Haven’t we all “lost it” and “fragmented” with relationship breakup or divorce? Learn how to “put yourself back together” again. The hurt, anger, rejection, and loss all can be felt in a safe and trusting way as you learn what love is. This process teaches you how to fill your own cup over time, to love yourself again, and avoid rebound relationships when dealing with the painful feelings of divorce. You end up having your feelings, instead of your feelings “having” you.
First, find out for your self what love is and isn’t. Teachers have taught me that as children, we all learn that love comes from outside of us, most importantly from our parents at first. So we continue this habit as adults and want to be loved from the outside, which is totally normal. Being loved from the outside is a gift from the other. Breakups or divorce, when love from the outside stops, force us to look within, to understand love as an adult, to find love again inside ourselves, to put one self back together again. Think about dropping the belief that you have to get through the painful feelings of divorce by your self, as you work through intimacy problems to uncover how whole and good-hearted you are.
Secondly, when you work through marriage problems more efficiently, you can avoid the quick rebound relationship, and become “friends first” with new people in your life. Friendship and adult love have much in common when you really look at it. You can learn how to build intimacy in your life, enjoy emotional intimacy once again, and understand where love got off track for yourself. When you get relationship help, you will like your self more and more, which can calm your self through the pain of divorce, where love became misunderstood.
Third, doing this will help you learn how to “have your feelings” from a solid, flexible, adult sense of self, instead of your feelings “having” you, when normal “glued-at-the-hip” love was happening in the past. Practice by being “friends first” with new people in your life, enjoying their company without putting too much of your self in to the new friendship. Stay awake to what you did emotionally in the past so you can make healthy choices with your new friendships. Your healthy sense of self will allow you to feel your feelings in relationship so they don’t knock you off your own, self-loving track, while the friendship grows in more mature ways. Have fun being more adult and slow about the whole emotional intimacy process of learning who you are, and who new friends are, as you recover from divorce.