how to love yourself through disappointment

Sweet one,

I’m just back from a week in Brazil where I got to spend time with my dad on his 72^nd birthday. Here’s a photo of us on his big day. :)

I loved spending time with my papa. However, the intent of my trip was the pursuit of soulful love.

You see, since I was 9 years old, I have had a deep, deep longing in my soul to find my better half.

This year, I’m ready to fulfill on this deep desire for love and to meet my guy. Before this, however, I had to make sure that a man from my past wasn’t somehow this better half.

My heart was open. I was ready. The result was a big lesson and an opportunity to reaffirm my resolve to fulfill on this deep longing.

Arriving in Brazil, I was nervous, excited and had butterflies in my stomach. After a 2 month wait and anticipation, we were finally spending a week together after 4 years of no face-to face contact.

As we settled in, it wasn’t long before we started catching up, laughing and getting reacquainted. A couple of days in, we started talking about our life goals and about relationships.

Midway into a deep conversation he shared: “Priscilla, it’s great seeing you again but a relationship is the last thing on my mind. My priorities are work, soccer and everything else comes after that. It’s not personal. Relationships are just a liability that I am not willing to engage in because work is so important to me right now.”

Ouch! It stung. Deeply.

I tried to keep the disappointment from fully showing up on my face but my ego was on overdrive. What do you mean you are throwing away a beautiful, smart woman away who loves you? Are you crazy?

I felt rejected. I felt small. I didn’t know what to do next. My self-confidence tanked and it hurt badly.

I reminded myself of my DESIRE VISION: Big, soulful love. NO COMPROMISES.

Your desires are your TRUTH and deserve to be fulfilled as desired. Don’t edit your desires for anyone or anything. Edit your strategy. {tweet it}

As I reflected on what happened and my role in this situation I came to the hard conclusion:

I had stopped believing in my desire to find big love. So, I suppressed my desire by not dating and worst of all not truly feeling my desire for big love. I hadn’t realized how much until my renewed interactions brought to light the intensity and breadth of my longing.

Because I’d stopped believing, I’d settled for a safe fantasy rather than the reality of playing full out in a real relationship – with very real ups and downs. This fantasy kept me out of pain but also completely disconnected from my sensuality and my desire for true love.

You must be willing to release the illusion of safety and control in order to fully step into the grand vision of your desire. {tweet it}

And yet, disappointment, whether in love or otherwise isn’t new to us. It’s a part of life.

We’ve all been there:

A friend betrays us
The test results indicate you aren’t pregnant -again
The job you had hoped to get goes to another candidate
The guy you are you in love with doesn’t want a relationship with you
You lose your business

At the end of the day, no matter what happens, it is our job to love ourselves through life’s events– the cutting words, the biting stares and the disappointments.

Every experience carries with it beautiful lessons, every person is a powerful teacher if you let them be.It can all work for you if you let it.

Get the lesson and thank the teacher.

Every experience is an opportunity to…

Trust your desires.

Trust what you feel.

Love yourself unconditionally – no matter what.

Value yourself over your circumstances and in spite of them. Your value is intrinsic – as are your desires– so honour them.

Disappointment is inevitable on the path to fulfilling our desires. However, they can be awesome fuel to ignite our journey to self-realization instead of stopping us in our tracks.

Here’s how to love yourself through any disappointment and come out stronger:

1. Cry your heart out and get support immediately

It’s key to let your emotions out fully right away. Lean into the pain, release the tears, write in your journal and call your family and girlfriends for massive support. The more you connect to the feelings, the faster you will release them and get the lessons. This will free you to reconnect with your desires, reconnect to your self-worth and to charge forth even fiercer than before – stronger, bolder and feeling more amazing! Yes – more amazing. Remember that what doesn’t kill you makes you STRONGER!

2. Notice the core beliefs sabotaging your desires from being realized

On the path to fulfilling our desires, we will uncover those blind spots – those limiting beliefs hiding from plain view that are sabotaging us.

For me I noticed some of them: “It is too hard to find true love so hold onto what you have.” “It will take FOREVER to meet someone else.” “What if I never find someone and I end up alone?” They were keeping me stuck and alone.

You may also find yourself justifying yourself into making an old or broken situation work because you are too afraid of starting fresh. Don’t fall into that trap.

Trust what you know and TRUST what you feel. Be strong.

3. Reaffirm your resolve to fulfill on your desires

This is the time to reaffirm your desire – NOT to suppress it, compromise or give up.

As a defense tactic you may be tempted to suppress your desires after a disappointment. You tell yourself that you don’t want to feel this much pain. Why would you be this foolish? Crazy? Loca?

A disappointment is an important lesson on your journey, not a stop sign. It only becomes a stop sign unless you stop your pursuit early out of fear. This is the time to be FEARLESS.

Don’t be tempted to stop yourself from having what you know you deeply long for.

Rather, recommit, reaffirm, strengthen your resolve and march forth stronger, fiercer and with even MORE LOVE and COURAGE in your heart.

4. Take your power back and course correct as needed

Now is the time to remember WHY you want what you want.

It is time to reconnect to that amazing FEELING that your desire will give you.

It’s time to do what you need to do to dust yourself off and get back on track.

It’s time to evaluate what happened, examine what you can do differently, get the powerful lessons and reconnect to YOUR VISION and get determined to CREATE it for yourself.

In my case, I sent a loving email explaining my feelings and left in a way that felt in integrity for me.

I got massive support from loved ones reminding me of how amazing I was.

I chose to keep my heart open and to see this as a learning experience and not as a “crushing disappointment” even if it felt that way.

I TRUSTED that all was well and as it should be for my highest good.

I looked at where I had been stopping myself from dating and really getting out there, meeting great men and enjoying being in the company of men.

You always have a CHOICE to rise above your experience through self-love or to cave into the drama of the disappointment. You get to create your own hell or heaven. Choose wisely.

I chose to love myself more than ever before. I told myself I was beautiful, special, gorgeous, loving, courageous and freakin’ awesome for following my heart and for keeping it open! I told myself: “I approve of myself. I love myself even more now.”

I also noticed where I still felt I needed approval and love from a man. Yes – those are nice AND I get to give these to myself first – and especially when another doesn’t give it to me.

Every life experience is there to show you how much more loving, kind and forgiving of yourself you can be via @sweetpathgirl {tweet it}.

The days of beating ourselves up and judging ourselves to oblivion are in the past.

I got my nails done in hot red. I got my hair done. I put on my high heels and my hot skinny jeans and reminded myself of what a catch I was. I ate deliciously healthy food, drank lots of water and breathed in love and grace and breathed out fear and the pain. I sat by the pool with my girlfriends and then we went out for cake and coffee and then to the mall to shop.

In the past, I would have eaten myself silly, bitten my nails, locked myself in my apartment and watched soap operas and whined to my girlfriends about “why this was happening to me.” This is not the woman I am today and seeing the behavior change was worth this experience. There is nothing wrong with that but I chose to VALUE MYSELF and keep my head up high over commiserating over my melancholy.

5. Take 100% responsibility for your part of the situation

We always have a role to play in any situation. The quicker we own our role, our choices and our attachments, the sooner we can move past the experience with grace and ease.

In my case, I had seen the signs. I decided I wanted to meet this man in spite of them and that I wanted to experience this life event head on. I honoured the feelings I had and I wanted to feel them to the fullest even if it meant my heart would get broken. I owned my choice.

I was open AND undoubtedly attached to an ideal of what this meeting could lead to. I just had to own that. I also had to respect his choices and respect myself through the pain.

When you are courageously committed to fulfilling a true heart’s desire, be willing to go all the way to fulfill it– no matter what.

6. Double your self-care and self-trust

A desire goddess loves herself through heartache and disappointment. Get your nails done, a massage, get extra sleep, take a mental day and cry and watch romantic comedies and eat foods that nourish you. Go to a yoga class, meditate and LOVE YOU.

You are MAGNIFICENT.

This is the time to remind yourself of how amazing you are – not to beat yourself up.

Also remember you deserve what you desire – not a diluted or antiquated version of what you desire.

So HONOUR YOU and YOUR DESIRES. Have the courage, self-love and self-respect to walk away if needed.

In the pursuit of your desires, you must be willing to release what is “good or just ok” to make room for “amazing” via @sweetpathgirl.” {tweet it}

Remember that there is a higher plan at work. Your timing isn’t always Divine timing.

TRUST, TRUST and then TRUST some more.

Honouring our desires and our overall sense of wellness will always come down to how much we are able to love ourselves through every situation – no matter how painful, hopeless or scary it may feel in the moment.

As long as we stay committed to our dream, we are honouring ourselves, our health, our gifts and our happiness and our dreams WILL come true.

Desires aren’t meant to be settled or compromised. They are designed to be majestically FULFILLED.

As I integrate all the lessons from this experience I have learned:

How much I really long to experience soulful love and to get married in the next couple of years
How much I have grown and how much more I love myself than before – which is miraculous
That I can recover much faster than before from disappointment because I have people and tools to help me course correct and love myself through anything
That there are a few pesky limiting beliefs that had been blocking me from dating (it won’t work, I will never find love, no one will love me). This awareness now allows me to move past them.
I respect my longing for love and in honouring this longing (instead of suppressing it) I feel FREE, ALIVE and excited for the future.

I feel healthier and more vibrant because I am honouring my desire for big love and I’m not ashamed to tell you I want it and that I am ready for it! Heck, we I deserve it… just like everyone of you.

Until I find it, I will continue loving myself through whatever comes my way remembering that I am LOVE as are you.

Opportunities may come and go – like boyfriends – but the pure essence of our desire – that core desired feeling is eternal and is what will guide us to our bliss if we allow it.

Sending you much love and light and reminding you that YOU ARE MAGNIFICENT and that you can have any desire you want. Just recommit, reaffirm and don’t stop until you have it.

Disappointment is inevitable. Quitting is a choice.

To your sweet success,