Foreword

      If you're reading this, it's safe to assume you're hurting. Struggling with a disappointment so deep you may be afraid you'll disappear forever into the black hole that's now holding your heart hostage. A breakup (or “rupture of attachment” as we psychotherapists like to call it) can take us out in ways that few things can. And if we're not careful, a poorly navigated breakup—where we skip over doing the deep inner healing and growth that the loss of an intimate relationship demands—can leave us with a closed and compromised heart, having healed a little too crooked, a whole lot defensive, and a bit too easily bruised moving forward.

      Most of us have no idea how to heal a broken heart. And without this understanding, we stumble alone through this pitch-dark night of the soul, bumping up against our core fears and insatiable hungers with a deep sense of dread, desperately hoping that one day soon time will somehow release us from the terrible pain we're in. In the meantime, we do the best we can, obsessively trying to put the fragmented pieces of our shattered psyches back together again, so that we can again feel some sense of comfort in our now comfortless lives. And though we normally know ourselves as good and decent people who would never do harm to anyone, we may now be tempted to lash out, to deliberately hurt the one who has hurt us so deeply. If you identify with any of this, you're not messed up, and you're not a bad person. You're just normal. Because a breakup or divorce is one of our most underrated traumas in life, and it will bring out the worst, even in the best of us.

      All too often, we'll attempt to sweep our grief under the rug, trying desperately to get rid of it by buying into the overly simplistic idea that we should just move on. Well-meaning and caring friends may try to hurry your sorrow along by the suggestion you get back out there and go find someone new. They may even start to devalue and diminish the person you've loved, as though dismissing that person and cheapening your relationship could somehow release you from your longing.

      Yet all is not lost. For in finding this insightful, wise, and loving guide, you are finally in excellent hands, and you may soon come to believe this beautiful manuscript to be nothing short of answered prayer. For while time can't necessarily heal a broken heart, my dear friend and colleague, Daphne Rose Kingma, can. And in this book, Daphne will take you under her wing (and yes, hers is indeed a literal angel's wing!) and lead you step by step through a profoundly intelligent, compassionate, and kindhearted healing process that is highly transformative and which will literally weave you back to wholeness in all those places where you've felt betrayed, battered, broken, and bruised.

      Frankly, I'm honored to be given the opportunity to write this foreword so I can publicly acknowledge Daphne for being an important leader and pioneer in the field of conscious breakups. Though many more of us are now just catching up, writing books, creating projects, and launching programs designed to help people get through one of the toughest times they may ever have to endure, Daphne's been doing this for nearly two decades now. Long before actress Gwyneth Paltrow made the world aware that there is indeed a more conscious way to uncouple, Daphne was in the trenches, healing humanity one heart at a time, as bit by bit, she discovered ways to help us turn our traumas into triumphs and our sorrows into stepping stones towards whole new, beautiful, and deeply fulfilling lives.

      As much as we all yearn for happy endings and strive to live “happily ever after” with those we fall in love with, the reality is that few of us will make it through this life without at least one big whopping heartbreak that turns our world upside down, inside out, and sideways. And as painful as those times are, here's the good news about a bad breakup. This is the one and only time the Universe has your complete attention. Because all there is for you to do right now is to finally face all the covert ways you've been unconsciously perpetuating your childhood pain by recreating disappointing scenarios that are suspiciously similar to how you were disappointed when you were young. So here you are. There's nothing else to do to stop that pounding, piercing pain in your heart (other than dissociate with sugar or substances), but to finally resolve, and evolve beyond, your core wounds from childhood.

      You now have this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to stand the deeper truth of your “enough-ness,” your inherent worthiness to love and be loved, your power to learn what you need to learn to have things go differently next time, and your inherent value, where you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you need do nothing to prove you are lovable. Your task right now is to awaken to how deeply you deserve to be respected, valued, supported, and loved, even if the one you've loved is unable or unwilling to give these things to you in the ways you have wanted and needed him or her to do.

      As you begin this sacred healing journey with Daphne, I invite you first to close your eyes and take a deep breath. For a brief moment, imagine yourself a few weeks or months from now. See yourself liberated from the hurt in your heart and walking through life lighter. Laughing with your whole body. Loving with your whole heart. And living with a great sense of hope for a happier future. Not just in spite of this breakup. But in many ways because of it.

      —Katherine Woodward Thomas, MA, MFT,

      author of the New York Times bestseller, Conscious Uncoupling: 5 Steps to Living Happily Even After