As much as we’d like to hope that the pain left behind from a relationship is easy to get over, it's not. Getting over relationships isn’t as easy as singing a whimsical song to forget all your worries and your strife. It's tough, but once you've moved on, you'll find that you're stronger than before.

You willingly entered the relationship and opened yourself up to another person. You did things you never thought you could, showed them your vulnerable side and it felt like anything could happen with that person by your side. Coming to terms with the fact that the relationship is over isn't easy to accept. The pain is intense, especially if things ended poorly; you might wonder whether you could have done something to change it. You may even feel betrayed or guilty. As this pain grows, you feel like things are shattering around you. You struggle to figure out what the future holds for you and find that you are now at war with yourself.

Being at war with yourself is dangerous. You lose so much of your personality and you lose sight of who you are. Simply put, being at war with yourself is destructive. You isolate yourself to figure things out and often we try to avoid the pain. It's easy to push aside the issue and try to move on. But when you don't work through the pain, you isolate yourself into a negative place. You grow bitter to protect yourself from more pain and you naturally put up walls to keep people out. In this state, you might even push away loved ones who want to help you through these feelings.

When you confront the pain and the emotions, you release the fear of being hurt further. You grow as a person and allow yourself to move forward in your life. You free yourself. You no longer are a slave to what's happened and you grow beyond everything you've been through.

Letting go of pain left behind by our broken relationships doesn't just apply to romantic heartbreak, it applies to any damaged relationship: a friend and the one who broke a promise, a person and the one who cheated, a child abandoned and the person who left them; everyone experiences the emotional pain of guilt or betrayal. This pain we feel shouldn't be alienated as some foreign idea, we shouldn't push it aside. We should feel free to express these emotions and work through them. When we work through the pain, we grow stronger, more understanding, and when we can reach out to others for support, our relationships blossom. Letting go isn't easy, but it's important to remember you never have to do it alone.