How to Get Over a Breakup

Apr 1

There’s no other way to say it: breakups are tough. They can be difficult, painful and messy. It doesn’t matter if you’re the one getting your heart broken or you’re the one breaking up with someone - transitioning from a relationship to being single can be incredibly challenging.

Nowadays, the internet is full of tips and tricks to help you get over your breakup. Don’t have any contact with your ex, delete their number, don’t stalk them on social media. This type of advice can help you figure out how to handle a breakup in the moment. But it does little in supporting you to heal in a healthy way that actually allows you to walk away STRONGER.

How do we embrace the uncertainty that comes with a breakup? How do we deal with negative emotions such as self-doubt, anxiety or pain in a healthy way? To help you find your way through these confusing times, here are six things you can focus on if you’re going through a breakup:

Let go of the idea of “closure”

And use the situation as an opportunity to practice confidence and trust in your path

We’ve all had that one pesky thought after a breakup. “I just need more closure and then I’ll be able to get over them”. In reality, the need for closure usually stems from an underlying desire to understand why the breakup happened so we can a) rectify the situation and get back together or b) know exactly what we need to do so we never have to deal with this situation again.

While there’s a time and place for self-reflection after a relationship (we’ll cover this a bit later in the article!) - the need to overanalyze every aspect of the breakup can be incredibly self-destructive. Instead of trying to cling to the past and desperately trying to understand what happened - try to use this situation as an opportunity to practice trusting yourself and the path you are on.

This process of focusing on your personal healing journey and owning your power can be scary. Many of us have been conditioned to feel like we need others to give us our sense of direction and worth and unlearning these behaviors can be difficult. But leaving a relationship and adjusting to a new reality can be an amazing opportunity to help you do exactly that.

If you need to give yourself little daily reminders of how strong and powerful you are, feel free to use some of these affirmations:

I am loved, I am worthy of life and I WILL be loved again
I am powerful and I have power over my own life
I am learning to trust myself and my ability to attract what I really want
There is something better waiting for me and I will find it one day
Everything is unfolding as it is supposed to and I will trust this process called life
When I’m ready, I will open my heart and find exactly what I’m looking for

When things feel difficult, practice non-attachment and emotional regulation

We get it. Few things in life hurt as much as getting your heart broken by a breakup. There will be moments when your feelings of sadness/anger/loneliness/hurt will overpower anything else you might be feeling or thinking. That’s absolutely normal and nothing to feel guilty or ashamed about.

But going through these feelings can be a great opportunity to practice non-attachment and emotional regulation. Your ego might try to convince you that all the scary thoughts you’re thinking are real. Thoughts like “I will never find anyone who loves me as much as he/she did”, “I will always love him/her and never be able to move on” or “I will be alone forever”.

The key to dealing with these difficult emotions is understanding that they don’t reflect reality and they’re temporary. You have the power to let an emotion arise and pass without attaching or reacting to it. So the next time you feel yourself getting upset, try to just witness your emotions and allow space for them without attaching any meaning or significance to them at all.

This won’t necessarily make your negative emotions go away from one day to the next (nor is it supposed to) - but it will greatly help you learn how to stay present when negative things happen and help you increase your capacity to handle stress.

Use your new insights to define what exactly it is you want out of your next relationship

The reality of most breakups is that the relationship likely didn’t work out for one (or even multiple) reasons. Instead of trying to beat yourself up about the past and the things that went wrong, try to shift your perspective. Use the insights that you got from this relationship to define exactly what it is that you want out of your next one.

Ask yourself questions like:

What did you like about the relationship?
What did you not like about the relationship?
What would YOU like to do differently the next time around?
What would you like your partner to do differently?

The more specific you can be about what you want your relationship to look like, the more likely you’ll be able to attract that kind of relationship into your life.

Use your free time to reconnect with your passions (or discover them in the first place)

For many of us, toxic relationship patterns can lead to this feeling of “having lost yourself” in a relationship. For women especially, relationships can come with this need to suppress your own needs/interests and instead show interest in your partner’s passion to make them feel loved.

Now that you don’t have to deal with that pressure anymore, make use of the freedom you’ve gained to explore any or all of your own passions. Take some time to reconnect with some old interests that you’ve given up because of the relationship. Or if that isn’t your thing, get creative and explore new things. You’ll never know where you might find a hidden passion of yours.

One of the things that we often struggle with is feeling a lack of direction after losing the sense of direction that the other person gave us. Not only can having your own passions and drivers be incredibly rewarding in itself but it can also be a great way of giving yourself your own sense of direction/meaning back.

Pour all your excess energy into building a community and support system that aligns with your new values

Right after a breakup, you might be feeling like all you want to do is draw back from social situations and spend time by yourself. That’s absolutely normal and it can be great to spend that time reflecting and working through some of the steps we’ve mentioned before.

But after some time, you might start to notice that you have more energy again. At that point, it can be really worthwhile to put the extra time and energy that you now have into strengthening your relationships and building a community/support system.

Friendships and family relationships can be just as or more rewarding as romantic ones. This is why it’s so incredibly important to work on them the same way we’d work on our romantic relationships.

For many of us, the “trauma” of the separation from a loved one might send us on the journey of self-reflection and self-healing. This journey looks different for everyone but it often involves a period of drawing back and self-isolating more than we anyway would have during a breakup. Eventually, these feelings will pass but while they’re happening, it can feel incredibly difficult to relate to friends and family the way we have in the past.

That’s why it’s even more important to find a support system of people who understand what you’re going through and may even be going through the same thing with you. One of the main goals of The Self Care Space is to help you create a sense of community with a bunch of amazing other women who are also on their own self-healing journey. Think of it as a self-healing program, a community and a support system all rolled into one. If that sounds like something you’re interested in, you can learn more about it here.

Give it time without being too harsh on yourself

This one's a classic for a reason. Even if nobody wants to hear this when they’re in the middle of a breakup, the thing that’ll help you get through this is time. You might follow all other things on our list but still find that you have those bad days where all you want to do is lay in bed and cry your eyes out. Like we’ve said before, these moments are normal and it’s okay to let yourself be upset.

However, if you continue to try your best and stay patient, you’ll find that as time goes on, you’ll start having good days again. Some of your pain and hurt might stay with you for a few months or even a few years but the intensity of these negative feelings will slowly fade away. The bad days will start being few and far between. Until one day, you’ll look back and smile because you’ll see that everything was meant to work out the way it did for a reason.

Final Thoughts

If you’ve found any of these tips helpful, please let us know in the comments of this post. Or feel free to share what has helped you get through a nasty breakup. We’d love to hear about your own experience!

At the end of the day, the best way to move through a breakup, or any challenging life circumstance for that matter, is to use it as an opportunity to grow and evolve. When we let our pain transform us rather than consume us, we step into the most authentic version of ourselves. That is what The Self Care Space is all about. Our membership has resources for navigating breakups, relationships, self-esteem, body image, trauma, and so much more, as well as a private community of women to connect with and live events with experts to guide you on your personal growth journey. We can’t wait to see you in there! Learn more and sign up here.

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