We don't always know...

This doesn’t mean we won’t or shouldn’t feel hurt.

Denying ourselves of that would mean bypassing a profoundly valid and normal human experience.

And, the truth that is we won’t always know the full story as to why some people don’t choose us.

We can hear the story they tell us, but they may not even fully know why they chose to close the door themselves.

We can sometimes find ourselves personalizing endings that actually have nothing to do with us at all.

We may have been a terrible attachment pairing.

We may have had completely different life visions that the other “just happened” to see more clearly first.

Our presence may have been a subtle reminder of something they weren’t ready or willing to deal with.

This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do any self-reflection work when someone ends things with us.

We absolutely can.

We can pay attention to patterns and assess where we are often the common denominator.
We can be willing to learn and refine and implement different behaviors if we tend to push loved ones away.

We can lean into the grieving and the inner child work to process and integrate our past in order to carve out space for different possibilities.

And if we are genuinely doing (both) of these things, we can then (sometimes) more gently surrender to the fact that not everyone is meant for us.

Not everyone can handle our flaws or will want to. Some people may be too triggered by us and that has to be okay even when it hurts.

That is what dating and assessing compatibility is all about.

Perhaps part of our healing work can be to learn where we tend to heavily personalize endings and provide ourselves with a deeper and gentler kind of empathy.

Perhaps our work can be to better discern between what is ours to own vs. what has nothing to do with us.

Perhaps it can be to lovingly embrace that we will always be whole even as we own and carry our limitations and challenges alongside of us.

Perhaps our healing journey can be about recognizing more quickly that the people meant to fit with us will find a way to accept and embrace the parts of us we struggle with the most.

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