Despite your best efforts and your best intentions, you must understand that things will not necessarily work out with your ex. I don’t know specifically what happened between you two, but if the damage is irreparable or your ex just doesn’t want to get back together with you, then you must be prepared to move on.
Fortunately, if you did the steps in the Nourishing the Roots section, you should already be well on your path to healing and recovery. Simply continue by focusing on these steps and you will gain the insight to move on in your life.
If the break up was especially difficult for you, I would recommend not dating someone new until you are emotionally ready for it. There is no set time for this. This is something that only you will know for certain. Just take time to enjoy your life as a single guy and learn to love yourself and you will know when you are ready to start dating again.
I know that it can be difficult getting back into the dating game, but here are a few re-sources that should help you out, when you are ready:
Authentic Man Program (http://exsolutionprogram.com/go/AMP) - The
Authentic Man Program (also known as AMP) is based in many similar ideas that are discussed here in this book. AMP teaches men how to access their genuine personality and bring it to the realm of meeting and dating women, rather than using tricks and manipulation to seduce women.
Fireworks with Females (http://exsolutionprogram.com/go/fireworks) - This guide is geared toward helping men become the man that naturally attracts women. You will discover how to embrace your natural personality in a way that allows you to become a man that easily attracts the women that you truly desire.
Match (http://exsolutionprogram.com/go/match) - If you’re like me, and the whole bar and club scene was never really for you, online dating can provide a lot of opportunities. With a few clicks of a mouse, you can find countless women in
your area (that you may not have otherwise had the chance to meet) who are ready to meet and date great men like you.
Part III - Flourishing Leaves - Building a Relationship That Lasts
If you’re at this point, I’m guessing you and your girlfriend are back together. Congratula-tions! I know that you are probably on cloud 9 right now. But I want you to know that your work isn’t done yet.
You see, saving your relationship from a break up isn’t really the hardest part. I know the emotional turmoil you went through was pure hell, but the real challenge is keeping the relationship from breaking up again.
Now that the two of you are back together, you have to work to make sure that both of you break the old patterns that led up to the break up in the first place.
Let’s take one last look at the three relationship inner game qualities we’ve been discuss-ing throughout this guide and explore how your mindset and beliefs can help to shape your relationship together with your girlfriend.
It is important to remember that although you yourself may be practicing these mindset qualities in your life, your girlfriend may not. However, this doesn’t mean that hope is lost. All it takes is for you to be willing to change that you interact with your girlfriend to completely change the patterns and habits that the two of you share.
Awareness
It will be easy to fall back into comfortable routines and just sleepwalk through your rela-tionship again. Unfortunately, we both already know where this road leads. Unless you want your woman to walk out the door again you need to make sure that things are dif-ferent.
I know that it is easy to get stuck in a rut or get caught up in the day-to-day grind of life.
But Awareness is about breaking free from the places you sleepwalk in life and recon-necting with the present moment.
Continue to make the effort of bringing your attention into the present moment and really feeling yourself in your body. This will keep you from going unconscious and just running on autopilot again.
Also remember to stay present with your girlfriend as well. Notice how she acts and re-sponds. Again this is a calm and relaxed observance, not the leering gaze of a gawker or the glazed-over look of someone who is spaced out. She may slip back into unconscious routines that she had before the break up, but remember that it takes two to tango. As long as at least one of you can stay in the moment and realize what is happening, you can simply refuse to participate in the old habits that may have resulted in arguments, fights, or resentment.
This is where the relationship-level of Awareness comes into play. You can start to be aware of how certain things that the two of you do, or did in the past will play out. You can break that sleepwalking cycle and gain Awareness. From there you have the power to choose how to respond. For example, where the two of you may have been caught in a rut of going to work, coming home, watching TV, and going to bed to start again tomor-row, you can decide to take things in a new direction that may actually begin build more intimacy and connection in your relationship.
To help you continue to cultivate Awareness, you might consider taking up a daily practice of meditation or yoga. If those sorts of activities don’t seem “manly” enough for you, you can start playing a sport of some kind. Nothing will help put your body and your mind in the present moment like some good physical activity. After all, if you space out while you’re playing football, you just might get tackled.
Acceptance
When it comes to practicing Acceptance on the relationship-level, you need to keep that view of your girlfriend as a separate human being and maintain that curiosity about her and her experience of the world.
It can be easy to label your partner, especially if you are in a long-term relationship. Any-one can say something like “my girlfriend can’t control her spending” or “he only cares about work” but remember that these are ways that we put people in boxes and are a “no”
to who they really are. Instead of pushing your partner away by labeling them in this way, you need to instead accept them as a full and complete person with their own desires and fears.
Practice taking a moment every now and then to simply stare into your girlfriend’s eyes and see past all the beliefs and labels that you might have about her and reconnect with that shared humanity that the two of you have. Again, you want to make sure you really get this on a gut-level, not just as an intellectual theory. You’re doing this right if you feel her and can connect with her as another person with her own dreams, passions, fears, and faults.
Do this with your relationship as well. If you notice that something is going down the road to problems, you need to accept that and not push it away, block it out, or ignore the problem. After all, isn’t that at least part of the reason why you two ended up breaking up in the first place?
It is easy to look the other way or hope that things get better when, for example, we know our partner may be unhappy. But it is much more productive to deal with the problem directly rather than just hoping that things take care of themselves. This is how you can stop a problem from festering and leading to the point where it can threaten to tear your relationship apart.
Commitment
Stay committed to owning your experience and directing the relationship in the way that you want it to go. Keep in mind that when you voice your experience, you know you are doing so in an authentic and genuine way when no one can argue with your point of view.
For example “You’re being a bitch when you nag me!” is not owning your experience.
That statement is debatable and in fact, it will probably lead to a fight. In truth, this kind of statement comes from labeling or being a “no” to your partner. If you find yourself about to say something like this thinking you are coming from a place of authenticity, go back and take a moment to practice Acceptance again.
On the other hand, statements like “I feel like you don’t respect me when you nag me like that” are not arguable. They are your truth and your experience of the situation. State-ments like this are also less likely to cause an argument.
How do you handle things when you start to notice that they aren’t going the way you want them to? For example, how would you handle things when your girlfriend says something aggravating or when you notice that you’re headed down the road toward an argument?
First of all, congratulate yourself, you caught the pattern (Awareness) and you accepted that it was happening (Acceptance). This is good progress. At this point all you have to do is say something like “I didn’t want things to go this way,” or “Let’s not do this, we both know what will happen if we keep going down this road.”
Things like this can break her unconscious pattern and give both of you the chance to drop in and connect about what is really going on through a real and productive conversa-tion--not a heated argument that will just result in insults and make both of you feel awful.