My standard and values around monogamy and infidelity became lost in a grey area. Labels aside, I had been with Steve for over 2 years and would not accept an open relationship. But more than saying it, I needed to demonstrate it.

According to leading relationship therapist Esther Perel, infidelity isn’t about someone not being attracted to other people. Loyalty exists when someone can be attracted to other people but are solely loyal and in love with you.

It means that they stick around by choice, not because they haven’t found anything better.

More than feeling rejected, Steve’s dating made me feel disrespected. He loved our connection but was still seeking external validation and something better. Steve was simply sitting on the fence, compartmentalising the part of him that loved or thought of me, while he went off in pursuit of ego validation and gratification.

Not sure what your standards are? I’ve created this Love Desires TEMPLATE which will help you determine what you value and what your standards are according to 12 categories.

It Always Takes Two to Tango

The reason we haven’t been tangoing is that I feel like the music is samba. It’s difficult to tango if the music is samba. — Steve

While he felt like he was dancing to the wrong music, I felt like I was dancing alone in the dark.

I knew Steve was still dating other women, albeit occasionally, and though he was honest I would always get upset. It didn’t change the fact that he was. In one conversation he told me that if I were doing the same he’d feel relief — some of the guilt he was feeling about hurting me would somehow become justified.

In a relationship, it takes two people to equally come to the table. Any imbalance will manifest in problems — whether it be trust, communication, progress, or affection.

I couldn’t trust that he loved me or that when he came back it was for the right reasons; did he love me or was his FOMO, validating self who was afraid of loss?

Never Give Up Giving Up

“Winners quit all the time. They just quit the right stuff at the right time.” — Seth Godin

Drawing inspiration from the Australian Anti-Smoking campaign, my tenacity in investing in this failing relationship only escalated with time. Because I had invested so heavily and for so long, I didn’t recognise that just because it had been 2 years, it didn’t mean that the relationship was right. Subconsciously I always saw Steve as the person he was two years ago, and thought to myself, “If you give up, you’re a quitter.”

Steve was an amazing man, and in some ways still is. However we constantly evolve and change, and just because he was great in a relationship in the early stages, it doesn’t mean he was with me now. I didn’t think that there was something wrong with him per se, but there were problems that needed to be addressed.

Fighting for your goals is the same as fighting to heal or move past something. As we should be pragmatic and consistent with our endeavours to work on a goal, we also need to understand the reasons not to.

The reason I continued to suffer was due to the refusal of the failing relationship, and that I didn’t get the result I had wanted. Rephrasing Einstein, I was doing the same thing over and hoping that I’d get different results.

Letting go was something I seriously struggled with over the 18 month period. But every time I let go, I became stronger and better at it. There is no formula for letting go or moving past someone, but the key is to keep trying. Having realistic sense checks also help keep you on the right track.

• How is this relationship making me feel?
• What do I get out of this relationship?
• What do I want to feel within my ideal relationship?
• What would I do differently next time?

According to TED talk speaker and psychologist Guy Winch, heartbreak bears all the hallmarks of traditional loss and grief; insomnia, intrusive thoughts, and immune system dysfunction.

As he says in his TED, “Heartbreak isn’t a journey, it’s a fight. And you need something else as well: you have to be willing to let go, to accept that it’s over. Otherwise, your mind will feed on your hope and set you back. Hope can be incredibly destructive when your heart is broken.”

Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go. — Hermann Hesse

There is No Such Thing as ‘Fair’ When it Comes to Love

Besides feeling consistently rejected I also felt a strong sense of injustice towards Steve and his past.

With a particular ex, Steve was infatuated. He would bend over backwards, clear his schedule, and go to the “ends of the earth” getting meaningful gifts, cooking, and going to extraordinary places with her. To this day, I know that he still sees and speaks to her despite her being married.

Whether he saw her or not was irrelevant, I did not feel the same level of dedication or loyalty. For the longest time, I couldn’t help but draw the comparison. What was so good about her?

Until one day, Steve said to me, “It isn’t about her, that’s the past.”

I have less than 10 photos with Steve over a 2 year period. Furthermore, we weren’t friends or connected on social media, which was less about “showcasing” our relationship to the world, but about normalising our relationship. Because things weren’t simple, something as straightforward as posting a photo never happened.

If you didn’t know us personally, you would’ve never guessed that Steve and I were intimately related.

But even disregarding the ex who significantly impacted Steve’s life, I came across a photo of Steve and one of his ‘ex’s’ from a few months before we met — about two and a half years ago on one of social media channels. Again, he would never be inclined to post anything with me.

Hearing stories like when he was younger he would lie to his parents and drive 800 km (500 miles) at night to see an ex who cheated on him, or how his first girlfriend slept around seemed to add salt to the wound.

How could I be so caring, loving, supportive, and attracted to him, yet for the longest time he couldn’t even pick up the phone or ask me to dinner in words more than “Dinner sometime?”. It wasn’t even about sex. We weren’t intimate because he was “protecting me”.

I wasn’t a girlfriend but I was too complicated to be a friend. I kept feeling the imbalance of equality and how my love was never fully reciprocated.

Then one night, Steve detailed a 9-page document outlining his upbringing and experiences, giving me a better understanding of why he is the way he is. But justifying it through “why” gave me no relief.

The fact is: there is no fair in love.

Things are never equal, but they should be balanced. It’s where imbalances exist that problems arise.

There are many types of love in the world but never the same love twice. — F. Scott Fitzgerald

Every Moment is a Conscious Choice

As British singer C.J Lewis said, “This moment contains all moments.” We are the culmination of each and every one of our decisions, choices, and actions leading up to this very moment we live.

By choosing Steve and resisting the reality of our relationship, I was fuelling the engine to keep the vicious cycle going.

So how do you break the toxic cycle?

I had two choices; I could wait for a change I could never be sure of, or I could create the reality I wanted to. By focusing on what was in the realm of my control, I could divert my energy on activities, people, and experiences that grew me and yielded positivity.

We are so careful to take care of our physical health that sometimes we neglect our emotional health. Guy Winch termed “emotional hygiene” in that just as you would brush your teeth twice a day, careful reflection, meditation, and sense-checks can improve your emotional well-being.

There are two types of pain in the world. The pain of disappointment and the pain of discipline. If you can endure the pain of discipline, you’ll never have to endure the pain of disappointment. — Nick Saban

The Final Act

When the final stages of a stage play close you’re often left with feelings of melancholy. On a journey that spanned over 2 years, addressing the lessons I’ve shared has been a continuous concerted effort. Healing and moving forward isn’t about being perfect, but through sharpening your saw constantly.

I won’t say the journey has been easy and short of sleepless nights, countless tears, and feeling like my heart has been ripped out of my chest. But instead, I share my scars of survival, tenacity, and learning. It is to not only acknowledge what I’ve been through but to help you in some way, by sharing how I’ve overcome this adversity — and in many ways still are.

Don’t Take Things Personally

One of the biggest takeouts is something that I had come across many years before; Don Miguel Ruiz’s third agreement: “don’t take things personally”. Through my heartbreak with Steve I draw from this phrase regularly and remind myself:

There are things I could’ve handled better. But I did my best. I’ve done all I could, and I have no regrets.

Everything everyone says or does is a reflection of their reality; their mindset; their experiences and lens of the world. On numerous occasions, I had discussions with Steve where we’d explore our problems, his inability to go all in given that “something was missing”, yet he wasn’t able to let go either.

It’s not about not caring about what other people think. It’s acting despite it. I knew fundamentally I was an amazing catch, and having the core confidence that irrespective of what happened, I was secure enough in myself to know that no one would care or put up with what I had been through.

But the problems weren’t about me. They were about him. And what I had to take out of this was my responsibility for my actions and responses and the part I had in contributing to this vicious cycle. Taking responsibility means acknowledging what happened, learning, and moving forth.

Draw on Your Vision

Understanding what you want in a relationship is the first step to nurturing one that you want. Just like you can only manage what you can measure, you can’t assess the health of your relationship by blindly existing in one.

Whether it’s monthly couple check-ins, or a weekly routine that you share together; such as taking a candle-lit bath, having a mechanism to break the rapport of default relationship momentum is vital.

Three simple things I learned from this experience is:

• Time is our most valuable asset, you can’t make more of it
• Trust can’t be manufactured. It’s built over time. Trust works by making deposits of effort and investment into someone’s personal bank account
• Things should be easy

A few months back I took an A3 piece of paper out and decided to map out a current state Venn diagram of my relationship with Steve. Where we were, what we had, and what I wanted. I listed good things and bad things I liked and had a short timeline of our journey at the bottom of the page.

I found this exercise so useful that I’ve decided to create a Relationship Vision TEMPLATE for you here.

“True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.” — Seneca

Conditions for Commitment

If there was a formula for getting the man or woman of your dreams to commit to you there wouldn’t be the thousands of songs, poems, plays, and movies that have been written about heartbreak. While there are no guaranteed conditions for a healthy, committed relationship, there are particular traits I’ve come to learn are universal for an attractive woman of high value:

• Self-confidence: Self-confidence is the belief and actions that demonstrate that you can be OK on your own, therefore you’re not afraid of enforcing your standards for fear of losing the person. Confidence is for a woman to have certainty about her worth; a deep feeling of what she wants or deserves. She can articulate these needs or walk away.
• Femininity: A woman who is independent and confident, but recognises a man for his value and what he can bring to the table. Femininity is a choice of relating to a male’s need to nurture and protect
• Independence: Having a life that you adore. It’s all the elements that make up you; a career, family, friends, hobbies, passions. Every man wants to feel like he can add to an already spectacular life, not be the centre of your universe
• Integrity: You stick to your guns. You have values and standards that you live by and uphold and you don’t compromise on them.

We come into relationships not to find extraordinary experiences, but to experience them.

For a relationship to be a truly optimal relationship, five conditions between both parties are:

• Self-worth; the ability to love yourself unconditionally
• Living your passions
• Pacing the relationship
• Slow change
• Communication

But for males, the conundrum of entering a relationship is depicted excellently through Wait But Why:

Attracting and retaining partner is dependent upon meeting his needs: excitement, variability, chemistry, and connection. According to psychologist and author Raj Persaud, the key to maintaining a long-term relationship is through filling an unmet need. What this means is that for men he needs to feel like his needs are being met both in the relationship as it would be when he was single.

Exclusivity truly happens when we don’t need to force it to happen.

He’s the one to sell himself on you when you’re not there. If he doesn’t come to the table, attend a different party. Something I still struggle with on occasion is that self-assurity is the sexiest trait in the world. While I knew I was irreplaceable, my inability to set parameters with Steve meant he would always have the upper hand with the relationship.

We went to limbo because I let him. He slept with other people because I came back when I said it was unacceptable. He pulled away because I continually chased. This isn’t about shifting blame, but recognising that we all have a choice to determine the outcomes and direction of our relationships.

Other research from Dawn Meslar suggests that chemically, women and men fall in love under different conditions. For women, dopamine and oxytocin are the drivers for falling in love. Oxytocin is drastically produced via orgasm, which is interesting because there is merit in Steve’s backing away. He didn’t want me to fall in love with him further.

For men, testosterone changes this situation. Dopamine still is a driver, but for men, vasopressin is what enables them to ‘fall in love’. In short, men fall in love when they commit. Despite knowing this, I had a choice of what I wanted to do, as would Steve. No one can act for anyone else.

The most dangerous thing about regret is you don’t feel it yet.

Determine What You’re Fighting For

While the first few months of our relationship were nothing short of spectacular, I shuddered at the thought that it was our “honeymoon” period of infatuation.

Relationships can remain full of passion, excitement, and love, but it only happens through one condition; investment. Instead of overvaluing initial passion (and my thoughts of “this is too good to be true”), I needed to look for enduring investment.

Someone who constantly shows up each day, come rain, hail, or shine and wants to work through things and be by your side is what I needed.

The truth is there is still a small part of me that hopes. I hope that one day after a significant amount of time, the penny will drop for Steve and he’ll come racing to my door with grandiose gestures of love and commitment. There is still a small part that thinks that. But I don’t hedge my life on it.

With some people, hate is the emotion they harbour after the end of a relationship and forgetting whether this is a healthy emotion or not, it helps them get through it.

A Japanese concept known as kintsugi is an ancient tradition which involved repairing broken pottery with gold. The aim was not to make the ceramic perfect again, but a certain beauty existed in something being “imperfect”. I needed to embrace the imperfections of the relationship and be grateful for the beauty that did exist.

For me, it’s not about “shoving it” in Steve’s face or trying to make the relationship perfect, but moving on. Not living with a one-day wager. Once people realise that you’re living your life and got other things going on for you, and meeting other exciting people, he’ll realise he’s met an equal, not someone who will just follow him.

The cliche saying that “If you truly love someone set them free, and if they come back they were truly meant for you” doesn’t pertain to love, but also life. All the things I loved and wanted with Steve, I want more broadly for myself. These things include:

• Passion and affection
• Trust
• Communication
• Connection
• Adventure, laughs, and fun
• Progress
• Investment
• Growth and challenge

At different stages of the relationship, I had some, if not all of these components. Instead of narrowing my vision on “It has to be Steve” expanding my thinking to realise that it wasn’t Steve that I wanted per se, but the conditions of a happy, positive relationship.

As I’ve slowly started to learn and embrace this I’m becoming more to terms with understanding that though breaking up with someone hurts, and in my case immensely, it doesn’t mean it’s the wrong thing; but it’s part of the teething progress.

I also know that to really heal from something is to be able to acknowledge it and share what you’ve learned with others. Through my vulnerable and often raw story, if I am able to help anyone, everything I had been through would serve a greater purpose.

Originally published at www.reintention.com on May 11, 2018.