Waiting for a red light at a busy intersection, I suddenly saw, to my right, a dilapidated old building with the words “I still love you” in heavy black paint on the side. There are moments like these which feel like an epiphany – something that rocks you to your very soul, an insight that is nothing short of life-changing. I had kept the man of my dreams, who had loved but ultimately left me, at the periphery of my mind for so many years and, in an instant, everything came flooding back to me – the unimaginable pain of a severed relationship which was supposed to have culminated in a marriage, the labored and uneasy explanations which had to be provided to inquiring family and friends, the constant reworking of scenarios of what went wrong and what my responsibility was for that. In the end, he walked away with claims that he simply wasn’t ready to fuse our lives and needed “space.” To this day, the word “space” makes me cringe because it carries the hurtful remembrances and associations of a failed partnership and the shame I felt for not seeing a matrimony ensue.  

For years, everyone I met asked me “what went wrong?” remarking “you two were such a terrific couple.” There are not always words which are adequate to describe one’s emotional life and, if truth be known, not everything is comprehensible. Often, I was reduced to the statement “I don’t know. Things seemed to be going so well, and I loved him so much.” Momentarily, I basked in the pity and the empathy but, in the end, there was simply an empty apartment to return to replete with many photos and artifacts of a shared and joyous life. A friend invoked an Irish witticism, learned in her Dublin home from a cousin: “better quarreling than lonely” and I felt there was veracity in that and wanted him back, even with the background of all the fighting, remonstrating and losing ground because it was, in his eyes, me who was responsible for the failure of our relationship and our lives that could no longer go forward.

Driving to Winston-Salem in a darkening sky and a drizzling rain, I wished that I had never seen those sorrowful words on what would have otherwise been an obscure and forgettable cement structure. They reignited sentiments that I had long put away – that I had never stopped loving Daniel, with his wonderful laughter and charm, quick wit, his blazing blue eyes and impossibly reddish-blonde hair. For two years, we loved each other with a ferocity that was extraordinary. It had substance, it had tenacity, humor and endurance. I never doubted that coupledom would do anything but continue – until it didn’t. When I recently read Chilean poet Pablo Neruda’s words about lost love – “there is no space wider than that of grief” – tears poured down my face. The pain of the relationship’s closure seems still so fresh and unnerving. I try to console myself with an observation that the English Victorian poet, Lord Alfred Tennyson, made: “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” However, it took years until I believed it.

There is someone who (virtually) helped me ultimately deal with the collateral heartbreak. As it turned out, I happened to run across the writings of Tony Robbins, an American motivational speaker and life coach, who spoke powerfully about consequences of broken relationships, how to help repair a broken heart and addressed the concept of how learning to let go of someone you love is the only way you can be “the architect of your own life.” Here are a few techniques he suggested to help one get back on track:

1. Recognize when it is time to let go. Face what happened, accept that you can’t change it and plan to move on. Stop the blame game and forgive yourself.
2. Identify limiting beliefs like “I’ll never find someone else who loves me.” Replace these thoughts with empowering mantras like “I am open to what the universe has in store for me” and “I love myself and deserve the best.”
3. Take time to grieve. Do some journaling, spend time in nature, eat a rich delectable dessert. Stop apologizing. You are not someone’s victim. Hold your head high and keep on walking.
4. Make self-care a big part of your life. Get regular sleep and exercise and keep busy – very busy.
5. Talk to people you trust. Hang out with people who appreciate you and emanate positivity. Consider getting a therapist if the emotional pain doesn’t decrease eventually.
6. Change your story so that your past empowers you instead of holding you back. Robbins has famously said “your past is not your future unless you live there.” Show yourself some serious love – take a vacation, buy those expensive UGG boots, get a manicure. You deserve everything.
7. Finally, find the lesson in every experience and be grateful for it. Wish your former partner and you a future good life and mean it. You loved that person for a reason, so keep those good memories in a space where you can retrieve them at will. Admittedly, there may always be a part of you that still loves them, but reframe the narrative to one which says “thank you for allowing me to experience the phenomenon of love. I am enriched by it and ready for the next time it may enter my life.” As Robbins says, “The only thing that’s keeping you from getting what you want is the story you keep telling yourself.”