Breakups are never easy – even if you’re the one who initiated it. No matter how strong or emotionally grounded you think you are, you’ll still feel it in your bones because you’ve spent most of your time with/around this person. One minute, you were planning your future with this person, and the next, you find yourself in the middle of a breakup, wondering what went wrong.
Here’s the truth I want you to know: Whether you were with the person for a few months or years, you can heal and move on. This blog post shows you how to cope and handle a breakup so you can heal and move on with confidence.
Keep reading if you’re in for this!
Why Do Breakups Hurt So Much
You may be asking yourself this question: “Why do breakups hurt so much?”
Breakups hurt so much because it’s not just about losing a person you once held dear; you’re also losing connection, comfort, and shared identity. You’ve been emotionally attached to this person and have planned a lot together. The breakup disrupts some of the plans you had together. It can also make you start questioning your identity, thinking about what will become of you without this person.
When a person falls in love, the brain releases the feel-good/love hormones – dopamine and oxytocin, which make you feel secure, happy, and bonded with the other person. When the relationship ends, those chemicals suddenly drop, making you want to withdraw from the person. That’s why you can also feel some physical pain, like chest pain, headache, and sleepless nights, when going through a breakup. It’s your brain’s way of processing that emotional loss.
Here are a few tips to help you deal with a breakup:
Understand What You’re Feeling
You need to understand your feelings and emotions if you want to heal. Learn how to name your emotions and embrace them.
You might feel sadness, anger, confusion, loneliness, or relief, and that’s absolutely okay. There’s no one feeling attached to the breakup. What you feel may be different from what another person feels.
Therefore, you shouldn’t try to hide, ignore, or suppress your feelings because when you do that, you may delay your healing.
Allow yourself to grieve
Grief is not just what you experience after the death of a person; it’s also what you feel when you no longer have something so dear to you. You’ve lost something – someone you once professed you love, shared ambitions, routine, and time with. So, you need to give yourself time to grieve that loss.
Many people rush through heartbreak, trying to get over it fast because they don’t want to think about all that happened between them and their partners. But, you need to know that it is not something you can speed up – it’s a process.
Allow yourself to grieve. Cry and shout if you need to because you’re human and your emotions are real.
Set boundaries
This is one of the hardest things to do after a breakup. To properly handle a breakup, you need to learn how to set boundaries because you can’t start a new chapter if you’re still rereading the old one.
If possible, try not to contact your ex for a while, not as a punishment but as a way of protecting yourself and your feelings. You deserve space to breathe, reflect, and rebuild your strength.
Focus on Taking Care of Yourself
Breakup isn’t just the end of a relationship; it can also shake your sense of identity. That’s why you must take conscious steps to prioritize taking care of yourself in this period. Self-care helps you stay mentally, physically, and emotionally fit, whether or not you’re in a relationship.
Now is the time to reconnect with yourself, your loved ones, and do more of what you love.
Self-care Tips You Should Prioritize
- Try to get quality sleep (at least 7 hours per day).
- Ensure you eat balanced and healthy meals because your body needs the right nutrients to help you feel your best.
- Go for nature walks.
- Practice journaling either in the morning or before going to bed at night. Journaling helps you understand your thoughts and process your emotions.
- Engage in exercise- whatever kind you like.
- Avoid finding solace in alcohol or drugs at this moment.
Lean on Your Support System
Some people tend to isolate themselves after a breakup, but that may not be the right way to handle it. It’s okay to want to stay alone sometimes, but you still need empathetic, loving, and non-judgmental people to hold your hand until you feel better.
You can reach out to those who you know truly care for you – family and friends. Spend quality time with them, engaging in hobbies that you enjoy and engaging in sweet conversations that make you happy. When you do this, you tend to get over the breakup easier and heal faster. All that matters is that you don’t isolate yourself!
Reflect, Learn, and Grow
Breakups don’t just happen. Sometimes, there are underlying reasons you may not have noticed that caused it. This is why you need to sit down with yourself, understand what caused the breakup, and write out the lessons learned. Doing this will help you avoid the same thing from happening in the next relationship you find yourself in.
You can ask yourself these questions and write the answers in your journal:
- What role did I play in this breakup?
- What did I learn about love from this relationship?
- What do I truly need from a partner?
Take Gradual Steps Towards Moving On
Moving on doesn’t mean you’ve totally forgotten about the past; it means you’re making peace with it and choosing to create new experiences and enjoy them.
So start small – reorganize your space, change your routine, go on solo dates, and reconnect with those (friends and families) you haven’t seen in a while.
And when you’re ready to start again, don’t rush it. You need to have healed from the previous heartbreak to start the next relationship from a place of wholeness – and not loneliness.
Seek Professional Help
Sometimes, heartbreak can trigger some mental health challenges like anxiety, depression, or trauma.
Dealing with a breakup alone can be quite challenging, especially if you’ve built your life around this person for years. So, if after weeks or months, you find it difficult to eat normally, have adequate sleep, or function optimally like you used to, please don’t ignore that. Reach out to a qualified mental health therapist who’ll help you navigate the pain with the right support you need to heal properly from the breakup.
Seeking help doesn’t make you a weak person. Rather, it’s a sign of strength and self-love. Don’t be afraid to seek help.
A breakup may break you for some time, but it can’t break your purpose. The relationship didn’t work out now because there’s a better partner who’ll love you for who you are and prioritize seeing you happy.
This season of your life should be maximized in rebuilding your strength, rediscovering yourself, and embracing peace.
Ready to heal from your breakup? Reach out today for a therapy session with Regina D’cruz. You deserve to go into your next relationship in a healthy state. Don’t stall any longer!!!
