How To Forget Someone 101

Have you loved someone so deeply that life without them seems not just unimaginable, but unbearable?

If so, I feel you.

It’s not easy. It is, in fact, horribly difficult.

My worst breakup was when my ex decided that he needed a break from us and left. He didn’t promise that he would be back even though I desperately wanted the assurance.

The four months between the time he left and the time he came back were amongst the most uncertain and saddest periods of my life. I didn’t leave my house for weeks. I didn’t shower for days, I stayed in front of the TV, dully watching random cooking shows and series, songs and films, even the news when I wanted to focus on someone else’s misery, wondering if my life would ever be the same again.

I cried so much that I threw up.

Hearing my lifeless, hollow voice over the phone, my mother grew so worried that she came down to visit me, travelling overnight. She convinced me to come outside for a short while but we’d barely made it to a nearby café before I started crying again. On the way back to the house, I scratched the car severely when I misjudged the distance and took a turn too quickly. We’d just stepped into the elevator before I accidentally dropped the house key into the cracks of the elevator door. My mom had to call a local maintenance man to open up the lift and locate the keys.

I was in a vacant daze all through, barely registering what was happening. Needless to say, I didn’t handle the whole situation well at all.

I had given another person so much control over my emotions that when he was no longer around, I couldn’t handle it.

As is the way of the human heart, however, I slowly began to heal. The main thing that helped? I shifted my attention elsewhere by joining a course of study.

This was the number one thing I learnt during that time – to heal from an emotional wound, we must shift our attention.

If you are wondering about how to stop thinking about someone, your healing lies here. It’s the best way I know.

Because ultimately, what is love? Is it really something that only someone else can give us? Do we honestly believe that we are not capable of giving it to ourselves? We, who are magnificent and limitless beings, cannot complete ourselves?

Impossible.

You see, loving someone is not and should not be a compulsive need. To be given that opportunity is a privilege. Anyone who has the honour of loving another being has been handed an immense blessing by the Universe. We must do everything in our power to cherish it.

The ultimate purpose of our lives, however, is to learn to love ourselves and feel complete in ourselves. Anyone who is in our life is but a medium for that eventual goal.

I still remember the day my ex came back. The night before, we’d had a brief conversation over the phone. I went to bed in tears, feeling the agony of his absence and crying my heart out. In that moment, the second I felt absolutely helpless and out of control because there was just nothing I could do to bring him back, a prayer shot forth from my heart. Of its own accord, my inner voice came forth.

Surrendering completely to the will of the Universe. I give up. It’s all you now. I have nothing left in me.

And I went to sleep, exhausted, blank and strangely empty.

The next afternoon, my phone rang.

“Okay, I’m done,” his gruff voice sounded over the line as he spoke in a single breath. “I miss you, I want you back, I love you. Let’s give this another shot? We’ll take it slow but I want to meet your parents.”

I broke down.

Nearly five years later, we are no longer together. In fact, we broke up a few short months after that call and this time, I was the one who ended it.

But that’s a story for another day.

All this to say – if you love someone, value them and make your love known at every possible opportunity.

In the end though, all that matters is your own evolution. Because as you begin to grow and transform, compassion and kindness will pour forth from you for every being. You will look upon every creature as your own.

And that’s the highest form of love there is – moving from individuality to humanity.