Daphne Rose Kingma - Coming Apart: How to Heal Your Broken Heart

Praise for Daphne Rose Kingma

Praise for When You Think You're Not Enough

The Love Doctor has done it again! In her many books on relationships, Daphne Rose Kingma has written eloquently and wisely on love. Now she turns her attention to the relationship upon which all others are groundedthe love of self. If you're good at giving to others what you most need for yourself, please read this book. You are worth it!

MJ Ryan,
author of Attitudes of Gratitude

This book speaks to our hearts and souls. Daphne Rose Kingma helps readers root out beliefs and behaviors that limit love of self and others and then, with gentle wisdom, guides us onto a more positive and empowered path. Once I began reading, I couldn't put it down!

Sue Patton Thoele,
author of The Courage to Be Yourself

Praise for The Ten Things to Do When Your Life Falls Apart

Anyone going through a dark night of the soul needs to have this book. It will be your closest companion and your most tender angel. Daphne Rose Kingma more than speaks to your soul; she knows how to heal it.

Marianne Williamson,
author of A Return to Love

What if, during the worst times you can imagine, you felt a warm and steady hand on your back guiding you forward? What if it helped you remember to turn toward what can be possible instead of against yourself or away from what you are afraid of? This book is that hand. Read it and you'll live better.

Dawna Markova, PhD,
co-creator of Random Acts of Kindness

Praise for The Future of Love

In this innovative book, Daphne Rose Kingma breaks down the popular myth of how love is supposed to be by introducing us to a broad spectrum of intimate connections. She reveals how to work through the various confrontations that every relationship encounters and reach deeper levels of love and intimacy.

John Gray, PhD,
author of Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus

Deeply insightful and daringly fresh, this book takes a breathtaking step away from tradition and into the possibility of saying yes to the true and grandest desire of our being: to love fully.

Neale Donald Walsch,
author of Conversations with God

Also by Daphne Rose Kingma

When You Think You're Not Enough: The Four Life-Changing Steps to Loving Yourself

The Ten Things to Do When Your Life Falls Apart: An Emotional and Spiritual Handbook

True Love: How to Make Your Relationship Sweeter, Deeper and More Passionate

Weddings from the Heart: Contemporary and Traditional Ceremonies for an Unforgettable Wedding

365 Days of Love

The Future of Love: The Power of the Soul in Intimate Relationships

A Lifetime of Love: How to Bring More Depth, Meaning and Intimacy into Your Relationship

Finding True Love: The Four Essential Keys to Discovering the Love of Your Life

Heart & Soul: Living the Joy, Truth & Beauty of Your Intimate Relationship

This edition first published in 2018 by Conari Press, an imprint of

Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

With offices at:

65 Parker Street, Suite 7

Newburyport, MA 01950

www.redwheelweiser.com

Copyright 2000, 2012, 2018 by Daphne Rose Kingma

Foreword copyright 2018 by Katherine Woodward Thomas

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC. Reviewers may quote brief passages. Previously published in 2012 as Coming Apart by Conari Press, ISBN: 978-1-57324-547-0.

ISBN: 978-1-57324-729-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request.

Cover design by Kathryn Sky-Peck

Cover art by Andrew Bret Wallis/Getty Images

Interior by Steve Amarillo / Urban Design LLC

Typeset in ITC Berkeley Oldstyle and House Industries Neutraface

Printed in Canada

MAR

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www.redwheelweiser.com/newsletter

For Nancy
who believed

For Mary Jane
who insisted

For Wink
who encouraged

and

For Leo
who proved beyond the shadow of a doubt

It is difficult suddenly to put aside a long-standing love. It is difficult, but somehow you must do it.

CATULLUS

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 breakupwhere we skip over doing the deep inner healing and growth that the loss of an intimate relationship demandscan 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.