Rebuilding, When Your Relationship Ends
By Dr. Bruce Fisher, and Dr. Robert Alberti PhD
This books transformed my 2023.
My 2023 began with loss, mistrust and exhaustion. I had just chased down several foreign police stations for a case that both the police officers and I knew would go nowhere. Back home–the temporary shelter I rented that I called home–my small, north-facing apartment did not welcome me with natural light or warmth. It never would. I had already paused my hobbies, my therapies, my Yoga and workouts, and my YouTube / blog / Podcast a few months before. Anything that required a dedicated mental and physical space could not co-exist with the mess that life had around me. My year-long battles with the people whom I had been in the closest and deepest relationships drained me. Work was the only thing that I had energy to deal with. At least it offered me an escape from one dissatisfying reality to another. I was in desperate need of rebuilding–rebuilding my self worth, my energy, my social support system, and most importantly, my relationship with myself.
Reading the book and writing the rebuilding journal alongside helped me stitch my broken heart together and find my strength. At the end of 2023, on 31st December, as I finished the last page of the book and wrote down the last period on my rebuilding journal, I felt the tranquility that had been long lost over the last years. My heart, mind and body were filled with strength and positive energy generated from true self love. As I flipped through all of the highlighted quotes in the book, my heart pounded with the urge to share those words with people I know and care about, and with anyone I can reach through my blog. You all deserve to be nurtured by those beautiful and empowering words.
To you, my readers, no matter whatever you are going through in life, do know that you have more strength in you than you may think, and you deserve to be loved. Here are the 10 quotes from the book that I wanted to share with you:
As adults, we forget to pay attention to our feelings, to be creative, to take time for ourselves, to invest in our spiritual well-being. We internalised the rejection of these healthy parts in order to get along, to belong, to get good grades, to make money, to be what others wanted us to be. Now we feel more or less unloved, not nurtured, not okay.
Your inner critic is SMALLER than you are, and you can be BIGGER than it is. Consciously make a decision to start listening to that part. Acknowledge the voice, and it will eventually start softening the words it uses. When your critic has finished speaking each time, you may respond with a simple “Thank you.”
You are a worthwhile person, capable of loving and being loved. You have something special to offer to others, and that is YOUR OWN UNIQUE INDIVIDUAL SELF.
You need to learn that you can face the ghosts of the unknown future, living one day at a time. The things you’re afraid of lead you to knowing yourself better.
We have to take risks to learn to TRUST. Risks may backfire and lead to rejection or misunderstanding, but they’re necessary if one is to become close and experience intimacy again. The rewards are worth the risks.
To know that you are valuable enough—just because you are you—to be loved regardless of how you act, that’s the greatest gift you can give yourself.
The basis for loving others is the love you have for yourself.
I would like to have my love be a warm glow, burning within me, warming me and the people with whom I came in contact. My friends would be warm without having to prove that they were lovable. They simply would feel warm by being close to my fire. Since a special, committed love relationship involves being very close, that special person gets an extra flow of warmth from my fire.
It is okay to love yourself. No, it’s more than okay — it is the way life is meant to be!
When you are ready to face life alone and have found happiness as a single person, then you are ready to face life together with another person.
