Healing a Break-Up

My client from Brazil, Cynthia, a very creative and versatile woman, came to me last year to find some relief for her "love pain." She had tried EFT by herself with some success, but she was overwhelmed as there were innumerable issues to handle, and she felt that we wouldn’t be achieving much even with EFT.

She was trying to get over a recent break up with her abusive boyfriend. She was prone to self-sabotage and toxic relationships; was depressed and had a challenging family situation. She wanted to go back to her ex-boyfriend despite the emotional and physical abuse that he had inflicted on her. She would frequently alternate between praising her boyfriend and then verbally abusing him in the sessions. She felt anger towards herself for wanting to go back to him. Guilt, shame, annoyance, frustration, anger and a sense of betrayal, were the predominating emotions.

She despaired that she would never get rid of this cycle of abusive relationships --- as she had been in another abusive relationship sometime back. The desperation to go back to him was so great that she started carrying a list of reminders regarding why she should hate him, to prevent herself from going back to him. It was compounded by the fact that she had an abusive childhood.

After a couple of sessions, she realized that she enjoyed the domination and humiliation of an abusive relationship --- as she confused it with love. She thought that her being beaten up as a child was her fault. We dealt with the family abuse in the sessions along with the love pain. There were significant cognitive shifts with regard to her family abuse and reduction in her anger but the love pain did not go away. The change came only after the two significant sessions. The following are details of 2 sessions worth of affirmations that brought about an enormous change in her "love pain" state.

Even though I want him to want me, I love and forgive myself. Even though I know it may not be good for me to want him, I love and forgive myself for wanting him.

Even though I want to take revenge from him as I believe I have an upper hand in our non-existent relationship, I love and accept myself.

Even though I wanna hurt him by making him love me again and then reject him, I love and accept myself and I want to accept that my want for him is based on avenging him.

Even though I wanna hurt him and I feel horrible for wanting to hurt him even though he hurt me, I love and forgive myself.

She felt very lonely due to the lack of a stable family background:

Even though I like being alone but not being lonely...

Even though I want to go back to my boy friend because I can’t be alone and I would prefer to think of him as a good man instead of remember all the bad things that happened in the relationship, I love and accept myself. I choose to remind myself that he may be a good man but that goodness was not there when I was with him.

Even though I feel guilty for him not showing his goodness, …

She felt very guilty about walking out of the abusive relationship. At the same time she didn’t want to lose him completely and was jealous of him being with someone else:

Even though I still feel guilty for treating him badly, I choose to understand that I was protecting myself.

Even though I feel guilty that I rejected him many times and now by rejecting me he is doing the right thing because I need punishment for rejection, because I deserve punishment, I love and accept myself. I want to understand that I was trying to protect myself from pain and I didn’t intentionally want to hurt him. However, I doubt if he was really hurt.

Even though I’m jealous that somebody else may get the love that I didn’t get, I choose to be grateful that I’m out of that relationship. I want to accept that I need a respectful and compassionate relationship. I deserve that.

Slowly and steadily through EFT, she was able to get a lot of her self-esteem back. Her wanting to go back to her boyfriend went away completely by the time we had finished our sessions. Sometimes when she feels lonely, she does miss him (which is natural), but she has started dating now and is looking forward to having a healthy relationship. We also worked on her money blocks and now she is working towards getting financially independent again.

Puja Kanth
Chennai, India
www.emofreetherapy.com.

From the EFTfree Archives, which are now a part of EFT International .
Originally published on March 9, 2010.