Dealing With the Emotions of a Break Up

As difficult as it is, dealing with the emotions of a break up is absolutely necessary if you’re to move on with your life and feel joy again. 

And if you have any notion of getting back with your ex, it’s even more important to handle the emotional turmoil you’re going through appropriately.

To begin, expect a bit of a roller coaster ride, emotionally speaking.  There will be lots of ups and downs.  Many people going through a break up experience the same emotions that someone grieving the death of a love one does.  In a way, you’re grieving the end of the relationship.

The phases may include denial, anger, bargaining and eventually acceptance.  Depression is also very common, and perhaps the one you need to guard against the most – it can start a downward spiral.

You don’t want to dwell obsessively on the relationship but you do need to clarify the situation.  Some people find it helps to write things down.  This keeps your mind from going in endless circles and getting nowhere.

Write the history of the relationship in a fairly objective fashion.  Be careful of a tendency to romanticize the relationship and make it better in memory that it was in reality.   Write down the good points, but also the bad and unpleasant.  Include why you think the relationship ended.  If there’s a lesson there, you want to learn it.

Maintain a positive focus.  Even if your relationship has ended a lot of other things in your life are going well or at least OK.  Avoid focusing completely on what isn’t working.  Feel appreciation and gratitude for your friends, hot water, tasty food, work, sunsets – what ever you can find to feel grateful for.

It’s important to stay active.  It’s too easy to feel depressed, not want to do anything and just mope around.  That will only aggravate the depression.  So make yourself get up and do something.

Along the same line, exercise.  Exercise is proven to work as well or better to treat mild to moderate depression and it’s very likely that you’re at risk for depression.  Also, physical activity is a great way to vent pent up feelings.  Finally, getting in shape will help your self-esteem.

This may seem a little harsh, but after a while continuing to feel sorry for yourself over the break up is self-indulgent self-pity. 

You’re really spending too much time thinking about yourself.  The antidote is to do something for others. 

To that end, look for a charity doing work you believe in and volunteer.  Maybe it’ll be working in a soup kitchen, or maybe visiting shut ins, or maybe delivering meals-on wheels.  Whatever.  The thing is to stop thinking solely about yourself and your problems. 

By volunteering to work with some of these charities you’ll be doing some good for the community while at the same time gaining some perspective on your situation.  It's remarkable how looking at some of the situations others have to face helps us see our own situation more clearly.

There are many other ways of dealing with the emotions of a break up.  I hope these help you get moving in the right direction.

Maybe it's not too late...

Magic of Making Up