It’s been 4 months now since my relationship ended and of course, it still comes up in conversation as I catch up with friends and they ask me how that whirlwind romance at the beginning of the year turned out.

And as much as my stomach still does a little flip when I hear his name, I’m kind of glad for every opportunity I get to check in with how I’m feeling about it. Granted I don’t wish to stay in the past but I certainly don’t avoid the conversation. I think there’s so much power in being able to acknowledge the past and carry it forwards as part of who you are today.

I’m so proud of the vulnerability I’ve held throughout this break up and I’m not quitting it anytime soon.

It feels really beautiful to be so honest about it, about how I feel and about the process of letting go. After all, I loved him and when you truly love someone you cannot just flick off a switch and forget about it. It’s a process of integration.

There’s nothing to be ashamed about in having loved someone, regardless of how it turned out. The ability to love is the most beautiful and natural ability in the world and I, for one, don’t want to block it off in the face of pain. In my rawness, I’ve had the most beautiful conversations with friends and readers (you guys). It has opened up so many silver linings… all of which have positively contributed to my healing process.

‘When one person shows their authentic self, it gives everyone in their path the permission to be theirs.’

One thing I do keep catching myself say and consciously keep adjusting is ‘he broke my heart’. We are so quick to make this statement when a relationship ends, right?

We are so quick to pass the blame on to the other.

For as long as we choose to pass the blame and leave the power of our happiness in something external – we delay our true homecoming. My journey of healing has had a big focus on radical responsibility and holding myself accountable for the part I played in what was most definitely a two-way relationship.

Of course, we must absolutely still address and acknowledge when others mistreat us, but more often than not we are contributing to the chaos too. I absolutely know that, yes, there were things unacceptable that came my way in the relationship but I also know that there was part of me that accepted that behaviour. Part of me almost welcomed it. That’s the part I’m here to heal.

Passing blame and pointing fingers is just another avoidance technique. It’s blaming how you feel on external beings and circumstances. It’s ultimately not going to get you far.

In order to truly move forward and heal, we must be willing to take responsibility for our wounds and our part in the chaos.

We must be willing to feel through all the textures that arise to be able to take the reigns on our own life again and turn heartbreak into, truly, our greatest opportunity to meet ourselves.

…which leads me to this blog post.

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Taking responsibility for our own heartbreak: how do we do it?

Before we tuck in, let’s take a deep breath together.

If you’re here, I can only imagine there are some broken pieces within you that you’re hoping to fix and I honour you. I honour your curiosity in wanting to get to know those pieces and to do the work. I honour myself too, for showing up here and being willing to talk about it. Acceptance and a willingness to do the work takes courage. I salute you.

We have 100% got this.

I truly believe that when two people meet, fall in love, fall into attachment or fall into lust – there’s no mistake. The universe simply makes no mistakes. You meet everything you are ready to meet, exactly when you are ready to meet it.

Yes, my relationship was toxic, it was unhealthy, it was filled with ego, trauma circles and attachments playing between us like crazy. But that was the level of consciousness we both held at the time. We both knew no better.

‘We do the best we know how until we know better. And then we do better.’

We had chosen to fearlessly walk into the fire of love together and unfortunately we were triggered left, right and centre with each other. We found it very hard to navigate. There was so much love but so much pain.

Our wounds were fully exposed. We held each other’s hands and willingly made the choice to walk through them. Unfortunately along the way, I lost his hand and I had to let him go. We both took different journeys through the pain and sadly we outgrew each other.

I whole-heartedly believe though, that we both walked into each other’s lives at the perfect time and so I could never ever regret our relationship. Painful relationships hold up the clearest mirror to your wounds and it’s only by paying attention to my wounds and triggers in that relationship that I’ve been able to do the incredibly deep work that I have.

If we are never triggered, if we never step out of our comfort zones and if we never risk our hearts, we never grow.

‘But how did I break my own heart?’ I hear you ask…

Okay, so often we will be attracted to someone, ‘fall’ for someone or enter a relationship with someone and we are like ‘I have no idea what it is but I just love them’.

When we choose to engage in a relationship with someone, there starts to be a lot of unconscious content playing out in the process. Remember, we only operate with 5% consciousness, meaning 95% of the content that drives our emotions, patterns and behaviours is in our subconscious. We have no idea why we do things sometimes but there’s usually a reason.

Find yourself falling for the same type of guy/girl over and over again?

I for one have attracted a very similar type of man over the years. My healing journey began after ‘falling’ for about 7 guys with similar characteristics. I was like hold on one sec, this is no coincidence lol. There’s bad luck and there’s this. I am the common denominator here.

My unconscious wounding was continually leading me to seek love through relationships that weren’t healthy. I was trying to prove to myself that I was worthy and that I was worth loving through guys that didn’t have the capacity, space or time to love me in the way I deserved.

I’ll be completely honest here and say that my dad is similar in that way. I know he loves me to the end of the earth but he was never raised with emotional awareness and so of course that was never something he could offer me. As a little girl, I craved that connection with my Dad and when I wasn’t able to get it, it translated into not being worthy of receiving. Seems crazy huh? He was only doing the best he knew how, but as a little girl, dependant on her primary caregiver, I’d do anything in my power for that connection. Even if it meant abandoning myself.

Between the ages of 3-7, children are effectively in a state of hypnosis, internalising everything from their environments and so whilst as adults, we can sit and perhaps know better, as a child you are simply learning about the world. What you are modelled at a young age, is your truth.

And so here I am in my 20’s, breaking my own heart by still playing out that childhood trauma and seeking love from emotionally unavailable men.

This isn’t the only thing playing out from my subconscious but just so you get an idea of how your attachments at an early age can drive your adult relationships.

Problem being, if the content is in our subconscious, how do we access it?

This is where relationships are incredible mirrors. The pain and the trauma in my last relationship got so bad, it was very obvious that this love wasn’t serving me. But I still didn’t want to walk away? I still felt attached to him? Part of me was accepting the pain and hanging on to the brief moments of clarity we’d have. Why?

A few questions to ask yourself if you find your self attached to someone that you know in your gut isn’t right for you:

What is it within me that is choosing to love someone that doesn’t make me a better person?

What is it within me that is still choosing someone that isn’t choosing me?

What is it within me that is abandoning all my boundaries in order to please the other?

What am I trying to prove here?

So, (hopefully, you’re following me here) relationships not working out and relationships that are triggering can actually be seen as a big blessing (in time).

If you give endings the chance to, they will:

break you open
wake you up
hold up a mirror to parts of yourself you’ve abandoned
give you the chance to get to know yourself and your patterns better
bring you home, to you.

Please know that I am by no means saying that when you end a relationship it’s all going to be rainbows. Allow yourself to feel all of the feelings as they arise but know, when you’re ready, there’s light. There’s a way through the pain.

Also know that doing this work and doing this healing can absolutely be done with your partner by your side. I so wish that would have been the outcome of my relationship but he wasn’t available to meet me there and so I had to walk away. Two conscious partners working through their conditioning together is possibly one of the most courageous and beautiful relationships in the world.

When you make the choice to take responsibility for ways in which you may have broken your own heart, you will begin the most beautiful homecoming journey. When you are able to understand why you make certain choices and what it is within you that attracts you to certain people you will be able to clear and consciously make new choices where necessary.

I can now see clear as day why I was going for certain kinds of guy and what I was seeking from them. But what I was seeking from them, I am continually resolving in myself and… wait for it… my taste in men is completely changing. Hallelujah.

A great book for diving into understanding your childhood wounds is John Bradshaw – Homecoming.

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