Can I do it? 

Here's the thing. Love is strange. Not only is it emotional, but it is energetic. When you are in love it affects the heart, the mind, the soul, and the body. We can love with our whole beings and our energies intertwine as though we are one. Our bodies connect vibrationally with the one we love and we are connected. This can feel so great and rewarding. When we are with the one we love, it feels complete.

A problem happens when there is a separation. If the person you love leaves abruptly, leaves from breaking up, leaves because of death or moving etc, it is painful on a physical level as well as a spiritual and emotional level. The pain can be so intense that a person may shut down for years or decades. Many people say it feels like they actually died, but were somehow still alive. Their heart almost stopped and their lives felt empty and useless.

Love is . . . Tricky

When we lose someone, we may feel broken-hearted.  It can actually feel like your heart muscle is broken literally, physically. It's like having not only the heart, but it's like having your cells torn apart. Don't you think? In every part of your body, like your wrist is being torn apart? Your knee, your bones. It's like a pulling out of who you are and of course, then most people can't eat or they overeat, can't sleep. Your identity is broken. Who am I without you? Who are you without me? Wait, you can't be without me and because of this pain. The walls come up.

Breaking up is Hard to Do, and Loving Again Seems Impossible Now. 

The pain of a break up comes from the lack of that connection or wholeness. So if a person goes through pain of a break up and experiences intense pain then the person may correlate connection or love with pain. “If I don’t connect, I will never have that pain again.” Right? Yes, right. It is common to feel this way and shut down or put up a wall, to protect us and never allow that to happen again. We start to maneuver our lives single. We figure out how to be excellent alone. We learn to do everything we need to do without needing a partner.

My Story of Heartbreak  

I've always heard about that and never really experienced it until this last year where walls really came up and I shut down.

After a very intense and emotional relationship, the signs were there, but I wasn’t able to let go. Neither was he, but our cultures were just too different. Our religions were different. Our beliefs about trust and family were different. It was just wrong so be both had to let go. Of course we went back and forth for a while but most importantly, I Could not be myself around him. I thought he would change. Well, silly me…

We chose to move away from each other and never see each other again. But wait, we had become one, on some ways. I loved him so deeply. What now??

As I tried to move on and date, I couldn’t feel anything at all. I was numb. I couldn't love anybody and those I did love in the past, I began to un-love. I couldn't even love my dog as much. I didn't love my mom as much. Everything stopped and kind of shocked my system. It took quite a while to feel again. I started dating someone that all my friends and family said was perfect for me, but it took months to feel emotions for him. It was not fair to him, but I was not able to help it at the time. This experience sure taught me alot. It has shown me the depths of despair and the depths of numbness.

So does love hurt? Uh, no, but breaking out of love does. Hell yes. Oh God, I'm not doing that again. I'm afraid to love again. Can I love again after a divorce? Or after my spouse dies? Or a long term relationship finally ends. Huh? Can you?

What is Love?

Alright, let's see what I've come up with.. With a lot of contemplation and putting all I know and have experienced together, I have come up with real results and I'm loving my own advice here. I'm loving it. Get ready.

My definition of love is CARING HOW SOMEONE FEELS. The more you care how they feel, the more deeply you love them. I made that up and I’m sticking to it. You may not love my neighbor because you don't know them and you don’t care about how they feel, as much as you care how your child feels.

Three Steps and Then the Leap

I have three key points to share with you, about how after the pain of a break up, to take steps to experience that love AGAIN. Okay... So let's see... You have experienced the loss of someone, you are now cynical or angry and you have decided, or your body decided for you, that you are never going to love again...If you don't want to love again, does that mean you don't want to care how someone feels again? All right, so let's ask you again. Does not wanting to fall for that gain mean that you're not going to care about how someone feels again.

Now all of a sudden that doesn't make sense, does it? But I'm not going to care how someone feels. So with that in mind, think about it. In order to love again, we need to start the process logically here, instead of emotionally like you did last time. So the process of loving again is going to start logically in the brain with no feelings at first. So let me explain.

#1-What did you learn?

The first thing is to know it's normal to be cautious after being hurt. Okay? Check. And I would tell you, because I work with the unconscious mind, and your unconscious is going to totally predict you and it's going to keep on protecting you in ways that you're not aware of, like pushing people away, not responding appropriately, and you won't even know you're doing it.

Slow down. Be mindful. 

So slow down and know you're doing it. And as you realize you're keeping this wall caution up, say to yourself, "Hey, I'm going to keep my caution until I have learned what I need to learn. Thank you very much." So isn't that interesting?

Stop replaying the story

When you're pulling away from this love and this hurt that you've had; let me tell you what you're doing. You're replaying things in your head over and over and over and, of “what it could have been if we would have . . .,” “if he did,”  “I should have just,” and the reason you're doing that again, is that your unconscious is trying to never let that happen again. Sit down and be mindful of what you learned. Blah, blah, blah. I know, I hate that when people say, “What did you learn from your trial?” But we all know it’s the facts. We learn from pain and we learn from trial and error. In the midst of a trial it’s common to say, “I don't want to tell you what I learned. I'm not learning anything!” Oh Gosh, But here's the truth. It's true. There is a lesson here.

My True Confession

My true confession, of what I learned in my last relationship, is this: I was creating him to be something he wasn't! That was horrible! Do you do that? Yeah, I learned to not do that again. I'm not going to create the next guy into being something that they're not. I’m going to take the next relationship at face  value. I will realize he is him and he is not going to change. The way he is now, is the way he is going to be. Do I like him the way he is now? If not, next.

And yes, people can lie and deceive. 

We may think they are a certain way, and we learn they were faking it. This is all part of the process of getting to know someone. Get to know them better. What makes them operate? What makes them tick. What are their patterns? What are there tendencies according to people who have known them their whole lives? 

Let me ask you this: 

Because I've had millions of clients with the same similar issues. Did you give up yourself in your last relationship? Did you lose yourself? If so, it is common to do that. So maybe what you learned is to NOT do THAT again! Yup. Probably. You gave your love, but you gave yourself up too! Okay, so you're not going to be doing that again. Did you idolize him or her too much and they let you down?

Write it down.

Now, write down what you are never going to do again. And what did you learn? What aren't you going to do again and state it, say it out loud, then you'll realize you're on the right track with number one out of three. What did you learn and what are you doing? Again? Write them down and really re go over and over and over it until you've got your three to five things you're not doing again. I love it logically. This is all making sense.

#2-Getting To Know You 

Okay, if we're going to love again, realize you can't love who you don't know. I don't know your neighbor, sorry if I knew your neighbor intimately, meaning I know things that they are feeling that are precious and important to them and I get them how they feel and I start caring how your neighbor feels and I start knowing them because I'm knowing them.

Then I start loving them as we know them. Your love grows, my love will grow for your neighbor. Because you start feeling like you care. So number two, you can't love who you don't know. So if you're thinking, can I love again? You're in a relationship or, as I say, say you even got a new dog or something that you've got to invest in loving again. Get to know them, get to know them. And I'm going to take a little pause here for 1 second or little parentheses and tell you that.

On a personal note

Okay, this is totally divulging about 10 years ago. My Gosh. It seems like yesterday. I had a dog. I was so connected to Beaumont. He was a little white Maltese. His hair was parted down the middle of his back. He was groomed every week and was beautiful and smelled yummy. He had a little bow in his hair that matched my outfit and he followed me everywhere.

He sat in my office when I had clients. Anyway, long story is when he died and he died tragically, and this is beyond the scope of this podcast, but I, I killed him by slamming him in a door and well, that added to all that. Yup. And the point here that I want to make is, it was so bad. I went into panic attacks. Every time I thought about him. My husband had to shake me out of it. There's so much to this story I'll do on another podcast, but I shut my heart worse than this last little episode I went through and I'm just starting to open that up. My heart was so shut, I unloved, my husband at the time, I unloved my kids a little bit. It was so weird.

I’m trying to walk my talk

This last relationship of my breakup recently was the first time I opened my heart up again. And then that didn't work because I was betrayed, lied to And stolen from literally. Uh, so take a breath, Dr Darlene and say, can I do it again? And so I'm with you when you say, no, I'm not doing it. And again, don't do it until you know what you've learned. And so I'm venturing and stepping and I'm walking my talk. I'm doing what I'm telling you to do. I'm attempting to go through these steps myself. What did I learn? Big Time I've learned. Can I love someone I don't know, not so much. So in a new relationship that I'm in, I'm getting to know this person and starting to really, really care how they feel. And now you're going to love number three. When you put yourself in their place, you start to care how they feel.

Put yourself in their shoes.

What's it like to be them? How do they see the world? What makes them tick? What makes them sad? Do you care if they're sad? A good tip for breaking up is to stop caring about how someone feels. And we'll talk about that in a minute. So when you go into caring how they're feeling, then you'll start loving them. You realize you're starting to care. You lived through your last crap. You deserve to go again. I deserve to go again. You, I deserve all the good things. It is so better to love than be loved. Literally, it is. It feels better to love than be loved.

#3 Love Outward Without Expecting Anything Back. 

Focus on loving, caring, and understanding without expectations of anything coming back. This is really cool. So start to love outward. Love out and the physics are when you love out and give. It comes back bigger than it went out

But if it doesn't come back, it's okay because you're loving outward. Care how they feel. Care how they feel and if they care how you feel, yay. But Loving outwardly. Interesting hu?

Review

Once again, it's normal to be cautious. Within your caution, take these three steps. #1 What did you learn and what are you NEVER going to do again? #2 Get to know that person, you want to increase your love so get to know small details about them and love will increase. #3 You lived through it and start loving outward without expecting anything in return. Loving outward and pretending yourself that you are them.

I love YOU! 

I do. I think I can love you because you're here reaching out to me on this podcast/blog. I can feel you, which helps me know you a little bit and I can feel your desires and your intent. And the truth is, the more I know you, the more I can really specifically love you. So tell me about yourself in the comments and share your love process stories with me.

Let me know if these three steps helped you to say, “I can love again.” I hope this helped and we'll talk soon.