Don’t Let Your Baggage Destroy Your Soft Heart

It’s hard to bounce back after getting hurt. It’s hard to look at the world with the same set of rose-colored glasses you used to wear when you were young and unbreakable.

Once your heart gets shattered, you lose your innocence. Your cynical side comes out. You start doubting everyone around you. You start questioning their intentions.

After getting your heart broken, it’s hard to open yourself up again. It’s hard to trust other people even if they haven’t done anything wrong. No matter how well they treat you, a part of you expects to get hurt again. You’re always waiting for their true self to come out, for them to show you their dark side, their mean side.

You cannot allow your baggage to destroy your soft heart. You cannot walk around assuming the world is out to get you. One bad experience with love shouldn’t cause you to give up hope of finding your happily ever after. One toxic person shouldn’t convince you that every other person you meet is going to behave in the same way.

You’re allowed to take a while to heal. You’re allowed to spend some time with yourself while you relearn how to trust other people. You’re allowed to have a rough time processing what was done to you — and figuring out how to come out of the situation stronger.

But you don’t want to hide yourself away forever. You don’t want to lock up your heart and throw away the key. You deserve to know what real, unconditional love feels like. You deserve to be bursting at the seams with happiness. You deserve to find someone who would never hurt you the way you’ve been hurt in the past.

It’s not going to be easy to get back in the dating world. It’s not going to be easy to push aside your fears. It’s not going to be easy to open your heart to someone after it’s been so brutally torn apart in the past.

But you don’t want your last relationship to ruin your love life forever. You don’t want to give them that much power over you. You don’t want to let them win. Just because they weren’t able to love you doesn’t mean you’re unlovable. It doesn’t mean you need to spend the rest of your life alone.

The idea of getting into a new relationship right now might be scary, but you don’t have to move too fast. You can set your own pace. You can do whatever makes you feel the most comfortable. Just don’t swear off of love after one bad experience. Don’t close off your heart when all you want is to be loved right.

When you find someone worth the effort, take the leap. Don’t let your baggage weigh you down. Everyone has been through hardships. Everyone has had their heart broken. No one is going to think less of you after learning what you’ve gone through. Your past doesn’t matter. It’s whether or not you bounce back that matters.