Break-ups
After sharing on an Instagram post last week about break-ups, I received DMs from 10 different people who had gone through a break-up the night before. 10 people!
Maybe your two-year relationship ended, or your crush got a girlfriend, or the girl you were talking to ended things, whatever and however long your love lasted, you deserve to hear these words of comfort. So, after a late night and too much caffeine 🤪, I bring you this is a journal about breakups and heartbreaks.
Breakup and heart break hurt, like a lot! I hope you love yourself kindly through this healing, restoring and grieving process. May you see your sadness as proof that you once had something worth celebrating. And if you lose something worth celebrating, you gain something worth grieving.
Grief is like treading water in the ocean. Sometimes you're doing just fine, it takes some effort but you are handling the waves that come at you. Then other times, a wave will come out of nowhere, catches you off guard, and you're pulled under into the dark and cold depths. What is so important is that you keep treading, you keep fighting, and you come back to the surface no matter how hard or exhausting it might be. Take your grief one wave at a time. 🌊🌊🌊
When healing from someone, you might have thoughts like, “I loved them more than I loved anyone. I never knew I could love someone so much. I’ll never love someone that much again”.
But, my dear one, your ability to love your ex didn’t come from them, it came from within you. You have always had the capacity to love someone deeply. Just because your love with another end doesn’t mean you can’t love as passionately like that again. They didn’t give you the capacity to love, they just gave you a place to express it. (oh that’ll preach!)
To grieve well, here are some practical next steps:
Book a therapy session. I booked to see my spiritual mentor the week after our break-up. I pressed the Zoom app, and when I saw her face, the tears started to roll like a white-water river. Therapy is courage in the flesh. It takes courage to show up for ourselves and pay money so someone can ask us tear-evoking questions.
Reach out to your community. You already have incredible people in your lives, even if it's just your best friend or maybe your mom. I hope you find people who are not burdened but HONORED to walk you through the darkness. Tell them how you want to be cared for. I remember walking into my roommate’s room and asking for a hug. Your need for love or affirmation is not selfish or ridiculous.
Create spaces to feel. Break-ups bring about feelings of anger, grief, regret, disappointment, longing, and sadness. These are important to feel as you move forward in healing and recovery. Life gets busy, or maybe we try to make it busy, which results in blocked and denied emotions. So, go on a solo hike up a mountain top, put your phone on airplane mode and let the feelings flow over you. Wake up earlier one morning and journal. Take yourself out on a date. Grab a glass of wine (not ten glasses!), make your favorite meal, and eat it on your patio alone as the sunsets.
Ask yourself the following questions – either write them in your journal or process them with your mentor/therapist/friend. Why? Because we change not by our experiences but by our reflection of experiences.
What will I cherish from this relationship?
What did I learn?
How did I change as a result of this experience?
What do I need to mourn?
What do I need to heal?
What do I need to have closure?
What patterns am I noticing (if any)?
How will my boundaries change (with my ex)?
How do I feel about myself as a consequence of what has happened?
Boost your self-care routine. Book a massage, go get your nails done, hit up the gym an extra day this week, pick up your paintbrush, find your favorite verse and write it on a post-it note and put it on your mirror, make yourself some extra-chocolatey brownies, finish work earlier and go out for dinner with friends, don't set the alarm and sleep in. You deserve it. Heartbreak sucks.
Progress over distractions. Aka swap temporary distractions for an action that benefits your long-term goals. Don't pick the numbing option, i.e., binging Netflix, texting a guy, going to the bar. Pick the compelling option. The one that throws you forward into who you are meant to become. Ask yourself, ‘what is something important I can work on that will give myself a sense of achievement and fulfillment today?’
(Re-read #6 again. It’s gooodd!)
It may not feel like it yet, but one day soon, the grief will subside. Hours will pass when you don't think about them, when before they seemed to be your every thought. The tears will be less in numbers. The song you'd play together will no longer sting to hear. His or her name wouldn't make your heart freeze. You will start to see the truth clearly – all the good and all the bad of what you once had.
There is always a rainbow after the rain. Soon, you'll start to reconsider love, and despite the chances of pain again, you will believe love is worth another shot.
Well, dear friend, love is the greatest risk we take in life.
But, love, at the end of it, is always worth it.
