Failed Relationships – How to Survive and Then Thrive

The Cactus Boundary © 2014 Bo Mackison

Knowledge is learning something new every day.  Wisdom is letting go of something every day. ~ Zen Saying

I sometimes rehash the rupture of a treasured relationship.

I still see this person on occasion. And the conversations on these occasions often include barely concealed criticisms – and I choose to take those wounding words to heart.  I accept them. I own them as truths. With pain and shame and thoughts of “what could have been, if only I had . . .”.

These infrequent contacts lead to intense shame — it’s all my fault, I should have ____ (fill in the blank). Why am I so crazy, intense, sensitive, blind to my own faults? I engage in obsessive thinking, sleepless nights. I indulge in over-reaction.

I know this is not the preferred reaction, the healthy reaction, the reaction based on self-love. I know it is not about me, and yet I once again swallow the hook, line and sinker. And the worm, too. Don’t forget the wriggling worm.

This morning I read a blog post on Susan Piver’s website entitled Buddhism and Heartbreak: How to Heal and Live in Love. Every word struck a chord. In fact there were so many striking chords, it sounded like a symphony chiming in my head.

Susan wrote of three ways of addressing failed relationships, all reasonable and doable, and although they require persistence and awareness, they also offer a way to refocus and return to full life living. I read Susan’s blog post carefully, took notes on how I could adapt her wisdom into my routine, and then I decided they were worth sharing. Surely I am not the only one who gets embroiled in haunting, failed relationships. So here is my take on Susan Piver’s thoughts on relationships.

1. Assert control over monkey mind.

Instead of trying to devise ways to change what has already happened, or embarking on a “program of change so I will magically become acceptable,” I can choose to practice feeling what I feel. Not only during my timed meditation practice, but throughout the day. And at night, too, when dreams and thoughts of failure awaken me from my sleep.

As Susan Piver explains, sitting with the feelings, as in the Buddhist tradition, is a “more expeditious way of metabolizing sorrow”. The pain does not disappear, but at least there is the offer of healing and moving on.

Along with meditation, I find it helpful to journal and create art dealing with the experience of “feeling the feelings”.

2. See the pain of the lost relationship as a lesson in attaining wisdom.

Even Susan admits this can seem ludicrous. There are constant reminders of what used to be; there are glimpses of what might have been. There is magical thinking; there are comparisons. There is loss.

A visit to a special garden, a place of shared memories, evokes feelings. A favorite book evokes feelings. A restaurant, a work of art, a song on the radio – these all evoke feelings. Long after the ending of the relationship.

I can allow these feelings to evolve into feelings of unworthiness, sadness, longing. Or . . . I can steer these feelings into a practice of openness and the opportunity to offer loving kindness to others.

That is the key — not how do I replace love lost, but how do I send love out into the world.

Susan promises — yes, she uses the word promise — that when one gives to others, the effects of loving kindness rebound and heal the self, too. She also reminds us not to take her word for it, but to try it out, and see the results. Yes, indeed!

3. Accept that all is impermanent and that life is change.

This is the hard part. All relationships are in flux. Living a full life is living with constant change. Susan advises “letting heartbreak transform one into a warrior god/goddess”. Know that every relationship is impermanent, but is also precious and worthy, a life-sustaining source of learning and connection.

Here is the important part. Be willing to love anyway, accepting the possibility of loss, taking the chance to love and connect. Risking all, because of the preciousness of love. As Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote in his poem In Memoriam, composed in 1850:

I hold it true, whate’er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
‘Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.