Most of us experience it at least once during our lives: What was so wonderful at the beginning of the relationship, that amazing feeling of being in love, suddenly ends. Somehow, the person we love leaves us, leaving us broken-hearted, feeling abandoned.
As humans, we form deep connections with one another and suffer when those connections are shattered. It is an overwhelming sense of grief, bereftness, betrayal, dejection, hopelessness, fury, sadness, anxiety, and pain. If you allow the following steps to guide you, you may be able to recover more quickly after a breakup.
Step 1: Accept that it's over.
No matter how things ended between you and your lover, you need to acknowledge that at least for now, you are no longer together. However, you should accept that for now, you will need to face life without your lover, day by day, regardless of whether you wish to hold onto hope that he or she will return one day.
Grieving begins with accepting the loss. Regardless of how you feel - loss, disgust, rage, sorrow, or numbness - keep a consistent, clear head. Without him or her, you need to live one day at a time. Even if you still have hopes of winning them back, this still applies to you. You will be able to get your life back on track if you accept the current situation. Your lover won't come back to you if you are an emotional mess.
Step 2: Acknowledge your feelings.
Broken hearts are painful. Our lives often consist of a variety of unpleasant emotions, such as grief, disappointment, betrayal, anger, confusion, guilt, anxiety, jealousy, rage, sadness, and hopelessness. People sometimes become numb and listless rather than extremely emotional and feel deadened and lifeless. Don't be afraid to let yourself feel whatever you're feeling.
Try naming your feelings and explaining to yourself why they came about at various points in the past. Making sense of an inner storm is what mentalizing is all about. After you have dealt with those feelings, you can eventually move on.
Another option is to keep a journal or discuss your feelings in another way. As an alternative to talking to your friends and family, you can take advantage of an online support group if there is no one in your life who you can talk to. Don't be impatient with yourself. Give yourself some time. Make sure that you take care of yourself by eating well, exercising, and spending time with friends and family.
Whenever you feel a lot of emotion, release it by crying, sobbing, screaming, or moving (you can even take a walk). Those who tend not to feel anything should not be afraid to grieve and to take some time for it. Electrochemical energy is all your brain has to feel anything.
Step 3: Think about who you are now.
When you lose a loved one, it means not only that you have lost the most important person in your life, but that you are no longer the same person you were. Dreams, identity, and our future hope are all affected by losing a loved one.
By becoming the person left behind, betrayed, abandoned, or feeling unable to stay, we become the person who felt left behind or forced to leave. In the end, we are deeply impacted by how the ending impacts our perception of ourselves, our identity, our perception of others, and what possibilities we see for our future.
Make sure your thinking is clear and honest. Although this relationship ended, you need not worry about ending all the relationships in the future or having no luck finding another one. You are being catastrophic.
Your ultimate goal should be to ensure that you can integrate the experience into your self-image. Try to keep your options open for the future by seeing yourself as a good, attractive and worthwhile person, other people as trustworthy and enjoyable to interact with, and the world as an exciting, predictable place where stuff can go wrong on occasion.
As a result, you see yourself, other people, and the world as generally OK, rather than inherently bad in one way or another.
During this time of reflection, forgive yourself. Occasionally, we don't let go of relationships because we think it's our fault they ended. Possibly we would still be together with the loved one if we had done more, talked more, or not done this or that. It keeps people in a negative mindset. Guilt is a terrible emotion. Your actions are what they are.
What lessons do you need to learn from this experience? Next time, would you really make any different choices? Is that something that would make sense? Many people take over much responsibility for events that have occurred even if they are really not responsible, or it was the fault of their lover.
If you still have regrets, then change so that you can handle your relationship better next time. With no action, guilt and regret are useless and pretty self-indulgent.
Get help from friends, books, or psychotherapy if you are having difficulty adapting to being in a new place. Let it go, forgive yourself in the end. You can improve on whatever you did wrong in the future. Learning from mistakes helps us grow.
Step 4: Live your life every day.
It is best to deal with life day by day if you are struggling to keep going. Stay focused on the big picture and don't get scared by all the long and possibly lonely days ahead.
Take care of this one day, today, to the best of your abilities. Every day must be lived in the present. People often find that it helps them to focus their attention on what is around them right now and what task they have at hand. You should just concentrate on doing the washing if you're doing it.
You should be aware of who and what is around you, the colors, the textures, and the sounds. Your internal process will slow down if you stay with your sensations. You will be grounded and anchored in the present. If you don't believe me, simply stamp your feet and feel the ground beneath you if you don't believe me: you are surviving every single minute.
This is also a good way to slow down and be present with yourself and your feelings. If you truly focus on what is around you here, right now, there is a good chance you will reconnect with the miracle of being alive, no matter how painful it may feel at any given time.
Step 5: Think back to your life before you met your lover.
Although you may not know how you managed before you met your lover, you clearly did. At some point, you did live your own life without being aware of his or her existence. There were many things in your life other than the lover that you did, such as dreams and hopes, plans for the future, friends, family, a job, and more.
If you want to feel comfortable about being apart from your lover and being a person in your own right, then you must find who you are again on your own without your lover. Psychological separation can be achieved by reminiscing about your older self, your dreams, hopes, and desires.
Step 6: Invest in a good life. A good life requires effort.
In addition to ending your relationship, you might also have to let go of friends and activities you shared or places you enjoyed visiting together. You can still rebuild your life to a richer level than it was before, even though this can be a painful process.
Creating a new life will take time and effort, of course. Making new friends may also require you to take risks and put yourself in new situations. You need to move out of your old habits and comfort zone.
To move to a new city or country, you would also have to put in the effort to build a home for yourself. In order to adapt to a new neighborhood, you'd have to find new friends and engage in new activities.
It may also open new opportunities for you: you could finally start that course or activity you always wanted to do but didn't have the time for, or take that trip, or visit with friends that your lover didn't enjoy. You are single again, and you don't have to live with compromises anymore.
Step 7: Hope for the best.
A common human belief is that there is only one person who is right for us and who we need to spend our entire lives with.
The idea originated in Greek philosophy about 3000 years ago. People have moved on since then, and we have much more opportunities to meet new partners and fall in love than they did in ancient Greece.
If your relationship had lasted until the end of your life, imagine all the amazing lovers you would have missed out on! At different times in their lives, most people meet many people with whom they might be very happy.
Despite the fact that your life won't be the same with a different person, it's very likely that you can still be extremely happy with someone else. Perhaps there is another amazing and lovely person just around the corner!
