Dealing with The Pain of a Relationship Ending

Jan Kolbe

Hi, I have been in a 3 1/2 year relationship where there was excessive emotional abuse and a little physical abuse--mostly severe emotional.  I never recognized it as emotionally abusive.  In fact, I delayed starting this Course for two weeks after purchasing it due to the extremely painful and high anxiety ridden emotions I was feeling.  We had been living basically together for the last 1 1/2 years.  I am now 100% back in my own place and in the last two months the relationship has deteriorated in verbally painful ways.   

While I understand it's best for me to let this end, I am having great difficulty letting it end in my mind.  I continually find myself wishing he could/would show up in a caring/loving way and be emotionally supportive.  He has not been that way in the past but I keep imagining that he could and feel high anxiety when I do not hear from him making any move in that direction. The most recent time that I heard from him was yesterday.  

Without going into more detail, I don't know how to proceed with positive feelings when I'm consumed by negative feelings & fears.  I have only been working on this course a few days.  I guess my problem is not being able to release him and my hopes for what I wish it could be & am full of anxiety and negative thoughts and feelings.  of course, it wasn't all bad but there was a lot of bad.

Does anyone have any ideas?  

Thank you, Jan

Jessica Connor, Ph.D.

Hi Jan,

Welcome to the forum! I'm happy to have you here and to read that you have decided to work with the material in the course.

First, I'd like to say that as you begin to work with these processes, entertain new possibilities and reinforce new beliefs, you will begin to stabalize the way you are feeling which will allow you to begin experiencing new inspirations, ideas and materialized results. When we go within and begin to work on ourselves, the outer world starts to reflect those inner changes in wonderful ways. 

When I first began my own transformation, I didn't have the understanding initially that the negative feelings and fears were being created by me. There wasn't anything 'out there' causing me to experience these emotions. It was an internal creation that stemmed from my thinking. I totally understand how real and uncomfortable that is. But I also now understand how wonderful it is that I experienced that because its purpose was to teach me the power I held within to transform my life in positive ways. My intention in stating this is that you will be able to grasp and internalize that this is a wonderful, transformative moment for you if allowed to be such.

When we are feeling negative feelings and fear, there is a part of us that is focusing on something we'd prefer not to experience. You've experienced quite a change in your circumstances, so it is perfectly natural for your mind to kind of freak out a little. The good news is that you are aware of this and have a desire to change it. And because you have this awareness, you have the absolute power to change it. If you find yourself thinking about what you prefer not to experience, you have the ability to immediately shift to something you do prefer to experience. And if you are consistent with this, you will begin to train your mind that you are consciously in charge of it and that you are the one sailing the ship, so to speak. It then becomes an automatic habit that is life-transforming because the feeling states adjust with the thoughts. 

I recommend doing this in a way that your mind can accept initially. For example, if you are thinking, "I wish he could love me the way I want him to love me" and that pulls up negative emotions for you, you might try reframing the thought to something a little more general, like this: "I enjoyed the good times that he and I experienced together, especially...." Or, "The good qualities I embraced in ____ are ____."  This is a simple way to shift the focus to something more positive. You may also find it beneficial to focus more on yourself when these thoughts come up by saying something like, "I am proud of myself for the way I am working on me." Or, "I am now making positive changes in my thinking that positively impact my life." 

I also recommend going back through some of the threads in the forum and reading the responses. Shelia, our forum moderator (and licensed counselor), often writes about soothing yourself and has placed some wonderful affirmations in the forum for this. 

These small steps will begin to shift your thinking and feeling states. And once that takes place, you will have an easier time of going back into "creation mode" to manifest something new and wonderful in your life!

-Jessica