by Loraine Couturier
We have all had our hearts broken. When it happens to you personally, it’s devastating and while people can relate, they aren’t in that moment. The pain is there and it’s real for you. Sometimes it feels like you’re completely helpless and you’ll never get past the suffering. The important things to remember are that there are people there for you and that there is always a light at the end of the tunnel and ways to help you get there. Here are a few ways to assist you on your road to peace and happiness again.
1. Don’t Contact The Ex
This honestly is rule #1 in a break up. Keep your distance and don’t text, email, meet in person or call. You should probably take them off your Facebook or any other social networks while you’re at it. This doesn’t have to be permanent but while you’re vulnerable to any mean or in contrast loving words, it’s best not to have their voice in your head. The risk of getting back into a relationship when it wasn’t working is high. You may also end up in a war of words causing further hurt and anxiety. Cutting the ties for good when it’s over puts you on a faster path to healing.
2. Let Your Emotions Out
Cry, sob your eyes out, scream and yell. Act in whatever way gets you through the pain you may be feeling. When people kindly and humorously tell you all break ups are hard, it’s because they are. Don’t take this part of the healing process away from yourself or it festers within your body. You will naturally feel some negative emotions no matter how essential your break up was. Honor your feelings and know that they will get less intense the more that you let them out. It helps you move past them!
3. Acceptance
Coping with the end of a relationship is a little bit like a 12 step program. You will reach acceptance far sooner by staying away from that person. This strategy relies on time more than anything else but there are ways to move it along. Look at the situation objectively, even if you didn’t agree to the breakup. If they didn’t love you anymore, that’s really sad and you will cry a lot when you accept it. If you both agreed because it just wasn’t working, don’t overanalyze what could have been different. In the moments you were in the relationship, that’s when your actions mattered. They don’t anymore. Your mission now is to get to the place where you aren’t battling with yourself about the way things are. Do this with compassion and don’t beat yourself up. It may take some time for the mind to catch up with reality but in the meantime, accept that the relationship has ended.
4. Find Yourself
Chances are, you lost a piece of yourself in the relationship. Now is your chance to find you again and this should be fun. This is one of the more positives to your break up so embrace it. Maybe you let go of a hobby you used to love to do or stopped taking scented baths. You can eat salad and granola bars for dinner if you feel like it. There are a lot of personal things that made you special, you just have to find them again and get the feeling back. Alternatively, you may have grown in the relationship which means you can discover new things about yourself.
5. Have Fun
When you’re ready to authentically have fun again, get your girlfriends together and go out. Go dancing, go shopping, go on a roller coaster. Do something that makes you smile, laugh and feel good inside. I once went to haunted house where things jumped out at me and scared me half to death. This was so therapeutic. Be spontaneous and silly. Enjoy your life.
6. Pay Attention to your Thoughts
As you look to move forward in your life, don’t deny or grasp on to your ex’s memory. They may pop into your mind as a memory of a moment where you were happy (or not). Acknowledge it, smile or cry. Let the memory go instead of clinging onto it. Don’t intentionally look at pictures or look at old texts you got from him. It’s now about you and your present moments. Your ex is a part of the person you are today and you can be grateful to them for that but the chapter with them is gone.
7. Acknowledge your Vulnerability
Don’t bounce into another relationship too quickly, thinking that you’re okay. It is probably the best quick fix out there but at the same time, you never really get over your ex. In the long run you haven’t actually gotten over your ex and when your next relationship ends, you’ll have two ex’s to get over. You’re just prolonging the inevitable pain.
8. Meditate
Whatever life throws at you, meditation is always one of those things that can bring you back to yourself and your center. This one discipline can assist you in all the complicated emotions you have about yourself and your heart. Getting to the heart of your pain and the reasons things didn’t work out is a miracle worker if you’re willing to sit with it.
Follow these eight steps to work through all the aftermath of a break up, then breathe, smile, and move on!
Loraine is a digital nomad, traveling all over the world while working as a freelance writer.
