It takes a lot to be in authenticity with the pain of love relationship break up.

To own the places of not being chosen by your ex-beloved/s and the places where you no longer choose them, can be excruciating.

The pull to go into stories of blame can be immense.

Blame stories switch us off from our real life experience of being heartbroken in a love relationship break up.

Blame stories shield us from the love relationship break up pain by instead shutting down our heart and prompting us to feel jaded and bitter. They fuel a ‘fuck you’ to life, to our ex-beloveds, or both, and set us up in a place of being against life’s flow.

Blame stories left unprocessed will definitely follow us into our future relationships and show up as cynicism, distrust, hyper-vigilance, blindsiding, sabotage, etc.

Opening to the pain of love relationship break up, and mourning the love that has been lost, is what keeps our heart open to life and future love relationships. Blame stories just shut us down to love and our hope for it.

When we get real with the loss of a love relationship, cry the tears, grieve for all that was and no longer is, grieve for all that might have been that will now never be, then we can gradually refind our freedom to choose from an open heart in the future, instead of choosing through fear of meeting all our unprocessed loss and grief.

Whether it’s the stories of blaming ourselves for the things we did or didn’t do, or for what we said or didn’t say. Or the stories of blaming our ex beloved/s for not fighting for the relationship, for giving up on the love that has been shared, for choosing someone else over us, for not being what we wanted, etc.

These blame stories are toxic. They are a form of self harming that pushes us to think and act in desperation. These blame stories corrode our sense of self and destabilise our relationships with others (particularly our sex partners) as well as our relationship with ourselves and life.

The pull to project the immense pain of love relationship break up outside of ourselves or onto specific perceived failings within ourselves is strong. Love relationship break up pain often manifests as an intense injury in our heart, pelvis, and other areas of our body.

To avoid meeting the injury of the heartache that we are feeling in love relationship break up, we will seek out justification for the pain, and search to allocate wrongness to parts of ourselves or our ex-beloved/s. Anything rather than feeling the feelings of helplessness that come with love relationship breakup.

Yet, these feelings of helplessness are where we are most in need. Where we most need to be held, soothed, and nurtured. Love relationship break up is often a journey of accepting that there is nothing that we can do to change the situation, turn back time, or create a different outcome. Even if we get back together in love relationship with our ex-beloved at some later stage, the love relationship that has been, needs to be laid to rest and given over to death.

Getting real with the pain of the loss of love relationship and the deep grief that comes with it, is the road to freedom. The blame stories can make us feel powerful momentarily, but ultimately they bind us to hating parts of ourselves or others (and then ourselves also).

Equipping ourselves to weather the process of moving through our love relationship break up pain is essential. In this process we will likely find ourselves fixated on the beauty and/or distortion of what was, what we could have done differently, what they could have done differently etc. We will very likely encounter addictive thinking as we release the addictive elements of our relating in these past love relationships.

Investing in helping ourselves reminds us of our capacity to hold ourselves in our feelings of helplessness from the love relationship break up.

And so, here are some powerful actions to take in this process (actions that have helped me greatly in my two recent love relationship break ups).

*Asking for support from specific, resourced, and well chosen friends (friends who will mirror your bullsh!t, and not affirm it).

*Taking space from friend/family relationships where the support you need is not available.

*Asking your well chosen friends to remind you of the reality of where the past love relationship is – yes, that it’s over. ;)

*Breaking contact with your ex-beloved/s for a sustained time period – including messaging and social media interaction – yes, this means unfollowing, unfriending them for a time.

*Celebrating small steps in releasing the grip of the pain story.

*Taking time out in nature – asking for the cleansing, clearing power of the elements to take your grief and fixation – wind and water are especially potent for me in this.

*Committing to self care routines – taking time to plan and carry out, your nourishment of yourself with:

• Good food
• Meditation
• Breathwork
• Yoga
• Movement
• Singing
• Playing uplifting music
• Dancing
• Self pleasuring
• Emotional release
• Creative arts
• Prayer and ritual
• Dietary supplements – if you’re like me your appetite can almost vanish for extended periods during a love relationship break up
• Nurturing self talk – I like to stroke my head and face and tell myself ‘I love you Sadhu, I’ve got you Sadhu’.

*Pampering yourself – baths, face masks, spa days etc.

*Seeking out things that make you laugh and feel light-hearted.

*Dating – get yourself out there and into intimacy and s*x with new people!

*Seeking out s*x/relationship/intimacy coaches like me to support you. ;)

*Pursuing new interests and creative projects.

>>>Please add to this list in the comments. How have you supported yourself in processing your love relationship break up pain instead of being consumed by blame story?