This is a healing message for Valentine’s Day for you who have been hurt, abandoned, 
rejected or disappointed in a love relationship. If you are one of the lucky few who hasn’t, then send it to someone who has.
Valentine’s Day for the wounded can leave you feeling totally left out, depressed, jealous, resentful, miserable, along with a long list of negatives.
You can dread it each year and hope it is quickly forgotten, or you can turn it into something spiritually positive and even healing.
I am all for making it a day of self love and self celebration. Yes, by all means, treat yourself to some flowers and fine chocolate, or whatever else that brings you joy.
I realize for some, perhaps most, that it is a hard thing to do, especially when you are in grief. I have walked in your shoes along the path of broken hearts.
And yet, I am here asking you to think about going beyond, to something that can bring its own rewards to your soul and conscious being. There is no timetable here, as I am only hopefully planting some seeds for you to think about.
If you happen to have leftover anger, resentment or even worse, revengeful thoughts, then you are not being kind to yourself to allow these feelings to hang around contaminating your life.
No amount of flowers and chocolates can cover up toxic feelings. Resentment, smoldering anger, and revengefulness are powerful toxins that poison you from the inside.
Loving yourself requires that you do what you can to get rid of them and put yourself on a path of healing. If you hang on to them, they can make you sick emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
Even if you are in another relationship, hanging on to toxic feelings from previous ones will often contaminate your new relationship. I see this happening quite a bit and can be one of the main reasons of relationship failures.
I love the Christian scriptures of Luke 6:32, and Matthew 5:46 that explicitly asks “if you only love and do good to those who love you back, what credit or reward is that to you?”. Being kind and decent to someone who isn’t able to love you back requires taking the higher road spiritually.
Some may ask why even care about this? Life is difficult as it is, and why give those who may have rejected and hurt us a second thought?
Why, is a good question for those who see life as a time of getting what you want, when you want it and accumulating material goods rather than learning to stretch your humanity and spiritual self.
Stretching your humanness beyond the ordinary may not be of any importance, except for those sensitive or spiritual souls who think about such things. Some of us have spiritual lives that go beyond the plain physicality of this world.
Most of you would not have a problem with being reminded that a healthy body needs to exercise. Well, it is the same for those of us who want to progress on our spiritual or humanistic path.
Our ability to eliminate anger and resentment and replace them with forgiveness is a spiritual exercise. To do this expands our spiritual muscles so to speak because it requires a conscious effort on our part to accomplish.
The rewards are many. First and foremost is the peace that forgiveness will bring you. Forgiveness is not forgetting, but a conscious decision to liberate yourself from the toxic consequences of anger and resentment.
Hanging on to these toxic feelings will get you nowhere and keep you stagnating in the pool of poisonous feelings. Do not let your righteousness keep you from going on the bridge of forgiveness.
Yes, perhaps you were unjustly and cruelly hurt, betrayed or rejected without cause. The person who did that to you was indeed wrong and certainly unjustified.
Let me emphasize that if you were mistreated and abused emotionally and physically, returning to an abusive relationship will only bring you more pain and more abuse!!!
If you find yourself believing that someone will change their abusive behavior, then you are misleading yourself and most likely have a trauma bond with that person!!!
You have two choices; to hang on to your toxic feelings, or choose to cross the bridge of forgiveness. Remember, forgiveness is more important for you, not them!
Forgiveness is freedom for you to grow into greater peace of mind. You do not have to understand the whys and wherefores of it all, that is not your job.
Choosing to cross the bridge of forgiveness; you are giving yourself a beautiful gift of healing. You are the only one who can do this, so it must come from you.
For those whose spiritual growth is an important part of their lives, these acts are essential, because without them, you can’t move forward.
For every hurtful relationship, there are seeds of growth to be planted and harvested.
The seeds I am referring to are developing some measure of understanding of those who have hurt you. Buddhism also teaches the importance of developing these seeds of understanding and compassion from each hurtful encounter.
For me, this compassion brings many fruits. It softens your heart not only towards those who wronged you, but towards yourself. Generally, those who are unable to have compassion towards others, have little ability to have compassion towards themselves either.
There are definitive things you can do to achieve this. There are healing rituals that I described in great detail in a previous post published in July 7, 2014. Permalink: https://www.cherrychapman.com/2014/07/07/releasing-your-b…en-heart-to-heal/
Please take a look, so you can take advantage of some that you feel would be appropriate for you. I personally find one of the most powerful rituals to release hurt and develop compassion is to light candles for those who have hurt you.
In lighting the candle, you want to specifically say: ” I light this candle in the name of (the person’s name). I pray that the wounded part of you that caused me pain heals. I send you love”.
You can do this even though you feel they don’t deserve it, nor even want to. Remember, you are doing this for yourself as well!!
You will feel a sense of release and comfort from doing this. You can certainly do it multiple times if needed. The greater the hurt, the more often this ritual prayer can be said.
All of these rituals work from the spiritual realm in a mysterious way. The effects can be immediate or accumulative over time.
I hope you will have the courage to try them. Please take advantage of the day to celebrate your own self-love and self-compassion this Valentine’s Day with whatever brings you joy.
Love will weave back into your life when hopefully you are in a higher light and your heart is cleansed of obstacles that have held you back. Valentine Hugs
Cherry,
Your advice may be helpful for a lot of people. LOL . . . I must be “getting old”because I think that I long ago gave up on being too hung-up on any one relationship. As they say: “Life is too short to waste time on something that didn’t work out, not even relationships. Daily there are news reports about murder-suicides, or stalkers who just cannot accept that their relationships did not work out the way that they desired. I think that it is natural to fel disappointments and to have a little regret about relationships that did not work out . . . somewhat akin to the grieving process after losing a loved one or a close friend; but what a waste of one’s life to become somewhat “obsessed” or overwhelmed by relationships that “went bad” or simply did not work out.
“Is the glass half full or half empty?” People have a choice as to how they chose to view and focus their lives . . . they can immerse themselves in regrets, depression and self pity or they can make the effort to move on with the positive aspects and potentials for their lives. There are literally billions of people in the world; why get hung-up on just one person? It is not rational.
It was always rather regretful for me that my rather immature son (who is now 49 y/o) chose to be estranged from me; but I never allowed that to be a tremendous disappointment . . . yeah, it was disappointing; but it was what it was, and it was my son’s decision (and he has lived within 15 miles of me for most of his life). I have a terrific step daughter and three terrific grandchildren who are as much “mine” as any child could be. One can either stayed mired in regrets or move on with life. Human emotions are the tough part of being human, huh?
I long ago learn (for myself at least) that relationships are what one makes of them . . . and “blood” is not the primary factor, that only gives us a potential commonality to have a relationship.
Overcoming past disappointments and moving on with one’s life takes efforts and time; but no one has to be mired in disappointments and depression over past experiences. In spite of the ups and downs in life, “life is good”, especially if one works at making it good. Learning to “move on with onee’s life” take efforts (and time). My great grandmother used to say that “. . . if they con only put an old person’ head on a young body, that would solve a lot of the problems of youth ” . . . Ha!
Thank you David for reminding us of the easier rational side of dealing with heartbreak than being stuck in our feelings. It is certainly easier to move on if we are born more thinking than feeling. Unfortunately the heart has never been rational nor logic! For those who were not born with seeing their world only with logical leanings, their inherent path to recovery is very difficult. Yes, It can result in being mired in a quagmire of painful feelings and grief. Therapists have to work with the inherent inclinations of each patient, and the majority of my patients seek help because of their intense suffering. Solace, comfort, spiritual comprehension, and hope is needed, rather than the denial of their pain as being irrational.
Mr. Spock certainly never suffered from a broken heart! Hugs
Cherry, happy Valentine’s Day!
Blessed Valentine’s Day to you and Robin all week! Hugs
Cherry, I read this in 2017.WOW! It’s even better now than when I first read it .
I definitely have a different mindset nowadays.
HAPPY 😃 VALENTINE’S DAY TO YOU CHERRY!
🎼DON’T WORRY BE HAPPY 😃
🎶BECAUSE EVERY LITTLE THING IS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT 😃
Don’t worry ,instead PRAY about everything 😃
Thank you Isham! Praying and being grateful for all the blessings in life grounds me, whenever fears start to cloud my view. Isham, your mindset has always been very nice and uplifting!
Hugs