BOARD: Relationship Ended - Breakup Crises

Get in touch with your true feelings. Feel them. Don't avoid, distort, or minimize them.

When things are going well for us, when we feel strong and positive, when we're healthy and full of inspiration and when we're in love it's easy to wonder why the yogic texts carry on so much about detachment.

When we're faced with loss, grief, or failure, it looks much more appealing—our practice in detachment becomes a lifeline that can move us out of acute suffering into something close to peace.

ACKNOWLDGEMENT [Stage 1]: When we're dealing with a major loss or strong attachment, we begin our healing by acknowledging and working with our feelings. The feelings that are the stickiest aspects of attachment are:

the excited desire we feel when we want something,

the anxiety we feel about losing it, and

the sense of hopelessness that can arise when we fail to achieve it.

Acknowledgment doesn't just mean recognizing that we want something badly or that we're feeling loss. When you want something, feel how you want it—find the wanting feeling in your body.

Remember when you were feeling cocky about a victory and you beat your chest and said, "Me, me, me!"

Rather than pushing away the anxiety and fear of losing what you care about, let it come up and breathe into it the same way. And when you're experiencing the hopelessness of actual loss, allow it in.

Let yourself cry.