Suggestions for someone who has been truly hurt in a past relationship

For those who have been truly hurt, hurt-hurt, who have tried to close the door on love, what can you suggest for them and what message do you have for them?

I do not think I know anyone who has not been hurt sometime in the process of wanting to give love or receive love. Because we all have a deep need to give love and to have that love be received. And also to be able to receive the kind of love that really opens our heart and helps us feel safe and loved.

So, when that has gone awry, when we have either missed the mark or somebody else has missed the mark in being able to love us the way that we want to be loved, then, generally, it is natural to just close down for a while because we need to pull in and we need to kind of feel into what happened. But the question really to ask is what happened right there? Not that ‘oh, I was hurt and I destroyed that and I have a right to feel this way’, of course, we all have a right, we all just simply feel having the right, we feel hurt when we feel hurt.

But, the real question to ask is what really happened here, what can I learn from it? How can I grow from it? Because if I keep my heart shut down, I am going to hurt anyway and there is no way that I am ‘not’ going to hurt, I am going to hurt if my heart stays closed. And if I open my heart again, I might again, someone might miss the mark, someone might not love me the way that I wish they would, someone might not return the love that I give them in a way that I hope for.

However, what is else is there to do but to continue to open our hearts and to continue to learn and grow because every single time we do grow from an experience of having missed the mark or someone missed the mark with us. Then we gain a piece of ourselves, we are not really losing what we, let’s say this, question, to discover more about how can I love more successfully? How can I become a more loving person myself? Is there some way in which I pushed this person away unconsciously? Do I have a pattern that really does not work in relationships?  What is it?

So the more I can learn about that the more I can be successful when I go into a love relationship, I believe everyone ultimately can be successful in having the quality of love in their lives if they want.

We just have to be willing to take a look each time something happens and be willing to take another chance.