My Breakup Isn't a Failure. It’s an Education.

My Breakup Isn't a Failure. It’s an Education.

The processing of this has been one of the more challenging things I've faced in my life.

It feels… raw, seeing it all laid out like this.

Not in a bad way. Just… devastatingly honest. Like someone finally truly listened. Really listened.

And the "someone" was me.

This breakup, and the chasm I've been navigating, is a forge. And I'm still in the fire, to be clear. Still getting melted down and hammered into something new.

And the hardest part?

It's not the obvious pain. It's the insidious, quiet re-education of everything I thought I knew.

Every pillar and value system I built my world on.

The True Nature of Boundaries

I used to think that boundaries were an instruction manual for other people. A set of rules. A way to control. "If you do X, then I feel Y, so please stop X-ing."

My whole life, a gentle, often desperate plea for the world to conform to my internal landscape so I could feel safe.

That was so foolish. So unfair to them.

I fought so hard to be heard. To be understood. To stop what felt like a constant erosion of us, of me. I wanted to build a fence around external behaviors.

And it was always, always, about what they were doing. What they needed to change. With very little self-reflection.

Then it hit me. Like a gut punch. A realization so simple, so engrained, it felt like cheating.

Boundaries. From the Old French, bodne, a limit, a mark. A line. But not a line I draw around them. It’s a line I draw in the sand for myself. A sacred perimeter.

It's not about punishing or forcing others to do things. It's recognizing what I can and won't do. What I will or won’t do. And honoring that.

My choice to leave was me honoring my own boundary. Not for anyone else. Not for punishment. For me. For my soul. It was the only way I knew to stop.

And that is terrifying. Because it means the only person I can actually control is me.

And that means radical self-responsibility. Every single time.

The Misapplication of Reciprocity

I was stuck on reciprocity. I used to carry a mental ledger. A precise balance sheet. I put in this much emotional labor, this much understanding, this much forgiveness, this much effort. So, you owe me. You must. You should. Should means to owe a debt. To what? To some ideal? To some fabrication?

It's only fair.

And when the scales didn't balance, when my efforts weren't mirrored with the same intensity or in the same form, I'd get frustrated and resentful. I became a debt collector. And truthfully, I needed to just forgive the debt. The debt I imagined. My ideal.

I told myself I shouldn't expect perfect reciprocation. I said that. But I didn't believe it. Not really.

I still held onto the hope that if I just modeled it enough, if I just gave enough, the other person would eventually meet me there.

That’s not reciprocity. That’s a transaction. An expectation. And we all know how uncommunicated expectations go.

The word. Reciprocity. From Latin reciprocus, "returning by the same way." A back-and-forth movement. But it’s not about precise replication. It’s about flow.

A river gives to the ocean, and the ocean gives back to the sky, and the sky gives back to the land. It’s not a direct, identical exchange. It’s a circulation of life. A mutual enrichment.

Genuine reciprocity, I'm learning, is a felt sense of mutual support over time. It's not about the immediate tit-for-tat. It’s about a core alignment. A shared commitment to the well-being of the other, not just the self.

If I want to give, I can.

But there's no demand for an exact return. Not in the way I expect. Not in the way I think it "should" be. There truly is no debt.

This is what it means to give from abundance, not from expectation. This is what it means to love without attachment to outcome.

Damn, that’s hard.

The Power of Releasing the Need for External Understanding/Validation

I craved it. Understanding. The "aha!" moment from another. Their acknowledgment of my truth.

I felt like if they could just see it, truly hear me, then everything would snap into place. The pain would make sense. The breakup would be justified. They would change their patterns and we would all live happily ever after.

I invested so much energy trying to explain. To dissect. To lay out my reasoning, my pain, my perspective. I had such a great case for why I was right.

"You have to hear me." "You have to understand why I left."

And it was a black hole. A trap.

A void.

I am no longer trying to be understood.

There. I said it. Out loud. To myself. To God.

I don't need anything further from anyone else for my peace.

You don’t have to understand me. Ever!

That liberation is immense. It’s a profound act of self-sovereignty.

My truth stands on its own. Its validity does not depend on comprehension. Or agreement. Or validation. This is my peace. And it does not depend on anyone else's assent.

This is the hardest lesson of all.

To let my truth be enough.

The Harmful Side of Over-Responsibility and "Fixing"

I'm a fixer. I see a problem, I want to solve it. I see pain, I want to alleviate it. Especially for those I love.

So, of course, I tried to guide healing. Suggested apps. Frameworks. TikTok videos. Dissected behaviors. You name it, I sent it. "You need to see this." "This will help you." I took on the role of helping others "see things in yourself that could affect future relationships." I took on the role of teacher. Of Savior. How grandiose is that?!

Over-responsibility.

The cold, hard truth: another person's healing is their job. Their self-reflection. Their journey. Not mine.

The Latin root of responsibility is respondere, "to answer." And my over-responsibility was an attempt to answer for them. To do their work. To carry their burdens.

I can’t.

I can only answer for myself. And the burden of managing another's emotional process. It was crushing me. Releasing it isn't easy. It feels like self-abandonment sometimes. But it’s the only path to true empowerment.

For both people.

The Indirect Impact of Public Processing on Healing (My "Blast Radius")

This one hits different.

I always thought my public processing; the poems, the social media posts, was solely for my healing. My self-reflection. And to help others who might be going through something similar. A light in the dark.

I truly didn't intend to harm. I don’t want to hurt her. This is hard enough already.

But then I heard it. Directly. From a source I trust. My posts were interpreted in a way that caused pain.

Shit. I didn’t want to do that at all.

Two truths can exist at once. My intention. Another's experience. And both are real. Both are valid.

My healing process had a blast radius. A term I’ve heard in other contexts. A collateral damage zone. The ripples of my pain, my processing, my truth… they hit.

And they hurt.

This is a profound lesson in empathy. In consequence. In the unintended fallout of even well-intentioned self-work.

I’m trying now. To focus purely on my own narrative. To acknowledge the other side of the impact. It's a heightened awareness. A different kind of responsibility. Not to fix, but to minimize further harm. To protect.

It means my healing isn't just internal. It has an external dimension. A social dimension.

And I must be aware of my public processing and its impact.

The Cyclical Nature of Unaddressed Patterns

I used to believe that if understanding just clicked, things would change. That apologies would lead to resolution. "The discussions weren't resolved." That was my constant frustration. The feeling of running in circles.

But it was more than that. It was a pattern. A loop.

And without both parties truly doing their work. Without a genuine shift. Without facing the discomfort of growth. It just keeps bleeding all over the place.

The word pattern comes from the Latin patronus, a protector, a master. But these patterns, these unaddressed loops, they weren't protecting me. They were mastering me. Keeping me trapped.

Recognizing the cyclical nature gave me the clarity. Not to fix another. But to honor my boundary. To step out of the loop.

This isn’t about putting these things on her.

This is about seeing my systems. My dynamics. And my role in continuing to participate in the creation of my own suffering.

And here’s the wild thing I’m learning: my journey through this isn't happening in a vacuum.

As I sit here, confronting my own patterns, owning my own choices, even the ones that led to pain, I can feel a different kind of energetic shift. A subtle, powerful understanding that just as I’m looking at my side of the street, she is over there doing the same on hers.

It’s not about who did what to whom, but what this whole experience is carving into each of us.

So, here I am. Still in the crucible. Still learning. Still bleeding sometimes. But seeing things clearer now. More nakedly. The illusions stripped away.

And I am so grateful that she is doing her version of that too.

This is my work. To keep doing it. To keep showing up for it.

Here is my question for you: What patterns are you still caught in, believing that if the other person just changes, you will be free?

Follow my messy journey.

We're all in it together, in our own ways.

If you are ready to break these cycles for you, come learn how to break these cycles in our 12 Journeys program. The link is in my bio.

#SelfAwareness #BreakupHealing #BoundariesAreForMe #GrowthMindset #TruthHurts #RadicalResponsibility #radical acceptance #radicaladaptation #fyp