Breakups hurt. Especially when you loved someone with every fiber of your being and did everything in your power to make the relationship work. You poured your heart and soul into your partner, believing your love could heal their deepest wounds. But despite your best efforts, they still chose to walk away, leaving you heartbroken and alone.
If you’re struggling to move on after a devastating breakup, this article is for you. In it, I’ll share the 7 key steps to release, heal, and love again when the person you love decides to leave you. You’ll learn how to lovingly and wholeheartedly release your ex, find peace and purpose in your pain, and keep your heart open to new possibilities for love to re-enter your life. Let’s dive in.
As someone who has navigated my fair share of heartbreaks, I know firsthand how excruciating it can be when the person you love decides to leave. But I’ve also discovered that these painful experiences can be our greatest teachers, propelling you into profound growth and transformation.
Why Relationships Come to An End
Every relationship, no matter how wonderful, serves a deeper purpose. As Eckhart Tolle explains, “Relationships are not here to make us happy, but to wake us up.” Your partner mirrors back to you the parts of yourself that need healing and integration.
Often, relationships end because one person gets triggered by a core wound or fear, causing them to push love away. As much as you want to help them through this, sometimes the lessons they need to learn can only happen outside the relationship or with someone else.
I experienced this in my last relationship. My partner and I had an incredible connection, but no matter how much I showered them with love and support, they kept pulling away. I finally realized that they needed to face their fear of intimacy and connection on their own. I had done all I could to help them. Letting them go was the most loving thing I could do, even though it shattered my heart.
7 Steps to Release, Heal, and Love Again When the Person You Love Decides to Leave You
If you’re facing the pain of a breakup, these seven steps can guide you back to wholeness and open your heart again:
1) Acknowledge you Did your Best
Recognize and honor how much love and effort you put into the relationship. Write down all the ways you showed up and gave your partner what you thought they needed. Validate your own loving heart and acknowledge all the love you gave to the other person.
Realize that you helped them as much as you could and that your love, care, and compassion could only get them this far. This isn’t all about you. They have a lesson to learn, and you’re not the one that can help them with it. Perhaps, they require someone else who can help them at the level of their block.
2) Deal with your Own Feelings
Create space to feel your feelings without judgment. Scream, cry, journal, move your body, express your grief in whatever way feels right. Honor your pain, knowing it won’t last forever. If you deeply allow it, eventually it will run its course.
Give yourself permission to mourn the loss of the relationship and allow your heart to break. Remember that ultimately what’s really breaking is the story you’ve told yourself about the relationship you had. And that your heart is a muscle that needs to ‘break open’ in order to love more. My article on How to Heal a Broken Heart can help you with this.
3) Release the Story
Notice when you’re replaying the same painful stories about the breakup. Are you obsessing over what you could have done differently or how they wronged you? With compassion, choose to fully and completely let go of the story you told yourself about what should have happened, how the relationship was supposed to be, etc. Surrender the whole story of this relationship to the Divine, and fully declare it’s no longer a story you choose to live by. Let go of the dream! It was exactly that. A dream you convinced yourself that you’d eventually live by.
4) Find Something to Appreciate
Even in the midst of heartache, there are always things to be grateful for. Reflect on the positive aspects of your past relationship and how it helped you grow. What did you learn about yourself? How did your partner help you heal or become more aware of your own patterns? Expressing genuine appreciation, even if only in your own heart, opens the door to more love and healing.
5) Release them with Grace
To release someone with grace means to let them go with appreciation for the human being they are, for all those special moments you shared, and for all you learned while the relationship lasted. So, let them go with grace and bless their journey ahead. My guided meditation, ‘Releasing a Person from your Past’, will help.
Consciously choose to release your partner with forgiveness and compassion. Write them a letter expressing your gratitude for the good times and lessons learned, then burn it as a ritual of release.
Example: “Thank you for teaching me how to be more spontaneous and playful. I’m grateful for the way you challenged me to open up and be more vulnerable. I release you with so much love and wish you joy and healing.”
6) Send Them Love
Once you’ve let yourself fully grieve, tap into your heart’s capacity for unconditional love. Visualize your partner surrounded by divine light and silently bless them on their continued journey. This practice helps transmute anger and resentment into compassion.
Example: Every morning, take a few minutes to imagine your ex held in a sphere of golden light. Mentally say, “I bless you and release you. May your heart be healed and happy.” My guided meditation, ‘How to Send Heart Energy to Someone You Love’ can help.
7) Keep your Heart Open
During times of heartache, it’s tempting to close off to protect yourself from future pain. But practicing opening your heart is what invites in new love. Visualize your heart glowing with an emerald green light of healing and renewal. Let go of the person, but don’t let go of the vision of the kind of relationship your heart longs for. Get clear on the essence and qualities of the partnership you want to create. Affirm that you deserve this extraordinary love.
Say to yourself, “I release my past partner, but I hold fast to my vision of a soulful, loving, passionate relationship. I trust that what my heart desires is on its way to me now. Nothing and no one can keep me from experiencing true love.”
Final Thoughts
Finally, remember that in our intimate loving relationships, we are both students and teachers at the same time. We come together in order to help each other wake up, heal, and grow.
And that the Path to Soulmate Love begins the moment you love yourself enough to stop settling for less than you deserve, and wholeheartedly go after the kind of relationship where you’re truly loved, honored, and appreciated for the wonderful person you are.
So, trust that the love you’ve given and received has served a sacred purpose. By healing your heart and re-focusing on the love you desire, you’re preparing yourself to love even bigger and better.
There’s great love here for you. You deserve it.
From my heart to yours,
