Getting Over A Breakup
Trust me, I've been there. The nagging questions eating away at your conscience. The insecurity, the loneliness, those long, painful nights like somebody is twisting a dagger in your stomach
"How can I get her back?"
"Is he better looking than me?"
"Is he more fun that me?"
"is he better than me in bed?"
These are questions that will eat a man alive.
Your friends tell you:
"She wasn't that great anyways."
"Trust me bro, you're better off."
Or the classic:
"You'll find somebody better"
Then you sit in your loneliness, going to bed at 8 or 9, sifting through mids on Tinder.
Avoiding the places you used to love going to, while she didn't shed a single tear and never even thought about you again. It's painful, I know.
My point is this: you are not unique and you are not alone.
Getting Over a Breakup
Going through a breakup sucks. It takes emotional intelligence, conscious effort and most of all it takes time. I've written this guide with love and compassion. Some of the things I say are painful to hear, but I believe that sometimes the best love is tough love. I am not here to be your friend and tell you what you want to hear. I am here to pour salt in the would, wake you up, and guide you to where you need to be.
1. Allow Yourself to Grieve
Accept Your Emotions: It’s okay to feel sad, angry, or confused. Acknowledge these emotions without judgment. Different emotions manifest themselves in different part of your bodies. This knowledge helps us identify what we are feeling so we can control those emotions properly. That knife in your stomach? It's not actually anger. It is disgust, anxiety and rejection. Acknowledging this will give you greater insight into yourself so you can treat your ailment accordingly.
Example: I feel like I have a knife in my stomach, I'm pissed off so I am going to send an angry text to my ex to put her in her place.
What is actually happening: You feel disgust, anxiety and rejection. You have misidentified those feelings as anger. You are reaching out to your ex not to put her in her place, but because you want an apology or to make yourself feel better or superior to cure your anxiety and rejection.
What should I actually do?: Spend time with people who actually love you, eat some healthy food, hit the gym, fill the void with a hobby that you love. Acknowledge that you feel rejected and are anxious and accept those feelings fully.
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Give Yourself Time: Healing isn’t linear. Some days will be harder than others, and that’s normal. Serious relationships typically take about 6 months to fully heal from. Use those 6 months to build yourself up, find new hobbies, new friends, etc. I remember when Brittany and I broke up, the first month I was absolutely miserable. The second month I was completely fine, I told people I was over it completely, I started living a somewhat healthy lifestyle again. The third month, all I could think about was Brittany. I missed her horribly and I thought about her every day. I made the mistake of checking her social media and saw that she was already happily in a new relationship and this tore me to pieces. Month four I felt like I had accepted the ending and I was once again dating and feeling good about myself and my life again. Time heals all wounds, but healing is not a linear process. We will cover this more in section 3.
2. No Contact
Pause Communication: Avoid texting, calling, or checking in with your ex to create space for healing. This is especially important if you want your ex back. Something that Coach Corey Wayne preaches about every day is this: "The strongest position to be in, in any negotiation, is the ability to walk away and mean it." Think about your relationship as a negotiation. Both people sit at the table and work through things, make sacrifices, agree to terms, etc. If you cannot reach an agreement you have three options: agree to a deal that does not benefit you but benefits your parter, agree to a deal that benefits both of you (always aim for a win-win) or walk away from the negotiation and find a better deal elsewhere. When your partner leaves you, they essentially walk away from the negotiation table, most of the time because they think they found a better deal somewhere else. You can't negotiate if there is nobody to negotiate with, you must also walk away and mean it. If your partner cannot find a better deal at a different table, they will likely come back to your table to renegotiate. When that time comes you decide if you also want to sit at that table and negotiate again, or if you have a better deal somewhere else. I want to emphasize, the quote is not "....the ability to walk away." the quote goes "...the ability to walk away and mean it."
Limit Social Media Exposure: Unfollow or mute your ex to prevent reopening emotional wounds. What I ended up doing is disabling my social media completely, the algorithms nowadays will show reels and post about breakups and relationship and I found all of it to be not helpful at all and to reopen the wounds I was trying to heal. At the very least, if you are truly struggling, you must block them. Truly the healthiest way to end a relationship is on good terms, where you can still speak and show love to each other. When a relationship ends on bad terms and you are no longer speaking you must cut them out completely. If your ex cheated on you; do not lie to yourself and say it ended on good terms and you can still speak. You can not and must not speak to them. If your ex reaches out to you to "check on you", it's not because she cares, it's either because she feels guilty or because she wants to see the damage she did in order to boost her ego. If she loved and cared about you then she would not have betrayed you. If your ex cheated on you, you MUST block her and be done with it. What are you going to get out of seeing them happy with somebody else besides more pain, more insecurity, etc.? Do you really want the way she broke your heart to be the reason that she continuouslly gets an ego boost?
Do Not Speak About Your Ex: Not only are you putting negative energy into the universe, you are transferring that energy to those around you. Guess what? When you have finally moved on and don't need to talk about it anymore, the people you "vented" to will bring it up and re-open the wound. Why? Because you essentially took the negative energy that was inside yourself and transferred and stored that energy into the people around you, it will inevitably come back around. It is okay to vent, just only vent to a close friend or family who truly cares about you, not to co-workers, not to strangers, and especially not to mutual friends. Another point, not everybody has your best interest in heart. Some people enjoy watching the crash out and will bring it up just because they secretly enjoy the pain that it causes you. It makes them feel better about themselves and maybe even better than you. This will also help to avoid people gossiping about you, you especially don't want people gossiping to your ex.
Remove Triggers: Those happy photos together? Delete them. I know it sucks, but you cannot count on her coming back, so why keep them? Make new memories with new people. She left shit at your house? If things are cordial tell her she can pick them up from the porch. If things are not cordial, throw it all away. The key is you need to get rid of the triggers.
3. Avoid Rebound Relationships
Take Time to Heal: Jumping into a new relationship too soon can prevent you from fully processing the breakup. Look at what happened to me; Instead of processing my breakup I jumped into a new one and filled the void with Brittany. I was running from my trauma and filled the hole in my heart with a girl who did not respect me at all. In the end what I got was double the trauma to heal.
Focus on Self-Love: Build a strong relationship with yourself before seeking a new partner. Dive into your life purpose, your hobbies, your friends and family. Working on your foundation will not only help you heal from the current heartbreak but it will also help you be more secure in future relationships and God forbid, future heartbreak. Don't become the guy who goes around fucking random girls just to feel good about himself. This is a temporary fix and does not lead to any lasting, meaningful foundation or fulfillment.
4. Create New Routines
Change Your Environment: Rearrange your space or try new activities to break old habits tied to the relationship. I always found that the worst times for me were the morning. Not waking up next to her anymore started each and every day with a painful reminder of what happened and always reopened the wound. So I started implementing my morning routine, I now sit down first thing in the morning and write and work on my business. Not to distract myself, because I often found myself still thinking about Brittany, but to build purpose and meaning in my life. What I found is the more I dove into my new routines, the more I was able to heal and give my life a purpose and a sense of meaning.
Build a Schedule: Fill your days with meaningful activities to stay engaged and avoid dwelling on the past. You would be amazed how much you can get done in a day when you implement the 5 second rule. I have found that I am able to stay busy for most of the day. I now schedule my day in 1 hour long blocks, it helps me stay organized, motivated and disciplined. It also helps with future relationships because when you are busy with your life purpose, you are not being needy and create a genuine sense of scarcity, which we will dive into in the chapter "Relationship Trap: Over-Giving"
Explore New Places: Visit new cafes, parks, or cities to create fresh memories. Because Brittany and I spent so much time in the bar, when we broke up, I knew that I could no longer go to the bars down town because I would have to see her with her new boyfriend which was extremely painful. I found myself staying home all the time, not doing things and just avoiding going outside because I did not want to see her. The true healing started when I started going to new places and living my life again. It showed me that there is much more out there and a lot of great things and people to meet and see. It also makes future dates more fun because it familiarizes you with the city that you are in, helps you find more hobbies and makes you all around a more genuine and interesting person.
Final Note
Healing from a breakup takes time, so be patient with yourself. Celebrate small victories, like feeling a bit lighter or rediscovering your smile. You’re stronger than you think, and this is just one chapter in your story.