One of my favorite pleasures is exposing you to other amazing teachers you should know. Today, meet the lovely Coach Neek. There’s a great deal of overlap in our work. Her lessons on love, life and heartbreak are transformative.
Today she is addressing a teaching I offer often: “When in doubt about who to love, always choose you.” -aa
Conversations on Heartbreak by Coach Neek
I will be the first to tell you, I tried to find my happily ever after and I have experience that disappointing twang of someone not loving me as much as I love them. Then I recognized my error, I forgot to love myself more. That doesn’t mean I came from a place of low self-worth, no; I just became so wrapped up in love, in the relationship and taking care of the other person that I lost my ability to recognize if the love I was experiencing was the right kind of love, a healthy kind of love. The kind of love that encourages me individually to grow, as importantly as, the relationship.
Being emotionally vulnerable and available is hard to do especially for the woman who has been disappointed by others. The type of disappointment that a woman experiences when she realizes the moment she has been waiting for (like love and commitment from the one she loves) is never going to happen.
This disappointment that changes a woman from being open to life and it’s possibilities to being closed and secluded from life’s vibrant offerings. One of the hardest challenges about loving another person is not knowing whether it is going to last or not. A second challenge is recognizing whether it’s actually a healthy love. A third challenge is not allowing disappointment to become bitterness, a toxic emotion to one’s spirit, if the love doesn’t prove true.
With all of the romantic comedies, princess stories and the reoccurring theme of happily ever after we have been spoon fed, we begin to internalize the unrealistic expectations that love is easy, relationship are managed with little effort, and self-love is automatic. However, somewhere after we experience life unexpected twists and turns and the disappointment of failing to capturing our happily ever after, we are usually and divinely reminded we can create our own reality, our own healing and find health in abundance and in turn find love, a healthy love. But are we paying enough attention to recognize our power to create our healing process or do the conversations of our heartbreak cloud our judgment and harden our hearts?
While no one ever said, it would be easy to overcome a heartache, I am a firm believer that it does take not just time, but effort. Lasting effort, the return to happiness, is the result of healing from one’s heartache, not just overcoming it.
Here are 4 suggestions to begin healing after the breakup and take back your sense of self:
1. Be positive on purpose.
There will be sense of loss and mourning you will experience-for the time you put in the relationship, your dreams of the future, and your identity of being your former lover’s significant other. There will be a roller coaster of emotions you will experience.
There will lots of crying that you do. Allow yourself those moments. However, be mindful to not allow those moments and those emotions to overtake your sensibility. Be positive on purpose. Increase your mindfulness of what you are experiencing by journaling your thoughts. If journaling is not your thing, try drawing or painting, putting a collage together or even creating a break-up playlist. Those activities allow you to develop a healthier mind state, reducing your sadness and giving you a creative outlet to express your emotions. Eventually, healthy thinking leads to healthy results.
2. Pamper yourself. Love yourself well.
Start with something simple. Cleanse your face with a nice warm soft cloth. Leave the cloth on your eyes for about 20 seconds. Remove the cloth. Inhale deep through your nose and exhale out of your mouth. Create that experience as often as you can. It doesn’t take a big budget to pamper you. You just have to take the time to do it.
3. After the breakup, practice forgiveness.
Experiencing heartbreak is emotionally overwhelming. A lot of times after a break-up, we want to beat ourselves up for the warning signs we ignored, for what we didn’t see coming, or for loving the person to begin with. We are beautifully human. Love is the gift that is precious to give and to receive. Begin again by loving who you are and understand life is evolutionary. This is a new beginning for you. Embrace it.
4. Develop a system of self-care.
When you put together 1, 2 and 3, you begin to create a system of self-care that allows you to take care of yourself unselfishly. A routine that allows you to invest into yourself mind, body and spirit. This is important before and after the breakup.
This system transforms your healing, allowing you to fully embrace life’s vibrant colors once again. It is a system that you will add a little, take some way and may not do some things at all, but you will develop a rhythm. This rhythm will turn that heartbreak into a heart healed and you will understand what it takes to reclaim your sense of self.
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About Coach Neek: Coach Neek is a Certified Holistic Life Coach & Sexpert with over 11 years of mental health experience. She helps women heal from their emotional wounds by creating a system of self-care that allows a woman to take care of her unselfishly. Coach Neek teaches healthy living strategies that encourages a woman to heal from her emotional baggage, trust her inner self and improve the intimacy in her relationships. Find out more about Coach Neek and her own emotional detox by visiting her blog,TheIntimacyMiniManual.com.
