In April of 2007 my girlfriend of almost seven years and I decided to separate. She moved into her new place with her kids. We mutually decided that we both needed to work on ourselves. It is now the first time in my life that I have ever lived by myself. In just this short time that I have had alone with myself I have faced my fears of separation and being alone; living with myself and my thoughts; experienced a vast range of strong emotions. But this time has already allowed clarity to come into my mind. I took on the services of a life coach and the following are some revelations that have come to the top since working with her.

What do you do when you realize that you have deeply hurt someone you love? I my case it was over a period of years as my lack of love for myself and ability to make myself happy was slowly reflected back upon my partner. As Don Miguel Ruiz in his book "The Mastery of Love" points out, I was pouring my emotional poison into her. And in turn she began to pour it back. Back and forth it went over time mostly unknowingly. There were great times too! We got along so well on this "naturally subliminal" level that I feel still exists. But her feelings of guilt for not fulfilling my needs in the relationship (when mostly it was me that was not fulfilling my needs) continued to build. She began to focus on keeping herself happy which I took as pushing away. Fear, jealousy, insecurity and anger grew inside me. Communication stopped and now we are separate. I realize that I have caused pain and hurt in someone I loved because of my insecurities and I am deeply sorry.

In the early years of our relationship we were very in sync. So much so that we called ourselves soul mates. We were both coming off of difficult marriages and shared a commonality yet had our differences. There was baggage that needed to be dealt with but we overlooked it since we were so in love. I still needed to deal with a lack of self esteem, sensitivity to negativity and truly finding out who I was. Over time these issues came to the top and pushed me into negativity and isolationism, making me more dependent on the relationship to bring me happiness. The signs were there and she even pointed them out from time to time but I did not pay attention.

My situation was similar to that of the story of the man who did not believe in love as recounted in "The Mastery of Love". I put my happiness in someone else's hands and when you do that, they can always take it away. Your partner can never know what makes you happy only you do. Happiness comes from within you and is your own responsibility. By relying on someone else to make you happy you set yourself up for failure. This I believe was a main contributor to the breakdown of a wonderful relationship. That relationship has died. Our friendship remains. We are both beautiful and interesting individuals that continue to get along and that is hard to find in today's world.

The separation has blown up my world as I knew it. The layers of the "onion" that covered up my true self are being peeled back. In the calmness and ease of my heart I feel that there is a foundation there that we still share. A foundation which could be used to rebuild an even better relationship. In order to do that I must take action and risk putting it out there for her to consider. As the dust settles there is no anger, no hate, no regret. Taking away the obligations and expectations that were driven by fear in the relationship has revealed a calmness and inner light or peace that just says - "I love you Alicia".