April, as T.S. Eliot said, is the cruelest month. Or, at least, it can be if you’re unhappy in love. After all, it “breeds lilacs out of dead ground/mixing memory and desire, stirring/dull roots with spring rain.” While Spring is often seen as a time of rebirth, for people who have been in bad relationships or alone for a long time, the idea of Spring flowers blooming can leave you feeling left behind. But, it doesn’t have to be that way. There are reasons why we lack confidence, why we find ourselves unable to pursue romantic love. Exploring those reasons can help you understand and overcome them, so you have the confidence and strength to start anew.
Being Burned Can Lead to Fresh Growth
A friend of mine worked for an agricultural restoration group. Part of her job was to conduct controlled burns on fields every spring. Doing so, she told me, would allow more space for plants to grow, and the ashes actually provided the nutrients to the soil so that plants could grow even healthier. Most of us think of fire as very destructive, but sometimes, it’s that kind of destruction can lead to new beginnings.
I thought about this when I received a call from a client, Jocelyn. She called looking for advice on online dating, but the insight she really needed went deeper than that. Jocelyn was a high-powered defense attorney who portrayed the most striking confidence in the courtroom. Prosecutors dreaded going against her, and her sureness in herself, her clients, and her arguments tended to sway many juries.
While her career was taking off, Jocelyn hadn’t been so successful in love. Online dating hadn’t been going well, as she rarely got to (or wanted) a second date. This came after a long run of miserable longer-term romances. Two out of her last four boyfriends had cheated on her, with the last one even having his affair in the bed in the apartment they shared.
All of this made looking out the window at the budding of spring all the more difficult. The skies were clearing after a long and grey winter, and the world was beginning to warm. But Jocelyn wasn’t. She felt that she had been burned by love and her confidence in her romantic life was nearly shattered. She felt that everything that happened — bad dates, cheaters, negative relationships — was all her fault. That there was something wrong with her, and that she would never have anything to offer anyone.
Now, of course, in any relationship, both sides bring something to the table. But what Jocelyn wasn’t seeing was that the failed dating she had been doing recently wasn’t a product of who she was, but what she had been through. She didn’t realize that she was bringing all this negativity to the table, literally, when she met a guy for dinner. She had been burned, yes, but she was wearing the ashes on her face.
Gaining Confidence for A Fresh Start
Once we began Jocelyn’s reading, we found that she was trapped in the past. Knowing this helped us dig deeper to find solutions to her problems. Jocelyn’s parents, it came out, met in high school and were still married. Jocelyn could barely remember them ever fighting. She had also been head over heels for her high school love, Esteban, whom she had always imagined marrying. When that didn’t work out, she was devastated.
From this upbringing and past, Jocelyn thought that romance was something that should happen easily. It was something that was meant to be and that should work. If it didn’t, she thought it was something she did wrong. This is why she had so little confidence in herself when it came to love. One bad relationship tumbled into the next, erasing her confidence and making her into more of a doormat than she had ever imagined. By the time her last boyfriend cheated on her, she was barely surprised. That was a terrible attitude to have, and it was rooted in unrealistic expectations. I told her about my friend burning the fields to foster new growth. This same idea applies to your life, I said. Jocelyn could use her experience being burnt in love to learn more about herself and what she wanted out of a romance. Understanding who she was and what she wanted would help restore her confidence in herself and in her relationships.
During our reading, I also sensed that Jocelyn was focusing on success at work as a way to not think about sadness in her personal life. She was using that as an outlet. She thought, “If I can’t be good at love, at least, I can be good at work.” What she didn’t realize was that the person she was at work — someone with confidence in herself — was the same person she needed to be in her romantic life. She just needed to carry that confidence over.
If you’re like Jocelyn, and you’ve been hurt and burnt, you can use that experience to grow. To do that, though, sometimes, takes the help of a psychic advisor to recognize who you are. Then maybe you’ll see April isn’t a month of cruelty, but of possibility. If you are lacking confidence, it’s a time to discover why, and to get past that. Finding yourself within the pile of burnt ashes can help you a thousand flowers bloom.
If you’re looking to overcome pain from past relationships and restore your confidence in romance, advisors at KEEN.com can help.
