How To Heal Your Heart And Find New Love
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Step 1: Explore What Went Wrong
You may have asked yourself at some point why love has created so much pain or disappointment in your life. Maybe you’ve wondered why you can’t get over someone from your past. Or perhaps it’s been a challenge to bring a new and different person into your life.
In this section, you will discover the reason why it’s been challenging to get over the past and welcome in the future. This chapter contains secrets that can unlock the love you’ve always wanted in your life.
But first, it’s important to look at yourself honestly. Once you are no longer avoiding or denying what’s really going on, you can begin the process of returning to your powerful, natural state.
Why We Hold On To Old Pain
It’s important to understand the mechanics of why we hold onto old pain. Understanding why and how this works is part of how you will find your way through it.
It’s like discovering the prison you are locked in. First you must see that you are stuck, and why, then you can begin to unlock the doors and walk out.
It’s possible you’ve been finding it hard to open up to new relationships.
You may have even met someone who could be a great match for you, but you just can’t seem to get beyond the wall that is in your heart.
Maybe it’s been years since you lost an important partner, or were scorned by a toxic lover, but you just can’t get over the pain and fear that arises as you start to get closer with someone new.
You might even feel numb, or pretend to be disinterested on the surface, but deep down you know there is a part of you yearning for love.
Some people don’t even realize that their life has become colorless, unexciting, and empty of the richness of emotion and intimacy.
When your heart is closed down, life becomes gray.
However, when the heart is open, you feel energized and life is filled with color and possibility.
The truth is, you deserve love, and there are ways to start to trust once again, and to feel excited about life and ready for a new romance.
So why do you hold onto these old pains even though they keep you from what you truly want?
The simple answer is you might be afraid to feel, and you no longer trust yourself to open your heart with someone else.
Take a few minutes to write about your experience with love right now in your life. In what ways do you feel excited about love? In what ways do you feel disappointed? You might also describe or even draw the walls you have around your heart. What does your heart feel like or symbolically look like? Is it tender and vulnerable? Open and yearning? Closed and numb? Frightened? Explore what it feels like for you.
The Reason You Keep Attracting The Wrong People
Do you find yourself attracting the same kind of people into your life?
Perhaps it feels like no matter what you do, you never seem to find someone who can really care for you in a good way.
Often the pain of an initial heartbreak is pushed away or covered over because the pain is too much to tolerate.
Avoiding the pain when it first happened was most likely a very intelligent thing to do at the time.
Numbing may have helped you to move on, or deal with the challenges of life, rather than getting lost in the anguish. Detaching from your feelings helped you continue forward, even though things were really hard.
You don’t need to blame yourself, and there is nothing wrong with you… You just created a way to survive something that was challenging. Your body and emotions did an intelligent thing to try to protect yourself.
Just for a moment, re-read the last paragraph, and take a few breaths. What does it feel like to realize your body was doing something to protect you? Take a moment to write a few words about what you experience.
While this was an important and natural protective measure you took, right now the covered-over pain is getting in the way of moving you forward, and might even be blocking you from bringing someone new into your life.
If you imagine your heart as a healthy flowing stream, then numbing the pain of heartbreak is like covering the stream with a sheet of ice.
As time goes by and you accumulate more experiences, the feelings from these experiences are like snowflakes that begin to pile up on the ice. This is the numbness that can happen with unresolved heartbreak.
Instead of the snow, representing new experiences, landing in the flowing water where they can be melted and moved along, the snowflakes gather on top of the ice.
By opening your heart, you can begin to melt the ice, and unlock the love that is alive within you. And, the snow that was getting stuck on the ice won’t cover over your heart in the same way.
You will begin to feel alive in a brand new way.
When your heart is open in this way, it’s impossible not to attract a new kind of love, or to deepen with someone you’re already with. Your natural heart is magnetic, and it will draw to you the right people and experiences if you allow it to.
Unfortunately, while the pain from your heartbreak is still covered over, it is sending out signals to potential partners that you might not even be aware of.
Even if you are deeply desiring a partner, energetically you are saying “I’m hurt, stay away from me,” or, “I want you, but I can’t trust myself to love you.”
This energetic signature will draw people with similar wounds to you, as well as those who might hurt you again.
This can be a vicious cycle. But you can break it!
What types of partners or patterns of relationship can you see in your past romances? What are some of the similarities you see in your relationships? What are some of the differences? What kind of relationship do you want in the future? How would that future relationship feel? How would it be different from the past? Take some time to write about these questions.
Why Heartbreak Can Last So Long
You have an intelligent body and energy system that adapts to the circumstances of your life. This ability to adapt is how you learned to drive a car, cook your favorite meal, or avoid a stove top when it’s hot.
Your adaptive abilities are important, however they can also get in your way.
In the same way that you learned to avoid a hot burner on a stove after you’ve been burned once or twice, once you’ve been emotionally hurt, you might find yourself avoiding love.
Even if it’s what you want more than anything else, the residual pain could keep you from opening yourself up to truly falling in love again.
Of course, there are people and circumstances you should avoid when it comes to romance, and it’s important to learn when it’s safe to open your heart, and when you should be careful.
But if you’ve experienced a broken heart, it’s likely you are carrying an imprint from the pain of that experience within you.
And now, whether you’re aware of it or not, you could be sabotaging love and pushing away the very relationships you truly want.
You might even be with someone who loves you, but you know that you are keeping up a wall in order to protect that sacred place that was once hurt.
That sacred place within you is still there and can bloom once again!
Let’s change your story about love. Both in your body, and in your mind.
This is how your transformation will start to take place:
Pause for a moment, take a few breaths, and notice where your body is holding old pain or heartbreak. Maybe it’s in your chest, but it could also be in your belly or head, or anywhere else in your body. When you find the sensation, write down a description of the feeling as clearly as you can (does it feel tight, or sticky, throbbing, or numb… etc). Then, place your hands on this part of your body, and ask it what it most needs. Write down what you feel and hear.
From here on out, every time you see this symbol *** take three breaths with your hands on the part of your body that is carrying heartbreak and tell yourself “I love you, I’m here for you, I will support you no matter what.”
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“I love you, I’m here for you, I will support you no matter what.”