Part III: Heartbreak and the Path to Peace

The 12 ingredients that go into the secret sauce of writing your way through tough emotions in your journal, one ingredient at a time.

#1 of 12 Ways to Move Yourself from Heartbreak to Peace of Mind.

Speculating

In the words of Taylor Swift, “If one thing had been different, would everything be different today?” (the 1).

Hands up if you catch yourself wondering if you had done something different or been somehow different – said something different, dressed in something different, not brought over that stupid dishcloth about favorite people – would you still be together?

My hand is down because I’m typing. Otherwise, it would be up. Way up.

And why do you do it? Because if only you could figure out what went wrong and where, maybe you could … what? Go back in time and fix it? Experience closure and move on? As if.

I’m a world-class speculation-bot, if I do say so myself. In fact, I have been chastened in the past for not just being able to say, “I don’t know,” and move on. The need to guess, the need to thumb through a thousand possible reasons for a thing I can’t possibly know, the need to fart around in my mind until I land on some satisfying explanation (real or imagined), is a glitch hard-wired into my brain.

That might be because I’m a human being. Or maybe it’s ADHD. I need to get that checked out.

It’s really hard to not speculate about the unknowable reasons for things, even when they don’t affect me, but I tried and I practiced and I learned, for the sake of the other person. I think they thought my inability to say, “I don’t know” and just move on was about needing to be right. Nope. It’s about having multiple alternative universes running in my head at all times. Who needs Marvel when your own brain won’t stop speculating about the infinite possibilities behind why that bitch sped up to block you from changing lanes?

On the upside of that chastening, I did get to practice saying, “I don’t know” a lot. And I got to get used to being okay with not knowing.

Readers. It was refreshing. Strange and difficult, but I wasn’t mad at it.

Bonus: I got to practice being okay with “I don’t know” long enough and often enough that I can now write out my speculations about the abrupt end of our relationship and then admit to myself, “I don’t know,” and probably won’t ever know, and I can be okay with it.

I don’t know why his feelings changed. It hurts, but I don’t know, and I will never know, and that’s okay.

Pat, pat. Soothing noises.

No, really. I’m okay. I’m going to be okay.

Self-hug. Soft cooing. Gentle rocking.

SERIOUSLY. I’m know I’m going to be okay now because I’ve been okay before.

Truth Speak: I’m really enjoying the Mom love and affection I’ve been turning on myself through all of this. I’m channeling my mom friends, and my childless cat women friends, and my caring, emotionally open male friends, and my amazing kids, and I’m being kind to myself. It’s life-changing. Is it weird that it took me all this time to realize I am my biggest and most influential advocate and comforter? Who knew I had such power? And someone tell me WHY on God’s Green Earth I blocked myself from this for so freaking fracking long? WHY?!?

You try it. It feels wrong and weird and misplaced and mildly narcissistic but try it for three minutes. Practice on your friends. Because someday, you might need it for yourself and holy wow – what if you’re feeling alone one minute and the next minute, you know you’ve got you? Is this what heaven is? As a lifelong self-loathing, self-sabotaging, self-deprecating, self-mean-girl-machine, this feels like a miracle.

And I got here through my journal.

But how? What’s the secret sauce that’s going to get you from “that’s okay” to “I’m going to be okay” and finally, “I am okay.”

It’s all about your memory.

In your journal, every time you speculate and make yourself write “I don’t know, and that’s okay” or “I’m going to be okay,” give yourself the time and space to dwell on why. Begin with the first time you had to face the kind of emotional upheaval you’re going through right now.

Give yourself the grace to be okay with how you handled, or did not handle, the situation in your past. Give yourself comfort for making things worse or being hard on yourself. Give yourself props for moving on—however long that took.

You did it, though. You moved on. You were in such a bad place about that, and now you’re not.

Now dwell on another time – or the last time – that you had to deal with this particular box of crapola. Regardless of what got you through, you got through. Focus on that. What you did to get through is important, but for these purposes, it is less important than the fact that you did get through it.

And you’ll get through this. Spell it out for your own benefit in your journal. Write it. Say it. Read it out loud. Feel it in your mouth. Recognize yourself for your accomplishments. If it’s awkward because other people are around, speak it in your head. Let the words resonate between your ears.

You will be okay. I will be okay.

It might take a lot of journaling, late night talks with friends, maybe therapy (if you can’t get yourself unstuck, get some help from a professional). The bottom line is, you have ended up being okay before and you will be okay again. Because you are awesome.

You have experience. You have skills. You can do this.

When you allow yourself to speculate in your journal, do this to keep yourself out of the abyss:

• First, speculate to your heart’s content.

• Then, take a deep breath, exhale slowly, and write, “I don’t know.”

• Next, take another deep breath, exhale slowly, and write, “I don’t know, and that’s okay.”

• After that, take a deep breath, exhale slowly, and write, “I don’t know, and that’s okay, and I’m going to be okay.”

• Finally, take a deep breath, exhale slowly, and write, “I know I’m going to be okay because I’ve done this before, so I can do it again.”

This is the work. And you do it because, ultimately, there is only one thing you need to know. One day, you’ll say, “I’m okay” and you will know it in your bones.

It will be all yours to know, no speculation necessary.

How cool is that?

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TL;DR – below is a tiny piece of my personal experience, just to keep my skin in the game for those of you who want that (I see you). For everyone else, it’s okay to stop reading here. The point was made up there ^

During my divorce and for a long time after, I didn’t have the coping tools I have now. I had to grind my way up through layers of dank, emotional shit to find the fresh air. In my mind I feel like I spent 10 years in a black hole of depression. I feel like I wasted an entire decade of my life couchbound and refusing to go outside in case it made me happy. Emotionally, it feels like 10 years.

Readers. It was not 10 years. Math and time and emotion (and low self-esteem) are motherfuckers. I think, mayyyyybe, it was five or six years? But also, I wasn’t on the couch that much; I just didn’t have time. I was a single mom with a job and a freelance writing career and an active social life—and that was before I started To Live & Write. I walked and hiked all over the place and took my kids on all kinds of road trip adventures.

It's just that downtime on the couch was so far down, it over-rode everything, including my memory of what life was really like.

In order to Truth Check myself, I have to sit down and write out the list of what I did with my time while I was climbing out of that pit of despair. I have to physically list the evidence that I was alive and engaged in the act of living every. single. time.

The thing is, it was bad. It was the worst darkness and the deepest abyss of my entire life. It was the longest mental and emotional recovery time I have ever had to endure. But I did it. I began in 2008 not being fully sure when I was awake and when I was asleep because it was all nightmare. Now, I see a lot more light creeping back into those memories.

I did the work, and now I’m okay.

As for every other break-up since then, whether I was dumped or did the dumping, I forget what there was to speculate about. It just doesn’t matter anymore. Time has passed and journaling has happened and because I did the work in my Daily Pages, today I have zero interest in why that guy chose her over me, why that guy stopped caring, or why that other guy ghosted me.

I’ve been okay about all that for a very long time. And I’ll be okay with this. Eventually.