This Is How You Use Heartbreak To Find The Love That You Deserve
By: Thought Catalog
Tags: Breakups, Heartbreak, Healing, Relationships, Love

This Is How You Use Heartbreak To Find The Love That You Deserve

By Nicole Tarkoff

Heartbreak isn’t something you should be afraid of. Heartbreak means you tried. Heartbreak means you did something that not everyone else can do. You let someone in, and you gave them the best of you, you gave them all of you, the good parts, the wild parts, the strange parts, and the parts that you never intended them to see. You gave them your heart and they didn’t have the reaction you wanted, the reaction you hoped for or expected.

They took your trust and they used it against you. They took your vulnerabilities and pretended that they cared. They took your love and never gave enough back. And they took it with them even after they left. They took a part of you that they’ll probably never return, a part of you that you’ll never care to know again. But it’s time you said goodbye. Goodbye to the person you were when you were with them, when they were still around. Goodbye to the person you were before they left, because that’s no longer who you are. You’re no longer his or her girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, wife, partner, you’re no longer their’s, you’re just you.

You’re you and all of the broken pieces of yourself that they left you with, and you can choose to remain broken, you can choose to leave yourself scattered on the floor, bits and pieces that can’t quite seem to fit back together to make a whole, or you can accept the fact that yes, while you might feel more broken than you’ve ever felt before, you’re not gone. You’re still here, even if you’re broken, even if what’s left of you is only fragments of what you used to be.

Your most broken parts don’t define you, they help you grow. Because the parts of you that truly matter, he or she can’t break, no one can. He may be able to break your heart, but he can’t break your spirit. He can’t break your passion or your drive, your caring soul. He can’t break the things that make you, you.

Heartbreak sucks. It hurts. It makes you feel hopeless, tired. It makes you want to quit. It makes you want to rebel. The pain becomes your motive, and you do things because you’re hurt, or sad, or angry. And while heartbreak is all of these terrible things, it still isn’t something to fear. Heartbreak isn’t the monster under your bed, or a fall from high heights, it’s not drowning in an ocean, or being stuck in an elevator with no air. It’s painful, yes. Sad, yes. Exhausting, yes. But it’s nothing to be afraid of.

Heartbreak happens and we tend to move backwards. The love stops and we think back to when it was still alive, still growing and breathing and changing. We think and we overthink and we question until we drive ourselves insane. It’s hard not to.

But the part that comes after all that crazed dissection of the past and this person you used to love is the part where you learn so much about yourself. About who you really are. And then slowly you begin to think less about the past and this person you used to share your life with, and you begin to look forward.

You begin to realize the kind of people you want to have in your life, the kind of people you want to be surrounded by, the kind of people you want to give love because you know they’ll give it back to you. And when you do figure out the kind of love that you deserve, it makes it easier to accept when you finally find it.