In the initial interviews we do with clients, people will speak of limitations and mistakes that are holding them stuck. Unpeel the layers, however, and often it turns out to be the love experienced at some high point that holds the key. Moving though a crucial transition involves freeing our attachment to past success.

For example, a truly talented executive thought his last three ventures were failures. Sure, the businesses made money and the people felt engaged in a positive vision. But the outcomes in each case were less than a home run hit out of the park.

Not like it was at the high point.

He talks of what that was like. The appreciation of a respected mentor. Car, house, glamorous parties… all the accepted trophies of success. The love of an incredible woman.

Then, for the sake of his own integrity, he had to make a hard decision. There was a rocky year for the business, a break with his mentor and the romantic relationship ended.

What do we do at such a painful time? We still have all this energy, all this love to give but the way we gave and the way we loved are just gone. We have to go on somehow. We may tell ourselves, “What is done is done” and try to embark on our next adventure as if it doesn’t matter.

The human heart, however, is more loyal than our good intentions. A lost love will not be denied. It may be set aside but it is still remembered, and often as inner battle. On the one hand, there is the hankering to recreate the experience. Yet, when we come close, it is never good enough. We just don’t have the same zest for our new endeavors. I have even seen people, unaware they are doing it, sabotage their current activities or relationships because to succeed would betray the love of that past high point.

In the case of my talented executive friend, he was able to experience a profound healing. He let himself feel the depth of the love he had lost. He faced the self-defeating inner conflict that had lived in him ever since, and took on a new, more positive way to remember what that time means to him. He had the guts to tell the truth. He can lead with that integrity now in ways he could never have done as a younger man. He has a deep care, sensitivity and clarity of mission.

Most of us are aware enough to see our inner conflicts. Is there one for you that is ripe to release right now?

Often it helps when we make the connection with what we have loved and lost. You might want to take a moment and revisit the high points of your life, ways you have known great love or feeling of success.

Could it be that some self-limiting inner conflict living in you came from that time? Some thought that it could never be that good again?

The loss of a high point has something to teach us. Look into what occurred with new eyes. The very way those events happened points to a quality of character that was emerging in you at that time. This quality that is in your life now is a wonderful tribute to what you were part of then. While love and success may be experienced and measured differently in the days ahead, there is no limit on what is yet to come.