Stop Dating when you’re Healing

We have likely found ourself in the situation of nursing a broken heart, perhaps we are unsure if we are ready to start dating or begin dating again. Perhaps we have been given the advice to get a revenge body, or a new partner to show the old one what she or he is missing. This is likely said by a well meaning friend, trying to perk up our fragile self esteem, but it is actually terrible advice. We need to love and value our friends enough to encourage them to take the time they need to heal. As the recipient this advice it might not feel like something we want to hear at the time, but I’m going to repeat it again, “stop dating when you are healing”.

I just want to take this moment to acknowledge the obvious fact that healing is a life long journey, so there is clearly a space to be healing while in a relationship. This is written in terms of those who seek out relationships to avoid healing, or jump from one relationship to another in an attempt to either fix them self or enter into a new relationship with fragile self esteem and or the expectation that this new someone will fill the void that is there and is in need of healing. Until we work on our relationship with ourself and like who we are, nobody else can fill that space for us. This is also written with deep love and understanding that healing and relationships can be both difficult and are unique, it is also written with the experience of being hurt and sadly hurting others dating when I had no business to be doing so.  

If we try to start a relationship when we are not happy with ourself or we are fresh out of a broken relationship and have not allowed the space to grieve and heal, not only are we most likely going to hurt someone else, we are ultimately hurting ourself in the process.

Prolonging your healing journey does you no favours, you may be able to try and convince your mind that you’re ok and ready to put yourself out there, perhaps even adding that the right person coming along will in fact, assist in you healing, boosting your lack of self confidence, healing your insecurities, past wounds and healing your broken heart from a previous love lost. However the reality is that you, most likely, will continue to have the same repeat relationship problems or issues arise, in any relationship you enter into while in this unhealed state. This is directly because healing has not occurred, and the trauma, unresolved issues and lessons have not been  processed and unlearned lessons continue repeating until we integrate what we needed to learn from them. Let’s also not overlook that your body keeps a score of the unhealed pain and trauma and without an outlet to process and heal our body stores it. The longer you leave it, the more likely it is that your body will force you to stop and deal with it in the form of physical injury or illness.

When we are wanting to meet someone new, we should want to put our best self forward, how can we genuinely say we are offering our best self when we are dragging about our baggage and the burden of past unresolved trauma?

Dating a new person allows them to get to know you for the first time and that should be the best you that you can offer, not the damaged version of you, not the you that is lacking self-confidence, or the you that wants your ex back, and not the you that is too afraid to be alone and needs someone else to fill space for them, perhaps to distract you from the pain, or expecting that this new someone will be the guide and teacher in your healing journey.

Unless we are fully healed we are offering an emotionally unavailable version of ourself to someone else, and this version is certainly not our best self.

Let’s be blunt, someone coming along and loving you properly can temporarily numb your broken heart but it is your body that has to do the healing, your soul and spirit have to heal or you will reject the love offered to you anyway, perhaps pushing away good people because you haven’t properly healed, because you’re afraid of being alone and you let your fears rule your life with a never ending list of “what ifs”.

You are stronger than you realise, you are a miracle, a magic maker, and your thoughts and desires become reality, you deserve to be abundantly happy and you owe it to yourself to give yourself the opportunity to live the life you wish to create.

Taking the proper time to heal, is essential, and YOU have to heal yourself, nobody can do this for you. Of course, there is a holistic approach to healing which will be different for each of us. We all have access to counsellors, vibrational medicines, body work and other modalities as well as our own support network and these are excellent tools which can assist us accessing the held emotions and working through them, but jumping into the next situationship or relationship won’t heal you.

Essentially, stop trying to build a new life on the rocky rubble foundations of your old one. Another good analogy is to stop trying to pick the broken shards of glass out of your right foot, so you can place your left foot back in the same place, surely none of us would attempt that so it is time to accept that we need to heal and then do that and don’t start dating until you are really recovered.

With love, Aj xo