Reset: Tips To Get Over A Breakup

I'm far from the expert at this. Let me rephrase: I don't want to be an expert at getting over breakups, but I'm going to share some of my own "what works" with you. There are so many things that come along with breaking up with someone, and often when the stakes are high, as they are in shidduch dating (marriage-focused dating and dating in a marriage-focused culture lends to a certain intensity), the hurt is compounded. 

There are so many different aspects to why breakups are hard, but check out some of my (many) other posts for that. Here I want to talk about getting over a breakup especially when you don't really want to. Hanging onto the breakup is us hanging onto whatever semblance we have left of the relationship, even if it's a load of pain.

I recently heard a line that I related to very much. It went something like this, "Don't you ever want to be in a relationship, just so you can relax?" Dating and finding "The One," the whole game, is stressful and, at the very least, annoying. Getting over a breakup takes work too. It doesn't happen by itself. Time helps, sure, but staying in bed eating ice cream watching reruns of your favorite TV show isn't going to help you get over your ex.

I know for myself, after big breakups, it's always necessary for me to reset. How I do this often varies, but preferably it involves taking a vacation (or two). If you can't afford the time off (or financial expense of the trip), weekends away work too. It's about mixing up your usual routine.

Social support, spending time with friends, is really important in a reset too. Picking up new hobbies, like running or crafting, or whatever it is that speaks to you, can help too. I find that writing and talking things out is cathartic and valuable. Feeling your feelings, not denying the sadness and/or anger, is healing as well. Take care of yourself, be kind to yourself, do things that make you happy, even if it feels like those things are few and far between these days. Look forward, and try not to look back. Don't question and analyze. If something is meant to be, it will come around. It doesn't help to live in the past. Emotional clarity will come with a period of no contact (texts, emails, social media stalking, etc.) and time. Go have some fun and remember that you are an awesome amazing person and your worth is not tied up in someone else. You'll have your day, and when that happens you'll be able to look back at the breakup through a new light.

Finding My Way Back

Wish my heart would stop beating
Me up
Wish my head would follow
My heart
Wish this wasn't
So complicated
Wish I could
Make sense of it all

Wish I felt I had a place
In my own life
Wish I could find the page
Where I left off

You took me down
To build me back up again
Dragged me around
But all by my own doing

This story I'm writing
Could be called fiction
Though waking up is hard to do
Falling asleep's impossible too

Trying to put
The pieces back together
Feeling hopeless
But hopeful
Lost and searching
For some new light in this dark tunnel

Love and Loss

For a long time, I had this block against Alfred Lord Tennyson and his quote, "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." I mean, it's so obvious to me that it's better to have loved and won, right? And, if you have to lose, is it not better to have never played at all, never known what you were missing?

Yesterday I was listening to someone talk about grief and loss. He shared about the profound grief he experienced following the death of a close family member who he regarded as a mentor to him. After that happened he recognized that he closed himself off to close relationships like that one, holding everyone at arms' length, not letting people in, for fear of suffering another heart-wrenching loss. The loss was so intense, because his relationship with this person was that close.

There are myriads of Brene Brown quotes I can insert here, but I'll go with the following from her The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are:

"Joy is as thorny and sharp as any of the dark emotions. To love someone fiercely, to believe in something with your whole heart, to celebrate a fleeting moment in time, to fully engage in a life that doesn’t come with guarantees—these are risks that involve vulnerability and often pain."

Love costs so much, because it gives so much.

You gotta pay to play, but even if you lose, I'm starting to think it's worth it. Not just because of what is and isn't possible if you open yourself up or close yourself off. The experience itself is enriching. Fostering a close, trusting, loving relationship with someone you care about can change you...even after the person is no longer in your life.

A loss is essentially hard because it means that you've lost a part of yourself that was wrapped up in another person or experience. Grieving means figuring out how to get back to yourself, navigating your new reality, because your life is forever changed. It will never be the same.

Marrying Your Best Friend

I used to think that I wanted my spouse to first be my best friend. Building on a solid friendship seemed like a good plan towards eventually building a deeper, closer, more intimate, trusting, romantic connection with someone. While it's still true, I want my spouse to be my best friend, I don't know if I want him to first be my best friend. Perhaps friendship and romantic relationship come at the same time.

Getting to know someone as a friend first somewhat lessens the pressure of him/her having to "prove" himself/herself in a relationship, and both parties can be more authentic. Going on informal dates and enjoying each others' company, learning about each other organically, getting more comfortable with someone naturally rather than forcing the issue, and not feeling like you're on mission to find out the inner workings of someone's brain perhaps could be helpful.

Many moons ago, I dated someone, broke up with him, and because he wasn't really ready to let it rest, we ended up picking things back up a little while later. At first we were dating more informally, and I learned so much more about him during that time period. He shared things with me that he probably never would have had we been formally working towards marriage. I also didn't feel like those things mattered as much, because I wasn't making a judgement about his marriage potential after every time we went out or talked.

The way the shidduch system works though, for the most part, is that our dating is very focused. Each date means something. The date number itself is a benchmark. We're working towards marriage, so everything gets carefully weighed and assessed. There's less room for relationships, connecting with someone, taking things slow. The emotional consequences are also greater when said relationship doesn't work out. The stakes are higher.

This is perhaps why building this relationship while building a friendship is ideal. We don't really have room to build (or have) intergender relationships within most frum circles. If we're cultivating a relationship with someone of the opposite gender it works best if it's for marriage purposes. Focused dating makes sense. Our system has so many flaws, but we have yet to come up with a better way to do this.

Marry your best friend, but because s/he is your best friend and your sweetheart.

Parshas Noach

(The Segulah of Learning Zera Shimshon)

Noach spends 120 years building a teiva while his neighbors watch. It's brought down that he does this as a way to warn people that if they do not repent from their sinful ways that they will be destroyed by a mabul. The Zohar (67b) says that Noach should have davened for the people of his generation not to be destroyed rather than just trying to influence them to repent and/or build a teiva for his own means of survival. Thus, the mabul is called "Mei Noach," as if the destruction of the world is on Noach. [Yeshayahu 54:9 "For this is to Me as the waters of Noach"]

This is similar to when Mordechai, in the times of Purim, comes to Esther and asks her to speak to Achashveirosh on behalf of the Jewish people. While doing so put Esther at risk for her life, Esther could not sit by while the klal was in danger.

The Gemara in Taanis (11a) states that when the klal is suffering one should not comfort himself saying that he is okay, he is comfortable, and that he has enough. One cannot sit idly by while others are in pain. In fact, the Gemara states that if one does this, he will not be included in the relief when it does come to the tzibbur.

How often do we ignore others' needs, be them physical, emotional, spiritual, whatever, stating that we're okay, all is good in our lives...? What more can we do for other people, look outside of ourselves?

Source: Zera Shimshon Parshas Noach

When A Person Becomes A Label –– Guest Post

We live in a world of labels –– on food, clothes, politics, and everything in between. Everywhere we go, labels provide us with information, both crucial and non-crucial. They can also serve the purpose of showing others who we are as people. So, of course, why would anyone then expect dating to be any different?

I was signing up for SYAS the other day, and one of the fields that it asks is how you identify religiously. These choices ranged from Traditional and Reform to Yeshivish and Chassidish, going into as much detail as "Modern Orthodox Machmir" and "Modern Yeshivish." With all those choices, you would think that they span the spectrum and cover everyone, right?

Now, from a purely logical point-of-view, I can understand the use of using this system; it allows people to weed out those that are not for them at a quick glance. However, the problem is that dating, relationships, and love are not intellectual by definition. How is it that we can boil down who someone is to a label? And what happens when someone falls through the cracks?

I grew up going to a Frum Jewish day school and went on to study in yeshiva, both for high school and after. But the thing is, I didn’t become Frum until 11th grade. So, not only am I dealing with the stigma of being a Baal Teshuva, there is no box for me at all. I feel like I am too Yeshivish for the MO crowd and too Modern for the Yeshivish crowd.

Now, I don’t have answers for this, but what can we do as a community for those like me that don't feel like they have a place? The feeling of continuous rejections, either because a shadchan can’t comprehend what I'm looking for, or because someone takes a look at my resume and instantly thinks that due to my background/family I can’t be who I say I am or I'm not right for them.

In short, while labels can be useful, perhaps they should not necessarily have the amount of power they are given. There is no doubt that we need a system to help figure out (quickly) who is worth looking into, but I feel that we must remember that as singles we are going through this together. It would behoove us to remember that while labels may tell you something about a person, they are not the full embodiment of that person, and we owe it to ourselves, and each other, to look past the superficial.

The Segula of Learning Zera Shimshon

Segulos can be controversial, especially when someone places his trust in the segulah rather than Hashem Himself. That's akin to worshipping avodah zara or an intermediary. It's the reason why ads such as "How to Get Married Without Trying (Donate to Our Organization)" and "We Gave Up Hope and Were About to Throw In the Towel Until We Saw This Ad and Decided to Donate, and What Do You Know, We Got A Yeshua," are not only bogus, but a chillel Hashem.

Only Hashem can bring you a yeshua. There is no way to beat the system.

However, I recently started reading R' Nachman Seltzer's book on the Zera Shimshon. He tells over Torah from the Zera Shimshon (his peirush on Chumash) and writes about the powerful segulah that its mechaber, R' Shimshon Chaim Nachmani, promises to all those that learn and disseminate his torah, as well as stories to illustrate the topics, and stories of multiple people who saw yeshuos after they began learning the sefer.

The Zera Shimshon did not have children of his own to pass on this torah, and so he promises that anybody who learns his torah will be zoche to all sorts of yeshuos.

Learning torah in it of itself is a worthwhile pursuit, and since I have nothing to lose, I want to try to learn it as much as I can and share a small bit about the parsha each week, sharing this segulah with you all. Since we just started the Torah from the beginning this past Shabbos, I'll share something brief for Parshas Bereishis here, and at some point during this week I will hopefully share something about this week's parsha, Parshas Noach.

(The source for the Torah I'm sharing is brought down in R' Nachman Seltzer's book and attributed to the Zera Shimshon who often quotes other sources.)


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Parshas Bereishis

The Zera Shimshon asks why if Tehillim (119:160) states that "Rosh d'varcha emes," that "Your first utterance is truth," then why does the Torah start with beis, Bereishis, instead of alef (for 'emes')?

He says that emes is actually hinted to in the next three words of the Torah - "ברא אלוקים את." The last letter of each of those words spell out emes.

The beis of Bereishis, R' Nachmani says, alludes to bracha. And so, when one speaks and acts with emes, he will merit blessing in his life.

In fact, the letters of בראשית can be rearranged into ראש and בית, which point to the pasuk of "Rosh d'varcha emes" and beis for bracha.

The Zera Shimshon extrapolates from this that bracha and emes are intertwined, and if we want bracha we need to conduct our lives with emes.