It’s not easy to admit but I’m going through a very emotional and recent breakup. Normally, I post about uplifting content but this feeling and the emotions I am processing are too raw not to share. While most of my posts feel colorful and bright, I also want to be real with my followers and right now I am emotionally trying to process losing, who I thought was, the love of my life.

All of the signs of separation were there but still, Disney inspired me as a child and it stayed in my adulthood that when you know, you know. I’m fearful now because I found out that when someone feels like home, that doesn’t mean they are the one you’re meant to share your life with. As I feel tormented by my belief in love failing again, I keep repeating a mantra that’s engraved into my being: whatever is meant to be will be. Even as I repeat this over and over again I can’t help but wail and look at the heavens pleading,

“Why would you do this to me? Why put me through this? Is this really the path I chose and is this pain really going to be better for me in the future? Maybe I should throw away the moldavite ring I received as a gift?”

I keep asking myself and the universe endless questions. Even now as I write my legs shake with uncontrollable grief as I try to convince myself I have done this before and it’s all going to be okay.

I never wanted to experience this extent of hurt and physical pain again. I’m overanalyzing everything from the past up to the point of the breakup and I can’t help but compare the only other heartbreak that even came close to the heartache I’m feeling now. Years ago, I never thought I’d experience a night worse than I did with my first love. At the time, he was not only my best friend but my person. It was the most difficult breakup I had to heal from apart from my current situation. As a teenager, I didn’t know what it was to love with all of my heart, build a future with each other, and feel the desire and romance as I did in the latter of my twenties. Comparing then and now, it feels like that first breakup where I cried most nights for several years was the kiddie pool getting me ready for the ocean I’d one day have to navigate.

Everything I once knew about my relationship is completely gone like sand grains that slipped through my fingers. The conversations to better our relationship and communication feel like a waste of time now. Everything we built amounted to nothing. I understand that we grow from our experiences but after loving and connecting with someone on the deepest level of your being you have this uncanny instinct that it wasn’t meant to end after all you have been through together.

As an empath, I make deep soul connections with people that choose to open their hearts to me. My healing abilities and personality have brought me to dangerous situations that have affected my mental health in the past but my soul was to be vulnerable. All this simply means that I wear my heart on my sleeve despite how many times I get hurt emotionally. It took me a long time and an illness to learn to stand up for myself in toxic situations. As an empath, I feel deeply for other people and it isn’t necessarily by choice. So when someone decides to open up to me on a deep emotional level, our souls (or hearts if that makes more sense) connect.

Currently, I’m going through different phases of trying not to self-blame, keeping healthy habits, and fighting the feeling of worthiness based on a relationship that wasn’t right for either my partner or myself. I can’t even be mad because how can I want to be with someone that doesn’t want to be with me?

When someone, particularly a romantic partner, decides to sever their connection with me by taking space or putting up walls it feels like a piece of my soul is being shredded. After knowing someone on that deep of a level, it is grievous to have them pull back from the connection you both created. I respect the other person’s decision entirely and I’m not saying that these connections are supposed to stay. I don’t want readers to think I’m writing this post out of anger because I respect my ex’s decision. While I don’t like the outcome it’s something I have to learn to accept and try to move forward with my best interests in mind. My point is that breaking up with someone you’ve made a soul connection with is an entirely different experience than breaking it off with someone you only knew on a surface level. Breaking a deeper connection results in a feeling that I can only describe as a physical and spiritual pain; it’s as if my spirit is thrown into a shredder and every piece that rips and tears give me physical pain.

Heartbreak shouldn’t be wished upon anyone but I haven’t met a single person where heartbreak wasn’t involved in their life at one point in time. It’s normal for relationships to both succeed and fail. Without failure, we may not know what we are looking for in a successful relationship. So the cycle goes: we love, we fight, we break up, we cry, and then we heal so we can try to love again. Right now, I’m at the crying stage trying to get to the “heal and move on” stage.

It’s sad for me to think some of us never heal from heartache or are too scared to try again. Relationships are complicated but that shouldn’t stop people from pursuing happiness again with someone else after a relationship doesn’t work out. I encourage everyone to keep trying–and I say that while trying to convince myself with my own heartache in mind. Right now, my instinct is to protect myself. I never want to do or go through the pain of a breakup again. I’m afraid of what the future has in store for me but I also know that for whatever divine reason, my relationship wasn’t meant to work out and I have to accept that in order to move on.

What I find interesting in this messy emotional state I’m experiencing, is that I started to draft breakup articles a week before the bomb was dropped. I don’t have an explanation as to why I was writing breakup-inspired posts with a smile on my face oblivious to the challenge headed my way. However, I’m impressed with my unknowingly accurate insight. I’ve noticed my intuition getting stronger and more accurate as time passes since my last reiki certification. Perhaps the urge to draft breakup posts was meant to be–as my mantra above indicates. The inspiration to write breakup articles seems like proof of that to me.

With this being one of those breakup posts that I started, I find myself trying to take my own advice and post this breakup music playlist. I designed this playlist for people going through heartbreak to sing songs at the top of their lungs whenever they need to release emotions. The songs vary in feeling melancholic and empowering. As I happen to be one of the people that now need this playlist, I’ll be singing in my car whenever I get the chance. They say singing soothes the soul so it’s worth a shot.

As the holidays roll around, I wish everyone nothing but love and happiness during this time. I’ll be doing my best to be grateful for the small things to carry me through this chapter I’m experiencing but for now, I genuinely wish everyone a gentle and healing recovery from losing their love. As for me, and everyone else, I have faith and will continue to tell myself that it will all work out.

“The best blaze brightest when circumstances are at their worst.”

Ghibli