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Breakups seem to always be a part of the relationship conversations we have:
Going through a breakup, coming out of a breakup, trying to avoid a breakup, heading towards a breakup, and several other variations. Once that breakup occurs, often times we tend to look at those relationships, or the people in them, as having been a waste of time and energy. It is very common to hear someone say, “I gave everything and got nothing,” or “I put all of my time and energy into them, and for what?” A personal favorite of mine is “I turned them into a great partner…for their next partner.” I get it. I get all of it; I have been there many times.
What if we were able to set aside feelings of loss and anger for a moment and look from another perspective? To be clear, I do not advocate for ignoring the emotions that come up. However, there is a powerful breakthrough available by trying on this different point of view.
What if you could approach a breakup like school?
We move through elementary school making friends, having “non-friends,” learning lessons, having teachers we resonate with or don’t, becoming a certain version of ourselves and then…we graduate. Elementary school ends and we get to feel excited, nervous, joyful, sad and a whole array of other things. We have our lessons, we move onto middle school with some of the same friends as others go to different schools, and we have those feelings of moving into something new. In middle school, we learn more, go through physical transformations, become an upgraded version of ourselves, deepen our experiences while we broaden our world view, and then…that ends. From here we graduate to high school, where we have new experiences that resemble what we went through before, however, we are very different people at this point.
So, what if we chose to view our relationships like this? That every relationship is learning, growing, understanding, deepening, and if it ends, we graduate to the next one? Even if a relationship occurs as horrible and awful, it is like . . . the 8th-grade Spanish teacher I couldn’t stand, yet I learned a whole other skill set from navigating her and her class.
What if, when a relationship ends, you could ask yourself these questions:
- How deep did I love?
- How deep did I go?
- How vulnerable was I?
- How much was I willing to give and how much was I willing to receive?
- Did I discover my “breaking point” and was that breaking point more or less lenient than it could have been?
- Did I have workable boundaries and were they respected by the other person, and by me?
Yes, the hurt and anger and sense of loss can come up. You also get to take stock of who you got to become in that relationship and what you have to offer the next one.
I can say that I have been on several different sides of breakups: I have filed a restraining order; I have had someone walk out on me; I have been through a divorce where the relationship was worked on and worked on and worked on and just didn’t work; and I have been taken for granted and had trust broken. Even given the pain of these particular relationships and how they ended, the real truth is that I grew from them. I grew from understanding why I was in them and why they ended, but mostly, I grew from recognizing my growth. I grew from understanding my place in creating those relationships and I grew from investing in my sense of self and knowing more and more, who I am and what I have to offer.
Finally, I grew from recognizing the things that I want and don’t want from a partner. We tend to spend so much time focusing on the negatives. What about the accolades and acknowledgment for growth? After all, when you graduate from one school and move onto the next, you get a diploma. What would your diploma say?
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