Today I’m feeling JOYFUL. Joyful to the depths of my soul. I’m joyful because I’ve put the time in to heal. I’m joyful for answered prayers. I’m joyful for peace and clarity. I’m joyful that toxicity has been removed from my life. I’m joyful that delusional negativity and behavior has been removed from my life. I’m joyful that I haven’t let life make me jaded. I’m joyful that I’m cleansed and ready for new beginnings that are healthy and strong. I’m joyful that I still believe in fairy tales. It hasn’t been easy. It hasn’t been quick. But it has been an incredible journey of self growth and maturation. Let me tell you a little about healing….
As human beings, one of the most beautiful experiences in life is developing relationships that provide love and support throughout our journey. The benefits from a healthy relationship are countless, and many of us dream of having a loving partnership with someone who we can share our love and lives with unconditionally. With the possibility of a new relationship, also comes the potential for heartbreak and challenges – preventing some of us from taking the leap of faith needed to give our hearts to another person. While difficult lessons are inevitable, it is important to understand how to grow through them instead of being broken down by them. This is why you should heal your heart first. We’ve all heard the saying “Hurt people Hurt people”. Never is there ever a truer saying than that. The worst thing you can do to an innocent person is bring your baggage into a new relationship and dump all over them. No one deserves that. Heal before you steal.
One of the first steps to enjoying a healthy relationship is to do the personal work needed to heal first before jumping into something quickly. Every person has their history of ups and downs that lead to scars, insecurities, and fears surrounding relationships. After all, you cannot know light without the darkness, and going through challenges in life is what opens us up to even greater possibilities of love, success, and happiness.
However, when we bring these unhealed emotional wounds into a new relationship, we make it infinitely more difficult to open our hearts to another. So, how exactly do we heal? How do we know when we have grown enough to be ready for a relationship? The answers to these questions are unique to each person, but consider the following steps to getting on the path to healing:
Allow Yourself Time to Grieve
Whether you are recovering from emotional trauma or the devastation of a failed relationship, permitting yourself to grieve is the first step towards healing. Embrace your emotions, both good and bad, and give yourself the space you need to process your experiences. There’s nothing wrong with receiving comfort and nurturing during your grieving period (however you need). However, don’t use loneliness as an excuse not to grieve and heal completely. Loneliness can play some wicked tricks on you making you feel you want something or someone until the reality of all that comes with it settles in, leaving you feeling overwhelmed, angry and frustrated. Alone is a beautiful time if you act sensibly.
Spend Time Alone
For some people, spending time alone might mean going on a solo travel adventure to get a change of scenery. For others, alone time could be as simple as taking time to meditate and decompress from the stress of life. If you can’t get physically away, make sure to make time to take a break from your day-to-day routines and practice self-care. Regardless of how you spend your alone time, solo soul-searching is a vital aspect of healing your inner self. During this time, take a good honest look at yourself. Learn to be alone. Learn to be okay with being alone. There’s tremendous maturity in being able to do so.
Give Yourself Time
Nothing happens overnight, and healing from emotional damage is no exception. We’ve all heard the phrase “time heals all wounds”, but what time actually does is give us enough distance from the trauma to have a new perspective. Healing may take months or years, but allowing yourself to go through the journey without judgment is essential. When you are in a better place and ready for a relationship, there is no emotional baggage interfering with your ability to “just be” and positively experience the new relationship. Why? Because you know you have the power over your happiness and who you allow in your life. You can indeed enjoy the relationship experience and be in the moment. After all, you’re the gatekeeper, and if you don’t like something in your life, you can remove it at any time. Shut that door and throw the key away. There’s no reason to ever go back there. All of life is a journey, and healing sometimes is never a straight path. Through twists and turns and new beginnings, we find ourselves evolving into an even greater version of our true self. Your best self will attract the best self in the “right” someone else. And that’s a beautiful thing. And it’s totally worth the wait.