Leona felt like she was a failure at friendships, as well as love, because she had so many relationships that had ended badly.
She had been estranged from her son for many years, her longtime friends suddenly left without explanation, and lovers disappeared in one way or another.
To say she was afraid to let herself hope she could have a close, lasting relationship of any kind was an understatement!
The fear that she would be left once again and go through the pain that always came with the feeling of abandonment…
It kept her closed even to the idea of making new friends and opening up to meeting a potential new partner.
When she saw how stuck and alone she was, she reached out to us.
Here’s some of what she discovered about finding the gifts of failure during our conversations…
1. She held the pain of people leaving her
As she went about her day, Leona saw that her dominant thought was the loss of those previous relationships that had failed.
She had relived every abandonment and kept herself in a state of extreme anxiety and low self-esteem.
Yes, it was true that those relationships were over, but she could see how her constant thoughts of them kept the overwhelming pain alive.
2. Realize that all relationships end at some point
When Leona recoiled from the hurt and thought she was a failure and always gave up on her…
He saw that it is natural for people to come and go in your life.
Some are with you for a while and some stay longer.
As she looked at her last close relationship, she saw that her boyfriend moving across the country to a new job he loved was the next natural step for him.
It wasn’t that he didn’t care about her.
But that he had an overwhelming desire to leave the profession he hated and do something more in line with who he felt he really was.
Leona could see that she shouldn’t take his departure personally and implied that he didn’t care about her.
He was just strongly called in a different direction.
3. She didn’t need to change her painful thoughts about all her failures, but she could shift her attention to looking in a different direction
The direction we suggested she look was to find the gifts in those relationships that were supposed to have failed.
At first, he couldn’t even imagine that he would find the so-called gifts in what he had experienced…
But as we talked, he got a glimpse of how this could be useful.
Leona had spent many years wondering why a friend she was very close to had suddenly refused to return her calls, emails or texts.
She was left wondering what she did wrong to push her friend away like that.
Now she saw that looking within herself for those answers was useless and would never give her what she wanted.
She will probably never know why this friend left, but she could look the other way.
She realized that one of the gifts from this relationship was that she had rediscovered her love for art.
Leona and her friend had spent hours making collages, drawing and painting that was so much a part of her life now.
When she rested with gratitude for this relationship and others, she felt relaxation and stress leave her body.
