Just got dumped? Got a broken heart? Trying to deal with a divorce? This might be a good moment to look at how you’re tackling life and review some of your core concepts.
When we’re hurting because a relationship has ended, this is a good wake-up call. You can start with the simple question: “Why am I hurting?” If the answer is: “because the person broke up with me”. Then you have to ask yourself, “but why is this painful?” Is this real?
In other words, where and when did you decide that you needed that person in order for you to be happy? Better yet, why? How is it that you crafted a view of reality that mysteriously necessitates someone else acting a certain way for you to be happy? If you stop and think about it, you can see this is a recipe for disaster. Each of us is going through life experiencing a million things, having 70 thousand thoughts per day, with all sorts of conditioning and all kinds of karma fructifying. How can you expect somebody else to act a certain way for you to be happy? It’s nuts!
In yoga, we actively wok to remove such items of “conditional happiness” from our minds. Krishna says in the Bhagavad-gita, “That person [the yogi] has no interest… in depending on any being” (BG 3.17). We need not depend on others for our happiness. Our happiness is ours alone to craft. Just as you created in your mind the idea that you needed another person to be by your side to be happy, so to you can adjust your mental map to understand that joy comes from living life well as it is, not as you falsely thought it should be. You don’t need anyone else. What you need is to adjust your mind to reality.
First, we have to learn to love ourselves. Our needy side is just a lack of self-love. Whatever our “surface” situation, in other words, no matter how faulty and unattractive you may find yourself, deep down you’re a spark of God, a beautiful luminous being. You should connect with that best, deepest version of yourself. Great relationships can only happen between people who already love themselves.
If you’ve advanced more in yoga and have attained the highest aspect of spiritual life, devotion (bhakti), then you can further experience being loved by God. There is an inexhaustible supply of love coming from God, the source of all love. God knows how special you are. You are, after all, unique. God’s love for each one of us is inconceivable. If a regular human parent can have such unfathomable love for his or her child, just imagine the love God has for you, His child. Of course, all this sounds wacky if you have not yet accessed bhakti. But, when you do, you’ll know it’s true.
With all this wonderful self-love and love coming from God, you’ll be overflowing with love. You’ll no longer need to beg for it from others. You’ll no longer lament not getting it from people who don’t even want to be with you anymore. With all this love, you can now bring the focus to your actions. You can now love others. Happiness is derived from loving, not from expecting to be loved. The joy is in giving.
So, be grateful for being dumped. Re-evaluate and recalibrate your goals and find all the love you need in your own heart.
Here’s my video on the topic.