Women who Love too Much Community Group
WHEN BEING IN LOVE, MEANS BEING IN PAIN... This group is to help women through the journey of realizing they can love themselves. To help realize that they are capable of having a happy, healthy, whole relationship and break the cycle of abuse and heartache from loving emotionally unavailable men.
I responded to a few posts this morning and it made me think of this topic.
I broke up with my bf nearly 5 weeks ago. And I am experiencing none of the usual obsessive painful thoughts or regrets. If I hadn't been a member of this group for a while now and had not written the self same posts that some of you going through recent breakups have shared, I might almost start thinking you ladies were from a different planet to me. But oh I know that pain. It has been present at every other relationship breakup I have experienced. I have letters I have written to former bfs, journals and blog posts to remind me if I ever tried to deny it..
So the question I keep asking myself is why...And I don't know, but I am beginning to get an idea...
I have spent a lot of time in the last 3-4 years in various forms of therapy which led to a process of self realisation. When I started therapy, the one thing I said to my therapist that I wanted to get out of the time with her was to find out who I was and what was important to me..I had totally lost my sense of identity in the marriage which ended in early 2008. Between then and when I started therapy 3 years later, I existed in limbo..That was until I had a health crisis in 2011. I still remember the ED doctor asking me what I did for stress relief and my looking at him blankly because the idea was so foreign to me..I never did anything for myself. Only for others because I felt so undeserving..
I am still very much on that journey, but I have a much stronger idea of who I am and what I want out of life. I know what my values are and what my non-negotiables are..I am also more in touch with my intuition and am learning to listen to that inner voice when I make decisions. I have decluttered and simplified my life hugely of stuff and people and "shoulds"..you know, those things we think we need to be doing to please other people..?
Since my breakup, I have had many days where I exprienced moments of unexplained joy. I could be hanging out the washing or cooking a meal and would feel really happy. Happiness that was much greater than the kind I remember experiencing when I was newly in love..You know, the thoughts and words you keep bringing to your mind of what the other person said or how you felt...I didnt' know where it was coming from.
I had another good day yesterday and I finally had some understanding of why I might be feeling like this..During my relationship, I tolerated a lot of things that were not "me". Things that were not aligned with who I was at my core..Alcoholism, lack of basic human compassion, dishonesty, unreasonable behaviour, inconsistency, lack of values, lack of love....In the whole of those 15 or so months I was with him, I felt very unhappy, the opposite of this joyous feeling I am now experiencing...
So my simple explanation is this...When I am living a life aligned with who I really am at the very core of my being, life is joyous and happy..For me that means being around kind and compassionate people with real values, eating healthy food, speaking kind words, no alcohol in my life, spending wisely, engaging in spiritual practices, not doing things simply because I am feeling obliged to, not tolerating any kind of abuse, saying no when I feel 'no" inside, being honest, surrendering to what is rather than trying to control life..
And when I am not aligned, I feel miserable...
Interested to hear what you think.
I broke up with my bf nearly 5 weeks ago. And I am experiencing none of the usual obsessive painful thoughts or regrets. If I hadn't been a member of this group for a while now and had not written the self same posts that some of you going through recent breakups have shared, I might almost start thinking you ladies were from a different planet to me. But oh I know that pain. It has been present at every other relationship breakup I have experienced. I have letters I have written to former bfs, journals and blog posts to remind me if I ever tried to deny it..
So the question I keep asking myself is why...And I don't know, but I am beginning to get an idea...
I have spent a lot of time in the last 3-4 years in various forms of therapy which led to a process of self realisation. When I started therapy, the one thing I said to my therapist that I wanted to get out of the time with her was to find out who I was and what was important to me..I had totally lost my sense of identity in the marriage which ended in early 2008. Between then and when I started therapy 3 years later, I existed in limbo..That was until I had a health crisis in 2011. I still remember the ED doctor asking me what I did for stress relief and my looking at him blankly because the idea was so foreign to me..I never did anything for myself. Only for others because I felt so undeserving..
I am still very much on that journey, but I have a much stronger idea of who I am and what I want out of life. I know what my values are and what my non-negotiables are..I am also more in touch with my intuition and am learning to listen to that inner voice when I make decisions. I have decluttered and simplified my life hugely of stuff and people and "shoulds"..you know, those things we think we need to be doing to please other people..?
Since my breakup, I have had many days where I exprienced moments of unexplained joy. I could be hanging out the washing or cooking a meal and would feel really happy. Happiness that was much greater than the kind I remember experiencing when I was newly in love..You know, the thoughts and words you keep bringing to your mind of what the other person said or how you felt...I didnt' know where it was coming from.
I had another good day yesterday and I finally had some understanding of why I might be feeling like this..During my relationship, I tolerated a lot of things that were not "me". Things that were not aligned with who I was at my core..Alcoholism, lack of basic human compassion, dishonesty, unreasonable behaviour, inconsistency, lack of values, lack of love....In the whole of those 15 or so months I was with him, I felt very unhappy, the opposite of this joyous feeling I am now experiencing...
So my simple explanation is this...When I am living a life aligned with who I really am at the very core of my being, life is joyous and happy..For me that means being around kind and compassionate people with real values, eating healthy food, speaking kind words, no alcohol in my life, spending wisely, engaging in spiritual practices, not doing things simply because I am feeling obliged to, not tolerating any kind of abuse, saying no when I feel 'no" inside, being honest, surrendering to what is rather than trying to control life..
And when I am not aligned, I feel miserable...
Interested to hear what you think.
and i also love how you described what you are doing to feel aligned...
"that means being around kind and compassionate people with real values, eating healthy food, speaking kind words, no alcohol in my life, spending wisely, engaging in spiritual practices, not doing things simply because I am feeling obliged to, not tolerating any kind of abuse, saying no when I feel 'no" inside, being honest, surrendering to what is rather than trying to control life.."
But then I thought back to your original call to us all to share what recovery was like. This is recovery for me and I am so glad you came up with the Project WWLTM-R because it gave me the impetus to think in those terms..
So here I am a beautiful lawn with lovely flower beds around me. But the lawn has not been watered and is brown. There are many patches of weeds, some very tall and well rooted. And the lovely flower beds are empty of flowers. So there it is before me. The work to get back to my lovely green color and clear lawn. To plant all the flowers that I love to smell and see the wonderful colors of. This is my journey and I am excited. Thank You for showing me your picture of self love.
Also...the emotional/social decluttering! I have started to do that, as well. When my brain starts to obsess about something related to other people (you name it) I ask myself whether or not I have the power to actually change the situation, and if it's out of my control I say to myself, "detach".
The part where you talk about tolerating things that aren't really you are things that I continue to work on/negotiate within my own relationship--I have to actively ask myself whether or not I'm compromising a part of me, almost on a daily basis. For me it's been coming down to not trying to control him, though. In way that's detachment, too, I suppose.
I like how you talk about nurturing yourself--doing lovely things for yourself. It's giving me great ideas. I think that's a big need that we women have, and that is, not doing lovely things for ourselves. We are so focused on meeting the needs of others, instead.
Keep it coming!
I think of all the women in the world who love too much, the few that are on this forum are the ones that have made it to the other side. By choosing to pick up a book and read it with the view of bettering themselves, they or we have already chosen to leave behind who we were and embrace a new way of being. I think it was Artgrrl who pointed out in another post this morning that we are our harshest critic and that is why we still think we are broken. But it is clear to me that we are not. All we need to do is recognizie that fact.
Shani, I love the analogy of the flower garden. I can see the beautiful colours and smell the fragrance that is uniquely you....