“How To Get Over Someone Who Broke Your Heart” – yourself included.

This is one of the most important posts I’ve ever written. Not because I’m going to teach you how to get over someone who broke your heart with some obvious, already heard and played-out advice, but because it deals with something that I recently experienced.

Something that I am still feeling my way through the heartbreak, acceptance, and shame of.

The only difference between right now and years ago is that in the past, I would have allowed my feelings associated with this experience to completely paralyze me.

The grip of that paralysis would remain, until I was reduced to someone that I had no choice but to hate, punish, sabotage, and disrespect.

Now, those feelings manifest in a much different way.

This doesn’t mean that I no longer feel the pain associated with them. I actually feel pain on a much deeper and more constructive level now. I’m no longer excited to put the bandage of avoidance on the cancer of my insecurities.  

The pain hurts but it doesn’t metastasize like it used to.

In fact, it’s not even cancer anymore. It doesn’t claim its own zip code and build a home for my fears to reside in and rule.

Today, I always make sure to feel my pain to the point of it propelling me into action. 

Action that’s rooted in having your own back is the only purpose your pain is ever meant to have.

So, I decided to take action in the best way I know: here, with all of you.

A few years ago, I waved the white flag to everything but the red and pink ones all around me. I gave into my fears and gave up on myself. I had absolutely no direction, friends, or purpose.

I wanted to die but I didn’t ever attempt suicide. I was too scared of trying to kill myself, failing at that too, and risking a life where I would be in a vegetative state; dependent on the family I was trying to prove wrong.

I needed an “ending” though. I was done.

The friends that I had never understood. They were only in it for themselves and wouldn’t do one fraction of the things for me that I had done (and was still doing) for them.

Most of my family labeled me as “too sensitive.” They got closer to other family members who had done things to them that if I did, I would have been crucified for.

I didn’t understand. ALL I had ever done was try so hard. 

• What had I done that was so wrong?
• Why were family members, classmates, boyfriends, coworkers, bosses, and friends always so disappointed in me?
• Why did it always feel like they knew something about me that I didn’t yet know?
• WHY was I never in on the joke?
• Why was my chain so easy for everyone to yank?
• Why was there always drama revolving around me?
• HOW could they just stop talking to me without any explanation when ALL I did was explain my every move to these people?
• When it came to knowing how to get over someone, I had no clue. I was still missing my ex one year after our breakup.

I was a good person. All I had done was allow them, with all the love in my heart, to exploit my disease to please. I was the first one there when they needed me. I was the first one to bail them out, to listen to their problems, to send them money I didn’t have, and to help in any way I could. What was I doing that was so bad? I needed to know. I knew that they loved me deep down. I knew it in my bones. So, I asked them what was up.

And this is what I learned…

• Don’t ever seek an explanation from the person who broke your heart. Ever. This rule can never be broken.
• If you’re dealing with an emotionally unintelligent and toxic person, asking them “why?” is as pointless as demanding that a defenseless child go ask “why?” to the bully that just spit on them in the cafeteria.
• If you’re dealing with a person who has proven to have the capacity to dishonor, deceive, and hurt you, they are never, I repeat never, going to have the capacity to empathize with you in the way that you want and deserve.
• You should never seek an explanation when it comes to abuse, toxicity, or negative people that bring you down in any way. You should always ACT on their bullsh*t by cutting emotional and/or physical contact with them right away. More about that to come.
• This one was very hard for me to learn: Just because someone is related to you or you have a long history with them, that doesn’t give them a special pass.
• My whole life, I had overly felt people’s INTENTIONS – especially when it came to family members and lovers. I knew that their intentions weren’t bad and that deep down, they loved me… But I always ended up short-changed and heartbroken in the end. I realized that family, lovers, and friends can love me with all their heart and never intend to hurt me… but you can’t continue to put up with other people’s dysfunction just because of an intention that you know deep down is there, but that their actions simply do not match.

I was NOT the victim here. Remember – Your boundaries and tolerations go hand-in-hand. You will only tolerate people who treat you no worse than you are ALREADY treating yourself. My problem was that I was allowing the good intentions of others (because we had a history, they were related to me, I knew they weren’t a “bad” person, they were nice to other people, etc.), to fog my vision in regard to the hurtful dysfunctionality of their actions.

How does intention hold ANY merit if it negates ACTION? We need to stop giving perceived intention so much power.

This is why I had a hard time knowing how to get over someone that I loved.

I was investing my emotional and physical time in people who were anchors. The moment I wanted to cut the anchor (implement healthy boundaries), I felt guilty.

I have a very close family member who I can say without a doubt, loves me with all of his heart. He’s also emotionally unavailable and his inability to communicate makes me question my value and feel terrible about myself.

I spent my entire life riding on the belief of his good intentions. This not only made his actions that much more incomprehensible and painful, but it made me THAT MUCH MORE THIRSTY as an adult for friends and romantic partners who were just as unavailable. I needed these people to validate me so that I could invalidate the pain that he had caused.

BOTTOM LINE: I was plagued with guilt and surrounded by people who although may not have been “bad people,” they were bad for me. 

So… I snapped.

I gave up. I surrendered to the relational defeat. I surrendered to the never-realized dream of superficial perfection. I surrendered to not being chosen, to not being heard, not being “right,” not being popular, and not “winning.” I said to myself, “These people will never be who they either initially presented themselves to be or who blood ties and fairy tales dictate that they are SUPPOSED to be. I lost. I’m dropping out of this dysfunctional nightmare. I’m done.”

And the moment that I surrendered to defeat and took that “L,” that was the moment the universe showed me what I had really won in the process of that loss.

I moved to a different city, changed my number and went totally off the grid (I’m not saying that this is what you have to do, this is just what I did). People thought I had gone nuts. And who doesn’t love to keep tabs on a perceived train wreck? I ignored it all because for once in my life, I didn’t care.

Little by little, I started to actually sleep better. My health got better – emotionally and physically. I then became more protective of my progress than I was interested in scratching the mosquito bite of my triggers.

I started to feel my feelings through writing.

In the process of ridding my life of the cynical audience members that used to surround me, the cynical audience in my head became less and less influential until it dwindled down to an every-now-and-then nuisance that I could tell at any time to f*ck off (by staying on my white horse).

I was no longer afraid.

I created this blog in the process of that and never gave up. Little by little, I started to attract people in both my personal life and around the world who became the family and friends I always wanted and never had.

All of you kept showing me that I wasn’t alone and that I was making a difference. So, I kept going. I’ve connected to clients and readers more than I’ve connected to most of the people I am related to. Our connection is not a lazy one. It is the most intimate and meaningful connection there is – Connection through feelings of pain that do everything to trick us into thinking we better keep quiet because we are alone in them. 

We are conditioned to want love, validation, support, and encouragement from the kind of people who will never be able to give it to us.  Sadly, these people can be related to us.

We tie our value to it. We put our health on the line for it. We live for it.

And that’s when I realized exactly how to get over someone you love.

Knowing how to get over someone you love is not about some magical formula or a mantra. It’s about identifying the love that you DO have and the good that IS there. No matter how small or seemingly insignificant it is. It’s about holding onto that for dear life and realizing that if you’re going to let anything define your worth, you better allow THAT to define it instead of the lack.

It’s also about cutting contact. And that’s why I created this course. I wanted to redefine what no contact means to me and what it’s done for me. I am in No Contact with people I see and interact with every day. It’s not always about cutting physical contact. It’s about cutting emotional contact too. Not so you become this emotionally void statue, but so you can become more available to those who are just as available to you. It’s so you can disempower the pull of unavailable people and start to become attracted to what’s good for you.

Trying to figure out how to get over someone who treated you with respect, empathized, and communicated clearly is tough enough. It’s the worst thing EVER. It’s excruciating.

In my experiences though, I’ve found that trying to get over toxic people is even harder – which is so strange. Isn’t it?

Shouldn’t the fact that…

• You were treated like crap.
• Your mental health came at the expense of this person’s selfish agenda.
• This person was able to rationalize deceit, betrayal, and put their selfish agenda ahead of you, your trust, and your heart.
• You were demoted to a personal doormat WHILE they got their needs met.
• This person was not consistent.
• They were selective in their level of love, honesty, empathy, and respect.
• They made you second guess yourself and your value.

Shouldn’t ALL the above make it THAT MUCH EASIER to move on and get over someone?

Wouldn’t all the above allow indifference to this person, their bullsh*t, and whatever chain yanks or crumbs they may throw your way become so much easier to achieve? No. Why? Because to be in a relationship of any kind with this person, your self-esteem needs to be compromised and as long as your self-esteem is compromised, you will always hold out for what these people do not have in their possession to give: commitment, empathy, and communication. And you’ll always get swept away by the only thing that they are masters at creating: a distorted reality.

Only give your emotional time and energy to people who are genuinely interested and invested in you through actions that don’t betray their words. LISTEN to people’s patterns (which are made up of their actions) first. It will tell you everything you need to know.

And remember – you can’t fully listen to anyone’s actions until you’re willing to listen to your own. Make the committed decision to do better because you ARE better and DESERVE better. What you’re feeling is NORMAL. We are conditioned to want that which is in limited supply. And it’s fine if you’re talking about an exotic car or a pair of designer shoes, but NOT about things like maturity, honesty, empathy, and humanity.

Written by: Natasha Adamo