si dawson

I’ve been on a dating site recently. Not with any significant expectations (I trust the universe to look after me), more just about “keeping the door open” and passing the time.

However, I noticed myself slipping into compulsive behaviour. Checking the site way more times than strictly necessary. And really, how often is “necessary” anyway? Once a year? Once a week? Once a day? Once an hour?

But I digress.

As with most forms of escapism, once I spotted it, I wanted to get to the root of it, and clear it out.

After I got quiet and focused in on what I was feeling and what my motivations were for constantly checking the site, I realised Dean Martin summed it up perfectly decades ago.

 

See, the real problem is, this concept is insidious. It’s everywhere.

How many films are there where a couple start out together, then breaks up and are happier being single at the end of the movie?

How many adverts involve someone being perfectly happy being by themselves?

Versus, of course, the exact opposite.

The media tells us, constantly, that we can only be happy if we’re in a relationship. That really, we only have value, that we’re only lovable if we’re in a relationship.

None of this is news to you, I’m sure. But holy crap, how twisted is that?

And of course, I realised this was exactly the rabbit hole I’d fallen into.

I had a whole raft of beliefs along these lines:

• I need the love of a good, beautiful woman
• I’m happiest when I’m loved – I feel I can kick ass and achieve anything
• I have no value unless someone else values me
• I’m not lovable unless someone else shows this by loving me
• I’m somehow failing unless I’m in a relationship
• I’m not important/don’t have value unless someone better than me loves me (whoa!)
• I’m not attractive unless someone attractive/amazing wants me

… and so on.

You can immediately see how these beliefs both set me up for instant failure (default mode: unhappy, unattractive, unloved), but also are self-defeating. Why would someone else want to love me if I don’t love myself?

Of course, the good news is – as always – the hardest bit is seeing these beliefs.

Once you see them, you can very easily drop them.

So, just to be thorough, how can we get all of these beliefs to the surface?

What worked for me was asking myself questions like:

• How would I feel if I never had another partner?
• How do I feel about being alone?
• How do I feel about being alone for the entire rest of my life?
• What if no-one attractive ever wanted me again? (ie, I had to compromise or settle not to be alone)
• What if I was never loved again?
• What if I never experienced love again? (slightly different phrasing often helps)
• What feeling will I have when I have this partner?

(then imagine, and feel these feelings as strongly as you can – to really dig everything up. Tapping 2″ down and across from the beginning of your collar bone (point 7) can also help you “tune in” to these feelings more strongly)

As well as these, there will always be the ever present feelings of “wanting or lacking love/approval.”

To some of these, you may feel a general, non-specific energy coming up. To some you may get specific phrases or beliefs bubbling to the surface.

To the non-specific energy, I’d recommend just letting the energy go – you don’t need to know what it is to get rid of it.

Specific beliefs or thoughts are pretty straightforward to dump too. Use whatever tools work for you. These days I tend to simply choose to let the belief/energy go, or let the picture go. You could also tap them out, etc etc.

Either way, once you can see/feel these things coming up you can easily drop them all.

Then, just go back to the questions, and keep going over them until you feel completely at peace. Completely at ease. Completely loving about being alone.

Take that, Dean Martin. You can be somebody, even if nobody loves you. Hello? Who should love us the most? US OF COURSE!

The paradox here is that when you’re in this state, you immediately become more attractive. Why? Because you’re dropping any sense of neediness or desperation. You become more loving. You become more centred and connected with yourself. Less pulled around by the vagaries of other people.

Which of course, makes you more attractive.

Hilariously ironic really, this life of ours.

Oh, and the dating site? Yeah. I’m now checking it 10x less, but more importantly, with a definite feel of “Well, this is very nice, but really, whatever.” Win.

Relationship break-ups suck. There’s no two ways about it.

They hurt.

However, we have to get through them. We don’t (usually) have the freedom to hide in bed for six months (or three years) until all the pain goes away.

So, what to do?

Well. I’ve had a lot of breakups in my life. So I’ve learned a bit. I’d like to share what I’ve picked up along the way.

There are two places all this pain we’re feeling comes from:

1. OUR SHIT
Things we’ve done (or didn’t do). Horrible things we’ve said. Things we should have done differently. Regrets and self-blame, in short.

2. THEIR SHIT
Horrible things they’ve said. Horrible things they’ve done.

Once you are in a relationship for any length of time these things pile up. Breakups can take years to get over, if you wait for time to slowly heal everything.

(This is also why I recommend healing everything like crazy while you’re in the relationship).

You can understand why people so often just jump into something new (the so called “rebound relationship”). To distract themselves, avoid dealing with the pain, and so on. See also booze, work and all the other usual forms of escapism.

Of course, this is kinda silly – you just take the same junk and pain with you into your new relationship. Which rarely helps.

ANYWAY.

In terms of cleaning up efficiently, aka, getting over them and getting yourself back together, it’s easiest to start with our own shit.

It’s much easier to forgive ourselves for past mistakes than to let go of perceived hurts by another. So, begin there.

For a start, everything is in the past (as long as we’re not continuing to be horrible to our now ex). We can’t change it. So, the least we can do is let go of feeling bad about the mistakes we’ve made.

Once we’re done with our own mistakes, and we feel peaceful and loving towards ourselves (regardless of how we feel about them), then we can get started on the harder side of things. Them.

See, the trouble with breakups is, unless one person is a sociopath (or otherwise broken), both people generally come out of it feeling like they got the worse deal. The most pain. The most inconvenience. The shitty end of the stick.

So, while we may think of four or five awful things we did wrong, we can easily think of dozens of things they did.

But that’s ok. It just means their side will take a little longer to work through.

HOW TO DO THIS

Oh, I almost forgot.

How to do all this?

Well, as always, forgiveness is key. In brief: imagine them in front of you, and say “I forgive you“ to them. Then, say “I’m sorry, please forgive me“ for all the things you did to hurt them (even if you have no idea what they were). Repeat until you don’t feel any emotional charge doing each of these things.

Ok, that’s the fast bit.

Now, start with all the things you did/said wrong. Take each item one at a time, focus on it, and just feel the pain rising. Usually, as this emotion comes up, there’ll be a physical component – we’ll feel it in our body, as well as the emotional/energetic component.

Next, very simply say “I love you” to the pain, and let the energy/feeling/pain go. Say “I love you” and mean it. That’s really the key.

You’re here to get rid of this pain, there’s no point being half-arsed about it.

So, call up whatever’s happened, say “I love you” and let it go. Rinse and Repeat until done.

You’ll know you’re done when there’s no more energy or emotion around the event. You’ll know you’re done when you feel peaceful or even loving about it.

Yes, this is very similar to the simple meditation I told you about.

Why should this be any surprise? We’re talking about being loving – the highest state of being – just in a very focused area, rather than your entire life.

Once you can’t think of any other ways you’ve hurt them, you’re probably done.

Next, work through the (usually larger) list of things that they’ve done to hurt you. Say “I love you” to each item and let the energy/feeling/emotion go. Keep saying “I love you” and letting it go until you’re peaceful and/or loving about it. Then move to the next thing, until you can’t think of any way they’ve hurt you that has any emotional charge left to it.

Do the forgiveness thing again (both ways) and voila. All that crappy energy is gone.

The last thing to watch for is any residual yet unidentifiable feelings. Often we’ll have just a general crappy aura towards them – without it being about any specific thing, or identifiable event. That’s ok – just focus on the feeling as before, say “I love you” and let it dissolve. You don’t have to vocalise the issue to clear it.

WHAT ABOUT THEM?

Not everyone heals their pain. Some people continue to act it out, in relationship after relationship. These are also the kinds of people that have the same relationship, over and over, with different people. The same angry controlling partners. The same fights. And so on.

So, what do you do if, mid-breakup, your ex is continuing to act out their pain towards you?

For a start, forgive them for being a dick. There’s a thousand reasons someone may not be healing things or moving on as quickly as you are. Everyone has stresses and difficulties in their lives that are difficult to understand from outside.

Secondly, there’s a secret to how relationships work. As we get to know someone, we build up a connection to them. For any relationship of any intensity or length, that connection can be very strong.

Imagine there’s a cord, running from your heart to theirs. We have these (effectively) with every person we interact with. For someone we pass in the street it’ll be thinner than a hair; for our parents it’s the kind of thing you’d anchor the Titanic with; intimate relationships are somewhere in between.

The thing with these connections is this: what affects them affects us.

How is this useful? It means that we can heal them. Not of everything (we’re not living their life, and we are not the boss of them), just of their attitudes and the energy they send towards us.

Think of it this way. Imagine this cord between you is an actual rope. If they twist their end up, we can untwist it from our end. Unless they’re aggressively and consciously retwisting it, it will stay healthy. Stay normal. Stay untwisted.

So, regarding the relationship (which remember, requires both of you) whatever you heal from your end heals their end too.

Remember, you’re not doing this for them; you’re doing it for you.

So, Extra for Experts:

Think about them. Think about something that is upsetting them about you (they’ve probably told you. Several times). Focus in on that feeling in them. How it would feel for them. How upset they’d be. Say “I love you” and let the tension/energy/feeling go. Keep saying “I love you” until all that tension is gone.

If you think through all the things they’ve said have upset them, you can quickly go through and lift all this tension off.

What you’re doing here is removing negative energy that’s being aimed at you. Yes, it will help them feel better (and thus treat you nicer), but really, it’s you being the boss of your experience, being the boss of your life.

Now, depending on the intensity of the relationship, there might be a half dozen things, or (as happened to me recently) there could be a few hundred. It’s ok, there’s no rush.

Some relationships I’ve come out of and been fine within a couple of days. Some have taken weeks. Some months or even years (before I had these techniques).

Trust me on one thing though. This way? Forgiving and loving? It’s exponentially faster than any other method I’ve found.

Better yet? What you’re actually doing is healing these issues. Which means when you do finally feel you’re ready to jump back in the saddle, you won’t be attracting the same kind of yo-yos into your life. Sorry, did I say that? I meant, the universe won’t need to bring you those same lessons, because you will have learned (healed) them already.

You’ll move up. To someone so much better, so much more perfect for you.

And until they do turn up? You’ll be peaceful, loving and much, much happier.