What I learned from my first heartbreak

Alain de Botton once said “he wouldn’t wish heartbreak even upon his worst enemy”. Heartbreak is a death, of a future, a self, and a perspective. It’s usually accompanied by a betrayal of trust or loyalty by the very person closest to you. It’s one of the most painful experiences endured by almost all human beings. It doesn’t have to be in the romantic realm, but it often is.

I personally experienced my first heartbreak starting 7 months ago. My girlfriend at the time told me “she wanted to be alone”. I lost my first lover, my closest friend, and a fellow-human I’d felt a unique understanding towards like never-before. This was the first time in my life where I’d lost someone I deeply loved. Following this, I had to learn how to grieve, cry, process intense emotions, and understand my sensitivities: including my own attachment system. It was the first time I’d looked at my emotional self in high resolution. All of the insecurities, desires, longings, attachment triggers, and maladaptive behaviours. All there, continually revealing themselves. The more I looked, the more it hurt, and the clearer my true self became. I developed a deep knowing, of who I am, good and bad, strong and weak, free and trapped. It was the death of a future I had carefully crafted in my imagination, and a birth into the reality of my current self. Heartbreak forced me to get to know myself: it still is. Even-though it may feel horrible at times, I think it’s quite a beautiful thing.

Without further ado, here are my lessons on heartbreak.

Diversify and invest in friendships & social outlets

One major realization I had following my breakup was how little I’d invested in friendships, not only during my relationship, but over my entire life. In this low period I learned, from a place of lack, how important it is to develop and maintain connections, while also diversifying your social circles. This allows you to build a proper community, rather than over-relying on a few individuals, or a hobby, to supply you your social needs. This is especially important if you’re in a relationship. It’s not fair, nor healthy, to derive all of your social needs from one individual. Find friends of all flavours. Find friends for specific sports, hobbies, and even conversations. Its okay to only do one thing with a particular friend. I’ve continually made the mistake of attempting to convert people into what I call “swiss-army knife friends”, where I try and do everything with them. This approach often overlooks how our unique skills and interests can serve to diversify our social pallets.

Deep inner circle friendships (aka ride or die friendships) are still essential, but the humans compatible for that role are few and far between. I’m suggesting to consistently actively engage with that outer social circle, because it exposes you to more people, more social interaction, and raises the chances of you connecting with individuals compatible with your inner circle.

Stop chronically living in a fantasy of the future or the history of the past.

I think analyzing and learning from the past, while planning for the future, is essential for growing as a human being. Although there is a caveat, some of us chronically perpetuate these states of contemplation. In doing so, we loose sight of reality. Which is the only thing objectively, somewhat tangibly, real. Learning to enter the present moment is essential to functioning and appreciating life at it’s fullest potential. It’s the perpetual practice of accepting and experiencing the immediate fruits of consciousness.

Here are two important parts of life I commonly over-fantasize about, followed by how I’m trying to redirect myself away from the fantasy and back into reality. I’ve written these as if speaking to myself:

• Stop waking up each morning and spending 30 minutes romanticizing about the lover that one day may lay beside you, whom you can cuddle and savour. Instead, focus on the beauty of that solitude. That freedom to build and explore without further responsibility, resistance, or desire. Instead of fantasizing about romantic love, pay attention to the love you already have. Appreciate the love of family, and nourish/invest in friendships.
• Stop fantasizing about the business you’re going to build, the marathon or triathlon you’d like to run, the project you want to start, the education you want to get, the club you want to join, that trip you want to take, that job you want to pursue, or that activity you want to start. Stop romanticizing and start doing. Stop chronically imagining your dreams… start living them.

Stop trying to change people… lead by example

I’m someone who falls into the trap of trying to fix people. It’s a mindset that has lead me to continual disappointment. I tend to adopt responsibility for fixing issues or people that are important to me, whether I have the capacity to do so or not. With regards to fixing people, this mindset is ridiculous. It’s already hard enough trying to “fix” ourselves when we actually want to, let alone trying to “fix” somebody else who either doesn’t want to change, or is oblivious to what needs fixing. That’s why the only thing you can truly do to help people is:

1. Lead by example (via health, exercise, work ethic, curiosity, emotional regulation, consistency, being attentive and listening, being caring… etc.)
2. Care for those around you within reason. Extend the maximum amount of love to others, such that you can retain enough love for yourself.
3. Give advice when others are open to receiving it.
   • Rather than just spewing your opinion on how someone should fix an issue, wait for them to come to you. Wait for them to show you that they have an open state of mind, capable of receiving your perspective. Otherwise, your words will fall on deaf ears. Sometimes unprompted advice is truly helpful to the other person, but you have to read if the situation is appropriate or not… which many of us are bad at doing.
4. Have high standards & low expectations
   • Having high standards allows you to set boundaries around your own behaviour in addition to the behaviour of those around you. It shows other people that you respect yourself: that you value your own time and energy. It also allows you to filter out people you’re incompatible with.
   • Furthermore, having low expectations is a shortcut to acceptance, which I’ll expand on in the next point. High expectations have a high potential for failure, hence they typically end in disappointment. Lowering your expectations removes unnecessary stress for you, and for those whom you expect things from.
   • Another way of writing this would be “have high standards & realistic expectations”.
5. Accept the way they currently are
   • Accepting the way someone is in any given moment, means letting go. It means letting go of any attempt to control them. It means letting go of the person you want them to be. It means seeing them for who they truly are. When appropriate, this allows you to better hold space for someone, to make them feel seen. In other circumstances, it enables you to clearly see someone’s destructive behaviour and to make an informed decision on whether to maintain the relationship.

This list could go on endlessly. Therefore, I’ve only listed the most prevalent points that come to mind.

Be brave & authentic in who you are and uphold standards

Don’t suppress your true relationship and connection needs out of the fear of scaring the other person away. Vocalize when you don’t like something your partner does, or something you wish they would do. If you think their side of the relationship is lacking in some way, ask them to put more skin in the game. Maybe you plan all the dates, ask them to plan more dates (I like the idea of alternating every-week who plans the weekly date). Perhaps they never make or buy you anything, propose going out and buying each other a gift the following week. It can be as simple as asking them to put their phone away when you spend time together. The key is, having the courage to ask. It’s okay if you fear the consequences, that means you care, but don’t let that fear crowd out your authentic needs and desires.

Wear your heart on your sleeve, and accept the pain of having to let go of something or someone you love… allow yourself to learn from that pain

When we get hurt by someone, we sometimes close ourselves off out of self preservation. This can be necessary in the short term to cope and get through a tough period. But eventually, normally better sooner than later, we have to invite the pain back in. We have to allow our biology to express and release the pain contained within our psyche. We have to allow ourselves to feel the emotional pain within our body, allowing our biological mechanisms to partially aid in our regulation. This is the real manifestation of grief, and it’s essential to the healing process. Once we invite the pain back in, we can start the journey of learning from it. The tricky part is, that healing from a heartbreak isn’t just about one person or one event. It’s a process of learning and tending to all the residual hurt, trauma, and pain that is still within the confounds of our mind and body. From our childhood, previous relationships, and everything in-between. Heartbreak is a ripple that opens up a cavern into our psyche, finally providing us a medium to explore our inner selves. With enough courage, we can grab a flashlight and explore the depths of who we truly are.

Heartbreak as a means of understanding one-self

Building on the last point:

Beginning to understand oneself includes understand your trauma, whether deep rooted & intense or hardly noticeable. Look at your childhood, look at your parents, look at your previous relationships and sit with the fears, anxieties, and patterns that scaffold your character. Identify your maladaptations. Then take steps towards coping, healing, and rewiring.

For some, this is a more terrifying and difficult process than for others. I’m currently reading “A Road Less Traveled”, and it’s making me realize how beneficial psychotherapy would be for most of us. Not just for those with deep rooted trauma, but everybody. We all have some neurosis, character-disorder, insecurity, micro-trauma, or destructive habits. With another set of eyes, we increase the likelihood that we finally tend to things stowed away in our subconscious. I personally want to try undergoing professional psychotherapy, but currently lack the funds. In the meantime, I’ve started my own process of psychotherapy by extensively reading books such as:

• “Attached” by Amir Levine & Rachel S. F. Heller
• “Love Life” by Matthew Hussey
• “The Road Less Travelled” by M. Scott Peck

and by listening to the works of the following individuals:

• “Matthew Hussey”
• “Simon Sinek”
• “Gabor Mate”
• “Jay Shetty”
• “Dr. Nicole LePera (The Wholistic Psychologist)”
• “Alain de Botton (The School of Life)”

Obtaining high quality information from important figures of emotional intelligence, such as the ones listed above, is equivalent to being given an emotional magnifying glass and some instruction on where to look. But the actual process of looking and discovering oneself, requires the ability to sit with your thoughts & emotions. It’s essential to allow yourself to feel your emotions, and then introspect on the experience. My most powerful tool for this is writing: especially journaling. Sometimes I have to intellectualize my emotions before I can let-go and feel them. Other times I can just lay in a warm bath, or go for a nighttime walk, and just feel. I let my mind go wherever it wants, accepting whatever state of mind, and being fully receptive to what bubbles up. But afterwards, I write down any insights or feelings I come across.

Above, I’ve mentioned two amazing tools I use for emotional regulation and discovery, they are:

1. Creating space for your emotions… aka emotional acceptance
2. Journaling through your emotions… aka intellectual exploration

Sometimes I have to do one in order to make space for the other. It completely depends on my state of mind.

Uncovering origins of a deep loneliness, and low self-esteem

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always intensely craved intimacy: both emotionally and physically. Undoubtedly, this craving for intimacy is normal, but I believe it was amplified by a childhood lacking adequate amounts of consistent affection and meaningful connection. Where I grew up (Lubbock, Texas), is a suburban city, in the middle of the Great Plains. It’s completely disconnected from nature. The closest thing you can find there is cotton-fields and some canyons a couple hours away. Furthermore, I don’t have religious parents, which is a major source of community in conservative protestant areas such as Lubbock. I’ve never had the biggest group of friends either. All these factors combined, have shaped me into a human that excessively craves connection: with nature and other human beings.

When my first opportunity for a romantic relationship presented itself, I jumped and hung on to it from a place of starvation. I can now acknowledge that this hunger for connection, caused me to ignored signs of incompatibility and emotional unavailability in my ex. I blamed myself for being too needy, which is partially true, but she also struggled to do the bare minimum to sustain a healthy relationship. I blamed myself for being too attached, and caring too much, when in reality she didn’t allow herself to be vulnerable and consistent enough for the relationship to feel safe and stable.

One of the major things I’ve realized, is that I mistakenly saw a romantic relationship as the only way to fulfill my intimacy needs. I figured romance would make me less lonely, that it would fill this insatiable desire for human proximity. In reality, much of my loneliness stemmed from lacking sufficiently consistent, meaningful friendships. I was missing amazing opportunities for connection, because I was too busy chasing female attention and validation.

So what have I started to do? I’ve started redirecting all that energy into initiating and developing more high quality friendships. I think that’s the answer… we need high quality people in our lives. We need great friends. We are social animals, we are tribal beings, and without a community we chronically lack an essential component of being human. This means we have to prioritize friends… even though it sometimes feels like an “unproductive inconvenience”.

Additionally, I think our search for high quality friendships should coincide with our search for romantic partners. Learning how to be a good friend plays into learning how to be a good partner. It requires learning to care, initiate, and communicate. Obviously, the emotional and sexual components of romantic relationships add complexity, but there’s still plenty of overlap. It’s all human connection. So find activities/events/clubs that you love, courageously initiate, make friends through these activities, curate hangouts, and be the inviter. The more you initiate, the more likely others will do the same. You’ll begin building a network of people who resonate with you. With enough effort, this network will domino into a flourishing social life, which might just contain those ride-or-die friendships, and a special romantic someone.

Alrighty, that wraps up my TED talk on learning from heartbreak. I hope you enjoyed the read and found something interesting. If there’s anything in particular that resonated with you, or lessons you yourself have learned through heartbreak, please feel free to comment them down below. Constructive criticism is always welcome :).

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