Healing Your Past Relationships For The Future Of Your New One. A Letter to The Ex.

To the Ex:

lt's not that I didn't love you. I did. I loved you with every piece of me that I could give to you at that time. I loved you the only way I knew how to love. And at that time, I didn't know any better. I didn't know there was any other way to love. I thought that the love we had was all there was.

" How did we fail when we loved each other so much?" You asked me this once. It's not just your fault you know?... Although, I didn't know it then.

What I didn't realize was I could give so much more. I could love so much deeper. 

What I didn't realize was that I couldn't give to you, what I hadn't yet given to myself.

 I couldn't give to you what I didn't even know was missing from me.

I know me better now. I see it very clearly.
I loved you. I still love you, just differently now. 

I love you for the times we had.

 I love you for being my greatest lesson. 

I love you for loving me the best way you knew how.

 I love you for helping me grow. 

I love you for being the reason I learned to love myself (even though we didn't know that's what was happening at the time.)

 I love you for so many reasons.

Without our relationship, I may have repeated the same mistakes over and over.
Loving you, you loving me, in the only way we knew how to love, unknowingly led me to the path of loving myself.

God, it hurt. And that hurt broke me, but it broke me in every way I needed to be broken, so I could be put back together in all the right ways.

What I realize is... I'll never take away from what we had for that time. It was real. As real as it could be. 

But until I became real with myself, love myself, appreciate my journey, embrace my heart ache, my mistakes...my human imperfection, and learn to love Me anyhow...I couldn't truly love myself, and I couldn't love you, in the way you would have needed me to love you in order for us to work.

Until I knew what love really was, what it was really made out of, and what I was truly made of, I expected you to take care of me in ways that only I could have  taken care of me.
And I didn't know why I wasn't being taken care of.

I didn't know you didn't have the capacity to be what I wanted or what I thought I needed.
I expected you to be something, I now know, you could never have been...not because of me but because of you. 

And I didn't know that trying to get you to be who you weren't ready to be wasn't fair to you or to me.

I didn't have what it took to continue fighting for us. 

To stay when it continued to get harder. 

To pray more when it felt more impossible by the day.

 I didn't have what it took to stand up for myself and to stand strong in my convictions for what I truly deserved because I didn't know what I truly deserved.
I expected you to know.
I expected you to see that I deserved better than what you gave me.
I expected that if I could change for you, make you happy, give you everything I had that you would be capable of doing the same for me in return. 

That you would see I was worth the love I always dreamt of...

Not knowing the love I always dreamt of was already in me. It was me. So I looked to you to validate me. Tell me I was doing a good job. But it never happened.
You weren't capable.

 I was just left depleted.
And I hated you for not treating me well. I blamed you for not knowing how to treat me.

But really, I blamed myself for not knowing how to treat me.
I blamed myself for staying so long.
I blamed myself for not seeing my own worth.

And now I know, I've always been worth everything. Without having to prove it.

I now know, it wasn't just your fault.

Through all that we went through, which is just as important, I realized I didn't have what it took to be strong for you, and your brokenness and unhealed areas, because I wasn't strong enough for myself yet. And for that I am sorry.

But you know what? That is okay. 

Why?

Because we weren't meant to last.

You were meant to prepare me.  

And I can only hope, that you know, I prepared you too...if you allow it. 

And perhaps that was the greatest purpose for our coming together.

 To heal each other and prepare each other.

Perhaps, we prepared each other for the one meant to last.

We didn't know it then, But I know it now...  you were the seeds that were planted in my now beautiful garden. 

The garden of my strength, my healing, and my undeniable self love.

Not to say I won't keep growing. Not to say new lessons won't come about. And not to say new areas that need to heal won't show themselves.
But because of us, I learned to do the work. 

I learned to be strong for myself. 

And now I have what it takes to be strong for someone else.

I learned my value and what I have to offer.

 I learned what I deserve and I learned to give it to myself first.
I learned when it's time to walk away and when it's time to stay.

And most importantly, I learned to hold the space for someone else and their broken pieces because I learned to hold the space for my own. 

And because of this, I will choose the one that is able to hold the space for mine as well. And we will be able to grow together.

And the good news is, if you learn from Us, you will do the same.
So thank you for the role you played in my life. 

Thank you for loving me the only way you knew how.
I love you. And can say goodbye to the past and say hello to the future without fear.
Love Always, NElise

You see, relationships are always going to teach you something.Some relationships will be life altering. They are created and designed from the heavens to be this way. It is always about healing and growth. When you love someone so much and have a connection so deep with them, you try to love them even through the pain you are feeling. You don't even understand why you can't let go, don't want to let go, even when you have to.
Sometimes you won't let go until letting go is the only option left....usually because you've allowed the relationship to get to a place of dislike or worse.

 In my case, especially, this was a soul mate connection. Soul mates come to be a mirror for you. They come to unveil all of your hidden wounds. They tend to be like you more than you're even willing to admit.
But it doesn't have to end badly. If you learn. 

Learning, healing, and rising is the only thing that makes your heartache worth it.

BE Love.

 Because love is the only thing that heals. 

Love people for who they were and why you loved them to begin with. 

Set them free in love and set yourself free to love again, so you can love the one meant to stay.

An evolved kind of Love. Commitment.

An Evolved kind of Love.

Now, I am one to believe that everything happens for a reason. Love fails, hearts get broken, etc. 

It's suppose to be this way.

What I also know is that each time this happens, it's a lesson for our growth and evolution.
Personally, each break and failure I've had, especially in love, I've grow, I've evolved, I've changed, and I've transformed.

And most importantly... Because this truly is the most important of the most important... And if you don't learn this, nothing I say will make a difference for your life anyway... 

I'm only half kidding. Anyway.

I've learned to love myself, listen to God, was willing to wait for His best for me, and learned to trust and follow the beat of my own heart more than anything or anyone.

Through that, I've learned to be confident in what I choose and why I choose it.

What I've learned in this ever evolving version of my now self is this...

COMMITMENT. And How IMPORTANT it  is.

In all things... But in my evaluation of my once upon a time self, my clients, my friends, absolute strangers that love sharing their stories with me... RELATIONSHIPS and our commitment to them is a HUGE topic of conversation.

So this is what I've come up with...

Perhaps there is always going to be someone more beautiful, more handsome, more talented, smarter, more creative, richer....the list goes on...than you or the one your with.

But regardless of all that, what if there's one heart that's designed with the capacity to love ALL OF YOU, every bit of you and your "stuff", as deeply as all of those things combined, in any of those people combined times..., I dunno, 1,000,000. ( because really those things are boringly superficial)

Perhaps if we are always searching for the next best thing, we end up with nothing at the end. And then later we wonder, what if...

What if, in the process of searching for the next best thing, we let go of or missed the very one created to give us the thing we needed and wanted the most?... An epic, undeniable kind of Love. A golden heart born and created to love  you in all the ways you only wish someone could love another human being.

How?  How could we miss this?

Because of this illusion that the grass is greener on the other side.

Because we begin our relationships on a rocky foundation stating "if something goes wrong or I become unhappy, I'm out..Deuces!"

Because we haven't spent enough time or had enough experience with ourselves to know what we really want anyway.

I mean, I get it, who really wants to "work" for a relationship right!? I mean, who really wants to fight for the one they claimed to have loved...right? This is a generation of fast, easy, and commitment phobia. Sorry, not sorry.

Really, this is Pathetic. And if you agreed. Shame on you, lol. Jk

The problem with relationships is not the relationship itself, the problem is in our thinking. The problem is  that people started thinking commitment was a suggestion.
 Refusing to remember the love they once felt and why they felt it. Refusing to truly give of themselves and invest in the Love that had them fall in love to begin with.

Instead of finding something new because the sparkle has worn off, or you hit a few bumps...or maybe even trenches along the way, how about renewing the sparkle that was once a flame burning deep within your heart and soul?

What if "breaking up" wasn't an option, what if it was completely off the table?

Perhaps we would find a way to remember what it was we loved to begin with and light a new fire with the one we are with?..

Maybe we would learn to fight a new way without the constant threat of leaving...

Just maybe you've learned to grow, evolve, and truly learn to love and be loved.

And if you haven't, perhaps if the one you are with is willing to fight the good fight with you, stay in the trenches of your healing and evolvement, and has made a commitment to you, let them, love them, and appreciate them. Because real love is rare in a world that wants the next best thing.
Stay committed to what you love. Even if it takes work.