One of the more difficult parts of relationships is having to start over. The words are there, we are ready to begin life with a new person, but our actions speak a completely different language to the dating world. There’s this imaginary wall that we build that says ‘starting over yet again…just not now.’ We spend weeks, months, and even years searching, but we can’t find that person. For many we don’t realize that imaginary wall is up and for most, in the back of our minds we know it’s there but we refuse to accept it. It’s not an uncommon feeling. It’s not easy to put ourselves out there. There’s that underlying fear that we’ll get hurt again and again. But despite the hurt, what if we never put ourselves out there?

Trust me it takes strength and courage to start over again. However, what I think that’s missing most is that we don’t carry love. You’re probably thinking to yourselves, what is this person talking about? What I mean is that real belief of carrying love with you 24 hours a day within ourselves. Believing that person is truly out there; to believe in love in order to find love. But also to believe that you’re truly worth being loved. We take a broken relationship to meaning that there is something wrong within ourselves. That thinking brings us into living among a world of rejection. The negative thinking that takes hold of us well after the angry feelings go away.

A year ago, I had met Eve and Lynn, both bright and professional women. What they had in common is that they both had just been broken up with after years of a serious relationship with their boyfriends. Eve was in college when she met her ex-boyfriend. Thinking that they would spend the rest of their lives together, after three years of dating and a year after college their relationship turned rocky and they parted their separate ways. Lynn on the other hand, had already been married, divorced, and had started back into the dating scene. Dating a few men quite seriously, she found that her relationships weren’t lasting past a year or two. What I learned from both of these women was that they pushed for a serious relationship with both of their ex-boyfriends. They wanted love, but they didn’t truly believe that love was out there. Three years later, both Eve and Lynn found lasting love. It wasn’t because they persevered in finding love. Instead they carried in both their actions and in their words that love was out there. It was their ability to start over…yet again.