Tag Archives: Acceptance

Learning To Let Go With Love

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One of the hardest things for any person, man or woman, is letting go of a relationship that’s not meant to be. We are often attached to the illusion that this person is “the One” for us, and that if we don’t have him or her, we’ll never find somebody new.

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Holding on to disappointment, hurt, blame, anger, resentment, and bitterness, we convince ourselves that “all men are jerks” or “all women are bitches.”

If you’ve just got out of a relationship and are harbouring a lot of resentment against your partner or against the opposite sex, now is NOT the time to start dating again. Your anger and bitterness will poison even the most loving relationship.

When we hang on to baggage from past relationships, we end up projecting our pain on to others in our lives – our families, children and, eventually, our new partners.

Our emotional baggage is usually rooted in our relationships with our own parents, or in bad relationships we’ve had in the past. We have to lighten our load and heal our pain before we can love again.

[bctt tweet=”We have to lighten our load and heal our pain before we can love again.”]

Some of the practices you need to cultivate in order to heal yourself are:

Radical Personal Responsibility:

Take responsibility for the role you played in your relationship, either by taking inappropriate action, not acting altogether or expecting too much. Stop blaming your partner. Own your feelings, so you can change them.

Self-Awareness:

Are there patterns that keep repeating in your relationships? Do you have a tendency to get into relationships with abusive people, or become abusive yourself? Become mindful of your reactions to people and situations. Learn to identify your patterns, and the unhealthy beliefs that are causing them.

Acceptance:

Accept yourself and your partner the way you are. Accept the fact that the relationship was not meant to be, that it didn’t work because it was not your highest and best.

Forgiveness:

Learn to forgive yourself for all the damage that your anger and pain may have caused, and forgive others for being human and acting out their own anger and pain.

Gratitude:

Be grateful that you’re out of a bad relationship, so you can be with someone better suited to your needs. Be grateful for all the lessons you’ve learned from your partner.

Compassion:

Learn to look at all people as human beings dealing with their own pain. Spend some time seeing the world through their eyes and you’ll become less judgmental.

Detachment:

Learn to let go of unhealthy attachments to people, things and situations.

Independence:

Stop expecting other people to give you the love and acceptance you should be giving yourself. Learn to meet your own needs, let go of expectations, and enter a healthy, inter-dependent relationship.

Optimism:

Optimism is not essential, but it makes life so much easier. An optimistic outlook, positive attitude and belief that everything happens for the best, can help you bounce back from your loss. Have faith that the best is yet to come.

It takes a lot of tears, hard work, and introspection to break the chains of the past. But it’s worth every moment! The feeling of freedom and contentment that you experience is just awesome.

Getting rid of your anger and hurt will help you stop blaming others for your pain, and allowed you to see your former partner as they really are – a wonderful, sensitive human being with the capacity to love, to care, and to hurt just as deeply as you.

It will allow you to love life again, to see the beauty in every experience, to be non-judgmental and open to new relationships.

No time spent in a relationship is ever wasted. Every experience is a lesson and only when you learn the lesson will you progress to the next level. So stop beating yourself up over all the years you “wasted” with that “loser.”

[bctt tweet=”Every experience is a lesson and only when you learn the lesson will you progress to the next level. “]

If it didn’t work, it was probably not meant to be. You can’t force someone to love you, just as you can’t force commitment or marriage. These are stages that should happen naturally, when it feels right for both people.

Contrary to popular opinion (and sad love songs) love is not meant to hurt. If you’re in pain, what you’re experiencing is not love, but attachment or codependence. Too often we fall in love, not with our partner, but with the IDEA of being in love.

[bctt tweet=”Too often we fall in love, not with our partner, but with the IDEA of being in love.”]

It’s best to let go of a relationship that’s causing too much pain. Instead of wallowing in the past and writing your own sad love song, do your inner work, get rid of the anger and disappointment and get on with your life.

Let go of your partner with love, so you can move past your hurt and learn to love again.

© Priya Florence Shah

How To Stop Trying To Please Everyone And Get Your Life Back

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[bctt tweet=”Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner. ~ Lao Tzu”]

The disease to please is very common, especially among women and even more so among those who suffer from low self-esteem. While the need for acceptance or belonging is a normal human need, it is also true that acceptance begins with the acceptance of the self, first.

8007651_sThe need to please everyone or be a “people pleaser” stems from a lack of self-love and self-acceptance that causes us to try to get what we need from other people instead of giving it to ourselves.

But when you spend your life trying to please others, you are essentially giving your power away and making them responsible for your happiness. When you act like a “people-pleaser”, you give up your own needs, ignore your own inner voice and give up your self-respect and dignity to make others happy.

In doing that you are not doing anyone a favor. Instead you invite people to treat you with disrespect and to exploit you. Your unhappiness stems not from the fact that others are taking you for granted or treating you badly, but because, in working to gain their approval, you are treating yourself badly.

It is our own lack of self-worth and self-esteem that causes us to seek approval from sources outside of ourselves. In our efforts to keep everyone else happy, we end up doing too much and catering to everyone’s whims.

We continue to feel unappreciated and our feelings of resentment get stronger and stronger until we can no longer ignore them. When we do things to garner approval from others and don’t get the approval we seek, we end up resentful, burn out physically and emotionally and collapse from exhaustion or depression.

It’s not easy to give up approval seeking behavior when your self-acceptance and self-esteem are practically non-existent. The cure for this is to focus on building your sense of self-worth and realizing that you are worthy of love and acceptance just for being you.

Your sense of self-worth will then becomes so strong that even another person’s disapproval will not shake the belief that you are deserving of love and affection, for the only reason that you exist.

Take note of your motives when you offer to do something for someone else. Are you doing it because you expect something (love, affection, acceptance) in return, or without any expectations of them reciprocating your caring?

[bctt tweet=”Are you acting from a place of fullness and love or from a place of lack and wanting?”]

If you’ve made people pleasing and caretaking others a habit, it will be hard to change unless you remain ever vigilant of your actions and motives.

You can get out of people-pleasing mode by starting to allow your family and friends to do things for themselves. From folding their own clothes and putting them away to helping out in the kitchen, get your family to chip in and support you in taking care of yourself.

You are not doing your loved ones a favour by doing everything for them. Instead you are making them dependent on you, for the wrong reasons. Allow them to take over their own chores and start taking care of yourself for a change. You can grow your self-esteem and self-worth by doing good things for yourself.

Practice extreme self-care and stop doing everything for others, especially when you realize that you are doing them for unhealthy reasons. When you take loving action on your own behalf, you will have more faith in your ability to do what is right for yourself and your sense of self-esteem will increase.

Take small actions everyday to nurture yourself. Cultivate positive self talk and do not be critical with yourself. Over a period of time your beliefs will change and you will be able to resist the unhealthy lure of approval seeking behavior.

© Priya Florence Shah

This is an excerpt from the book, “From Doormat to Devi: 10 Steps To Stop Overfunctioning In Relationships And Take Your Life Back” available on online bookstores.