Reclaim Love: How to Heal a Broken Heart and Find True Love Again

By Giordana Silverberg

In the face of a breakup or loss, the idea of finding meaning and moving on seems impossible. While we cannot stop the loss from occurring, we can change our thoughts around it. These difficult events can remind us that relationships are lessons and true gifts. A broken heart is an open heart, and endings are also beginnings.

Reclaim Love aims to empower an extraordinary new way of thinking about broken hearts and inspire you to seek out another chance at love. Author Giordana Silverberg writes from her own experiences of losing her partner to cancer and later finding new love. She presents tools that can help transform your grief to love by uncovering and releasing any fears, limiting beliefs, and unhealthy patterns that block you from finding and having the love you truly desire. The guidance offered here can comfort you on your journey to healing, acceptance, and closure from the past, allowing to manifest the future and love you deserve.

This self-help guide explores the emotions that result from the loss of a loved one or relationship and helps those suffering to move from grief to love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: May 3, 2019
• ISBN: 9781982226183

Giordana Silverberg

Giordana Silverberg moved to Los Angeles to pursue a BFA in Screenwriting. Cancer left her a widow at twenty-five, and she worked to overcome her grief by pursuing a new path, using her story to help others heal. She holds an MSc in Psychology and is carrying out a PhD in Evolutionary Psychology. She is a writer, academic researcher, columnist, life coach, and communicator, having trained with therapist, speaker, and author Marisa Peer and through programs at Coaches Training Institute. She currently lives in London, England.

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Copyright © 2019 Giordana Silverberg.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-9822-2617-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-2619-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-2618-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019904359

Balboa Press rev. date: 04/25/2019

CONTENTS

Preface: A Date with the Past

Chapter 1     A Date with Romantic Love and Loss

Chapter 2     A Date with Grief

Chapter 3     A Date with Mindfulness

Chapter 4     A Date with Change

Chapter 5     A Date with Home

Chapter 6     A Date with the False Self

Chapter 7     A Date with Home Cleaning

Chapter 8     A Date with Our Authentic Selves

Chapter 9     A Date with Forgiveness

Chapter 10   A Date with Gratitude

Chapter 11   A Date with You

Chapter 12   A Date with the Other

Chapter 13   A Date with The Stages of Romantic

Relationships

Chapter 14   A Date with Mindful Relationships

References

PREFACE

A Date with the Past

Beauty is life when life unveils her holy face. But you are life and you are the veil. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in the mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror.

— Khalil Gibran

A hot midsummer day in Malibu, California. I went to Point Dume, his favorite beach spot. I sat down on the cliff where, not long ago, we had sat together. I saw surfers riding the waves and playing with dolphins, children chasing each other on the beach, seagulls flying over my head, and a seal resting on a rock. But the intense beauty of the moment seemed surreal. It had been only a few hours since I had said goodbye to my partner and watched him take his last few breaths until all there was left was a lifeless body on the bed.

As I was sitting on that very cliff, his body was being transported to the funeral home. While life and everything around me was in full motion, I was just sitting there as if paralyzed, staring at the vast ocean, numb with fear and shock, looking right at the unknown, trying to process this new reality. I could not understand how life could resume normally now that he was gone. Yet the waves of the ocean were ever flowing, the sun was ever shining and painting the sky in the most magnificent colors as it was slowly drowning in the horizon. The pale moon was now gazing at me, seeing right through me as I was trying to fight back the tears. Ashamed, I closed my eyes. And there it was—the void, the empty, dark hole. It was as though I existed in a place somewhere between the living and the dead. Yet, in that confusion and darkness, I discovered a flickering little light—the light of hope. I realized that, despite all the pain and sorrow I was experiencing, endless beauty and eternal love existed all around me and was available to me. In that moment, I knew I had to find a way to let go and surrender to life and reclaim love. I needed to unveil the mirror.

Girl Meets Boy; Girl Loses Boy—Now What?

Being a film enthusiast, I like to look at my life as if it is a movie. A standard romantic comedy movie has three acts: Girl Meets Boy, Girl Loses Boy, Girl Gets Boy Back. In the first act, usually something happens to the main character that changes his or her life and sets him or her on a different course. The second act is full of obstacles, and even when the character struggles on his or her journey, the stakes are so high that she or he has to stay determined to achieve the goal. And, of course, we all know that it will end well. We expect the classic Hollywood happy ending, which is the third act. And just at the end of the second act and the beginning of the third is the climax that bridges these two acts. This is when the character has reached his or her goal. This is the aha moment! The highest point of growth on the journey.

Although initially the traditional romantic comedy story formula did not work out for me—because I couldn’t get the boy back—that didn’t mean I was doomed. I just had to become the screenwriter of my own movie and rewrite it so I would get my happy ending after all. My story begins with the girl who lost the boy, an experience that sets her on a whole new journey to healing, self-discovery, and finally finding true love again.

In sharing my story and the tools that got me there, I hope that you too will get your happily ever after. I will show you how you can modify your brain and regain control of your thoughts and emotions—and reclaim love in as soon as twenty-one days.

A Date with Me

Once or twice in a lifetime, a man or woman may choose a radical leaving, having heard Lech L’cha—Go forth. God disturbs us toward our destiny by hard events and by freedom’s now urgent voice which explode and confirm who we are. We don’t like leaving but God loves becoming."

—Rabbi Norman Hirsh, from his poem, Becoming

I have a confession to make: When I first started writing this book, I thought of it as a tool kit for the healing of heartbreaks. I was going to lay out, chapter by chapter, how you can train your mind to overcome pain and suffering, heal your broken heart, and open it up again for love. I thought I could get away without having to share too much about myself, my life, and how I got to where I am today. After all, I thought, the past is in the past, and I have worked really hard to overcome it and move on. And, therefore, the purpose of this book was going to be to teach you exactly how to do that. But as I was rereading my first draft, something felt off. Here was some stranger preaching something along the lines of Snap out of it. Life is short—move on! I thought to myself, Who is this cold, ignorant person, and where does she get off telling her readers—who probably have just lost a significant part of their lives—to accept what happened and look forward?

Yes, my goal with this book is to teach how to heal your broken heart and become available for love again, but I also want to explain why this is such an important matter to me. My words are based on my personal journey to healing my very own broken heart after losing my partner to cancer. On my journey to healing and finding new love, I have learned that the only way to love and have connection is through authenticity, which can be achieved only with a willingness to be vulnerable—and that means not being afraid to be fully exposed and seen.

So here I am, committed to being transparent for the purpose of connection. I want you to understand that I am you. I have walked in your shoes. I have been in the dark, so far removed from the light that I thought it was impossible to find a way out.

After my loved one’s passing, I didn’t know where to turn. While all the sympathy and support from family and friends was well meant, there was nothing they could say that would make things better. Of course, as I am a writer, everyone encouraged me to process my feelings in a book, suggesting I should write about my story—the love story.

It made sense, and so I sat down and tried to use my misfortune and pour my tears onto the page. But something felt off. As I was writing about the past, I had a realization. The world does not need another story like Romeo and Juliet, A Walk to Remember, or The Fault in Our Stars. I didn’t see the purpose in writing another story that ended after the beloved character dies. I myself struggled to find books or stories I could relate to. It seemed like no one ever talked about what happens next to the person left behind, all alone, having to live with the void. Life does not stop there, and the earth still spins. Day still becomes night, and so on. The story does not end there. And, while the world is unchanged, the person left behind goes to sleep alone at night and wakes up realizing every day anew that everything was not just a bad dream and the loved one is actually gone. Yet we have to get up, take a shower, get ready, and go about our day when all we want to do is stay in bed. Or perhaps we don’t want to sleep it off, but would rather go to a party, or on a trip far away—whatever it takes to escape the pain. I was twenty-five years old. Was I allowed to go out with girlfriends? Was it okay to go on a trip? Was it okay to eat only chocolate? How should I actually grieve?

If you are reading this book, you have probably suffered a loss that is similar to my own.

No matter if it’s a breakup, a divorce, or a death, it is a loss all the same, and you have the right to grieve the loss whatever way you choose. It’s your pain, and you have to honor it and cater to the overwhelming emotions you are experiencing. There is no right or wrong. Everybody deals with trauma and shock differently. If only someone had told me that at the time, it would have saved me a lot of guilt, shame, and confusion. Grief also comes in stages, but that doesn’t mean we go through each phase one at a time and once we have arrived at the last, we are done grieving. Grief is a process, and it’s a messy one. One day we can be angry, while the next we are depressed. Then we experience denial, and swing back to anger again. Someone once told me that grief is like a cha-cha dance—one step forward, two steps back.

The journey of healing is a difficult one, and I will not lie. It took me a long time to fully heal and move on, but I also know that the recovery time is individual and can take as much or as little time as you make or need it to be.

It is difficult to stay calm when you feel as if your world is falling apart. It is difficult not to crumble under the dark fog. However, let me tell you what is easy— it is easy to hide at home under the blankets and call in sick, avoiding not only work, but also your social life. It is easy to swallow your sorrows in the form of comfort food. It is easy to forget about the world and our part in it by sleeping or binge watching our favorite show on Netflix. It is easy to take antidepressants and sleeping pills. I get it. I’ve been there, and at that time, I truly believed it was okay; indeed, I thought it was the only way to cope. Numerous people said, It’s fine. Whatever gets you through this. However, I remember going to the beach with my friends on a warm day in Santa Monica. As I was diving into the sea, I realized that I couldn’t even feel the ice-cold Pacific Ocean water against my skin; I was even numb to that. It was then that I understood that I was numbing not only my pain but, moreover, any experience in life.

Fear, sadness, and anger are as much part of our human experience as are joy and love. When we numb ourselves, we numb everything. Without experiencing extreme sadness, we would never know euphoria. We would not be able to appreciate the good times. And when we are in the dark, sometimes the light seems too far away, but there is always light at the end of the tunnel. We need to realize that feeling depressed or anxious can be an opportunity. Our minds have evolved to feel anxious in situations that could be harmful, and therefore healthy doses of anxiety can protect us from danger or prevent us from doing dangerous things. Moreover, feelings of anxiety or depression can be helpful in inducing us to make necessary corrections in life. This book will teach you tools you can use to go inward and access those dark places within you so that you can pave the way to the light. I will challenge you to look grief straight in the eye and confront it. This will feel uncomfortable, not only because we don’t like to feel pain, but because we are part of a culture that lives by the motto YOLO, which means you only live once, and there is no time to be negative, so we have to snap out of it and move on. So, when we can’t, we feel ashamed. We think there’s something wrong with us. We force a smile to tell the world we are okay when, in reality we are deeply wounded and bleeding on the inside. We are scared of being in the dark, scared that once we break down, the tears might never stop. Thus, we allow ourselves to become numb. And we go through life in a state of trance. We become indifferent, and our hearts remain cracked and guarded. Then we become more depressed for not being able to connect. We become emotionally unavailable, so we become even more numb, thinking that we are protecting ourselves from getting hurt, that we are in control of our emotions, and therefore of ourselves. We think we are strong. But the truth of the matter is, we are weak. Because while we all crave human connection and need love, we are not brave enough to go all out and put ourselves out there. Scared of being exposed, we hide and run from love and connection, denying that which is our human imprint.

While it’s crucial to grieve a past relationship, and as much as I wish there was something like a free pass for grievers, we can’t run away from our responsibilities, from our lives. Even though life as we once knew it with our partners is over, life does not stop there; in fact, my biggest epiphany was that a new life had just begun. You need to remember that there is a life waiting for you—your new life, full of new experiences and adventures, and most importantly, love. I’m not saying that it’s easy. I’m not telling you to look at the bright side. I’m saying it requires hard work, but this can be an opportunity—an opportunity for change and transformation. This is your moment to be your own alchemist and transform your loss into something beautiful and magical. My loss was the beginning of my new chapter in life of healing, transformation, and finding new love.

In the first year of my journey to healing, I attended two yoga retreats. I had started practicing yoga at a very young age, but it had always been a mere physical experience for me. I had never realized the benefits it can have on the mind if we mindfully put the teachings into practice in our daily lives. The same way we hold the yoga poses for a long time and endure the discomfort and sometimes pain, we can train our minds to stay calm and stable in tumultuous times. Once I understood this concept, I realized I could work on strengthening my mental muscles. I learned so much about full integration of the mind and taking leadership during my hypnotherapy training (Rapid Transformational Therapy— RTT) with world-renowned celebrity therapist, speaker, and author Marisa Peer, and also during my coaching training at The Coaches Institute and eventually during my academic psychology studies. Applying these teachings myself, I found out that, in fact, our brains are fully equipped to heal our hearts. As we continue, I am going to share with you the tools that have transformed my life.

I am a different person today from the one I was then, yet I am who I am as a result of what happened. And while we all grow up in life, it’s the growing up with purpose and direction that makes a difference. When you can look back and realize, Oh, this is why I did that! That’s why I had to go through that!—that is when you are fully healed. I’m sure that you have heard it before. Especially when something bad happens, people tend to say, One day you’ll understand why. As annoying as this suggestion was to me at the time, I now know how true it is. For the longest time, I tried to turn my back on the past, thinking that, in order to reinvent myself and commit myself to a happy new life, I had to let go of everything. But not only is this not true, it’s also dishonest and inauthentic. I believe that we grow the most through our challenges in life. It is not about what happens, but how we react and choose to go through hardships that will shape us.

Another false belief is that a happy life must be pain free. The truth of the matter is that there will always be pain; it’s what makes us human after all. It can be as minor as a fight with a best friend, or simply reading the news. As long as there are illnesses causing pain and wars being fought, we will continue to live in a world of extreme pain, and we can’t turn our backs on that. We are all interconnected, after all. Whether we encounter it first hand or experience it vicariously, we all carry a shared pain—the pain of being human. We also share the same feelings of extreme joy during experiences like attending a wedding, receiving a promotion, experiencing the birth of a child, celebrating at a ninetieth birthday party. But what is important is how acceptant and appreciative we can be for it all, and how we can be the light and the love not only for ourselves but for this world. Life is a continuous journey, and while there is a great deal of uncertainty, one thing is certain: we have to learn how to flow comfortably with the winds of change.

And how do you do that? It’s a constant dance of accepting, surrendering, and letting go. The universe will push and challenge us, and we can try to push back and hold on tightly with all our might to the rope that is connected to our past. But that is just going against life’s natural current. What we can do is just release the rope and surrender to the unknown and let the current take us to new exciting places beyond anything we could imagine. Change is like a whirlpool in the ocean. If we fight it, we end up drowning in it. Alternatively, we can surrender to the power of the vortex and let it drag us to the bottom where we can swim out of it. Sometimes we need to learn to break free from the life that we imagined for ourselves so we can live the life beyond our wildest dreams.

When the Buddha was dying, his chief disciple, Ananda, was beside himself with grief. The Buddha comforted Ananda:

Yet, Ananda, have I not taught from the very beginning that with all that is dear and beloved there must be change, separation, and severance? Of that which is born, come into being, is compounded and subject to decay, how can one say: May it not come to dissolution! There can be no such state of things. (Park, 2008)

While it can be scary to acknowledge change, we can find strength by commanding it. We should realize that things will never be the same—that we will never be the same. However, change is an