Gifts From Former Lovers

One of the most profound experiences of growth occurs when you are willing to come to terms with your past relationships in a spirit of gratitude rather than judgment or anger. Every relationship you have – lover, family member, friend – serves your highest good. The challenges you encounter in relationships help you grow when you are willing to recognize the experiences as opportunities for healing.

Since you enter intimate relationships to heal unresolved issues with one or both parents, if you do not take the time to resolve the issue, you are more likely to continue experiencing the same challenge over and over until you do resolve it. This is why we always seem to attract the same type of partner and why patterns of abuse recur. Somebody has to break the cycle. Why not have it be you?

First, you want to look at the common recurring themes you tend to experience in relationship, which will help you know what issues to work on during your personal healing journey. Second, you want to focus on the positive aspects of your significant relationships to help perpetuate feelings of joy and gratitude. You want to end the exercise on a positive note centered in gratitude to heighten your energy to a level that makes you more attractive to your man.

Make a list of significant relationships you’ve had in your life. Jot down each person’s name on a piece of paper or in your journal. Let’s first start with a rant. If one of your ex-boyfriend’s broke up with you and left you feeling wounded, write down everything you are feeling pissed off about or hurt by. If you broke up with him, write down the reasons you felt you couldn’t continue the relationship any longer.

Sometimes you may not be aware how you feel currently, and you may need to dig deeper to get in touch with the core issue. Sometimes just writing down the names will do it when you get to a name that has a significant emotional charge for you. Write down what feels most true to you in this moment. You’ll want to expel all your negative feelings about each of your “ex’s” first, before we get into the positive aspects. This way you don’t end up feeling like an emotional yo-yo being strung up and down, up and down.

Go ahead and purge, rant, rave, yell and scream at the paper if you want to. Beat your pillows if it helps. Throw air punches at his nose if that will make you feel better. Allow yourself to cry if you need to. Most importantly, pay attention to how all of this is making you feel.  It’s okay if you feel badly - you need to be in touch with the negative emotions to purge them. You will turn them around to positive statements soon, and begin shifting your energy toward the positive.  You can also comfort yourself with the thought that anyone who causes you to feel poorly about yourself could not possibly have been your ideal match.

 Once you have finished writing everything down you can think of, take a deep breath in, and expel your breath fully, releasing it with a great big sigh. Then take one more breath in and shake your hands at your sides as you exhale – as if you were shaking off wet hands without a towel to dry them. Then stretch your arms to the ceiling and elongate your spine to stretch your body as fully as you can, arching your back slightly. If you are standing while stretching, step up onto your tiptoes, fully flex all your leg muscles, and reach for the sky.  Then, release your stretch and sit back comfortably. Do you notice a difference in how you feel from having just done one energy shifting stretch?

Okay, now let’s look at the gifts these men have brought you. You might be thinking, “That knucklehead didn’t give me a darn thing.” If that’s the case, I would have to respectfully disagree with you. Anyone who can bring an intense level of energy out in you must have hit a nerve. This awareness alerts you to a painful experience from your past, or challenges a belief you hold about yourself, others, or relationships.

For example, it could be your dad was cold, distant, and unloving, and you keep attracting men who fill that role for you by treating you poorly just like your dad did. Or, possibly, you may have been abused when you were young and express a dysfunction in relationships by being either too frigid or too promiscuous. Maybe you always said yes when your partner wanted sex even if you weren’t in the mood, because you are deeply afraid of being rejected.

Okay, good. Now, take thirty seconds for each guy on your list and write down some good things about him. It could be as simple as you liked his smile, or how he cut his hair, or he always dressed neatly. Or it could be as important as he was always kind to you and your family, he was financially stable, or he may have been generous. By writing things down quickly, your subconscious takes over and you do not have time to second guess or judge what you have written. Commit to doing this exercise in a stream of consciousness style to get the most benefit from it. Your heart remembers things your mind may have forgotten, and doing this exercise this way allows you to access your heart memories.

It doesn’t matter how many or how few relationships you have, it matters what you take away from each one to help you choose better for yourself the next time around. It could take a lot of practice for you, like it took me, or you could resolve many of your familial issues with just a few significant, meaningful, aha moments. Everyone is different, so don’t judge whether you’ve had many relationships or just a few. Whatever your experience, it was exactly the right one for you. 

Begin to embrace your past relationships in a spirit of gratitude and appreciation. Engaging the good feelings about people and clearing out the negative feelings you have been holding will release you, allow you to feel light and free, and will bring your man closer to you as the weight lifts from your shoulders. You are beginning to become irresistible to your man.