Just So You Know, Your Heartbreak Doesn’t Define You

You are not the ways you’ve been hurt.
You are not what has happened to you.

Who you will become is not dependent on your past relationships. What you’ve experienced will not determine who you will become.

And you are not defined by your heartbreak. Not anymore.

You’ve been through it all—the betrayal, the lies, the hurt, the sting of loving someone who couldn’t love you in return—you don’t deserve it. None of us do. But you’ve carried that baggage over your shoulder for days, months, years. You’ve worn that badge of pain on your chest for too long, letting what has happened hide you from the light, permitting that pain to keep you safe. Safe from the world, safe from yourself, even safe from future love, real love.

Enough of that.

The person who has hurt you? They are now a lesson learned. The ways they treated you? Those have shaped you and made you smarter for the next time around. The pain you’ve felt? You can now let it go and step forward. Who you are is not defined by other people’s mistreatment of you.

Only you can define yourself—and you are a strong, and loving woman. Not a heartbroken woman anymore.

What has happened to you in your last relationship is now a story to tell, not a heavy blanket to drape over your shoulders. The parts that have ached are now subtle reminders of the wrong love as you search for the right kind. What you fear is now what you will learn to overcome.

You are starting new, no longer a victim to your past.

So please shed that negative skin. Release that sorrow. Quit holding onto bitterness and turn your face to the sun once again. Not all people will hurt you. Not all relationships will be the same as the one you’ve been in. Not all of your days will be weighed down by heartbreak.

You are more than all the time wasted with the wrong person. You are more than lies. You are more than weakness. You are power and strength and love and forgiveness and all things beautiful.

And from the dust of your past, you will rise.

You are a wonderful woman. A woman with a pure heart and kind soul. A woman with a resilient spirit and giving hands. A woman with a mind that will persevere, and a body that will withstand whatever comes her way.

You are not fragility. You are not feebleness. You are not one who will easily give up. And you are not one to let the past define you, not anymore.

You are so many wonderful pieces and emotions and intricacies and hopes yet to come.

That relationship, the one who betrayed you, and the person you used to be? Those are just tiny dots on the map of your life. The past is behind you and today is new. And you, you are whole and unburdened.