How to Feel Fulfilled When Someone Rips Out Your Heart
I’ve struggled to feel fulfilled my whole life, especially when things haven’t gone my way. I’ve written about those struggles and how I’m embracing my inner pro wrestler and the gimmicks of wrestling characters to help me overcome these shortcomings. It’s helped. The fact that I’m actually dating is indicative of it helping. But it still hurts when someone rips out your heart.
Yesterday I received news that a woman I’d been seeing no longer wanted to see me. It shouldn’t hurt since we hardly knew each other, but when I like someone or something, I tend to commit fully to it, whether it be a relationship, a hobby, or a substance. I have what they call an “addictive personality.”
Back in my freshman year of college, I became obsessed with weightlifting because I wanted a “Rocky body.” I spent most of my day in the gym and put on 30 pounds of muscle in about six months. When NORML and DPA said they weren’t going to try to legalize cannabis in Montana back in 2016, I wrote the legislation and tried to do it myself. But my most embarrassing and regretful moment is throwing my Motorola RAZR against a wall and yelling at my sister when I was ghosted by a woman on a night we were supposed to go out on a date. She firmly (and correctly) slapped me in the face. Turns out I wasn’t being ghosted at all. The woman had lost her phone, so we both lost phones that night. Luckily I had a backup Blackberry, and we ended up dating for many months after the incident.
If you’re like me, when you fall in love with something, you fall hard. We can’t change who we are, but we can address the symptoms of our character in a healthy way. Here’s what you can do to feel fulfilled after someone rips out your heart.
1) Workout whatever you’re feeling on your own body, not someone else.
Instead of taking out my anger and rage on my sister, I should have taken that anger and rage out on my own body. Yesterday, I went to the pool and swam 500 yards in 30 minutes and burned 420 calories. I had great motivation to physically exhaust myself, which I really enjoy. Plus, when you physically exhaust yourself, you mentally exhaust yourself, so you’re less likely to think of that certain someone after a good workout. You’ll also feel fulfilled by the work you put in to improve yourself, even if it is just to make that certain someone jealous.
2) Fill that hole where your heart was with something you enjoy doing with people you enjoy.
After my workout, I went to happy hour and had a delicious buffalo chicken flatbread. I went shopping for vinyl records and found a couple of gems that I listened to as soon as I got home. Then I recorded a podcast with my friends, and I managed to talk about (and laugh about) how I was feeling. Then I watched the Minnesota Wild win their seventh straight game. While I struggled to fall asleep due to thoughts of her, I still got almost eight hours and felt especially refreshed when I awoke thanks to my productivity the day before.
3) Keep yourself busy.
The busier you are, the less you’re likely to think of that person who ripped out your heart and the more fulfilled you’ll likely feel. I immediately remembered how little time I had for women and dating during tennis season. I can’t wait for tennis weather because I don’t want to have any time for anyone other than the people on the other side of the net. This time of year it’s hockey season that consumes my time, although less so. I work as a public address announcer for amateur hockey games, which tend to be on weekends when women are free to date. Immerse yourself in your work and your hobbies, and only make time for the people who are accepting of your work and your hobbies.
4) Write about it.
The act of writing this blog is helping me. I realized yesterday that my podcast performances have been worse since I started dating this woman, so my mind was obviously not on the most important things in my life. I even blew off my friends when we were supposed to record a podcast this week. I was so focused on her I was less focused on the things about which I truly care. That’s not healthy nor is it possible to change yourself for someone else. I apparently was attempting to do so without even noticing. Writing about it helped me realize these things.
5) Don’t run into the arms of a former flame or try to find fulfillment with a new one.
Don’t seek a false sense of fulfillment by falling back into the arms of old flames or by seeking out new ones to fill the hole where your heart was. That will only make you less motivated to do the things that actually make you feel fulfilled. Plus, you’re less likely to realize the things you’re sacrificing to find that false sense of fulfillment. Finding love doesn’t have to become a vicious cycle, even in this age of online dating. Think about the times you’ve found love. I bet they were in moments you felt most fulfilled and weren’t necessarily looking for love.
I’m fortunate to have experienced love at first sight twice in my life. Each time I wasn’t looking for anything at all, but both times I felt damn good about myself. The most recent instance was after finishing my Master’s professional paper on the dangers of fake news and how to avoid its influence. The first time was after my senior film proposal was approved by the faculty for production. Perhaps the next time will be after I win a tennis tournament, or when a podcast episode reaches 10,000 downloads, or when I finish writing that book.
Regardless of when, love won’t find you if you don’t feel fulfilled, and no one and no thing can provide that but you. Love thyself or no one will.
