You want to find relief from the pain and the struggle. You want to feel good about yourself, life, and your future. You want life to feel comfortable again.

Breakups will always be difficult, and require time and effort to properly heal and move on from. However, there are a number of things that we can do (and that we can avoid doing) that can help manage and even eliminate some of the suffering involved, as well as help the recovery process move along more quickly.

If approached correctly, breakups can even be a tremendous opportunity to grow and reconnect with yourself through tenderness and compassion, which can leave you much stronger and more grounded in the end.

So I moved through life trying to please everyone, and using how well others thought I was doing as a gauge for how well I was doing at life.

When it came to romantic relationships, this all seemed to get thrown into overdrive. To me, a relationship was the ultimate connection and validation of who I was. So I always tried to be as good of a partner as I could be, and was a hopeless romantic, always imagining and shooting for these relationships that would be fruitful and happy until the end of time. I would sacrifice, be as thoughtful as possible, and put a lot of effort into my relationships.

However, when they would end, I would take it as a soul crushing personal defeat and invalidation of myself as a person. I would blame myself, take to heart everything that my ex said was wrong with me, and end up deciding that I must have done something wrong, and need to try harder.

Ever since I was a kid, I always cared deeply about people.

Being someone that felt my emotions deeply, and seemed to have a knack for empathy, it quickly became important to me to try and be a force for good in the world. At an early age, I felt suffering and pain in myself, and how unpleasant those feelings were, and I naturally wanted to minimize those feelings in myself and others. I imagined a world where I could show up in a way that would please everybody, and felt if I could just crack the code to life, I would be able to keep everyone happy and things flowing smoothly.

This was all born of very good intentions, and although there was a sweetness and innocence to my naiveté, this type of thinking would cause me a lot of problems in life, and in relationships. In a way it became my responsibility to keep those around me happy.

I developed the belief that if I followed the golden rule, and treated others with thoughtfulness and kindness, that life would embrace me back, and reward me with a comfortable happy life. This lead to me showing up as what I thought others wanted, and to my needs often being put on the back burner. When I hurt someone else or sensed they didn't like me, it started to feel like a failure on my part.

Now, fast forward to 2018. After living this way for 35 years, I finally felt I was in a relationship that was going to be the one.

After years of putting myself through perceived failure after perceived failure in relationships, I approached things cautiously.

However, my girlfriend at the time would repeatedly tell me how much she loved me, how she wanted to move in together, and would talk about “someday if we are married” often. I finally let my guard down and told myself “This woman really loves you, and this is what you have always dreamed of. You just need to let your guard down and let this manifest into your life!”

So I decided to drop my guard completely, and began planning my proposal, all the while thinking how ecstatic I was that this was finally happening for me after so many failed attempts.

A week or two later, her career took off, and I was discarded like chopped liver.

It was too much to bear to get so close to the relationship that I had always dreamed of, that I believed would complete my life, only to have it brutally ripped away again.

I was consumed with grief and hopelessness. I felt deeply angry and betrayed, and the yearning for justice quickly developed into resentment. I felt like a completely broken person, who would never be worthy of a relationship, or anything of value. I began having severe panic attacks, which I had never experienced before.

I was demoted at work because I was such an emotional wreck. Things got so bad that I put a note on my door saying I was grounded from doing anything for pleasure, and could only do productive things and self work. I felt I was so broken and lacking that I couldn't afford to do anything besides work at fixing myself.