Hi Liz,

I’m a college age woman who has recently been through a break-up and I’m having a really hard time forgetting him/moving on. It was my decision to end the relationship and break up, as there were many ways he was not a good boyfriend. Many girls even told me he cheated on me. Don’t get me wrong, there were good things about him too. After all, I did love him a lot. I’m just really struggling to get over him, even though I know deep down he was not a good boyfriend. I know I deserved better and still do deserve better, yet I still find myself crying and missing him. I don’t know how to get out of this weird funk I’m in. I’m often sad when I’m alone and can’t stop thinking about him. I need to move on from him, but I really don’t know how.

Dear Friend,

I am so proud of you.  Here you were, in love with someone who was unable to give you the love you deserved, so despite the heartache, you ended it.  Wow.  That is self-love, and self-love is the key to everything good in life; it is the path as well as the destination.

You will be able to move on when you get more deeply in touch with how precious that instinct of yours was—observe it, feel it, and cherish it.  The courage you showed to love yourself will soon outweigh the grief you are experiencing.

You can come at this breakup from your mind, or you can come at it from your soulful self.

The mind will likely interpret the breakup in the following way:

You wanted him to love you the way you need to be loved, the way you deserve to be loved, and he didn’t, which means he didn’t love you enough, which translates into a version of rejection, despite you being the one who ended things.  And rejection leaves us questioning our worth; it gets us stuck in all sorts of negativity and prevents us from moving on.

And then there is the soulful interpretation:

Your soul is your true self, and it knows of nothing but love.  It’s the same for your ex.  But for whatever reason, he is not yet attuned to how to be the love he is and how to give the love he can.  As such, he is a bad boyfriend.  But this situation has nothing to do with you, other than the fact that you are attuned to love in a way that he has yet to arrive at.  You are on your spiritual journey, and he is on his, and your paths diverged.

The litmus test for how merged we are with our soulful self, for how worthy we genuinely feel, is how well we love those closest to us.  Our failures at loving are always about avoiding our feelings of smallness; the unconscious fear of feeling that smallness leads to all sorts of unloving behavior.   In heaven, we all love perfectly, because we are attuned to the truth that we are Love.  But here on earth, if we lose connection with our soul, we lag in the love department.

Your experiencing the beauty in your ex is not enough—he’s got to see it, and until he does, he will be a poor partner to any person he dates. Offer up compassion, but not the key to your apartment.  We are not meant to enable others to be less than their best self.  Enabling is an expression of fear, which is the opposite of love.

Step back, and with an open heart, observe this young man.  He is on his journey, just as you are on yours, and you both deserve a partner who can love.  But if he is not quite there, then it is part of the “spiritual law”, if you will, that you align with someone who can meet you at your level.  You don’t have to be angry or resent him or personalize any of it—he is simply not your soul’s mate, at least not now.

You will move on by living in this truth, putting your arm around your grief, and by checking in with your soul regularly—your soulful self will lead you to any number of open doors, in the form of opportunities, friendships, and romance.  In time, with your soulful perspective, you will be lifted from this funk.

And might I add…it wouldn’t hurt to play Lizzo’s “Good as hell” and have some fun celebrating with your friends.  Celebrate what?  The fact that at your young age, you are already aware of what love is, and you are willing to be sad rather than settle.  Continue to love yourself, and you will be amazed at what falls into your lap.

Blessings in this new year.

Love, Liz