A No-Fail Secret to Fixing the Broken Relationships in Your Life
Do You Want to Fix Your Broken Relationships?
Do you have a broken relationship with any of the people in your life?
Do those relationships hurt you?
If you knew you could fix (or at least improve) every single broken relationship in your life, would you?
You can. Not only can you improve the most “difficult” broken relationships (like the relationship with your ex-spouse, for example), but you can also improve the “easier” broken relationships (like the one with the friend who has simply fallen away from your life).
You won’t have to turn back time.
You won’t have to “change” the other person, either.
What you will have to do is fix the broken relationship with yourself.
This might sound crazy, but it is real. Your relationship with yourself is the foundation for every other relationship in your life. How you feel about yourself reflects in those relationships around you.
Let me explain.
My Experience With Fixing the Broken Relationship That Matters The Most
This coming May, my own Mom and Dad will be celebrating their 50th Wedding Anniversary. If that isn’t hard enough to believe, get this: my mom and dad started “going together” in high school when they were only 14 and 15 years old. Can you imagine?
Me neither.
Anyway, because of the relationship I saw between my parents growing up (which I will say was not perfect), I always thought I would follow in their footsteps. I believed I would marry my high school boyfriend shortly after graduation, start having babies, then live a “white-picket fence” life. This did not happen.
In fact, for almost twenty years after I graduated from high school, I was involved in some of the most horrible relationships which would make any Father (if he knew) want to beat the holy, living S*** out of several men. I am not trying to sound like a victim when I say I was abused, mistreated and not given the love I deserved. All of this wounded me deeply.
I felt desperate. Needy. Lonely. And unhappy.
My whole life was spent seeking acceptance. I wanted validation. I wanted love.
The Beginning of the Turning Point
As I finished law school, the relationship with the man I thought was “the one” ended. It wasn’t my choice, either. This nearly killed me.
I was paralyzed by pain for years. I gained weight. I obsessed over the lost relationship. I failed the bar exam. I felt hopeless.
Through this trauma, I began to look for answers. I wanted to understand the “why” to a lot of things. Mostly though, I wanted to know “why” he went away and whether he would ever come back.
I read. I prayed. I went to psychics. I looked at the stars.
It was the darkest time of my life.
As the years passed, my pain started to diminish. I started to focus on “other things.” I still wanted love. I still searched for the person who would give me what I thought I needed. I went through more painful, unhealthy relationships with men.
But, I also was slowly coming to the realization that there were some amazing things I had wanted to do my whole life…out there waiting for me. I wanted to travel. I wanted to learn. I wanted to meet new people. I wanted to swim in the Mediterranean Sea.
So, after a few years of building up my courage (and my bank account), I put myself out into the world to discover it.
I did it alone.
And, because it was only me, for the first time in my life, I started to have real, honest conversations with myself. I began to understand my “self.” I asked what it was that was missing from my life. I asked what it was I needed.
Then, in the silence of my aloneness, the answers began to come. I learned the broken relationships around me were only a reflection of how I had been treating myself on the inside: with hatred, with judgment, and with shame.
How could I expect any other person (i.e., a man) to love my every flaw without condition if I was unable to do that myself?
And so, I started to fix the biggest, most important relationship in my life:
The one with myself.
And, when I did, it wasn’t long before the man who would love me without any condition appeared.
And today, I still have to work constantly to love those parts of myself I would rather just “delete.” But…they exist. And they are me. So, I can choose to reject them or embrace them.
I have realized there is so much more peace in loving them.
So…
Back To Your Broken Relationships
If you really want to fix the broken relationships around you, it is going to take some “alone time.” It will take radical honesty with yourself. It will take willingness to work through some real crap.
But start here:
Look at the relationship in your life that means the most to you, but is terribly broken. How is the other person “being” with you? In other words, is that other person “being” abusive or violent? Is s/he “being” angry and disrespectful?
Whatever the answer is, look at the ways in your own life you are treating yourself with abuse, violence, anger, or disrespect. This understanding is the beginning of the end to your broken relationships. This understanding will not solve your relationship problems overnight. It will give you an awareness of the problem which the first step in solving any problem.
Once you have gained this understanding, start to work on loving those “dark” parts of yourself. Accept them. Embrace them. Own them.
Whether your ex-husband or ex-wife is the biggest horse’s behind that ever walked the planet, it doesn’t matter. You can improve this relationship. Improve the relationship with yourself first. Treat yourself with the love you deserve.
This love is who you really are.
P.S. What is that part of yourself you struggle with loving the most? Tell me in the comments below.
P.P.S. To read more on this topic, check out the book, “The Secret of the Shadow.”