How To Get Over A Break Up: 12 Tips for Healing a Broken Heart
There isn’t any other way to describe it – breaking up with someone is a shock to your system.
Even if you weren’t in love with your relationship partner, splitting up with someone you’ve been attached to and have spent a considerable amount of time with can be hurtful and cause depression, stress, and confusion.
Feeling heartbroken after breaking up is just one side effect of a relationship split. Whether you were together for five years, a few months, or two weeks, breakups can leave you feeling hopeless and even cause physical illness and mental health issues.
While there isn’t a magic potion or formula that can eliminate the pain you’re experiencing, developing a way to cope is critical in releasing negative emotions associated with your ex and helping you move on to bigger and better things.
Whether you initiated the breakup or were on the receiving end, it’s essential to treat yourself afterward.
Giving yourself time to heal from all of the mental and emotional pain is always great advice, but there are ways you can speed up the process and take back control over your health and wellness while developing an inner strength you have never had before.
Getting Over An Ex You Still Love: 5 Tips To Stop Hurting
1. Write In Your Journal Or Talk It Out
Avoiding painful emotions will only cause more damage, in the long run, so facing your feelings immediately after a breakup is the quickest and most effective way to move past them.
As human beings, we have a natural impulse to run away from these painful feelings, but this avoidance will prevent us from ever releasing them. Feelings of anger, rejection, helplessness, sadness, and uncertainty about the future can leave us confused and lonely.
But it’s important to face these feelings head-on. Writing in your journal, speaking with a therapist, and venting with your closest friends and family members are all effective ways in coping with a break-up and helping you gain clarity on why the relationship didn’t work out as you expected.
Releasing painful emotions will eventually help you realize why you’re much better off without your ex.
2. Don’t Blame Yourself
Breaking up is hard enough when your self-esteem and confidence is diminished. Blaming yourself will only make things worse so it’s important to be compassionate towards yourself just the same as you would if a family member or close friend was experiencing heartbreak.
It’s common to ask yourself questions after a breakup about what went wrong, which forms a story that plays over and over in your head as you begin to analyze the good and bad times in the relationship.
Your immediate assumption might be that “you weren’t good enough” and that there was something “wrong with you,” but these are all self-deprecating thoughts and will only cause further damage post break up.
The stories we tell ourselves and the language we use shapes all outcomes in our lives, so it’s wise to be careful of the thoughts you think and the words you use.
Changing the narrative of your story will change the way that you face the emotional pain, and ultimately lead you to triumph through the situation.
3. Embracing The Pain You Experience: Will the Pain of a Breakup Go Away?
When handling a breakup, your immediate feeling may be avoidance since the pain can seem just too difficult to face. But there isn’t a way to recover from a breakup when you avoid the realities that come with it.
Rejection, abandonment, and feeling torn apart are all normal emotions, but by changing your perspective of dealing with breakup pain positively and constructively, you’ll begin to feel a sense of empowerment and strength that you’ve never experienced before.
Feel every emotion that you are going to feel, and embrace the anger, acceptance, and rejection to overcome. Always realize that the pain is temporary and the sun will always come back out after a rainstorm.
4. Stay Busy With Activities You Love
It can be difficult to be motivated about things you love after a bad breakup but getting yourself back out there and doing them anyway will reinforce positive emotions and get you back on track to loving yourself.
Caring for yourself and doing things you love is essential in healing post-split. Focus on hobbies and activities that make you smile and surround yourself with friends and family members who make you laugh and take your mind off things.
Breathe life into your world again by realigning with yourself and your purpose. Check out a new comedy club, go out for a night on the town with your friends, or even travel to a country that you’ve always wanted to go.
New experiences can lead to brand new clarity about your life, so when you are ready to join the dating scene again, you’ll be healed entirely and prepared for new love.
5. Take Care of Your Health (The Missing Key to Get Rid of a Broken Heart)
Getting your blood pumping by attending hot yoga sessions or cardio exercise or have been scientifically proven to lower stress levels, boost your mood, and improve your cognition.
Exercising might seem like the last thing on your mind, but the health benefits you experience is an excellent combination with the positive distraction from thinking about your ex. Get your head right and focusing on your body can be a secure anchor point in recovering from a breakup.
Going on a diet post-breakup is also a great idea, but you should be careful not to punish yourself and restrict calories or food intake because you are depressed.
Instead, focus on eating whole foods, proteins, and other nourishing foods that will help increase your mood and energy levels. A balanced diet with vegetables, fruits, and greens will help compensate for your stress.
What Should You Do After A Breakup? 7 Do’s and Don’ts
1. Don’t Beg Your Ex To Get Back Together
Even if you miss your ex after breaking up, the last thing you want to do is beg or plead for another chance. It’s easy to confuse your feelings and motivations for wanting to get back together.
Ask yourself if you miss the person you were with, or if you miss the idea of having someone around. If the relationship was toxic, then it’s best to move on and find happiness within yourself before you start dating again.
2. Don’t Contact Other Exes For Comfort
When you feel lonely and miss having someone around, it’s very tempting to reach out to your old flames post-breakup.
In your mind, you are familiar with that person, they are familiar with you, and you once had a connection with them, so you think that you may be able to pick up where you left off.
But this is a significant mistake. Don’t allow your cravings to fill a physical and emotional void in your life lead you to contact someone from your past that didn’t work out the first time. There is a reason you two broke up in the first place.
3. Remove All Reminders of Your Ex
Getting rid of reminders will be one of the top ways to cope after a breakup. Remove social media pictures of your ex, trash the photos and items your ex left at your house, and reorganize your life, so there aren’t constant reminders that trigger old emotions.
Even if it’s difficult, you may also want to avoid familiar places you’ve visited, common friends in your circle who may bring up your ex, and family members who may bring up your breakup.
Starting fresh and adapting to being single is an essential part in recovering well from a bad break up.
4. Don’t Stalk Your Ex On Social Media
It’s wise to unfollow your ex on all social media platforms to prevent temptation in checking in on them.
Creating stories in your head based on your exes social media posts will make it more difficult for you in getting over your break up because it’s easy to misinterpret how miserable or happy someone is based on their social profiles.
Unfollowing family and friends of your ex and deleting any photos of you together is also a good idea.
It’s wise to unfollow your ex on all social media platforms to prevent temptation in checking in on them.
Creating stories in your head based on your exes social media posts will make it more difficult for you in getting over your break up because it’s easy to misinterpret how miserable or happy someone is based on their social profiles.
Unfollowing family and friends of your ex and deleting any photos of you together is also a good idea.
5. Don’t Call Or Text Your Ex
Out of habit, you may want to call or text your ex, but you must resist the urge of contacting them. Keep yourself busy and set a goal to not reach out to them for two weeks.
Once two weeks arrives, make another short goal to not contact them for another two weeks. Pretty soon it will be months since you last contacted them and you’ll realize your feelings are fading as time goes on and the new clarity you’ve gained from being out of contact.
6. Don’t Jump Into Another Relationship With The Next Person You Meet
When your heart is broken, and you feel vengeful, it’s easy to want to fill a void with another person immediately and remove the feeling of loneliness.
But it’s best to be single after a painful breakup so you can learn from your past relationship and not make the same mistakes as before.
History repeats itself, and if you don’t take the time to learn from previous relationships, then you are doomed to repeat history and likely get into another bad relationship.
7. Don’t Seek Out Revenge On Your Ex
Feeling rejected after being dumped can create a temptation to seek revenge on your ex for breaking your heart. You want your ex to feel the same painful emotions that you are, so what better way to do that then get revenge?
As great as it might seem, it’s never a good idea to cross the line when a relationship ends and become spiteful and vindictive to your former relationship partner.
Avoid spreading rumors or ruining their reputation with lies and trash talking them publicly. Take the high road and move on with class and dignity.
