Conscious Uncoupling: 5 Steps to Living Happily Even After

by Katherine Woodward Thomas

You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. MAYA ANGELOU

I, like you, am well acquainted with the shadow side of love.

We who have experienced it know that romantic love is a fall-in, crawl-out proposition. MARTHA BECK

Much of the horror of a breakup is the insult to our expectations of how this story was supposed to unfold versus how it actually did.

Rather than allow us to do the sensible thing and turn our attention toward starting a new life, our brains are hardwired to increase our desire for the one we are losing, keeping us torturously entangled, as we desperately try to turn the Titanic around in a frenzied and highly focused state of craving, want, and longing. As the poet Terence once said, “The less my hope, the hotter my love.”

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know What I was walling in or walling out. ROBERT FROST

The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen. ELISABETH KÜBLER-ROSS

Like it or not, a breakup is a time when we’re stranded between worlds. You are no longer the person you once were, and not quite the person you have yet to become.

Bad endings have an unfortunate tendency to linger, tainting life and love moving forward. Of all my regrets in life, it is the unkind partings that have stayed with me the most.

I caution you that your next love affair will not begin when you meet your next lover, but with how you end this one.

Yet, grief, that most dreaded of teachers, does not come empty-handed. Though she may violently be sweeping away much of what you’ve known and loved, she also comes bearing precious gifts. As she offers to carve greater depths of kindness, compassion, wisdom, and courage into the core of who you are, it’s sometimes best to just surrender yourself to her agenda.

The older you grow, the more you realize that one half of you can firmly believe what the other half equally firmly refuses. CONSTANCE HOLME

While all feelings on the anger spectrum—from annoyed, to resentful, to pissed off, to enraged—can be hard to contain without reactively generating more toxicity and pain, the benefits of harnessing rage and using it to catapult a breakthrough in your life are unparalleled.

We human beings live so much in the shelter of one another that the loss of a relationship can be an eviction into exile.

While we may live in a disposable society, there is nothing disposable about the relationships we form with one another. Even if you’re feeling devalued and dismissed by the one you’ve loved, your depression is telling you that the bond you shared mattered.

Under each of your difficult feelings lies an ancient assumption: that it’s dangerous to love, that you can never get what you truly need from others, that everyone leaves no matter how great you are, or that it’s your destiny to be alone.

Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

As Winston Churchill once said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” When struggling through the dark and snaking tunnel of lost love, you want to fiercely determine you’re going to make it to the light, and then do everything in your power to make sure you do.

With all my heart, I implore you to choose life, goodness, truth, beauty, and love. I promise, while you may be filled with regrets right now, this is one choice that you will never be sorry you made.

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any. ALICE WALKER

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. VIKTOR FRANKL

“We see life not as it is, but as we are.”

Remember, kindness is contagious. It’s hard for someone to stay mean and petty when you’re behaving in ways that are consistently thoughtful, respectful, and generous.

In order to dissolve the tensions still churning between you, you’ll need to be a lot less interested in being understood, and a lot more interested in understanding the impact of your choices and actions. A lot less invested in being right, and a lot more invested in how you might actually make things right.

Relationships that do not end peacefully, do not end at all. MERRIT MALLOY

Please remember that these are ideals to aspire to. If you make a mistake, simply clean up any messes you’ve made and start again.