Katherine Woodward Thomas: Conscious Uncoupling
OMTIMES: What do you see as one of the biggest mistakes people make when breaking up?
Katherine Woodward Thomas: One of the biggest mistakes I see people making is beginning to hate the person you once loved, essentially going from “a soulmate to a soul hate experience.”
It’s amazing to me how much we’ll fan the flames of disdain to try to help us separate from someone. We all do it to some extent, and the Good Friend Code of Honor will require our friends to join us in this by saying things like, “He’s an idiot. He’s not even worth crying over,” or “I never liked her anyway. Forget about her, she’s just a gold-digger” insisting on devaluing and dismissing your former love, and your relationship in the process, in order to try to help you move on. Which, at first glance, seems helpful. Yet in the long run, hating someone will not bring the relief we seek. It’s a Band-Aid, for sure, but it’s really only a temporary fix. Maybe it’ll work momentarily to steel your heart against your former partner, but then you are left with a closed and hardened heart. Made solidly so by the decision to hate.
OMTIMES: A lot of people feel that after a breakup, they should just wait it out until the pain subsides. Why bother doing a Conscious Uncoupling process? Won’t things just work themselves out over time?
Katherine Woodward Thomas: Contrary to popular belief, time does not heal all wounds. We do. And we want to treat a broken heart with the same kind of care we might a broken leg. Imagine for a moment, lying on a gurney while your doctor looks over your ex-ray, saying ever so kindly, “Well, now, let’s just give it some time. That broken leg will feel better soon enough.”
Broken hearts, like broken legs, don’t just heal of their own accord. Unless, of course, you don’t mind the possibility of your heart healing a little too crooked, a little bit closed, a whole lot defensive, and way too easily-bruised moving forward from here. Because that’s the heart’s equivalent of walking with a limp for the rest of your life, and feeling pain every time it rains. Rather than simply wait for time to do your dirty work, you want to actively midwife the process of healing, making sure that you are navigating heartache in way that is going to promote growth and evolution beyond old patterns from the past, and set you up to win in love moving forward from here.
