Healing A Broken Heart – How To Go Through Hell And Come Out Whole

 

We came across D Grant Smith’s work through an interview we saw online, and was immediately struck by how genuine this man was in his communication, and willing to help people.

As it turns out, D has his own story of learning to become resilient through the experience of not only having his heart broken, but learning to love himself, so that he, in turn, would be able to give that love to others. 

What he shares below is valuable because so many people go through life wanting to be loved without really understanding what the concept is all about.

Here is his story…

 

Getting Over A Broken Heart and Overcoming The Fear Of Rejection

By D Grant Smith

 

When you’re in a relationship with someone you’ve given your heart to, it means everything to you. This is especially true when you’re married. You’ve found that one special person you want to be with and build life together until the day you die.

 

Things are going great. It’s like you’ve actually found that true love that you were destined to be with. Then suddenly, things change. Maybe you saw the signs. Maybe there weren’t any signs. Maybe you wake up one day and are informed that it’s over. And there’s nothing you can do.

 

I experienced that nightmare. My wife of a dozen years, who was also my best friend, told me one morning in February 2017 that she was done. She wanted to go sow her wild oats and experience life that she hadn’t gotten to while she was stuck with me.

 

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to this interview by the music group, X: THC.

 

I had no idea this was coming. We had a very open and honest relationship and talked about everything.  But this…..this was not anything I expected or thought would ever happen.

 

Failing Marriages

 

But I’d seen it before. With several other friends. Their marriages looked good, then suddenly were over. Their spouses decided they wanted to be free to do what they wanted so they left. Leaving the kids behind too.

 

I’d seen the trauma my friends experienced. And I’d seen a few of them suffer such debilitating heartbreak that it led to some struggling with addictions and other problems in an attempt to cope.

 

I didn’t want to bring more pain into my situation. But how can you heal when the love of your life throws you and your relationship away like it’s yesterday’s garbage?

 

I spent time thinking about how I was going to go on and what that would look like. I realized that there were things I had to change. And I was reminded of an experience I’d had a decade earlier.

 

Learning How To Begin Overcoming Fear

 

Fear is something that I’ve wrestled with for most of my life. I’m a small-framed person, standing about 5’8”. For most of my adult life, I barely weighed over 100 lbs. So I was constantly scared of getting beat up as a kid, and carried that fear with me into adulthood.

 

I decided to stop running from people and joined a boxing gym.  I was going to get hit so I could get over the fear of getting hit.

 

One day while I waiting in line to spar, I got scared and almost quit. But I’d worked too hard for too long and pushed myself beyond my limits. I knew that if I gave up on boxing at that point, I was really giving up on myself. That was the deal breaker.

 

So I got in the ring, sparred against a quick and powerful kid named Rudy, and got hit a lot. But I pushed through and was able to do pretty well. It showed me that I may be stronger and more resilient than I first believed.

 

I remembered this experience while sitting on my bed one morning, trying to pick up the pieces of my heart and my life. Part of me had wanted to end it all – just put a 9mm bullet in my head and end it. If I wasn’t good enough for the woman who had pledged her life to me, why was I still breathing? But I realized that couldn’t be true. I was worth fighting for. But I had to choose to fight for me.

 

That was the first lesson I learned in my recovery from heartbreak.

 

Breakup Recovery

 

You have to choose to fight for yourself. It’s a choice you make in your mind. There are voices in your head telling you that you’re not enough, that you’re unworthy, that no one loves you, or you’ll always be alone and rejected. This is the voice of your ego. It’s not the voice of truth. Truth speaks in Love. Love speaks with affirmation, encouragement, and peace.

 

That’s what you’re searching for after rejection and heartbreak. Something that feels better than the hell that is ravaging your mind and heart.

 

That’s why addictions are so easy to come by. It’s easy to turn to anything that will distract you from your pain.

 

But you’re worth more than adding to the nightmare with stuff that will increase the long term effects of being broken inside.

 

You’re worth fighting for.

 

I realized in the weeks and months of the beginning of my divorce that the fear I’d wrestled with for so long was not just fear. It was lack of self-love and self-respect. I was incredibly codependent. I wanted/needed someone else to validate my self-worth in order for me to believe I was good enough. I was broken when I got married, and brought that brokenness into our relationship. 

 

Relationship Advice: Learning How To Have A Better Life

 

In order for me to have a better life, and to find love again, I knew I had to learn to love myself.

 

Self-love is a concept that was frowned upon in my home growing up. But it’s the foundation that you build your life around. You can’t pour from an empty cup. And you can’t give away what you don’t already have. 

 

When you love yourself, you practice the art of giving to yourself the kindness, respect, honor, and value that you want someone else to give you. Yet in giving it to yourself, it removes the need for any validation from someone else. You become self-reliant.

 

Over the course of the past two years, I chose to lean into the pain of rejection so I could overcome it. I changed myself from the inside out including gaining immense confidence and adding 30 lbs of muscle.

 

Using my experiences in the boxing gym as inspiration, I wrote my new book Be Solid: How To Go Through Hell & Come Out Whole. The concept of “Be Solid” is something my boxing coach used to yell at us every day. It’s possible in the ring. It’s also possible in life after experiencing the haymakers of rejection.

 

You become solid and heal by choosing to love yourself. Use your words. Choose loving statements that are encouraging to speak to and about yourself. In doing so, you’re planting inside your mind and heart the seeds of love and life. From this you can produce a whole, healthy, and prosperous life.

 

You’ll experience the peace you have been seeking since the day you were born. You won’t need anyone to tell you that you’re good, or worthy, or have what it takes. Because you’ll already know. And in that knowing, is where true love resides.

 

Thanks to D for sharing his story with us. D learned through his own experience that if you are going into a relationship with a great need for validation, that can put stress on the relationship which can be damaging. In learning to love himself, he did become self-reliant and learning to do that allowed him to become more of the person that he always wanted to be. It’s a process that we all need to go through in order to become better versions of ourselves. Fall Down Seven Times, Rise Up Eight. 

 

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