Breakups are hard.
To put it simply, most people can’t get over breakups because they don’t understand them. To miss someone who has been a meaningful part of your life is to be human. To grieve is to be human but often ignored. To stay connected to the past because you prefer that reality is why people stay stuck on their Ex. This is how to get over the breakup for good, and truly heal.
Breakups Are Bonds Broken
A memory that follows you into the present moment becomes your present reality. Do you ever find yourself laughing at a television rerun? What replays in the brain, remains in the brain. Over the time period that you were in a relationship you created a strong bond with the other person. Bonds are formed in a few different ways.
First, you share moments. There are experiences that you create with this person that you have never created before. These special moments generate new combinations of chemicals never felt before. These new moments become the memories that form an ‘Us’ mentality. It’s no longer you and I – in creating those moments it’s ‘We’.
Every day that you are dating someone is a day that you are thinking about them in the past, present, and future. When you remember the beautiful moments that you shared on your last date, or the first kiss, you bring the past to the present. Whether you are looking forward to seeing them again, or you are imagining your life in the future, these things happen effortless and simultaneously.
After a break up you lose the connection to the present and the future, and you are left with the past alone. When you try to generate the same good feelings that you once incurred when you thought about your Ex in the past, it becomes hard because they are not a part of the present. After a breakup, it doesn’t feel as good to think about the past. Why? Because there is no present or future to anchor those feelings to.
Breakups Change Who You Are
After you breakup, you become someone different than who you were when the relationship first started. Breakups release new chemicals in the brain but eliminate others. The bonding experience releases oxytocin, norepinephrine, and other hormones that alter you chemically. When you experience a breakup access to these chemicals in combination cease. We no longer feel the same.
Dating creates a habit of thought that is hard for humans to break. You have thought about this person without effort everyday, and it is tempting to hold on to our routine.
The hardest part of moving forward from any breakup is not thinking the same thoughts that you thought the day before. It’s natural to pine for the love that you lost and to get lost in the memories of the past but it doesn’t feel good. In order to heal from the loss of a relationship you have to become someone else and to become someone new, you have to think new thoughts. This might mean forgetting some of the most cherished memories of the past. But there is an upside. If you want to rekindle the relationship then there is an opportunity to design a new future.
Create A New Future
The best way to predict the future is to create it. If you have been hopeful that your Ex would come back it can only happen in the present or the future. When you spend more time envisioning a future with someone than the past, you are more likely to manifest it.
So how does this work?
There is a chemical separation that happens during any breakup. You have to intentionally replace old thoughts with new ones.
In the Breakup Recovery course there is a 21 Breath guided meditation that takes you through a focused breathing exercise. Although there is a tendency to believe that our thoughts create our reality, most people don’t spend as much time as they should creating the thoughts that feel good. An easy future thought to start with is this; imagine the person you miss calling or texting your phone.
You close your eyes. You start your 21-Breath meditation. You see their name clearly appear on your caller id. You smile. It feels good, and peaceful. You’re not anxious, or afraid. Imagine that happening, right now.
That type of intentional thinking, and practices ease the pain of the habitual thoughts that keep us feeling hurt and disconnected. Humans crave routine. Once a routine is broken and you are forced to change, there is discomfort. In breakups the feelings can vary from deep heartache and melancholy to disappointment or shame. You can’t move forward until you find a way to release these emotions. The only way to truly heal is to replace any negative patterns of thought with healthier, more optimistic thinking. It has to be deliberate and intentional.
Journal To Heal
All breakups require a period of grieving.
When you think the same thoughts for a prolonged period of time they create the same chemicals. When our body no longer has access to these chemicals, because you no longer have access to your partner, you experience the same painful withdrawal of any drug addict, or gambler. When you can no longer access to this ‘love’ drug in pure form, it hurts. When you remember your relationship, you are generating a cheap substitute of the drug and your body doesn’t like it.
Think of the memories as toxins that you need to sweat out, or cry out, or emote in some fashion. Writing down your feelings is a healthy way to sort them out, and give them release. Holding on to incessant thoughts that engulf us at the end of a relationship make it hard for us to move on.
Writing down three specific category of thoughts including: what do you need to say that went unsaid, what would you say if they came back, and what do you wish they knew.
A few questions you can answer in your journaling are the following:
- In what ways was I guarded?
- What signs did I miss?
- What do I believe this says about me?
Again, because being in a relationship creates a new identity, including altering your chemical states, you become someone else when the love is lost. That person, whoever you feel they are, might feel rejected, insecure and unsure of themselves. Journaling is a healthy way to release the shame of how you feel deep inside after a breakup. Journaling helps to release the secrets we hold back about our relationship.
No relationship is perfect, and when one ends, there is always a truth that someone has failed to accept. The secrets you hold in dating run deep. Even if you can accept that the relationship wasn’t healthy, perfect, happy, etc.. it is sometimes hard to admit that to ourselves.
Journaling is a great way to release any secrets about the relationship that you’ve been afraid to share aloud.
Moving on from a breakup can take time but it moves faster when you focus on the future that you are creating and not the past that you once had.