My lessons from heartbreak
Hi friends,
I haven’t been looking forward to writing this. It’s been 2 months and I am already starting to cry just writing this newsletter.
Nic and I broke up.
[I had to pause just now typing that].
It feels really vulnerable to share this with you all. It makes the news feel so real. We fought for our relationship for the last 8 months, and we truly wanted to make it work. It's torn my whole world apart… on top of my health setbacks, this year. 🤯💔 So … 2024 ….has been a year of loss.
Losing everything that isn't in alignment for my long term future, whether it's control, certainty, partnership. THE YEAR OF SHEDDING.
Which I trust will pave way for the new….
But I am still in it. In the messy middle. I call it the “healing portal” 🧛♂️💫
It's the year where all my coping mechanisms stopped working (whether it was procrastibation, being a compulsive do-er, or over-relying on external safety) and I've had to confront the death of many identities.
But - as with all change - I'm readying myself for the next chapter, by showing up for all the uncomfortable feelings.
I've been feeling all the grief & helplessness…. full on snot dribbling down my face. Especially when I meander through Christmas markets & iceskaters singing carols- I am confronted with tears, remembering how this would be exactly what I would enjoy with Nic, hand in hand. 🤝🏼
Facing the fear of aloneness, fear of the future, fear of the void, fear of making a mistake, fear of not becoming a mother. It's been a daily practice. And sometimes I get so tired of feeling my feelings. ( 👈🏼I love this poem written by a friend).
But it really pays off. I can feel myself unravelling deeper layers of my past wounds. As I welcome all my fearful young parts, I free up my life force, my energy, my joy.
Sure, there are some days when many of my parts just want to cling on to my coping mechanisms 😮💨😬 But Y'KNOW WHAT THEY SAY – what you resist, persists. ;) You can try it here:
1. Name an unwanted emotion in your life.
2. List the ways you try to avoid it.
3. Notice that every way you try to avoid it, you actually create it.
Isn't that crazy? This is expanded upon in Joe Hudson's awesome newsletter here. Love his stuff.
/1 Why did we break up?
I won't go into a full-depth analysis of our de-coupling but I am reminded time and time again how love is never enough. There are so many elements that make up a compatible partnership outside of one's feeling of devotion to each other. I liked this little Venn Diagram I found on @alyssamariewellness IG account. I do think Nic and I couldn't quite fit our jigsaw puzzles together on a few of those items. 🧩 And it can be hard to figure out where to draw the line because you don't necessarily need 100% of these! But where does it tip into too much? Where might it steer you away from the version of yourself that you want to grow into?
/2 How do I feel about my poly journey & s*x?
I'm proud of the fact that our polyamory journey was not even remotely the cause of our break-up. We navigated this beautifully. 🥹 It's the relationship where I learned the most about emotions, triggers, processing - and how to hold space for different needs with LOVE, and not to go into destructive fight, flight, freeze patterns. (If you're exploring open-relating, I salute you! It's a tough and rewarding path).
When I look back over our poly journey, I realise Nic was the only person who I let emotionally & energetically penetrate me. And that my relationship to s*x with others, really was different. This only really clicked after we de-coupled. Because when I try to m*sturbate now, I can sometimes feel Nic's imprint in me - and it makes me cry!
So now…. I'm sitting with a real question mark around s/ex. Because for the last 4 months, my g3nitals have been “shut down for maintenance”. 🪧🛑 Questions like: “what's the point of s/ex?” “what does it mean to me?” “why do I want it?” are coming up…. and I feel like I'm moving through a new wave. Even my regular s*xual fantasies aren't working!
And I'm very at peace with this. I know phases of s*xual disconnection are normal.
My theory is it relates to more than just heart-break. It feels like my body is holding onto old stories, emotions & energy around power and safety – that it's ready to let go of.
It seems that what I need to do now is release & clear these. And….. I sincerely believe that doing so, will EXPAND my power, pleasure, worthiness & joy! 🔥😍
So, how do I do that? 👀 Well, I've been playing with sound, breath & movement daily - which creates a lot of arousal & energy in my system. All without needing to touch my genitals!
I often do this through kundalini shaking (thank you Elaine Yonge 🙏🏼). For 10 minutes a day, I shake my knees, my pelvis, my shoulders, and make lots of SOUND (important). This wakes up the life force energy around the base of my spine…..which then brings to the surface any suppressed energy (crying, laughter, yawning!)…. which really helps me move through the day with more peace & ease. I have many other tools too, that have been super supportive. 🙏🏼
(Message me if you want more info on this or you're also going through a suppression of your s*xuality, I'd love to support you).
/3 What do I regret?
I've been reflecting a lot on the ways in which I was subtly trying to change Nic. What parts in him did I struggle to accept and why?
With distance & therapy, I realise the parts of him I resisted were the parts of me that I didn't fully love. My work has been to really fully show up for those parts in me now. This in turn has helped me fully SEE Nic, and love him in his wholeness - which has been powerful, and very healing for Nic to receive & hear from me (he tells me).
I also take responsibility for partly disempowering Nic in his masculinity. I've been listening to this episode in Layla Martin's podcast around “How to bring out the best in men”. If you find yourself slipping into the role of ‘critical mother’ - nagging your partner & wanting them to do more, be more ….. then this might be a good episode to listen to! I've become a lot more interested in masculine & feminine polarities in relationships (let's chat 😉).
/4 My learning around conflict
Towards the end of the relationship, I could see how we were both losing fuel to fight for the relationship. ⛽️ We weren't topping up our joy bucket, and so the endless processing 🌪 of our relationship grew tiring. I don't know if I've cracked the secret to this one - but I'm aware that shared joy & play is important to protect. 🦦
I just know that joy can be hard to create when there are big scary questions or feelings that are looming over the relationship. One of the best decisions we made was to get a couples therapist - even the process of finding one was clarifying!
Some other ideas for all you folks in relationships, would be to:
1️⃣ Schedule regular dates (for quality time!); and
2️⃣ Schedule regular relationship maintenance chats (where you can discuss what's challenging & desired in the relationship). Most importantly, designate that time exclusively for those 'processing’ chats - rather than letting it cloud your interactions the rest of the time.
…………….
My second learning was related to my core attachment wounds.
(We all carry SOME wounding from childhood that leaks into our relationships …They'll test you in every romantic partnership you choose. That's just how it works ;) My opinion is that it's a great opportunity to heal in relationship)
What surfaced for me repeatedly was the pain of having needs - trusting that I am valid in my needs, and having them met. There were so many ways in which it used to be HIGHY uncomfortable for me to need something from Nic. Because it confronted me with my fear of not being taken care of (my core wound).
The MAIN LEARNING, if I were to sum it up, was:
👉🏼👉🏼👉🏼 TO LEARN HOW TO SELF-SOOTHE. 👈🏼👈🏼👈🏼
And this doesn't mean that I can't ever ask others for support. Or that I need to be a 1000% independent woman. 🙄🙄 It just means that I have the capacity to CHOOSE whether I co-regulate or self-regulate. And that - if I choose to - I can be there for myself when I am triggered, and not be completely swallowed by scary feelings of aloneness & helplessness.
If this is you - next time you are in the THICK of a trigger, try something like:
/1 An emotional release tool
/2 A somatic completion tool
/3 A down-regulating breath technique
/4 Shaking
/5 Grounding, nature, music, journalling (which I do after I've down one of the above!)
Honestly, I've gone through a BOOTCAMP in self-soothing recently, and I've seen the tremendous benefit in learning this skill.
Thankfully, my issue has never been a lack of self-awareness or bad communication - I am honestly great at verbalising my inner world, and sharing my triggers & emotions with love and not blame. (I have taken great care to train myself around this). So if this is something you struggle with - I highly recommend our course “Transform Conflict into Connection” (that I run with Georgie). Waitlist here. ❤ And oh yes. Self-soothing will be in there.
/5 The best breakup ever
I want to end on this note. My breakup with Nic has easily the most loving break up I have ever experienced. I appreciate that it takes two to tango (in other words, you can't control what the other partner does) but I want to recommend two things we did:
👉🏼 A conscious ritual to celebrate our bond, to collectively grieve & share the reason why we've decided to uncouple. (Pro tip: audio record this, so you can listen back if you experience fantasies of getting back together 😅 That's what I did when I slipped into doubt & regret!). We also shared what we wished for each other, what we're taking from this experience & what we appreciate in each other. We both cried a RIVER during this 5-hour ritual. 😭💔😅 Bring three boxes of tissues.
👉🏼 A gentle de-escalation. Rather than go into a sudden shut-down of ALL communication (which has always been so confronting for an anxious attacher, like me! 🙋♀️), we decided to have 1 week silence, phone call, 2 weeks silence, phone call, 3 weeks silence, phone call…. and so on! This worked so well for us. It's not for everyone, but I'm sharing because there doesn't need to just be ONE WAY for break-ups to go.
So – wherever you are in your stage of relationships - I totally advise being with the kind of person you can trust to weather storms well with you 💨🔥 including a break-up!
Thank you for your infinite love & kindness, Nic. 🥹❤️ (I know he reads my newsletters hehe).
A snap taken by Nic in between our conscious ritual - very conscious of me to be on the phone :P
And that's it my dear readers. Thank you for reading this far. To those who are new and just dived right into my world (wow!), it is precious to have you here. 🙏🏼 And to those who have been supporting my mission for a while - I appreciate you so much. It makes the hours of endless writing so so worth it-- knowing these words land with real people and real impact.
Don't forget how beautiful a human you are, no matter how tough things get.
Curious if anything was stirred in you reading this? Always happy to hear from you. Truly. ❤
With love,
