6 Steps to Healing After a Breakup
When a relationship ends, it hurts. A breakup is painful no matter who ended it, why it’s over, or who made the decision. Even when you know that you’re doing what is best, when love runs out, it leaves a void. It is therefore essential that you heal your emotions when a relationship ends.
When someone breaks your heart, the pain is real. Beyond the metaphor, a study has found that the same areas of the brain that are activated when we experience actual physical pain, are also activated during a painful breakup. And, like any pain, it will require time to heal.
How to heal a broken heart
Although time heals everything, there are several things you can do to recover more quickly and get on with your life. Although it may seem that this is the end, there really is a light at the end of the tunnel. But you have to give yourself a chance to get there, first. Here’s how to do it:
1. Give yourself time
When we are in love, our body secretes oxytocin and dopamine. These hormones not only make us feel good, but they also create an addiction. In addition, serotonin levels in the brain are higher, which makes us feel full of energy and optimism.
On the one hand, it is normal to feel bad about the breakup, because your body no longer secretes these hormones. Moreover, your body needs time to disengage. You have to endure the pain.
Do not make the mistake of thinking you will never feel good again. However, you need to give yourself time. Everything will go back to normal, that’s for sure. And you will learn to live without that person.
2. Spend time on activities that require your full attention
Surely your broken heart makes you stop and think about what could have been. Wondering what went wrong and why. But you can not live in a dream! It will only make you feel worse.
One study found that we are happier when we participate in activities that take up a lot of our attention. Being focused, instead of daydreaming, makes us happier. Therefore, try to do something that requires you to be 100% engaged. The time will seem to fly by and you’ll have a healthier and more positive recovery from the breakup.
3. Continue pursuing your activities and relationships
When falling in love, it can be tempting to leave everything behind and neglect our life, focusing all of our attention on our beloved. So when love ends, it seems that everything else has ended, as well.
However, it doesn’t have to be this way. Go back to your life, go on with your daily activities, hang out with your friends, spend time with your family, and go meet new people! You can also try doing something new and totally different. Even if it the idea doesn’t attract you at first, you’ll soon discover how much better it will make you feel.
4. It’s not about whether he was the right one for you
Surely you will find people who, with the best intentions in the world, tell you that person was just not for you. But that’s not what matters to you, is it? Whether they were meant for you or not, loss hurts, even when you are the one initiating the breakup.
But from now on, you need to forget about all of that. Thinking about the fact that you were with someone who wasn’t meant for you destabilizes your emotions and makes you doubt yourself, seriously affecting your self-esteem in the process. No one can tell you that you made the wrong decision, nor does anyone have the right to judge your motives for liking that person, at the time.
You are no longer with that person because it didn’t work out and it’s over. You will have so many more opportunities in life, and you can not waste them thinking about whether it’s meant for you or not, or whether it may have been meant for someone else.
5. Remember and appreciate everything you’ve learned from your mistakes
Life is full of challenges, unpleasant experiences and lessons learned. If you have been able to overcome other difficulties in life, you can definitely overcome this. If you were able to learn from your bad experiences in the past, you will learn from this.
Do not ask yourself why. Ask yourself what you can learn, what you can change. Analyze the signs you failed to see, what you did and didn’t do. Concentrate on improving and remember that there were also good times. It wasn’t all bad, and you learn from that, as well.
6. Avoid labels and don’t close off your heart
Not all relationships are equal, nor does everyone behave in the same manner. Do not assume that there is a general rule. Learning from your experience will help you to better analyze others, to understand the nature of relationships and to generate realistic expectations.
