Many of us has at one point in our lives traversed a pretty harsh break-up.
Media and even amongst the people who care about us, tend to downplay the situation.
“You’re going to be okay” is a common phrase you hear coming out of the mouths of concerned friends. Images of chocolate, liquor, and getting trashed at the club are sprawled across rom-coms which are meant to substitute the feelings of hollowness and pain.
Although it’s might not be the best idea to take a whole week of work or your regular routine to tend to a broken heart, we might be getting the message wrong here.
Subliminally, what these messages tell us is that we should find any way to suppress our feelings and push through what is bothering us on an emotional and somatic level. Instead of confronting what has been lost, we should “move on” as quickly as possible.
Everyone’s context is different, but when it comes down to it, these are the ways you can actually get over a broken heart and begin your healing journey on a deeper level.
Grieve
This is most likely the easiest and hardest part of your path to healing. Easy, because you just have to let yourself go, and cry if you need to. All the sharp, painful feelings that may arise, you need to let yourself experience them in their full magnitude. Ironically, it’s the first step that many of us want to skip over as fast as possible. Why? Because who would want to willingly be in pain. Discomfort. This is what we fear.
But when we avoid this part of the journey, there is no way we can proceed to the next. Many people fail to understand this. Once the worst of it’s over, you’ll find yourself with more clarity and space to process your emotions. And you’ll realize that it’s not the end of the world, even though at the moment it might feel as if it is.
In the past two relationships that ended, I’ve skipped over this part, only to find myself absolutely devastated at random times a year later. It was crazy, as if I was suddenly hit by a truck of emotion and sadness. I realize now that it’s because instead of letting myself grieve properly, I jumped onto finding the next person, or used productivity to mask what I was feeling.
Acknowledge
Once the flurry of emotions subsides, it’s time to properly acknowledge what has happened. This requires you to go deeper and examine exactly what are types of emotions tend to flare up. Common ones tend to be a lingering sadness, anger, and regret.
The root of these emotions comes from the fact that someone who was once a big part of your life, is now gone. They can never be there for you, as they once were. Regardless of how or why it happened, on a fundamental level, we feel like to a degree we’ve been hurt.
We tend to direct our grief to anger. It’s easier to lash out, call them nasty names and blame them than it is to sit down with our own feelings. In reality, it’s not them who inflicted harm on us, it is the situation that makes us feel this way.
When we start to identify the root of where these emotions come from, we can start to work to absolve them. Instead of holding anger for the other, we start to take responsibility for our own feelings. We start to accept this phase is part of a broader experience of our lives.
Relinquish
After you’ve taken the time needed to grieve and process your emotions, now comes the time that most people desire: to let go. You can’t say goodbye until you’ve tied up all the loose ends. This is the part where you provide yourself with a sense of closure.
Making the mental choice to fully relinquish someone from our minds, doesn’t mean we’ll never think about it or get sad ever again. It just means we have fully dealt with the spectrum of emotions and now we’re ready to take steps to rebuild ourselves, without them. We know from a logical perspective why certain feelings may arise, and what those triggers might be.
We can’t have one foot hanging in the past while trying to move forward. And this is why we have to let go. There are no residual feelings of anger or hatred that can latch us to that person.
Rebuild
Once you close a chapter of your life, this can be an incredibly exciting time. You begin to see the opportunities around you. You begin to focus on your own goals, needs, and dreams, without having to compromise with anyone else. Life becomes like a breath of fresh air. Most importantly, you start to realize that your worth is not tied to anyone else.
Use this time as a springboard to dive deeper into yourself and your aspirations. You’ve overcome something that seemed unbearable at the time; so use this courage and strength to accomplish and fulfill more aspects of your life.
Maybe it’s enriching your friendships, spending more time with your family, or starting a hobby you always wanted to pursue. Maybe it’s traveling or taking your career to the next level.
Whatever it is, this is the phase you come out of the other side, stronger and better than before. You have evolved from where you were, and that itself is enough. Sometimes, we need to be broken down a little, before we can bloom.
Conclusion
The truth is, overcoming heartbreak is never easy. We should stop downplaying it for what it is, and treat it as if we were properly saying goodbye to a chapter in our lives. With pain, also comes gratitude. When we start to process and absolve the feelings of angst and negativity, only positive feelings and gratitude should come out of the other side.
There’s a saying where you can’t be angry and grateful at the same time. When we no longer let our emotions have power over us, this is when we truly get the sense of closure. But, in order to get there, we must also undergo the challenging phases of grief, and learn rather than repressing our feelings, how to confront them with grace.
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