Love SOS – Dealing with a relationship ending

When a relationship goes wrong it feels literally like we ourselves are ‘breaking apart’. Unless we are very fortunate indeed and meet our ‘one true love’ early on (and some lucky people do!), most of us will experience the shattering pain of heartbreak at some point in our lives – and often more than once, on our search for that special person. If that’s you right now chances are even if you’ve been in this place before, you’re wondering how you will ever get out of it. When a relationship goes wrong, our image of ourselves is not only shattered (the other person doesn’t love us), but all our hopes for the future look to have died with the relationship. This is why it hurts so much. Acknowledging the hurt and not resisting it is actually the best thing we can do at this stage and you would be surprised at how many people try to skip it (understandable – because it hurts so much!), usually by denial and jumping straight ‘back on the horse’ so to speak – the ‘I’m okay, and s/he can go f*@$! themselves’ approach. The problem with this approach is that the hurt and the pain are still there despite our actions, and also we are missing a growth opportunity – to change our energy and therefore attract a different outcome the next time. The fact is, opening up to our pain is the very process that opens up the space for a new love to appear!

In the 60’s, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross proposed there are five key stages for getting over someone dying. These stages also apply to any situation where we lose someone important to us or even something important like our jobs. These stages hold the key to us moving through the painful landscape of loss and lead us out to our destination – healing and love. We will usually experience at least three of these stages – sometimes all of them, and sometimes the order can vary. They are:

1: Denial: This can be: ‘I don’t believe this is happening’ or as I mentioned earlier, the ‘S/he can go f*@$! themselves’ approach. We can even feel euphoria as in ‘Thank God, I’m free!’. We’re hard-wired to avoid pain. It’s understandable we don’t want to go there.

2: Anger: When anger arrives it at least shows we’re no longer in denial. We’re acknowledging the pain. ‘It’s all their fault’, ‘Oh, no! Not again!’, ‘It’s not fair!’. This is the stage where some people will rush out and start dating again to ‘get back’ at the other person. Anger is not a good place to be and hanging around someone whose sole motivation for being with someone is revenge is not good karma. It’s okay to be angry – just don’t spread it around. Acknowledge where you’re at and you’ll move on much faster.

3: Bargaining: ‘Come back to me’. Owch! Bargaining can make the previous stages look like a picnic by comparison. We can debase ourselves promising we’ll change forgetting that perhaps it wasn’t our fault the relationship tanked and the most important thing of all – that for love to last the other person needs to accept us how we are – not for what they want us to change into. It’s also saying to the universe that we are not loveable just the way we are and that unless we have someone in our lives we are worthless – not good messages to broadcast! Also, please beware. If the relationship has ended due to someone’s abusive behaviour and they are now begging you to take them back and promising to change and it will ‘never happen again’ – chances are they won’t and it will. Bargaining is another way we try to avoid the pain and move through to the next stage. Sometimes we bargain with a higher power – this is often the stage we will get a reading to see if there is a chance of a reconciliation. Sometimes there is. It all depends if both parties are willing to acknowledge what caused the break-up and deal with it.

4: Depression: ‘I’ll never be happy again’. ‘Love sucks’. Arriving at this stage shows we are now firmly grounded in reality. We have accepted the relationship is over. No matter how painful things are, this is the point where true healing starts to enter our hearts as we grieve and let go.

5: Acceptance: ‘I’m going to be okay’. We’ve done some powerful soul work by this stage. Our depression lifts and we emerge with new insights into ourselves and our relationship needs and we now see the old relationship through new eyes. We may have insights into why it didn’t work out and possibly why the person might not have been right for us. We’ve changed energetically and we can look forward to now attracting new love into our lives with the promise of perhaps a different outcome next time.

Every relationship we attract fuels our soul growth no matter whether it lasts or not. We have many many soul contracts with many many souls. When we start to see each encounter as a soul evolution opportunity for both us and the other person, love then becomes the only result of the relationship – no matter how it ends up.