Getting over heartbreaks ❤
Heartbreaks are the worst. There’s no easy way of getting over someone you imagined spending a long part of your life with — this applies to friends and family, as much as it does to a romantic partner. But inevitably, its something most of us have to deal with.
After my fair share of breakups, I’ve been able to come up with a routine that helps me grieve and let go of the relationship in a healthy way.
1.Safe space — Have a set of friends that feel like a safe space for you to process things out loud (probably many times over), without needing to tell solve anything immediately. Healing takes a lot of effort and its hard to get into it immediately. Give them a heads up that you just need someone that can listen and that you’d appreciate not getting unsolicited advice.
(Having a therapist is a lot more helpful, but this is for when you don’t have one/cant afford one)
2. Journal everything — I call this the relationship inventory. I’ve found it helpful to categorize this into 3 parts, and I go back to it anytime I’m overthinking about why I ended things.
(i) All the ways in which the relationship was beautiful and how it helped you grow/made you happy (this is for times when you feel like you wasted your time).
(ii) How s/he made loving hard (for times when we over romanticize/put them on a pedestal and question why you broke up in the first place. After I’m able to fully heal, this also helps me have compassion for why my partner behaved the way they did or didn’t).
(iii) How you made loving hard (for times when you feel the need to blame them for all that went wrong. Take the opportunity to acknowledge how this was a blessing that made you more self aware of all the ways you can work on yourself to be your happiest self).
The only suggestion here is to be your absolute truest self when you’re writing the inventory. Its okay if you’re feeling hateful towards them or yourself in that moment, scream them all out on paper.
When you just can’t stop thinking about what could have been, just let it play out until the point when you come back to why letting go is the best decision.
You’ll deal with it in your own time when you’re healing. Just come back and edit it later. I use it as a way to say all the things I couldn’t communicate or things that weren’t received in the way I wanted. Also a good place to write the texts you want to send them to establish contact immediately after breaking things off.
3. Self care — Do one thing for yourself consistently every single day. Self care is hard when you can’t even get out of bed. On those days, I’d just get dressed and go out to see the sunset. (This is one thing that makes me ecstatic even during my depressive episodes, so i jut use it for all occasions when I don’t feel like my sunshine-y self). Having a consistent plan each day just makes it easier to live through hard days, without needing to make decisions on how to spend time intentionally.
4. Heal — Its harder to feel this while you’re in your feelings, but the hard part is already over. You honored yourself and let go of a relationship that was not serving you anymore. Self compassion comes before eveything else.
Its okay to numb the pain initially with work and whatnot. But truly healing and letting go takes a lot of intentional work — I come back to the relationship laundry once I feel a bit more stable to thank the other person for sharing a part of their life with me (without feeling the need to forgive or be compassionate immediately) and using notes on how I can work to get to a better version of myself.
Some resources that helped me :
1. Creating a manual on my values as a person — i go back and edit this every now and then.
2. Based on the values and priorities listed, ask yourself if you’re consistently doing things that make you truly happy. Most times, you’re the only one getting in the way.
3. Attached — a book that has exercises to understand why people (including you) behave the way they do.
