How to Get Over a Breakup

"I hate you!"

You want to scream at the top of your voice so that person would know that they don't exist in your life. But in spite of your yelling, and crying your heart out, deep inside, you know that you still love and want them back in your life.

You try to forget, erase the thoughts and memories, but end up thinking the same thing over and over. Your heart bleeds. A searing pain runs in your veins 24/7. Hot tears, hurt, and a sense of worthlessness enveloped you. You feel a blank void, empty of any real purpose, and you might even begin to wonder if there’s really any point to life at all.

Your sinking heart rejects to believe that there could be a better day tomorrow. You sulk, cocooned in bed to get some warmth and keep thinking about memories on repeat and questioning what went wrong.

So you have been dumped.

Your breakup has broken you up. You feel rejected and that feeling crushes your soul. Your emotions come in waves of despair and draw you into a whirlpool. Your friends and loved ones try hard to pull you out by suggesting you a to-do list.

But you want to yell, “Please don't come up with suggestions. I know what needs to be done. I shouldn't think about the person, but can you tell me how to stop the thought which pops into my head every second?”

You search around to find out how to forget the one you love so deeply. How to move away from the one who moved away? How to get over a breakup? All in vain. Why does heartbreak hurts so much? It’s hard to let it go: You need to understand, just because somebody dumped you doesn’t mean you’ve fallen out of love with them. You were in love, attracted to them. Your feelings won't suddenly go away. You try as hard as you can, but your heart won’t agree. “Ok, now I have to move on. Tomorrow onwards, I’ll stop loving and caring. I scratch the carving I have on my heart.” It doesn’t work like that. Rushing only makes things worse. You instantly couldn’t get out of that feeling. It is a gradual process of weaning it off. You need patience, patience to tackle your rough feelings, and to pass them slowly. And yes. Your pain is real. What you are going through is definitely awful. It takes time, but it will pass. Loss of meaning and identity: We seek human connection; we want to be wanted, loved, and feel secure. Your romantic partner holds that connection of belonging that your mind craves. Moreover, you relate your identity with them, by telling stories in your head. “We were so good together. We loved each other so much. We could have had a wonderful life together.”

When someone is gone, they can leave a significant void in your heart, even if you weren't into them. Especially if you drive your sense of self-worth from how people see you, being dumped hurts your self-image. It’s not only the loss of the person but your identity itself. You seem to lose the perception of who you are. A lack of meaning and loss of identity could be hurting you more than the loss of the person. However, you need to accept that it is over. And you need to start rebuilding your life again- you need to move on. Get meaning back in your life: Surrounding yourself by loved ones gives you an outlet to vent your grief or give you mild comfort, but it fails to remove the pain completely. How much you are surrounded by good advice and people you love, they fail to fulfill what your heart craves. Even the healthiest advice won't work because your heart wants something else. Your heart cries like a wallowing baby who wants a bar of chocolate and you give them oatmeal. However, expressing how you feel reduces the intensity of your pain. Talking to people who are close and have undergone similar experiences could give you a perspective that you might have overlooked before. And it works because you have to rebuild yourself - the people who love you are the strong pieces that help you reconstruct what was suddenly taken away. Re-build yourself. Brick by brick. Beyond that, the crucial part is to cultivate relationships that are separate and distinct from your old relationship and your old self.

Explore yourself before you jump into the next one: Rebounding after a breakup is common. However, rushing out to find someone to fill that emptiness without really figuring out what you want and what you need is a recipe for recurring relationship disasters.

In most cases, the breakup is the result of a partner's unmet needs. Most people are unaware of their needs or fail to tell their partner about them, or the other person refuses to act on them. Either way, the root cause of the problem is a lack of awareness of one's needs. In the majority of cases, relationships end because someone decides they can't bear not getting their needs met.

That’s why one of the best things you can do is to figure out who you are, what you need, and how to get those needs met.

Until you have sorted yourself out and have built a better relationship with yourself, getting into a new one should be avoided. Right now your judgment might be clogged and you won’t see clearly what you want, what you need, and if this person is right for you or not, rebounding helps when you have decluttered yourself.

Hold on, nurture yourself, and give the love you seek. Nurturing yourself is a process where you hear what you avoid hearing, slowly heal by taking care of your past wounds, realizing your self-worth, and improving areas that need attention.

Dissociate your broken relationship with who you are: Have you objectively looked into your relationship, and what it really was? Or is it just based upon the assumptions you made inside your head? Are the stories true or did your mind come up with the bias? Our mind plays tricks and distorts reality and glorifies all the pleasant moments. That’s how you look at the person with the rose-tinted glass, brushing away all defects, and keeping things that fit into whatever story you want to believe right now. Identify what went wrong: We often keep making similar mistakes because we refuse to learn our lesson, or that we have also contributed to the problem. Knowing what went wrong in your previous relationship will help you avoid similar mistakes in the future. Also, see if there is a pattern, and if all your relationships follow a similar path. If yes, then figure out if you have an anxious attachment style, or don’t have healthy boundaries and self-love, making you clingy, needy, anxious, desperate, or suspicious, etc., because all those could result in relationship disaster.

Acceptance: Accept that your feelings are hurt and you feel bad about it. You want to get rid of those obnoxious feelings that distress you, making you want to run to escape using pain-numbing agents. But ignoring your pain won’t let you go far. It might be suppressed for a while, but it keeps coming back worse than before asking for attention. Sit with your pain for a while, and listen to what it is saying. Focus on the sensation you feel in your body. How do you feel? What exactly is happening? When you focus on your feelings, it gives your brain signals that you are acknowledging them. And by writing down your feelings, you give yourself a narrative of how you feel. Remember to avoid overindulging and remunerating the same thoughts. Avoid overthinking and remunerating: Emotional turbulence increases when we nurture anxious thoughts. To come out of such thoughts, just ensure you treat them like guests. When you find yourself thinking thoughts in a pattern, where your mind thinks about the same thing over and over - stop yourself and occupy your mind with something that keeps you engaged.

What you think before you go to sleep and after you get up in the morning dominates your day. Start your day with gratitude and positive thoughts.

Avoid self-pity:

Acceptance of pain shouldn’t bring in self-pity. “Oh! There must be something wrong with me.”

Sadly, people’s links break up with their sense of worth, without realizing that there could be multiple factors leading to a breakup. Often, it is about the other person’s personality. But the person being dumped takes it personally and considers it as either completely their own fault or completely the other's.

Have a safe place:

You can cope with restless and unwanted thoughts if you have tools to deal with them. It may be the person you love, a happy memory, or a happy place that calms you down. Try recollecting those memories to bring you hope, calm you down, and replaces your brain from remunerating those anxious thoughts.

Focus on your breath and practice mindfulness:

As your emotions whirl around you, staying calm and focused seems impossible. Breathing gives you oxygen that calms your brain and moves your attention away from the swirling thoughts.

Last, Avoid keeping a tap on your ex:

Post-breakup most of the time people fall into the trap of going after their ex, by calling, messaging, and stalking. This is something that actually will haunt you later because the more you do, the more you end up giving them a reason to run away. Stop looking into their profile and activity. What did they do? Whom are they meeting? Are they seeing anyone? You might impulsively try to look into what is happening but avoid it. All these updates keep you stuck in the loop of desperation. Remove all the pieces that remind you of that person. If you see them, you will end up thinking about them. Close the door that allows those thought to creep into your consciousness. Accept, sometimes, despite how good it feels or be, they are just not meant. It also depends on the situation, circumstance, time, personality, or just luck. If it is not meant to be, it is not meant to be.

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