What is the true meaning of a heartbreak? Does it really matter to know that you have been loved before you can let him go?

Many times, it is not the process of separating from your partner that’s hardest. What’s really difficult is the meaning we need to give to such a separation. What will all these mean for us? Why do we have to undergo so much pain?
There are so many questions at the back of our minds but we’re afraid to answer them for fear of not being able to face the meaninglessness of it all. As a result, we choose to hold on to the relationship however painful and unhealthy it has already become.
What are these questions we’re so afraid of? Rather, what are the answers we don’t want to find?
1. That you have been rejected, and judged as “not good enough”.
Rejection is painful. It’s like being disposed of as trash, as though there’s nothing good or ever worth keeping in you.
When you experience a breakup, you can’t help but feel you were never good enough. What did you lack? What could you have done to prevent this? Why has he left you for another woman?
To be rejected is to have failed to measure up to the standards and expectations of the other person. To be rejected is to feel that you have not been loved at all!
But is this the real meaning of our feelings of rejection? Did we really fail to measure up to someone who is better than us? Are we really so repulsive and worthless as a person?

 
What Rejection Really Means
• Rejection does not always mean you were the one who failed to measure up to the standards of the other person. In reality, many people call for a breakup because they were the ones who felt they could never measure up to your standards.
• Rejection does not always mean your WHOLE BEING had been rejected. It may be that only one trait of yours was considered as incompatible with your partner’s character.
• Rejection does not always mean that the other person who replaced you as the third party is better than you. It could be that your ex merely found someone who is more compatible with him considering his values and interests.
And even if your partner declares you have been rejected because of another person who is better than you, it doesn’t mean he is right! Remember that there are always three sides to a story: your side, his side, and the right side.
To be rejected by someone doesn’t mean you should also reject yourself or that you should think of yourself as a lesser person. It doesn’t mean that nobody will ever love you anymore. Remember that only ONE person has rejected you at the moment, and it only hurt so much because to you, that person’s opinion symbolized the opinion of the whole world, of God.
In order to move on, you must develop your self-confidence and raise the self-esteem damaged by the rejection. You must have a firm belief in your own self worth, in your own beauty!
Further, rejection doesn’t mean you were never loved. He may have really loved you at some point in your relationship, but something happened and that love has not been taken care of and protected. It takes a lot of work and courage to continue loving, and many people don’t have the patience and the strength to persist in their love. People change as well, and the guy who is now hurting you wasn’t the same guy anymore who took your breath away. (continued in the book)

• Loving Broken People

“We cannot love a person
with an all accepting, transcending and encompassing love
without being hurt somewhat,
without being disappointed,
without being failed
of our expectations.
We cannot love
without being broken,
yet we cannot continue in love
without being stronger
than our brokenness. (continued in the book)

• Why Healing Sometimes Requires Separation and Isolation

We often complain that it is because we have been separated from those we love that we need to be healed. The truth however is that oftentimes, we don’t even know we’re already wounded even before we got torn away from those we loved. God has allowed such a separation to take place in order that He might heal us from those wounds. (continued in the book)

• What Saying Goodbye Doesn’t Mean

Saying goodbye doesn’t mean
You don’t love him anymore,
Nor that you no longer will.
It doesn’t mean that you failed.
It doesn’t mean you’re unlovable.
It doesn’t mean somebody’s better,
And that someone else can take your place.
Saying goodbye doesn’t mean
He doesn’t love you anymore
Nor that he no longer will.
It doesn’t mean he wanted to hurt you.
It doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to be loved.
It doesn’t mean he isn’t grateful he met you,
And that you’ve touched each other’s souls. (continued in the book)

• The Door to Stillness

We don’t enter into stillness as a sign of our triumphs. We enter into stillness because we finally surrender. We acknowledge our hurts, our fears and our disappointments. We acknowledge that we don’t know what to do next. We acknowledge that we need to pause and to retreat for a while because our powers are no longer sufficient to carry us through the rough times ahead.