Heartbreak Support

So years ago around Covid, we had this survivor come into the group. She was clearly Type “A” powerful executive and used to the business world bending to her will, but the business of divorce was not going to yield…. Long story short she just had to have her divorce go a very specific way, which include included a very quick resolution. That’s not how it works. As a matter of fact, one of the greatest spiritual paradoxes is….. “If you want something, you can’t have it… but

Today: April 14, 2026 07:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada) Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83145984193?pwd=ax2ODbPFrwHbuCAqcatzYlf9LxS6m6.1 Meeting ID: 831 4598 4193 Passcode: 472833

Let us begin with the truth. Happiness is not a miracle. It is not a gift bestowed upon the lucky few. It is not a feeling that visits you only when circumstances align in your favor. No, happiness is a state of consciousness, a decision of the mind, and a product of spiritual and mental discipline. It is something you must create, not something you wait for. And here's the great secret…….You can be happy every single day, no matter what. No matter the storm around you, no ma

There is a phrase I hear often in heartbreak recovery, even if it is not spoken out loud: better the devil you know. Let me be clear. The “devil” is not your partner. The devil is the pattern. The devil is familiarity. The devil is the nervous system choosing predictable pain over unfamiliar peace. And over the years, I have watched this dynamic play out more times than I can count. I have also watched something else: people blaming everything except their own participation i

When the mind is unshaken by praise or blame, gain or loss, even the strongest poison loses its power. This is a spiritual teaching…   There comes a quiet moment after your divorce (or end of a romantic relationship that was abusive ) when something changes. Not outside, but inside. You stop explaining yourself. You stop begging to be understood. You stop shrinking to keep someone comfortable.   And THAT is the moment a certain kind of person panics. Not because you became

I couldn’t decide what to title this blog. But it covers: The Last Challenge of the Trauma Bond (the shock to the system of realizing you can be in a real loving relationship…) and…. The Origin of: “Nice Guys Finish Last.” (but it happens to women too) I have said many times that the trauma bond is addiction, and it is Stockholm syndrome, period . Over the years, I have watched hundreds of you try to break the trauma bond, whether after abuse, after divorce, or after the end

No Man Steps Into the Same River Twice “No man ever steps into the same river twice, for he is not the same man and it is not the same river.”   — Heraclitus   This single sentence quietly dismantles most of what we assume about love.   We wake up each day beside someone who has changed. And yet we often try to love them as if they have not. We cling to yesterday’s version. Yesterday’s tone. Yesterday’s promise. Yesterday’s safety. In doing so, we miss the living person stand

Q: Why is it so desperately want to be loved? A: Because we are so desperately empty, lonely. Q: But you said that loving on the whole is more important than being loved? A: Yes, of course, obviously, which means one must understand this emptiness, this loneliness in oneself. So the question of love is really an extraordinary thing because a mind that's frightened obviously cannot love. A mind that is self-concerned with its own ambitions, greed, fears, guilt—that type of suf

There is an old saying from the East. Feed a snake. Love a snake. Respect a snake. Pray for a snake. It does not matter. It will still bite you. Wisdom is knowing the difference between compassion and self destruction. Be kind, but not naive. Forgive, but do not forget the lesson. Love, but do not sacrifice yourself to prove it. This is not about resentment. It is about seeing clearly. People do not always hurt you because you failed to love them well enough. Sometimes they h

Do we truly believe that constant happiness is guaranteed in most marriages or in any other area of life? I assure you that every single human being takes equal sips of suffering. It is also true that every single romantic relationship contains its own points of friction, regardless of what is carefully curated and posted on Facebook. 🙄 The belief that we are entitled to uninterrupted happiness sits at the root of much of our distress. The marriage ceremony doesn’t even men

I have probably studied somewhere between 800 and a thousand near-death experiences . I didn’t come to them casually. I came to them the way people do when life breaks you. Over time, patterns begin to emerge. Themes repeat. Warnings surface . And one of the most consistent messages I hear from people who have crossed to the Other Side and returned is this: Be careful with shame. Not fear. Not anger. Not grief. Shame. What surprises people is that in near-death experiences, t

One of my friends is unhoused at the moment. She is sleeping in her car, parked on public land, which sounds to many people like "the worst circumstance possible," but she told me the other day that she saw a married couple pulled over on the side of the road, arguing and yelling at each other, cussing, screaming, and throwing punches, and she thought to herself, "At least I don't have THAT headache!" So, if gratitude is difficult for you because you don't have everything you

If you’re healing from divorce, separation, or the collapse of a relationship that left you anxious, confused, or starving for reciprocity, this may be the most important psychological shift you ever make. The problem was never that you were “too loving,” “too loyal,” or “too emotional.” The problem is that you were trained—usually in childhood—to chase connection, to earn affection, and to confuse instability with passion. This article explains why desire becomes a trap, why

When we go through divorce or the end of a powerful relationship, we often think we’re mourning the loss of love—but more often, we’re mourning the loss of a wound we kept trying to heal through another person. The partners we’ve been the most addicted to, the ones we couldn’t release even when they destroyed us, were rarely soulmates—they were mirrors reflecting the oldest pain inside us. If we don’t understand this, we repeat the same pattern in our next relationship, mista

I met Harvard professor Dr. Richard Alpert when I was 12 years old in the spring of 1966. He had come by to visit my mother, whom he had befriended two years earlier. At that first meeting we bonded over a common passion for a particular, very popular science fiction book, Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. Almost 60 years later I can condense what his spiritual teachings have finally instilled into me into three key principles:   Radical Acceptance :  Per his in

If you leave, think about who you will leave behind… Suicide.   That was never a word I was familiar with.  My good friend in high school lost her brother to suicide and that’s the closest I came to that word.   Until that fateful day in September.  September 16, 2022, at 5:03 pm.  It has been 3 years, 1 month, 29 days – making it a total of 1,155 days.   As Benjamin’s mom, in the beginning, I felt as if “I” was the only one going through this traumatic ordeal.  Now I realize

a·wak·en·ing /əˈwākəniNG/ noun noun:  awakening ; plural noun:  awakenings an act of  waking  from sleep. "since my awakening I had realized it was a very special day" an act or moment of becoming suddenly aware of something. "the war came as  a rude awakening to  the hardships of life" the beginning or rousing of something. "the awakening of vigorous political debate"   adjective:  awakening   coming into existence or awareness.   Why is it that so many people who are spirit

I’m in my late fifties, and I went on a first date recently. During our conversation, the woman started telling me about her most recent failed relationship. It was clear things hadn’t been going well between them. Then she said — referring to what kept her in the relationship longer than she should have: “You know when you do that thing where you just think maybe they’ll change eventually, or it’ll get better?” I about spit my drink out and screeched: “No, NOOOOOO! At this p

Everything that you're worried about is going to be gone – just like that. The people that are criticizing you, they're going to be gone, you're going to be gone… All this hand-wringing, worry, and concern over, how are people viewing me, someone said something bad about me, and you get so upset about it, is wasted time and energy. Marcus Aurelius says your only focus should be on getting better at what you're doing. Focus on what you're doing, get better at what you're doi

“Confusion arises only when I think or insist that the road leads somewhere else—and that is the state most of us are in. Our opinions, our beliefs, our desires, our ambitions are so strong, we are so weighed down by them, that we are incapable of looking at the fact. ” —Jay K.Murti When applied to the end of an abusive or betrayal-based romantic relationship, the quote becomes almost painfully literal. In thes