The sensible definition of heartbreak goes something like this:
“Heartbreak or a broken heart is a metaphor for the intense emotional stress or pain, one feels at experiencing great loss or deep longing”.
That’s the practical logical description and it goes nowhere near describing the pain, sleeplessness, appetite-ending, not-stop-crying, the feeling of wanting to give up on life, the headaches, shortness of breath feeling, chest pressure, tightness or heaviness in the throat.
And maybe you feel you have all of these at once.
Nothing will ever be the same again.
So, what’s happened?
A love has ended - the greatest love of all time that positively no one has ever felt before.
There’s been a death. How can life go on?
An unbreakable friendship has broken. Shattered.
A bond you once had and thought was forever has gone. Two of the most cruel are when a dog or a horse dies. Massive, massive wrenches.
Below are some of the most common statements I hear.
“You took the sun with you when you left”
That warm feeling, it will come back. Just believe. We orbit the sun. It’s always there. Let’s you and me work so you can feel it again. Bask in the full glow. It may take time, but we can get there.
“I have to let go of what’s killing me, even if it’s killing me to let go”
When the revelation is that you admit that a relationship is toxic, or no longer works, the biggest bravest thing you can do is let go.
And most often it’s not the letting go, it’s the letting them know.
Seeing someone else suffer.
But you deserve happiness - and the other person deserves the truth.
“I lost you but I found me, so I win”
When you’ve been cheated on, lied to, taken for a fool, used, or abused you need to turn this on its head. Turned into a learning.
So, what can Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Hypnosis do?
When you suffer a heartbreak, however sensitive things are, you need to turn things around.
And this may sound like tough love, but this is what we’d work on.
You must allow the pain to visit. You must allow it to teach you. You must not allow it to overstay.
“Ouch!” I hear you say.
But if you work with me we can get you to the other side. Somewhere calmer where you can see things for what they are: quite often out of your control. You can’t predict how others are going to think feel and act - however much you think you know them.
In fact that can be a lot of heartbreak. The surprise at you being let down. The breaking of trust.
So let’s work together to walk away from this.
Because when you’re in the midst of your grief it’s hard to see things for what they are. And things will get better.
And as the saying goes, “Don’t forget that somewhere between hello and goodbye, there was love, so much love”.
And who am I to talk of grief and heartbreak?
I’m James Thomas a Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapist.
I moved home to help mum nurse dad until he died of a brain tumour the size of a grapefruit.
Then mum died of a stroke - a massive intracranial bleed - in front of me in less than three hours.
I have a broken marriage behind me.
I’m at the stage of life where every few months I’m at the crematorium or a graveside as yet someone else from my life goes.
Heartbreak and loss are constant companions.
But in my line of work, I’ve used hypnosis thousands of times to deal with clients’ heartbreaks - and stresses, anxieties, drug addictions, alcohol abuse, PTSD, overeating, low self-esteem, eczema, anger, to name but a few.
I cover all of Lincolnshire with my rooms in Louth and Lincoln.
Get in touch with me at jamesthomas@thegentlemind.co.uk or call 07787563099.
You may feel like you’ve lost something or someone, but let’s work on looking at the learnings and that you’re richer for the experience.
