Mars and Venus Starting Over: A Practical Guide for Finding Love Again after a Painful Breakup, Divorce, or the Loss of a Loved One

First Chapter

When single again, men and women face different challenges. Just as we think, feel, and communicate differently, we also respond differently to the loss of love. During a crisis of the heart, a woman's instinctive and automatic reactions are not the same as a man's. Her issues are different as well as her mistakes. What is good for her is not necessarily good for him. In a variety of ways, their needs are worlds apart. It is as if men were from Mars and women were from Venus.

Although we cope differently, both men and women can experience equally agonizing feelings. Starting over after a divorce, a painful breakup, or the death of a loved one can be the most challenging experience of a lifetime. For most people devastated by the loss of love, it is beyond anything we could have expected, predicted, or imagined.

Starting over after a divorce, a painful breakup, or the death of a loved one can be the most challenging experience of a lifetime. Our hearts ache as they cry out in loneliness and confusion. We are stunned by our helplessness. We fight inside with our inability to change what has happened. We become distraught as we sink into the depths of despair and hopelessness. We feel lost and abandoned in a sea of emptiness and darkness. Time slows down and the passing of each moment seems like eternity.

After a loss, we fight inside ourselves with our inability to change what has happened. It is a struggle simply to fill each empty moment and get through the day. At times the bittersweet pain of loss is replaced by a dull numbness, but then something reminds us of our loss, and once again we long to feel and love again. Never before have we experienced our need for love and connection so agonizingly. As we are forced to face and feel the raw pain in our hearts, we realize our lives will never again be the same.

Eventually, when the healing process is complete, we fully let go. In our minds and hearts, we surrender and accept that we can't change what has happened. Being single again, we start to rebuild our lives. Once more, we begin to reach out to give and receive love. Although we could not have imagined it, our lives come back to a sense of normalcy. After the darkness of despair, the warm, comforting, and soothing sunshine of love reveals itself once again. Although this happy ending is possible, it is not guaranteed.

Understanding the Healing Process

To heal a broken heart, we must be able to complete the healing process. This requires new insight and understanding, but most people are not aware of what is necessary. We are not taught how to heal a broken heart in school, nor is it something with which we have a lot of practice. Being in the dark and vulnerable, we either blindly follow the advice of friends and family, or we simply follow our own instincts. We make decisions and choices that may sound reasonable but quite often are counterproductive. Though we find temporary relief, in the long run we do not nurture or complete the healing process.

We are not taught how to heal a broken heart in school. After the loss of love, some people do thrive again. Many are not so successful. After spiraling down to the depths of despair, they never make it out to the other side. To various degrees and in different ways, they continue to suffer their loss. Aware of the pain of losing love, they hold back from fully opening their hearts again.

Others, who appear to have let go, sometimes really haven't. They believe they have successfully moved on, but have done so at the cost of closing the door to their hearts. To avoid feeling their pain, they have moved on too quickly. As a result they have numbed their ability to fully feel. Without realizing it or recognizing how they did it, they have closed up. They carry on in their lives unable to feel the love in their hearts. Their ability to grow in love and happiness is stunted.

Becoming single again is definitely a crisis. Like any crisis, it is a time of danger and a time of opportunity. The opportunity is the possibility of healing and strengthening your heart and mind so that you will move on healthy and whole. The danger is that you do not complete the healing process. Time alone does not heal all wounds. How we cope with the loss of love determines the rest of our lives.

How the Heart Heals

To ensure that we complete the healing process, it is important that we understand the basics of how the heart heals. This process is most easily understood and visualized by considering how a broken bone heals. An emotional wound is abstract, but a broken bone is very tangible and concrete. Recognizing the various steps in healing a broken bone can assist us in acknowledging and respecting the needs of our broken heart.

When a bone breaks, our body already contains the natural healing power to correct the problem. It hurts, but eventually the pain goes away. As long as we don't interfere, the body heals itself automatically, in a predictable time period. When this automatic healing process is allowed and nurtured, the bone will actually grow back stronger than before. In a similar way, if you are able to nurture the healing of a broken heart, it also will grow back stronger. The pain and despair will pass, and you will find love and joy again.

When a broken heart heals it actually grows back stronger. When a bone is broken, it must be reset and then be protected in a cast to allow the body's automatic and natural healing processes to occur. If the bone is not reset straight, then it will grow back crooked. If it is not given enough time to rest, protected in a cast, it will remain weak. Likewise, if the protective cast is never taken off, the bone will never fully become strong again. Similar warnings apply to the process of healing a broken heart.

When our hearts are broken, it is not enough simply to assume that we will get over it. Although the healing is automatic, without an understanding of the complete process it is quite possible and even common to interfere and obstruct the healing unknowingly. Using the analogy of healing a broken bone, we can begin to recognize and appreciate the three essential steps to healing a broken heart.

The three steps for healing a broken bone are: getting help, resetting the bone, and then giving it time to heal by protecting the bone in a cast. In a similar way, the three steps for healing the heart are:

• Step One:    Getting help
  

• Step Two:    Grieving the loss
  

• Step Three:  Becoming whole before getting involved again
  

Let's explore this analogy in greater depth.

The Three Steps for Healing the Heart

Step One: Getting Help

After breaking a bone, the first step is to get help. When you are wounded, you require the support of others. Even if you were an expert in setting bones, you would still find another expert to assist you. Likewise, when your heart is broken, the first and most important step is to get help. This is not the time to be stoic and push away your feelings of hurt and loss. Men can speed up their healing process by hearing from others who are in pain, while women particularly benefit from being heard. Sharing your feelings and spending time with people who know what you are going through is not only comforting but is essential to the healing process.

Men can speed up their healing process by hearing from others who are in pain, while women particularly benefit from being heard. Although reading this book is definitely a good beginning, it still does not replace your need for support from people who are experiencing a similar loss or have already been through it. If you were ever to take a workshop, join a support group, or seek help from a counselor, this would be the best time. The support of others who have healed emotional wounds and the assistance of a trained expert can ensure that you have the opportunity to heal completely. During a healing crisis, you are actually most receptive to what a counselor, support group, or workshop can offer you.

Throughout Mars and Venus Starting Over, we will explore the various ways men and women unknowingly push away the very love and support that is required to complete the healing process. In addition, we will focus on practical strategies for getting the support you need. Although there is no immediate way to take away the pain, you can get the necessary support to make it bearable. With the right help and at the right time, you will release your pain and experience the joy and peace of an open heart once again.

Step Two: Grieving the Loss

In the second step, after seeking help, the bone must be put back the way it was before the break. By resetting the bone, it then has the opportunity to grow back straight. Likewise, when your heart is broken, it must be put back the way it was before. In this second stage, we must take time to grieve the loss by remembering the person and what happened in the relationship.After the loss of a loved one, remembering your past together brings up painful feelings, but it also evokes the love you shared. Reexperiencing this love helps you to heal. This love soothes and heals the pain of loss. By feeling gratitude for the good times and forgiveness for the mistakes, the heart is filled with the love it needs to heal itself.

If you are healing from a painful breakup or a divorce and you feel rejected and betrayed, then it may, at first, be hard to grieve the loss or feel the love. You may be too angry. In this case, the challenge of "resetting the heart" is to find forgiveness. Then you will be able to grieve fully. Even when you are glad and relieved to end a relationship that was abusive, your challenge is to go back to remember your initial hopes and dreams, and then to grieve that disappointment. After parting ways, in order to reset your heart, you must seek to appreciate what was good and to forgive the mistakes. This process sets you free to move on with an open heart to find true and lasting love. It is impossible for your heart to open fully to another when it is completely closed to someone in your past.

As a result of resetting our hearts by fully grieving, we are once again able to feel the tender, innocent, and delicate desire in our hearts to care for another and to trust another's love. Without this healing, we may become too jaded to care or to trust once more. Until the healing process is complete, men tend to stop caring as much, while women have problems with trusting again. As a result, men may get involved right away, but they have trouble committing. On the other hand, women will tend to avoid getting hurt again by not getting involved. Until the healing process is complete, men have trouble making a commitment and women have problems with trusting again. In subsequent chapters, we will explore in great detail how to grieve a loss successfully and to feel our emptiness fully, so that we can fill up with love. Just as light follows the darkness of the night, the fullness of love rushes in to fill us up when we fully experience our inner emptiness.

Step Three: Becoming Whole

In the third step of healing a broken bone, after resetting the bone, we must then protect it in a cast and give it time to heal. Once it is strong again, it is time to take off the cast. In a similar way, in the process of healing the heart, we must take time to become whole before getting involved intimately. Before we can successfully share with another, we must heal our neediness and have a strong sense of self. The best time to get involved again is when you feel as if you don't have to. Ideally, we must be generally fulfilled and complete before entering into another intimate relationship. The best time to get involved again is when you feel as if you don't have to. Men commonly get involved too soon, while women will unknowingly push away love. Unless we take the necessary time before getting involved again, men will be restricted in their ability to give of themselves, while women are restricted in their ability to receive love. In later chapters, we will explore in great detail how men and women unknowingly sabotage this third stage and will examine practical suggestions for making sure you get involved again at the right time.
Starting Over
Being single again, our lives are suddenly transformed. It is as though we are suddenly faced with the rest of our lives and have no idea what to do. We are stripped of what is most familiar to us and often have no idea what to do. By taking this time to read Mars and Venus Starting Over, you will find that insight and direction.