For many people, romantic love is a fantastic experience made up of happiness, joy, affection, compassion, and euphoria. There is no other time when people are more focused on love as during February with Valentine’s Day.
While many people enjoy the showering of gifts that say I love you, like red roses, chocolates, and jewelry, some are experiencing heartbreak during the holiday of love.
As a result of a broken heart, many people are jaded and pessimistic about love and find Valentine’s Day depressing and disturbing. For them, love is not a thing to celebrate.
Most people attribute their broken hearts to the person that they loved and didn’t love them back. It might be that the person that they loved ended the relationship, causing them to have a broken heart. The reasons for a broken heart are as many as the ways people love each other or not.
When I reflected on my previous romantic relationships, I found where I had experienced many broken heart symptoms. There were times after a breakup when I could not find my appetite or get out of the grief.
The hopelessness of a broken heart can have devastating effects on our ability to open up to love again. How do we put the pieces of our broken hearts back together?
The following three words come to mind when I think about how I mended my broken heart.
- Awareness: How willing am I to reflect on my part in a ‘failed’ relationship? Am I willing to see my role in contributing to the breakdown? Did I come out of it with more self-awareness?
- Boundaries: How did my lack of boundaries impact my ‘failed’ relationships? Was I lax in my protecting my own heart? Was I too caught up in loving someone else to love myself?
- Compassion: Did I somehow wallow in the grief and sorrow of the breakup, ignoring my need to be cared for lovingly? How did I abandon my self-care when living with my broken heart? Was I more compassionate with others than myself at a time when I needed me the most?
It takes a lot to dig deep and find the answers to these three questions for ourselves. It seems to be a part of the healing process of putting the pieces of our hearts back together.
In the end, I have come to accept that no one else breaks my heart. I might break my own heart by ‘falling’ in love with another person who might not be invested in love at the same level as me. I now own my part in experiencing a broken heart because I have reflected on my past relationships to learn from them.
If you find yourself with a broken heart, discover how you can accept and love yourself until the ‘right’ one comes along to love you in the ways that put all of the pieces back together.
Some of the world’s most awe-inspiring art is a mosaic; putting our heart back together makes for a beautiful heart mosaic!!!
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This post is republished on Medium.
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