Sometimes we just need a bit of guidance along our path. Is there something going on in your life that you don’t know how to deal with? As a Certified Intuitive Life Coach, I help people understand why things happen the way they do in life and help provide the perspective to make change. Got a question of your own? Email donnalynn@observer.com.
This week we’re talking about love. We all want love, but we don’t always know where to find it or how to heal our hearts once we’ve lost it. Here’s the secret—the love you seek is only a mirror to the love you have within yourself. The more you learn to love yourself, the easier it will be to attract love and the easier it will be to heal your heart once that love has left you.
After 7 years, I’ve split from my partner. It’s been the worst heartbreak I’ve ever known. It was on his terms, and I’m devastated. He won’t even respond to me. What can I say to him so he’ll have a conversation with me to give me the closure I deserve?
Well, you said it. Closure is what you’re seeking, but you’re making the mistake of thinking that that closure needs to come from him. The closure you seek must come from you.
If you let go with love, you’ll move forward faster. But if you let go with resentment or anger, you’ll be attached to the heartache forever. This is because positive emotions open us up to opportunity and negative emotions attach us to the pain we’re trying to avoid. For example, if you’re hating someone, you’re not free of them, you carry them with you.
Go inside yourself. Find any reason to be grateful for this relationship—what did it teach you? How did it make you better? When you can practice gratitude for what you’ve learned, you’ll start appreciating his role in your life instead of resenting him. But if you continue to hold onto the pain, you’ll carry it with you forever and use it as an excuse to keep yourself out of future relationships.
He’s irrelevant to your healing. You’re in charge of it. Don’t damage yourself. Find the love you deserve here and give it to yourself. This relationship was not wasted; it made you better, stronger and wiser. Take that learning and pick your head up high and open up to the next beautiful relationship that’s awaiting you. The sooner you embrace the light that was there for you, the sooner you’ll move forward.
I’m recently out of a toxic relationship and I really want to find my soul mate. I am frustrated with meeting the wrong men—I have a knack for picking ones with broken wings. Online dating just seems to be a mecca for toxic bachelors. What’s the best way to find a healthy relationship?
Finding the right relationship isn’t about going somewhere in particular to find it; it’s about where you are within yourself that determines the quality of the relationship you attract.
We don’t find relationships; we attract them to us. It’s all about the energy you’re putting out. Who you are and how you are feeling is what attracts relationships to you. So, if you are at a low point in your life—unhappy with your career, angry over a past breakup, feeling negative emotions such as depression or anxiety—you’ll only succeed in attracting similar qualities in a romantic partner.
You get what you are putting out—like attracts like. So, if you are bitter or frustrated over attracting toxic men, it’s the energy of bitterness and frustration that you’re projecting out into your romantic search. The universe will always comply and match you up with some bitter and frustrating partners.
Get yourself together. It’s not about where you look; it’s about looking within. Focus on loving yourself and being happy with yourself, by yourself. That energy will undoubtedly attract an equal match—someone who is also vibrating along the same path of self-love and happiness.
I have been with my significant other for over two years and I feel he has commitment issues. He isn’t very demonstrative with love and he’s extremely preoccupied with his work. I need him to be there for me emotionally when I need his support. I need to feel like I’m his partner. I need him to show up for me differently. I tell him all the time and he never changes. How do I get him to understand what I need?
You stop needing from him. Instead of being emotionally needy, why not learn to be emotionally independent of him? When you stop needing from him, you might actually get your needs met.
Believe it or not, the work is never in needing someone else to change, it’s always about needing yourself to change. How can you use this opportunity as a way to advance your personal growth?
He might very well have commitment issues, but your emotional neediness would just push those buttons and shut him down further. So it’s important to see that throwing your needs onto him will never get your needs met.
Learn to give yourself what you need. Learn how to soothe yourself when you feel he isn’t meeting your needs and find a way to fill that gap with your own self-love. Don’t sit back and wait for him to just become what you need—find ways to be emotionally independent of him.
Once you find your emotional independence, you’ll give him the space he needs to recognize that he wants a much deeper connection with you.
