As humans, one of the most complex emotional injuries we can sustain is heartbreak. Whether it’s the downfall of a marriage, the collapse of a romantic relationship you thought would withstand the test of time, or a lifelong friendship that ends out of nowhere – that heartbreak stays with you and impacts how you view yourself and the world.
In the same tune, we as humans need connection, our connections with others build the foundation of our emotional security therefore losses connected to the ones we love are especially distressing. Even though at the moment it feels as if heartbreak is insurmountable, it is not. You can and will heal from it and continue to learn, grow, and thrive as an individual without that person.
Your true healing begins when you give yourself permission to feel and process your emotions, focus on your mental health, and intentionally choose to rebuild your sense of connection and emotional safety. Let’s walk through some steps you can take to feel, survive, and ultimately heal through heartbreak.
1. Give yourself permission to feel.
Most often our initial emotion during heartbreak is pain, which we shy away from. We tend to want to instinctively push that pain as far away as possible. We fear the pain will be overwhelming and drown us. You may overanalyze the situation, run from the negative emotions, or use every ounce of distraction at your disposal in order to ignore the pain. I am here to tell you that avoiding these feelings only prolongs the inevitable, you will feel it eventually. Give yourself permission to feel the anger, confusion, sadness, betrayal, etc. without judging yourself for it. Your heart has broken of course you feel blue. Let yourself cry until your tears run dry, write that person a letter you never intend on sending, scream in your car – whatever helps you feel and process the pain. The more we run from the pain the more it will demand to be acknowledged. Heartbreak is grief in its truest form, allow yourself to grieve the relationship that was.
2. Rely on your support system.
As I mentioned earlier, connection is essential for humans. We need it to not only survive but it is also essential for healing. Heartbreak is isolating, we feel like no one understands what we are going through or we don’t want to be a burden so we shut everyone out. Oftentimes heartbreak leads to our attachment system being tainted which causes us to distrust everyone. I encourage you to fight against that. Allow yourself to trust and lean on your inner circle. Foster relationships where you feel supported, safe, and seen. Talk to them about the good, bad, and the ugly of what you’re experiencing. Oftentimes the feeling that we are a burden is just something our anxiety is convincing us of in our head, it is not true. If your support system feels restricted, consider working with a therapist. Give yourself a safe space to process and explore the heartbreak that you are experiencing.
3. Reclaim your security.
Heartbreak often leads us to distrust our attachment system. We feel unsafe, unworthy of love, or distrustful of others as well as ourselves. It is essential to rebuild and reconnect with your emotional security and that starts with rebuilding your sense of self. Spend this time to “date” yourself – engage in daily activities that bring you back to your center. That may be taking some extra time to enjoy your morning coffee in silence, going for a walk outside, or taking an extra long soak in the tub. Your worth isn’t dependent on the approval or love of others so take this time to focus on loving yourself. You deserve it.
4. Challenge selective memory.
Often when a relationship ends we replay all the happiest moments on a loop in our mind over and over again as a form of controlling the narrative but that truly only leads to staying stuck in that moment. It is hard not to idealize the relationship we lost because our anxiety convinces us that we will never find a meaningful connection like that again. But that is NOT true. Challenge yourself to look at the whole relationship – Were there red flags ignored? Were your needs met? What are the lessons you learned about loving yourself and someone else? We don’t want to completely disregard the great times or completely disregard the tough times, but we owe it to ourselves to be honest. There was love shared, let’s not invalidate that, but let’s also see the relationship in a realistic balanced way. The relationship will always be a part of your story but we no longer have to hold on to the parts that don’t serve us.
5. Embrace the journey.
Healing is not linear, it is not a race, and it is not on the fast track anywhere. It takes time. There are days the pain will come out of nowhere but there are also days that you will feel stronger than you ever have. Embrace that, it is normal. We don’t have to race to the “I’m over it” finish line and leave everything else in the dust. Allow yourself time to slow down and feel all that comes with healing from heartbreak. Healing doesn’t have to mean forgetting – it means living fully, growing exponentially, and walking alongside the lessons that this heartbreak has taught you.
You will survive this, you are strong enough, and you are deserving of love. I can promise you that. Heartbreak continues to remind us that love is the ultimate risk but aren’t we so lucky to experience a love that all consuming?
I promise you one day you will start to notice that the ice melted, the flowers started blooming again and that the heartbreak didn’t break you. It changed you, it helped reshape you into the strongest, bravest, wisest version of yourself and isn’t that something beautiful?
Brooke is a psychotherapist who specializes in helping clients dealing with difficult life transitions, symptoms of anxiety or depression, and LGBTQ+-related issues. She practices a collective and modern approach to mental health counseling, which is rooted in genuineness and vulnerability.
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