The unthinkable has just happened: your spouse has announced they're contemplating divorce. With your whole world turned upside down, what are you supposed to do now?

As a licensed therapist what I can tell you is that the end of your story has not yet been written. There is still hope. I'm not promising it will be easy, but if you're committed to figuring this out, you can.

So let's begin. There’s an old saying: It takes two to tango.

What’s missing from this old saying is that it also takes two to repair.

Finding hope during difficult times without succumbing to despair may be perhaps one of the hardest things you will ever have to do.

But if you dare try, it will also be one of the most rewarding experiences of your life too.

It may be hard to read quotes about hope right now when all you see around you is pain and loss.

When living through dark times, focussing on “hope” may feel like an inauthentic act for some or an obsessive need for others. This competing dualistic perspective is a perfect example of how life exists in opposites: day and night, dark and light, hope and despair.

How to leave someone you love when you know it’s the right thing to do is never easy.

Even when all the signs to leave a relationship are loud and clear, leaving someone you love is well…painful. Perhaps that’s why many write and even sign about this unpleasant choice, because they know that “breaking up is hard to do”.

How to get through a breakup is probably the last piece of advice you ever wanted to search for.

The news probably still stings. The one you love and dreamed of a future with has now told you they have other plans that don’t include you. It’s probably still fresh and raw, and certainly painful.

Perhaps you feel stunned, confused, betrayed, and devastated?In part this is because now you have to learn how to get through a breakup with someone you still love. 

Or perhaps you are angry at yourself because you have to learn how to get through a breakup that you may have caused? The relationship you once had is now impossible to fix. 

Almost nothing feels more disconcerting and anxiety provoking than when you begin to realize that you are falling out of love with the one you thought was your forever person. Questions such as: what does this mean? Are we over? Can we fall back in love?... can sometimes flood you with lots of uncomfortable feelings, and overwhelm you.

But before you walk out the door and head for the hills, have an affair, vape, or swallow some xanax, just take a moment and breathe. Falling out of love with your partner happens, but it doesn’t necessarily mean all is lost. You can deal with your existential angst over this by dedicating some time to understanding some basic principles on what the psychology of attraction says about the “love drug” and lasting romance.

Helen Keller understood the essence of a true heart connection when she said the following: “ the most beautiful things in the world can not be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.”

These days it seems that Keler’s wisdom sometimes falls on deaf ears. Those who search for a soulmate in the age of modern love, tend to find that there are so many choices and so many ideas about what an ideal mate should look like, feel like and act like. Many buy into the illusion that their destined partner in crime should meet all their wants, needs, ideals, and expectations.

And if they don’t, then “that perfect person” that they believe they deserve and were meant to have, is only a “smart phone” swipe away.

Most people are familiar with the adage “ you first need to learn how to love yourself, before you can love another”. Knowing this and practicing self love however, are two very different things.

It’s worth stating, that intellectually, almost everyone, kind of sort of understands the heart of this adage. But the idea of self love for most, seems to live and die in the cerebral realm.

With that said, it begs the questions then, do people really know, in a felt sense, what it means to love themselves? What does practicing self love actually entail and most importantly, why is it in one’s best interest to practice self love each and every day?

Audrey Hepburn once said; “Nothing is impossible. The word itself says I’m Possible” Yet, if you are healing from heartbreak and asking yourself will I ever find love again, it’s easy to feel like the opposite is true.

It’s tough putting yourself out there, meeting new people and doing online dating which can get really old, really quick. It’s easy to feel discouraged and hopeless about ever meeting someone new that you can fall in love with. But people do and so can you.

You just need to be a little open to redefining what it means to find love again, whether you are hoping to find love again after a divorce or any kind of break up. Then you need to know how to go about it, when you find yourself perseverating over that question.

Nothing feels more intoxicating than spending time with “the one” who seems to be sent from above. The synergistic connection that people experience when they are with their heart’s desire, feels beyond what words can describe.

It’s why there are so many songs, poems and stories written about soulmates, kindred spirits and twin flames. Yet, when you listen deeply to those songs and stories, there’s often a tragic note to some of them.  Shakespeare had it right when he said; “the course of true love never did run smooth”.

English poet Alexander Pope wrote in his Essay on Criticism “to err is human, to forgive is divine”.   Few things feel more heavenly then when someone really “gets” how they’ve hurt you. It’s easy to forgive them when they honestly apologize, make amends, and genuinely do things differently because they’ve learned the error of their way(s). Sometimes however, this doesn’t happen. Sometimes, behavioral patterns repeat, promises get made that aren’t kept. And sometimes, the one that did the hurting actually denies doing what they did.   It’s devastating when someone you love deeply, lets you down, betrays you, leaves you, or hurts you in unspeakable ways. 

Albert Einstein once said: “Imagination is more important than knowledge”. And when it comes to learning how to trust again after loss, he got it right!

Of course you can’t just imagine that you can trust your partner or ex after he or she betrayed you. It’s most likely unimaginable. You also can’t just imagine that you could easily trust someone new as if the pain of your loss was null and void. That would be a betrayal of yourself and a possible set up for  “relationship disaster 2.0”. 

Learning how to trust again after loss is not as simple as waving an imaginary magic wand over your broken heart. Wouldn’t it be great, if all it took were three strokes of this wand; and then “poof”: out goes your pain and in comes a renewed sense of trust?

John Lennon once said; “Life is what happens when you are out making other plans”.

It’s a great anecdote for when the unexpected “life events” feel good, but not so much for when they don’t. Sometimes these unexpected life events such as a sudden break up, or betrayal trauma such as discovering an affair can shatter your heart and leave you feeling hopeless about ever finding happiness again. Though not true, it feels that way. And feeling that way can be a tough rut to get out of.

So how can people authentically find hope when life hurts?

It goes without saying that breaking up is hard to do. Even in the age of modern love, where most people will find themselves having two to three significant partners during their adult life span, the heartbreak that accompanies an unwanted ending to a relationship can crush one’s soul. In fact, there’s even medical evidence supporting what artists, poets and playwrights throught-out the centuries have always known: that people can indeed die of a broken heart.

If you have ever found yourself drawn to a narcissist, you may feel just like a bug to light. Some scientists scratch their heads trying to understand why a moth will always fly into a flame that burns its wings. Theories range from pheromones that draw a moth to the light all the way to the theory that light acts as a moth’s directional compass, telling it where to go. In both scenarios the moth is seduced by the light causing it to head into danger without consideration for the consequences ahead.

Mega Rockstar Sting swears by it.So do many other celebrity and non -celebrity tantric practitioners, who claim to have found the secret to lasting love and sexual bliss. But does practicing tantra really help couples, particularly couples who are in complicated relationships, or on the brink of no longer being a couple, find their way back to both walking and lying in fields of gold? The answer unfortunately is: that depends.