(ARTICLE) What To Do After A Breakup

Breakups are devastating because it isn’t just about the loss of a person , it’s about the loss of a future that you expected to live.

The future plans, the future wedding, the future kids, the future house, the future future……gone in the blink of an eye.

You’ll experience a wide range of feeling and emotions during the process.

• Sadness
• Anger
• Loneliness
• Regret

but none of these give you the power to decide how you’re going to move forward with your life.

1. Cut your ex out completely.

this one doesn’t work if you have kids, were married, had a house, a pet, or shared any mutual obligations.

The point here is setting boundaries.

If any of the above situations are true, only allow conversations about those circumstances.

This means unfollowing them on social media, removing any temptation to contact them, and restricting their access to you however you can.

• No chit-chat
• No flirty texts
• No entertaining going back to him or her.
• No sneaky links either.😮‍💨

Why is this so important?

Because you need mental and emotional space to get clarity and begin the process of moving on.

If you’re always scrolling through old photos of you together

watching their IG / SNAPCHAT stories to see who they’re with and tryna figure who’s hand that is across the table on their story

or having their name pop up on your phone from a late-night text, you’re going to have a much harder time separating yourself from the emotions of it all.

2. Stop romanticising the past.

One of the most typical things peope do when looking back at their now-previous relationship is remembering all of the amazing times they had together.

However, the relationship still ended for a reason (or reasonS) which likely compounded over time.

And, if you allow yourself to look back with an unbiased perspective, you’ll start seeing all of the things that ultimately led to the breakup.

To begin the process of moving on, you would first need to have a clear view of exactly what and who you’re moving on from.

If you paint an unrealistic picture in your head of what you thought the relationship was like, you’ll never recognise it for what it truly was.

3. Allow yourself to feel the emotions.

SHOWING the most emotion doesn't mean you FEEL the most emotion.

And showing less emotion doesnt mean you feel less.

Stone faced men feel pain.

Very often more pain than the crying and screaming.

Emotional control isnt lack of emotion. It’s a sign of of maturity

Men tend to avoid their feelings more than women do (traditionally), or try to “move on” by sleeping with someone else, going out drinking with their friends, or finding some other distraction to avoid thinking about the reality of the situation.

What does this do?

It extends the amount of time it’s going to take a man to face reality, making the moving on process even longer.

However, women will face the emotions head on. They’ll dive deeper into the valley of their feelings and call some friends, have a few good cries, and process the breakup fully.

Then, much sooner than the man will, they’ll be able to move on because they’ve come to terms with what has happened.

The man will look at the woman and wonder how she moved on so quickly, while she’ll be wondering why he hasn’t yet.

This isn’t gender-specific and you could bring up examples of the roles being reversed in the given scenario, but the lesson remains the same

Without fully processing the feelings, you’ll never fully move past them.

4. Reconnect where you lost touch.

Many people often forget about friends, family and things they were once had love for and was passionate about before a relationship.

Reconnect with the people and things you lost touch with.

Hobbies, passions, that side business you wanted to start…and yourself.

Rebuild the foundation of your life any way you see fit.

5. Focus on productive healing methods, not destructive.

Examples of productive healing methods

• Focusing on fitness
• Focusing on eating properly
• Meditating
• Buying new clothes
• Travelling

Things that bring joy to your soul

Destructive methods are ways of coping that are harmful to your mental, emotional, or physical health. They are more avoidant and can do more harm than good over time.

Such as drugs and alcohol.

These are also much easier to fall into because they require less effort and are more easily accessible.

6. Let go of guilt.

The hard truth about relationships is that sometimes, they simply don’t work out.

People are in different phases of life, want different things, have different perspectives, or hold different values.

If you can honestly remind yourself that you showed up every day as your most true and authentic self and gave your partner and the relationship the love and care they deserved — then rest easily that your actions did not break, or could they have saved, the relationship.

7. Identify the learning experiences.

You didn’t “waste time” in a relationship if you learned more about what you do and don’t want moving forward.

It also shows you where you may have let your boundaries and standards slide, which you can recognise and not do again.

No matter how long or short your time together was, if you are willing to be honest with yourself, you can identify both the good and the bad to look for the next time you meet someone new.

8. Start “getting out there” again.

Wait until you are emotionally ready to start dating again.

But, you don’t need to be at this point in order to go out and have fun.

Call your friends and go do fun things together

Do something to get the social momentum going again.

Putting yourself in different environments with better energy will help you remember that the world is massive and extends far beyond one person or partnership.

9. Don’t imagine a future that didn’t exist.

Nobody knows what tomorrow is going to bring, and while you may have plans, you never know exactly how they’re going to work out — or if they’re going to at all.

You may have a vision in your mind of exactly what your life with your ex was going to look like, but many times that ends up changing as life goes on.

Not always in a bad way , just not in the exact way you imagined.

10. Be honest with yourself about your timeline.

One of the worst things you can do to yourself and to someone else is to start dating again when you’re not truly ready to emotionally invest in someone new.

This only leads down a road of comparison to your ex, baggage, and inevitable heartbreak.

Moving on takes time, especially if you lived together or was together for multiple years.

But, if you rush it, you’ll find yourself back at square one more than you’d like, and facing heartbreak even more often because you moved too quickly.

It’s just like when an athlete gets injured — they have two choices:

Go through the proper healing and rehabilitation process in order to come back even stronger than before…

Or

Push too hard too fast and risk re-injury that might be worse and more painful than before.

The most important thing about breakups is knowing yourself and what process works best for you.

Till next time.