Loss of love, an unavoidable experience in the human emotional journey, touches the depths of our hearts in a unique way.
It can leave us heartbroken and disappointed, or devastated, or even leave a shadow that makes us dare not to love and unable to love in subsequent relationships.
It is not just the end of a relationship, but a profound opportunity for self-discovery and growth.
For in this moment, we can see more of our character through an intimate relationship, see our relationship patterns, and discover the way we love people and ourselves.
If you have this kind of personal growth awareness, you can make an originally painful breakup into a metamorphosis that makes us more complete.
In this article, I will show you, through my counselling journey with a female visitor, how we can deal with the emotional impact of a breakup and how we can use this process to achieve personal transformation.
Trapped in the Mire of Breakup
Ah Qing (a pseudonym) is a white-collar worker in Beijing.
For her, work is just a tool to make a living. What she is more concerned about is whether she is loved in a relationship.
When we first met, she was dressed in a cute and playful outfit with fair skin. But her mood was unusually low, her speech was breathless, her head was hanging low, her whole body was curled up, and she looked very dishevelled.
When we started talking, we learnt that she had been depressed since she fell out of love, and it affected her work and life, so she came to me for counselling.
With my guidance and sorting out, she told me about her state and feelings during this period of time.
The relationship, which lasted for two and a half years, ended three months ago.
It was the boy who proposed to break up on the phone and indicated that he did not want to continue to contact.
From then on, the once close lover left her life. After that night of being broken up with, at first, an unbelievable shock welled up in Ah Qing's heart.
Those sweet vows and those jointly depicted dreams have been circling in Ah Qing's mind, but these seem to have vanished overnight. Her heart, as if gripped tightly by an invisible hand, was accompanied by a stabbing pain whenever she breathes.
What followed was a deep sadness, a sadness that was like the mist of that night, which slowly filled in and surrounded Ah Qing tightly, making her heart beat faster and suffocated from time to time. Those days, tears became her only outlet to release her emotions.
Every day when she went to work her eyes were swollen, she was also afraid of being discovered by her colleagues, and tried to avoid people as much as possible and not to talk to them.
She could hardly concentrate on her work and her thoughts were often led by her memories, recalling how their relationship ended that day, every hysterical quarrel in the past, and every night when she cried with sadness and frustration, and she could not devote herself to her work because tears always flowed down her face.
After a period of time, anger also quietly grows in her heart. Why is it that yesterday he was affectionate, but today he has become so cold? Why did the promises once made turn into nothing?
Ah Qing's anger was like a sharp sword, by which she wanted to try to cut through all the incomprehension and confusion. During these days, she asked herself countless times: Where am I wrong? Where did I go wrong? Obviously, he has failed me in so many ways. Why is he the first to say break up? Why he always says he would love me, but this time he no longer does so ......
Her questions are unanswered, only to let herself fall into a deeper abyss again and again. Self-doubt also began to creep into the mind, and those questions of self-worth were like sharp thorns in the side of her self-esteem.
This was followed by endless misses and longings. Ah Qing describes her heart, like being emptied, longing for the familiar warmth of her boyfriend. From time to time, she would see him in her dreams, but when she woke up, she was left alone and her pillow was wet with tears.
Every morning, she was reluctant to wake up. When she got up from bed, it was as if her feet were filled with lead, and she would not want to move even for a single step.
The house was silent, her heart was weak. She had no expectations for the sunrise of the day, she just didn't know how to get through the day.
