6 Things No One Ever Told Me About Falling In (And Out) Of Love

By

We are flooded with stories of love. Of how it helps us learn ourselves on a deeper level, of how it teaches us how to love better, of how striking it can truly be to our lives. How it can disrupt us, stop us dead in our tracks. How innocent, how sweet, and how pure they are. What we fail to mention is how devastating and how heartbreaking it truly can be as well. Devastating… Heartbreaking… that is the reality. The reality is also something much better than that, though. Something that can be revolutionary. Something that is awe-inspiring. Something that is necessary. 

Maybe it is heartbreaking and devastating and earth-shattering. Not because of the heartbreak you feel when it seems your world and all you know is coming to an end, but rather the heartbreak of all of our expectations getting lost and trampled along the way. What we often overlook and must learn to understand in the depth of all of this pain, is that these expectations have led us to this heartache. The ego is responsible, suffering stems from this. The ego fosters your attachment to this person, to this situation, to this overall sense of “comfort”. The ego is not you and does not control you. You need to know you are more powerful than it can ever be.

What I wish I knew is that suffering is more my doing than anything else.

1. People change.

People change and that’s okay. People change and it can have nothing at all to do with you. People can wake up any given day of the week and decide “you know what, I don’t like who I am anymore and I’m going to change that”… for good, or bad. People can change and they don’t owe you an explanation for it at all. People changing their behavior towards you, in no way shape or form reflects who you are

2. You change.

Just like anyone in your life can wake up on any given day and decide they no longer want to be the person they are, you have the same ability. You may even change in ways you don’t notice. Your likes, your desires, your dreams can all change at any given moment. You are allowed to want to grow and evolve and change every second of every day if you feel the need. Do not feel resistance to this process. Do not feel the need to hold onto a past version of you or anything that is no longer serving you. Start to serve yourself, embody yourself, and become who you are truly mean to be. Change, embrace, grow.

3. You will overthink everything.

You will question yourself, the actions you chose to take in your relationship, and your abilities to effectively handle love again. You will wonder if you did enough, if you are enough, if you loved hard enough. You will think maybe this whole love thing isn’t for you. You will think that you simply cannot fathom the idea of anyone new sleeping in your bed ever again. You will overthink everything. You are allowed. Let these thoughts come, and let these thoughts go. Do not fixate, do not concentrate, and do not repeat. Let them come, honor them, cry through them, yell through them, but do not let them come back once they have gone. They have served their time and their purpose. They have taught you what you needed to know.

4. You will undoubtedly question your next move.

It is near impossible to not. When you go from someone and something so familiar to you now being in the unknown it can be enough to let fear sink in. You may not know what is next, where to go, who to turn to, or even what to do in your daily routine now. What you must realize is by stepping away from something that no longer serves you or the highest versions of yourself and who you are meant to be, you are inviting new things into your life. You are telling the Universe you are ready for these things, for all the good you know you deserve. Do not doubt this process. Do not doubt yourself. Your next move will present itself when it is meant for you to see it.

5. You will find new ways to spend your time and fall in love with old ones again.

When your life becomes so heavily revolved around someone else, you begin to lose the essence of who you truly are. Who were you before this relationship? Did you lose any part of yourself throughout it? Who or what did you lose touch with in order to give energy to your relationship instead? Now is your time to remedy these things. Now is the time to discover, or rediscover, what exactly it is that sparks your soul. What is it that ignites the fire within you, one that isn’t tied to a lover? Find yourself again. You are a completely new person now. You have been through things that have changed you. You are more self-aware. Take this time to listen, honor, and trust in your intuition. It will steer you exactly where you need to go.

6. Things will get easier.

Time truly does heal all wounds.