Do you feel like your life has halted after a break up? Are your thoughts cycling around and around uselessly? Did you forget who you are and you just want to feel like yourself again? If this is you, keep reading. These 5 steps to move on from heartbreak and sadness are crucial.
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5 Steps to Move On from Heartbreak and Sadness
If you feel like your sense of self has been severely shattered or tampered with after a breakup, you’re not alone.
After a relationship ends, the person who you were “business” partners with in every aspect of life is no longer there and it can feel like they’ve left a gaping void in their place. The realization that often seems to leave people reeling the most is the fact that at some point, your identity began to seemingly hinge on this person, whether you realized it at the time or not.
When I was going through my first breakup, for example, my self concept was severely altered and I couldn’t imagine my identity without the involvement of this person. (This was when I learned the importance of not losing yourself in someone else.) This is a normal feeling and it will eventually go away no matter how important they were to you and how much you thought you needed them. Keep reading for the 5 steps to move on from heartbreak and sadness.
Step one: Have compassion for yourself

The best way to become familiar with yourself again after a breakup is to start by having compassion for what you just went through. Often when we’re in relationships, we’re interacting with someone who elicits our core wound.
Relationships are triggering and hard despite the love and amazing aspects they bring to your life. When it ends, it’s hard to not be overcome by the change, sadness, and rumination. So don’t underestimate the necessity of giving yourself space to grieve, and know that you aren’t alone in your suffering.
You could use this step to journal and reflect on every potential opportunity you had to learn in this relationship so that you don’t repeat past mistakes.
For example, how did the relationship make you feel and at what point in your childhood did you feel that way? Did the person you were with reflect things to you that may illuminate a deeper belief system in you that no longer serves you?
Step two: Lean on support and do things you may not feel like doing
The next step is to re-immerse in your support group. Whether this is friends or family, keep yourself occupied. Getting back to doing life alone is like trial and error. Fake it till you make it. It’s one of the only times on a journey that I think it’s important to force yourself to do things that you don’t feel like doing, because more often than not, you’ll be glad you did. Getting your mind off of the breakup, even for a short amount of time, is crucial.
This is the step to regain a sense of independence and enjoyment in doing things alone. Friendships will probably mean more to you now and you can reconnect with your true sense of stillness and peace.
Step three: You must go through—not around—the pain to heal

Even though it might be tempting, evading the healing that needs to take place by numbing and distracting yourself with rebound relationships or self-destructive behaviors will only prolong your peace from returning. It’s tempting, and sometimes maybe necessary, but in all, you can’t get around healing the pain and sadness, you must go through it.You are stronger than you realize and you will get through it if you give the emotions the chance to heal you.
Healing from a breakup is like a roller coaster and emotions will come seemingly out of nowhere. It’s crucial to let these emotions move through you. Don’t attach or claim them by evading them.
Step four: Become mindful: release obsessive thinking

Once you allow all of the emotions to move through you and properly grieve the situation, giving yourself utmost compassion, and you feel like the worst is over, it doesn’t serve to dwell. Sometimes the loops of thoughts will not end until you intentionally decide to not engage with these thoughts anymore. You are not your thoughts, and your situation and relationship and breakup is not determined by these thoughts.
The unproductive nature of how our minds are so willing to obsess over the past can lead to stagnancy and prevent growth and new relationships and love finding you. Once you feel mostly healed and like you did all of the reflection and ruminating that could benefit you, it’s important to let the obsessive thoughts go and, ideally, begin to let inspiration of a new future in.
Step five: Embrace the stillness and stagnancy before a new life emerges

One day you’ll realize you don’t think of this person that much at all anymore. They won’t be the center focus of your thoughts and you’ll realize the emotion that used to paralyze you is gone, even when at one point you didn’t see how that would be possible.
At this point, there isn’t much to act on necessarily, and you might look around and realize how your life used to have so much stimulation and action and now it seems boring, slow paced, and uneventful.
This fifth step serves as a reminder because this figurative death period is so needed before change can come in and take the place of the previous relationship. This “hermit mode” is important and serves a purpose even when you feel like life has forgotten about you.
The hermit mode can be used to realize what’s important in your life and what you want to accomplish. What are your goals? Are there any new things you want to try? Books you want to read? Or maybe you want to do genuinely nothing and that’s amazing too. It’s a chance to recuperate and redirect your energy.
This is the first page of the new chapter and your initial opportunity to become familiar with this new version of yourself. Normally this figurative death phase happens after the chaotic, turmoil, emotional phase.
Not everyone’s phases will look identical, but it is such a common urge to compare your present to your past. The sooner you trust and get on board and realize that it takes timefor this new timeline in life to unfold, the sooner you will be at peace and working with, not against, your highest good.
We offer personalized meditations for you to address your meditation goals and target your intentions and struggles in meditation.
I hope these 5 steps to move on from heartbreak and sadness were helpful to you!
To learn all about many different kinds of relationships and psychology, check out That Relationship Show on Spotify.
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