The 8 Biggest Relationship Lessons

Hey, it's Debbie Pask here. And I wanted to share what I call the eight biggest or most important lessons that have come out of client sessions after going through a pretty bad break-up. Now, whether your break up with your partner is new or happened a while back, whether it was really quite crazy and intense or whether it's beautiful and it ended well, there's likely to be a lot of residual stuff still hanging around. These eight lessons might give you some insight into what your lessons might be or how you're evolving throughout this whole situation. So there are eight of them. I'm going to go through them as quickly as I can.

#1 - THE BIGGER YOUR CHALLENGE, THE BIGGER YOUR EVOLUTION.
 If you're going through something really powerful and really big, and it's taking up a lot of your airtime and creating lots of shifts and grief or sadness or anger in you, then there's something really big evolving within you. So just remember, the bigger the challenge, the bigger the evolution, and your job is to find out what that is.

#2 - YOU NEED TO ATTRACT YOURSELF FIRST BEFORE YOU ATTRACT THE RIGHT PARTNER 
So this is all about having a great relationship or a great love affair with yourself first. Partners come in to enhance our lives and to give them richness and beauty and reflection. But ultimately, you need to be able to have that loving relationship with yourself first, and then you can extend that out to other people. If there are holes or challenges within you, the partner that's suited to you should be able to tease those out and improve them, not press on them and make them bigger. So if a partner is pressing on your bumps or shadows or challenges and exacerbating them or expanding them, they're usually not a good match.

#3 - YOU CAN BREAK UP WITH SOMEONE THAT YOU'RE STILL IN LOVE WITH.
It's okay to let go of a partner that you're still in love with, as love and long-term live-in partnerships don't always work. You just have to love yourself enough first to let go. And love and kindness often don't always go together. So if you're with someone that you really love, but there's just not kindness or care or thoughtfulness or harmony and energy, then you have to break up with that person because love doesn't trump all those things. Love creates a lot of emotions and energy in the heart, but if you don't have those other supporting factors in that relationship, then that's not going to work for you.

#4 - DON'T CARRY YOUR PARTNER'S BURDENS. 
There's a lot of people that feel responsible for their ex or their partner, or when they're in the relationship, they realise that they were carrying that for them. They were trying to make things okay when they weren't. We are never responsible for anyone else's feelings. So a big mistake or lesson that people understand after leaving someone is that they've been carrying their stuff, and that's a heavy burden. And energetically, it sits in the energy field and gets stuck and stagnant until sometimes some of the feelings that you're feeling aren't even yours anymore. They're your partners that you're still holding.

#5 - YOU ALWAYS W I N NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS.
If you magnetise your partner back or in, you win. If you repel them, you win, as long as you stay centered in who you are. So there's an idea that if you stay YOU, and you stay natural to who and what you are, even if there are good and so-called bad parts to you.... this is the whole package of you. If you stay true to that, you'll either bring your partner in closer and it will work, or maybe you might split short term and it can come around the full circle if it's still right. Or if you repel them and you move them out of your energy field - then you also WIN. So always be YOU and you will win no matter what. That is lesson number five.

#6 - YOU ALWAYS GET TO DECIDE AND FEEL WHAT YOU WANT TO FEEL AND DECIDE. 
So you decide how happy you are. You decide how you want to feel. Nobody else can actually make you feel any way you don't want to feel unless you give them permission. So that doesn't mean that you don't have strong emotions like sadness or anger or frustration in your relationship break-up. It just means that if you're unhappy, it can't be projected at a partner. My partner's made me unhappy, or that he's done or she's done this to me. You always decide that feeling and burden. Don't let anyone hijack your brain. You're always in control of how you feel. You can go through a rough patch, but it's up to you to come out on the other side. It doesn't mean that what they've done is right or wrong, good or bad. They might have acted badly. It just means that you're always responsible for resetting yourself.

#7 - CONTROLLING BEHAVIOUR DOESN'T EQUAL PROTECTIVE LOVE.
A lot of people have told me after coming out of quite a controlling relationship that they thought they were feeling protected or that person was looking after them or holding them safe. That doesn't always mean that. A lot of controlling behaviors stem from dysfunction, not necessarily a protective kind of love. And it's often mistaken as love or protective love when it's literally just controlling. So if someone's controlling who you are, what you're doing, what you're saying, where you're going, that's usually a bit of a problem. If someone's sticking up for you and standing up for you and loving you, that's a different story.

#8 - TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS!
This is the big one and the finale, and I want you to listen really clearly to this because every single person I've ever worked with the inside of a coaching session that's had a bad break-up has said this same lesson again and again and again. I want you to get it because it's probably the most important. Always trust your gut instincts and don't ignore early warning signs. Everyone that I've met that has walked down the aisle and got married or been in a long-term relationship has said to me that at some point, early on, they weren't sure or had a gut feeling something was wrong with their relationship, and they just thought that they were being fearful, and they sort of ignored it. So those early warning signs and gut feelings, they're real, and you need to pay attention to them and trust yourself. So the last lesson is you need to 100% trust yourself. And if you make mistakes along the way from trusting yourself, that's just life's learning. Trust yourself. I'll remind you. An earlier lesson is, you always have to have a good relationship and trust with yourself first, and from that space, you magnetise better relationships and trust with everyone else.

So there are my eight lessons. I hope you enjoyed that and get in touch if you've got any questions, love to hear from you. 

P.S. If you need some serious breakup therapy and to stop repeating the lessons of the past, check out my 'Guide to Moving on from Your Ex' and take back control of your headspace today. You will see the world with new eyes once you go through these spiritual processes.