3 Heart Truths That Helped Transform My Life After Leaving My Marriage
#2 — The dark nights of your soul are meant to steer you toward a new life
“You’ve wasted your youth on him”, a friend said when I shared that I was leaving my marriage.
It was a well-intentioned comment. I was 30 at that time, and finally had the courage to leave the painful and at times emotionally abusive relationship. We had been together since I was 18, and it took 12 years before I told anyone of the long-standing troubles.
Looking at the statistics, the friend was right. I believe she was trying to be empathetic. But that statement caused a deeper spiral into weeks of depression and self-recriminations.
Till one morning, I woke up these realizations:
- So what if I’ve wasted my youth on him!
- Am I going to waste the rest of my life regretting this waste!
- Besides, there was other goodness present in all these years. Blessed!
- The friend’s statement isn’t helpful — ignore it!
- Listen to other more positive and uplifting statements!
- I am still young!
To adapt from Henry Ford’s iconic quote:
Whether you think you have wasted your life, or you think you haven’t, you’re right.
The choice always lies within our control. Instead of focusing on the reality of the wasted past, I decided to create new realities that were bigger, brighter, and better!
These are 3 Heart Truths that I listened to as I began to shape my new path.
Heart Truth #1 — Forget the Naysayers; Choose Your Champions
We naturally seek the opinion and counsel of the people around us. But their comments may not necessarily be helpful or even the right strategy to help us.
Instead of taking their opinions as the Gospel Truth, seek a more balanced mix of information through the resources available to us to resolve any predicaments we are in — hotlines, courses, books, coaches, therapists, and articles. From there, choose the ones that propel you forward.
Oh, the naysayers will often outnumber the champions. Choose to listen to your champions and spend more time with them. Take another step forward and create your circle of champions who truly empower you and support your personal growth. If I had listened to all the naysayers all those years ago, I would not have embarked on plenty of life-changing decisions such as starting my own consultancy company.
Heart Truth #2 — The Dark Nights of Your Soul Are Meant To Steer You Toward a New Life
The nights are often the hardest to get through when I was going through those painful years. It is when my brain and heart often experience storms or go into a meltdown. I learn to breathe, breathe, and breathe again. And I tell myself to hang on and wait for a new dawn.
In his book ‘Dark Nights of the Soul’, Thomas Moore observes that the sadness, confusion, frustration, pain, suffering, loneliness, and loss that many people experience during a dark night of the soul can be catalysts to personal transformation. He shares that a blessing may come at the end of this unsettling period in this excerpt:
“Perhaps the dark night comes upon you from inside or outside to wake you up, to stir you and steer you toward a new life. I believe this is the message of most religions, and certainly it is the gist of Christianity and Buddhism. Your dark night may be a ‘Bardo’: a period of apparent lifelessness that precedes a new birth of meaning. Maybe your dark night is a gestation, a coming into being of a level of existence you have never dreamed of. Maybe your dark night is one big ironical challenge, just the opposite of what it appears to be — not a dying, but a birthing.” ~ Thomas Moore
We all have our dark nights of the soul and I had my fair share when I was stuck in my nightmare of a marriage. Yet, the dark nights did not end even after I ended my marriage. I was a broken woman. At 30 years old, I was broke and in debt, with no sense of where I was going in terms of job prospects/career. I felt ugly, fat, and unloved, suffered from extremely low self-esteem, scarred by a failed marriage and a bleak future — an utter failure by society’s standards. And that’s how I felt about myself. When I compared myself to the people around me, I was and had nothing.
Thomas Moore’s message gave me powerful dose of sunshine that reframes the way I look at the situation. As I stepped out of this painful relationship, I was birthing my new life.
Heart Truth #3 — My Heart Can Heal and I Remain as a Love Optimist
Even with the failed marriage, I still yearn to be with someone. As such I know that I must remain a love optimist and not lock my heart for fear of being hurt again.
The Sanskrit name for the Heart Chakra is Anahata and it means unhurt, un-struck, and unbeaten. Anahata Nad refers to the Vedic concept of unstruck sound, the sound of the celestial realm. Lovely, isn’t it?
To me, it means our hearts have the potential to create harmonious love music again and again! And this is what I remind myself each time when I experienced yet another heartbreak. I can’t change what’s happened but I can learn from each relationship to enrich my future ones — nothing has been wasted.
These 3 Heart Truths serve as positive reminders for me to focus on the future as I went on my healing transformative journey.
Today, I am enjoying a nurturing relationship with my most compatible partner, (more on that in a future post), and I run two successful consulting companies. More importantly, I am continuing to dream about what else I want to be when I grow up.
