Please accept this as the first of several posts designed to illustrate seasons of life where your yoga and meditation practice will be helpful.
Raise your hand if you’ve ever had your heart broken….
Crickets? Probably not. Unfortunately, this is one big, painful part of the human experience that we all must traverse.
What is even more heartbreaking than heartbreak is giving up on love
Here are some ways Yoga and Reiki can help you find your way through the wilderness a broken heart and back to living and loving from your fullest
First, it’s important to realize that you are not alone.
Browse any list of movies or songs and you’ll find that heartbreak is the most common and oldest theme.
We attach to each other, we make connections. It’s one of the beautiful things about being part of the human tribe!
When we fall in love with another person, we make plans, envision a future, and move our lives around to accommodate that future!
And then, we are let down.
Maybe the person you invested in turned out to be somebody very different than you thought.
Maybe he or she fell in love with somebody else.
Perhaps they were unfaithful and hurt you deeply.
Maybe it was a struggle with an addiction or not loving themselves deeply enough, and thus they were too hurt to be able to love you.
Whatever the reason, let’s be honest: Heartbreak Sucks.
Moving through heartbreak is moving through grief.
I don’t think this is acknowledged enough in this world. Heartbreak is a very real form of grief because you are grieving for the entity that you two as a couple were.
Like a person, you had dreams and goals for the two of you. A future that was supposed to happen. Part of moving through your heartbreak is letting go of a vision of your future, and that is not easy.
If you feel that you played the role of fool in your relationship (very common if your partner was unfaithful to you), you need to forgive yourself for loving and trusting.
You need to find a way to trust again.
Another very human reaction to pain is to find a way to not get hurt again.
If we step on a nail, we will be sure, in the future, to wear shoes with strong soles and to look out for painful nails when we are walking. If you burn yourself with fire, you will avoid anything that remotely looks like a flame.
But how do we avoid hurt in love? By not loving?
That is it’s own kind of pain and loneliness, and I do not recommend it.
The best way to find your way through heartbreak is by finding the wisdom in your grief.
Ask yourself:
1. What important lessons did this relationship teach you about yourself?
I, like you, have lived through the painful end of a relationship I thought was my happy ending. When the fury of tears had passed and I was able to sit in stillness, I could see clearly the way I acted in the situation that was not in highest alignment with who I want to be in this world.
I saw how I reacted in the face of jealousy, I examined my actions when I felt angry, and I looked at the way I communicated when there was misunderstanding.
By looking closely at each of these situations, I was able to step into my power and remind myself that even though we can’t control the situation, we are always in control of our reactions.
This is good information to have about yourself because as you begin to recognize your patterns, you have the power to shift and grow.
2. How did your intuition speak to you as the end of this relationship neared?
All of us have the gift of intuition. Some are able to listen and heed our intuition better than others.
There is nothing magic about this gift. Your intuition gets stronger and easier to listen to the more you practice using it.
Sometimes, hindsight is the best way to realize that our intuition has been screaming at us!
Can you identify the thoughts and feelings you had that showed you this was the not the right person, not the right situation for you?
Even by looking back and seeing areas of our lives where our intuition was trying to talk to us, we are learning how to listen to it in the future.
Next time you experience a similar thought or feeling, you will be able to act on it. Your intuition is constantly guiding you towards the people who will lift you up, not tear you down….to your tribe.
3. What do you now know about the kind of partner you want in the future?
Sometimes we learn best by learning what we don’t want. When I was young and carefree, I constantly found myself attracted to men who bucked the system, who lived by the seat of their pants, and refused to bow down to “the man.”
This all sounds very romantic, right?
Well…the reality was that I was drawn to men who were so anti-establishment that they couldn’t hold down jobs, let alone pay rent and provide for themselves. My young, romantic self had to be shown that reality to adjust my desires and check what kind of people I was drawing into my reality.
By walking the wrong path for a little while, you are given the gift of knowing what you don’t want. Each path you rule out brings you closer to creating the reality you are meant for.
Find Support on the Mat
Yoga is a fabulous tool to use when you are struggling with heartbreak. In the midst of feeling that your whole world is falling apart, you step into your yoga practice and ground down. You can connect to your sacred, shining self who is unsullied by the heartbreak, and simply acting as the compassionate observer.
Choose poses that connect you to the earth, like Balasana, child’s pose.
While in this pose, remind yourself that you have everything you need in this moment. Feel the support of the earth underneath you. Let that recall all the other forms of support you have in your life: friends, family, your own strength and resilience.
It is helpful here to remember other challenges you have conquered and grown from.
Keep your practice low to the earth and supported. Allow yourself to sink into the support of props like bolsters and blocks.
Reiki Support
Sometimes your yoga practice is not enough. Reiki is an excellent tool for moving through grief.
When we feel particularly difficult emotions, they might store in the body rather than moving through us. This manifests over time as energetic blocks and dis-comfort or dis-ease wherever we are storing these emotions.
If we consistently use our body to store emotions, those emotions will come out in myriad ways, and seem out of place as we burst into tears over an unrelated incident, or as we find ourselves drawn to the same type of relationship over and over again in an unconscious attempt to heal the original relationship that set us on this downward spiral.
One or several reiki sessions can help your body process and release emotions, leading to a healthier and more connected self.