The Pain in Breakups
For most of my life, I believed I was not as good as other people. Of course, there were times when I still felt superior to others as I managed to squeak out an “I’m better than most” moment here and there, but those were short-lived. No matter what I did, what I bought, or who I had in my life, I typically felt less than others and unworthy of love. This affected my life in many ways, but especially when it came to love and break-ups.
Whenever someone broke up with me, I found it difficult and challenging on a variety of levels, as anyone might. However, as long as my ex-partner was also alone, as in they didn’t have a new love, the pain of the break-up seemed manageable. Additionally, if I found someone new to love me, I hardly bothered at all about the break-up. As my friend Joni used to say, the best way to get over the old is to get under the new! Often, though, my ex-partner had someone else lined up or would so soon and I hardly ever did. When I became aware of this other new person, it’s as if my worst fears were just validated. This new person meant to me that I wasn’t good enough and she was. The pain of the breakup shot up to nearly unbearable, unendurable heights. It’s already painful to live with the belief that you are not good enough, as most of us do. But to be dumped and then have your ex-lover find a new love-that’s excruciating.
It drove me crazy to know my ex-partner was enjoying the company of someone who must be better looking than me, more successful, funnier, smarter, and, well, better in every way. It didn’t matter if any of this was true or not, these were the tortuous stories my mind told me. Was it jealousy? Yes, in a way. I wanted what the other person had.Ælove. Deep down, though, I was really using this situation to highlight my beliefs about how unlovable, invaluable and unworthy I believed I was. Why else would someone break up with me except to find someone better than me? And there was always someone better.
Jealousy is a horribly painful point of view. Yes, I said point of view. Now we are getting to the nitty gritty about jealousy. The thing about jealousy is that it’s not the “other woman” or your ex-partner that causes it-it’s our conditioned belief in self-lack that causes it. Jealousy is nothing more than a tactic used by the one who believes they are not good enough to solidify that belief. Go beyond jealousy to the root cause and healing is inevitable.
Belief in Self-Lack Creates Jealousy
From an early age, we are trained to believe we are lacking in some way. This message is delivered to us by our caretakers, the school system, television, the government-look just about anywhere and there is a repetitive theme out there that tells us we have to be and have certain things in order to be good enough. I didn’t have most of that stuff and when I did get what I was trained to believe I needed, I still didn’t feel good enough. That’s damn frustrating! What we need to become aware of is that we are programmed to believe a lie. There is nothing wrong, or lacking, in any of us. Not knowing this truth, until now, we continue believing in the lie. The belief in self-lack creates jealousy.
This may not seem possible, but let me ask you this question: Who would want what someone else had who knew they were good enough, equal to all and whole.Æas in complete in every way, all by themselves? Let’s take a moment to really feel what that is like. Imagine you feel strong, worthy, valuable, capable, and filled with love inside-I mean totally filled with love in every subatomic particle of your being. Now, you’re not experiencing love because you have someone in your life who gives you love or because you have material things in your life that you believe make you better (not that things ever give you love, though we might believe they do), but you are filled with completeness simply because you have remembered who you truly are-the energetic frequency of love itself. Knowing this, you understand that you are connected to everyone and everything. Love is given freely because you have nothing to lose and need nothing to be returned since you aren’t lacking in any way. Separation, loneliness and conditional relationships are impossible in this reality, as is jealousy.
To uncover the real reason behind jealousy, we have to stop looking outside ourselves, blaming others and blaming ourselves. It’s not her fault, his fault or your fault. It’s the fact that we were trained to believe something about ourselves that is absolutely not true. With awareness of the truth, we are forced to look within to uncover and deal with the beliefs we have about ourselves that cause us to feel anything less than we truly are. Once we uncover these, the real root cause of our jealousy and general pains in life, will begin to heal. With truth, the jealousy we were taking part in crumbles and we are finally relieved of its pain.
No Jealousy in Pure Love
Years ago, after one of my break-ups (others typically broke up with me), I was at a friend’s house crying about it to her. She grabbed a bottle of wine with two glasses and filled them both. We talked for about 15 minutes. Then, without a word, she just got up and left the room. She returned five minutes later with two books. One was The Four Agreements (Amber-Allen Publishing, 1997) by Don Miguel Ruiz. The other was Soul Mates (Harper Collins, 1994) by Thomas Moore. She told me I had to take one and read it. I took the book that had the fewest pages-The Four Agreements it was.
In his book, Don Miguel encourages us to make four agreements with ourselves. The first one is to be impeccable with our words, meaning don’t use words against ourselves or others. I didn’t think this applied to me until I paid attention to how I talked to myself.Æthoughts and words. We’ve all heard about negative self-talk, but do we really listen when our minds are blasting us with it? It’s time to listen. I did and I was shocked. In fact, I cried. I couldn’t believe I used such horrible words against myself, calling myself names and belittling myself on a regular basis. Hearing all of this was a life changer. I immediately promised myself to stop these thoughts and words, and with time, I have, mostly.
What a relief it has been. I am not the loser I believed I was, nor are you. The thing is, I didn’t change myself.ÆI changed my beliefs about myself. These beliefs were expressed in low-energy thoughts and words. I encourage you to do the same as I did. Listen. Promise. Change; We have the power.
When we remember who we are, rather than following the conditioned lies we have been taught, we are free to love without conditions. Loving without conditions is true love of self and it is in this realm that we are able to truly love others. Here, we get love because we give it. This doesn’t mean love is returned from another, as we are taught; it means that whenever we express love outwardly to another, we automatically experience love internally for ourselves. In this sacred space of our deepest truth, jealousy doesn’t even exist.
When we remember who we are, we are also free to allow souls to move and shift as needed and to experience others. This movement is no reflection on us, meaning the movement is not personal to us no matter what our training would have us believe. In other words, break-ups don’t happen because we are not good enough-they are soul-driven to provide us experiences and opportunities. To the one who believes they are not good enough, such movements, or break-ups, are horrendous. But break-ups are not endings, they are beginnings. For the one who knows they exist beyond the training, this is obvious.
It is time to remember our truth-that we are all good enough in every way, we always have been. When we remember this, we can easily see that jealousy is a concept that does not apply to our lives. Focusing on the truth releases us from its grip. We move forward with a deeper understanding of ourselves. Peace, connection and healing are our focus. Life makes sense. Pain from beliefs and thoughts hardly happen. We deserve this.
What do we do now? We love.
