Healing from heartbreak

This is the transcript of a guided meditation I produced for Insight Timer, for those passing through the end of a romantic relationship. It’s a moment for your heartbreak to be truly seen in all its rawness, and for us to hold your pain together. In the meditation I gently guide you with acceptance and compassion, through being with your darkest feelings and thoughts. We'll explore the roots of why you're hurting so much, before re-emerging with hope and guidance to take with you. If you wish to give it a listen, pop your earphones in and open up this love letter to your heartbreak.

Hello

I see you. I hear you. I’m with you now.

In this untethered space, where once there was a being that bound you to a more grounded sense of place in this world.

To an identity.

This is who I am, me and them. This is our shared purpose.

This person was once the central story to your life, an adventure with possibilities.

And now becomes a chapter in your ongoing story.

I see how lonely you feel right now.

This whirlwind of an ending, scrambling around trying to make sense of what is left. What is being felt. What is happening.

It’s okay to be here.

I see you.

Cycling through a stream of feelings.

I see how you find yourself on the precipice of a feeling, before falling starkly into another. All at sea amongst the wave of emotion. Perhaps resurfacing on islands of hope and stability, a moment to breathe. Then it comes again, out of nowhere, gathering you up in the wash of tumultuous feelings. 

Let them come.

Let all the feelings find their way to where they need to be.

Hello sadness.

Hello anger.

The resentment, the bitterness, the revenge.

The betrayal.

Let them all come.

The pain. Oh, the heart wrenching pain.       

The stuckness, will this unwanted feeling ever change. It seems like a lifetime.

I feel your panic.

I see how scary and confusing this is for you.

The feeling of weakness. 

The fragility.

The insecurity. The shame.

The abandonment.

The regret and the longing. How there’ll always be things unsaid, things you could have done, experiences you could have had.

I see the love that’s still there.

The Hate.

The love. The Hate. The confusion.

I see you struggling with the grief.

Let yourself grieve. Let yourself grieve.

Grieve the past. Grieve the present moment. The hoped for future, shaped over time, still unfolding in your mind.

In this very moment you have permission to grieve. It’s okay for you to be feeling this way.

Be loving with where you are right now and change will follow. 

This mind of ours, it can be a very frightening place.

Full of maddening thoughts. The sharp edges of memories splintering off into painful stories.

I see how you desperately want things to be different to how they are.

It’s as if, if we were to think about the past enough, maybe, just maybe we could magic up a new future.

This very human need, to cling to a desire to be in control of things. To get what we want. To never be hurt.  

To stop things changing.

To wage war with any threat to our identity.

I see you.

It goes against every urge we have to let go of the image of what could have been, into the uncertain space left behind. It’s hard.

Let us gently notice this. It’s really hard.

Let the body relax a little more in this moment.

Let the shoulders drop.

Allow the jaw to rest, releasing any clenching

Notice any tightness in the brow, imagine it melting away

As you breathe let the breath be received in a softening belly.

And this one too.

We’re being called to do so many things that seem counterintuitive – let go of the familiar for the unknown.

Let go of our hopes and dreams. Of someone we love.

No wonder it’s painful.

And I see how you feel like you might have failed. Why couldn’t we make it work. It feels like a small misstep here and there brought the relationship to an end.

There’s a desire to make sense of this ending, to feel like we could have prevented it. To believe we had some control.

I hear those conversations and arguments you play out in your mind. Who was right. Who was wrong. Over, and over again.

Over every microscopic detail of what was said, when it happened, searching for the critical moments.

If only you’d done something differently, hey.

But it most likely wasn’t so. You tried. Even more than you might believe. You tried.

Still, I see how you may be insatiable for the need to know.

Finding yourself reliving the drama, the familiarity of old habits and stories.

Even prizing open wounds.

It may seem at times as if we even enjoy dwelling in this loss; beautifying, worshiping, struggling and moulding, inspecting from different angles. Turning over images, unfolding new details. The pain itself is our way of staying connected.

It’s okay.

I see your struggle, with this very natural process of trying to make sense of it all.

You know, love really is a drug. A cocktail of hormones and neurotransmitters; dopamine, serotonin, vasopressin, oxytocin. This infusion bonds us to others, drives us to seek connection and satisfaction

The withdrawal makes the body ache, it yearns.

A tidal wave of differing emotions wreak havoc.

The soul feels lost and powerless.

The mind wanders seeking certainty in irrational places.

While your brain craves the dopamine fix so lovingly conveyed some time ago.

You’re not alone. With this grieving. This process of change. You’re not alone.

I see how you remember their touch, their smell, the shape of them. The physical closeness and intimacy. The way your bodies entwined.

How they spoke, soothed you, enlivened you.

I hear how you want to share your precious moments with them, perhaps even this very moment. Share your joys, your fears.

I see you struggle with the temptation to take a peek at their social media, just a quick look you tell yourself. Scrolling through posts, followers and likes. Seeking answers. Riding a spectrum of relief to pain, looping back and forth, emerging some time later exhausted from the scavenge.

 I see how your mind can feel obsessive, busy with addictive ruminating, unhinged even, wondering what they are up to, who they are with.

I want you to know, right now, it’s okay.

This separation has left you trying to manage the cravings. Trying to make sense of things.

Reading old messages, looking at images of you and them, it keeps the feeling of connection going.

It may even feel like the relationship is continuing, but with a ghostly version of them.

 I see how, in the dark corners of the playground of your mind, these thoughts can seem so real. It’s as if, what is being thought about, must be happening. You can even feel the pain in your body. It must be.

 Yet, it isn’t true. This isn’t what’s actually happening. The truth is, you do not know.

 Ah this need for certainty over uncertainty, it can literally drive us crazy.

 Remind yourself, whatever you are imagining right now, however real it seems, these are just your own thoughts.

 When your mind clambers into these stories, gently say:

‘hello craving, I know you want to go there, I do too. That seductive place of pain and pleasure. But not now. Not now’

 Hmm how strange it is our mind wanders wayward down particular pathways.

 What is it really searching for.

 As we go deeper, deeper into the origins, we might find ourselves reciting our favourite myth of all. It’s an old old tale of not being enough. A tale that feeds on the broken hearted.

This idea, that we are not enough.

 A belief we’re holding on to, wrestling with, dissecting the evidence to support and challenge, on and on.

 If we look close enough, we might observe how we give our worthiness over to another, allowing the tale to be written by them. Pinning our worthiness on their words. Their choices. Their actions.

 A part of us, perhaps wounded long ago, was once made to believe this story. Always on the lookout for evidence to fuel the narrative, chapter after chapter. This is all it knows. Its scared of letting go of this story, the strangely comforting familiarity.

Now let us slow down for a moment.

Just notice this performance play out in the mind.

Let that wounded part of you, that feels unworthy, know it is seen.

You might like to tell it so.

It is heard.

You can feel it’s hurting right now.

You are there by its side.

In another time, it will be safely released from holding the story that feeds this pain.

And here, we begin that subtle movement, towards taking the power and responsibility from another person, the shared past, and your wounded parts, into the cradling hands of your present.

When we dive beneath the stories that so often occupy our mind, what we’ll most likely find, is our very human need to be loved, safe, and connected with others. How we yearn for this to always be fulfilled.

And the suffering which arises when these needs go unmet.

Just for a moment, let us sit with this.

It’s okay to be where you are.

Gently, we let be this wish for things to be different.

Gently, settling, resting on the breath, give yourself permission to feel what is there.

Now, slowly, take a big deep breath in through the nose, from right down in the belly.

Pausing for a moment.

And on the out breath let it all flow out through the mouth.

Just breathing now

This moment you are passing through will evolve and change.

Lightness will find its way in. Love will find its way in. Again.

You don’t need to expect to feel this now, and if it feels difficult to hope for this to be true, I’ll hold that hope for you instead.

Feelings will change. It can take a little time.

We need to rewire the neurons in our brain; those expectations, hopes, dreams will keep playing until synaptic plasticity rewires them. Patience is our friend here.

Though patience is not simply the ability to wait - it's how we behave while we're waiting

By paying attention to ourselves and our experience, while tuning in to an attitude which stimulates healing, you will gradually disentangle yourself from that which makes you feel bad, and orientate towards that which feels good.

Trust in this.

Letting one thing be, means giving ourselves to something else. In the spacious awareness a little distance arrives. As you move through the eye of this experience, a broader perspective will reveal itself.

Trust in this.

And over time you will find you can’t quite remember parts of what was said, the tone of their voice, what it meant and how it felt. With the vividness diffused, something begins to lose its place.

There are gaps in there, just small, space enough to breathe in the new.

A little more flexibility and authority will find its way home.

Trust in this.

With time, we even might notice a little tint of rose in those spectacles we used to look at our relationship. There was an attachment to their potential, as much as the lived reality.

Right now, I know this maybe hurts just as much, you want to hold onto that connection so badly. It’s like, life itself depended on sustaining it.

You formed an attachment with them. A special bond. Your nervous system yearns for a need to feel safe and protected, a survival instinct deep rooted in eons of evolution.

It’s okay.

Be gentle with this knowledge. So so gentle.

Let time unfold this mystery of letting go.

This relationship you hold so dearly will find its resting place within you.

Trust in this too.

And some day you will notice how you have grown from this, feel stronger, learnt about yourself and what you want.

Trust in this.

There will be a time, maybe now, maybe in the future. Where parts of yourself, lost within the blend of the relationship, will be rediscovered.

Your personal joys, needs and desires will rise to the surface and become hungry again.

I know it’s hard for you to know this now. There’s no rush, it will come.

As we near the end of this love letter to your heartbreak, please remember. 

Already, the healing is happening. Right now. Imperceptible maybe, but every moment moves you forward. Whether it be the highs, the lows, the mundane moments. The pain and sorrow. The hope and happiness. Forward you go.

Healing is in the feeling.

When you are lost, here are few things to remember.

Remind yourself to start from where you are. Any expectations of a sudden shift, will leave you feeling you should be somewhere other than where you are. In this gap you’ll likely find judgement. So try to let this expectation be.

With kindness, pay attention to what’s present in your mind and body.

Identify any unhelpful narratives, get underneath them, feel what wants to be felt.

And continue to feel tenderly towards your own vulnerability, orientating yourself towards healing experiences and emotions.

You know, the power of belief can be enough to trigger feel-good chemicals. Whatever your healing process is, believe in it.