Dealing With the Pain of Breaking Up
Everything in our lives seems to point out that we can't give what we don't have. We give money away, and then we have that much less to give. We volunteer our time and we have less for ourselves. This appears true on the surface, but I would suggest that giving and receiving are one and the same. Almost anyone who has volunteered their time with disadvantaged people knows that they receive at least as much as they give. It can be difficult to trust that kind of exchange because it doesn't follow the rules of equitability that are silently running around in our heads.
If giving and receiving are the same, they will provide a way out of the hopelessness and loneliness that often follows breaking up in an intimate relationship.
These silent rules judge the evenness of exchange between what is given and received. Where did these rules come from? This intense desire to make things come out even comes from our PERCEPTION of lack. You have lost a lover or friend and so you feel you have LESS. Feeling less assumes that you were not complete within yourself without that other person. If you are complete within yourself, then the emotional pain after a breakup is probably about the pain of transition from one way of relating to another. You fear the transition to a place you imagine no longer contains enough receiving for you. Your lover is no longer there to give what you want to receive.
Every relationship is a constant exchange of giving and receiving.
After a breakup, you have lost the ability to make this giving-receiving exchange with this particular person. The way beyond this mercenary view of [tag-ice]relationships[/tag-ice] is to give. You have lost nothing from yourself. You have the same ability to give and receive love etc. as you always have. Give away the very thing you desire to receive. The economy of love does not recognize the difference between giving and receiving. There are people everywhere around you who would humbly and graciously accept many of the wonderful gifts you have to offer. You will find that as you give, you will receive back more than you can imagine. Sometimes the things you receive will not be in the form you expect or demand, but if received with humility, you can actually begin to enjoy these wonderful gifts to you.
Giving and receiving in their purest form are both acts of humility.
If you give only from your strength or fullness, it can appear demeaning, trite or meaningless to the receiver because it is not about them. On the other hand, receiving can feel humbling because it acknowledges that you lack something. When you humbly approach the acts of giving and receiving, you will open up a flow of love that goes beyond the boundaries of your broken relationship. Give away the love that is so important to everyone's emotional health and you will find your emotional health restored in ways you can't even imagine.
By Susan and Steve Anderson of buildingpositiverelationships.com