How to Get Over a Breakup

Oh, breakups, they suck simply put. Today I am sharing the five things that REALLY helped me get over a breakup and I’m hoping it can help you! Some are simple, some are hard, but I hope that this helps.

1. Realizing we’re fed a bunch of crap.

We are taught that we absolutely need someone in our life. The common saying of “you’re my other half” or “you’re my better half,” is pretty ridiculous when you think about it. It puts out this idea that you need someone else to fulfill you, that you are not complete or whole to begin with and that other person is what completes you. I think this mentality is really harmful especially when you’re going through breakups because you have this lack, or you feel like you have this lack, without that person anymore. You feel like you need that person. That’s where a lot of hurt comes from.

And I understand having a partner in life, having a boyfriend a girlfriend, husband or wife makes life more enjoyable, I completely understand that. Frankly, I do think we need one another but not to become a complete person. We may grow with someone, there’s beauty and value in that and there are times we grow without someone, there’s beauty and value in that as well.

Take a step back and look at the information that you consume every day from the radio, TV, films, etc and see what sorts of ideas about love are they relaying. Really look at them, look at a romantic comedy, hear a favorite love song of yours, listen to the lyrics and start to think, are these actual healthy ways of being? I often found, in my experience, there is an obsession, a strong attachment to seek someone or the world is over if we are not with them.

I understand it is art but we also need to be conscious of how it may be influencing us at the time. Now I feel fine listening or watching those sorts of things but I know there was a point where I had to stop listening to the radio, it was too much. (Do what you have to do!)

Begin to think and digest the information and see it for what it is. This may help you understand where your thoughts of love come from in the first place.

2. Stop trying to understand what happened or what “went wrong.”

This one is tough. I struggled with this one but stop trying to understand what happened and accept that more than likely you’re never going to fully understand what happened, especially if you were the one that was broken up with.

What does understanding really do for you? Let’s say if you do end up understanding, you understand one hundred percent, what is that information really doing for your life? Is it going to get rid of that sadness or heartbreak now that you understand? Say if they fully do explain what happened or why the breakup occurred, would you actually even believe them or accept the information?

It seems like we’re asking for something we’re never really going to be satisfied with or we’re never going to believe or it’s not going to do any good for us, so what is the point?

Accepting that I’m not going to understand everything is definitely frustrating, but once I accepted that fact, life got sooooo much easier. You just need to know that you do not need to understand it all. It is okay to not know. Know that there were causes to what occurred, but you do not need to know those causes to move forward.

I know it’s easier said than done. It will take time to get there but once you get to the point where you stop needing to be understood by someone else, and you stop needing to understand another perspective (when it’s really causing you harm), you’re going to have such a peace within.

3. Gratitude.

I know that term has been thrown out there a lot recently, but I want you to focus on gratitude. Sure, I had an expectation that wasn’t met, but the fact that my family is still alive, healthy, here, present, I’m good, that’s all I could ever ask for. I don’t focus on the “lacking” as I call it.

I’m not thinking “oh I’m a single mom now, oh I don’t have a husband, I don’t have that title with someone.” I don’t focus on those negative thoughts. I think of the things that I do have like my family. I still do have PJ in my life, he’s here, he’s living, my son has a father and that’s amazing.

You can focus on other things as well, you could focus on the fact that you have a home, you have clean air, you have clean water, you have food, anything you can find to be grateful for is going to make the breakup seem less significant with time. Continue practicing gratitude for the smallest things around you and it will make you feel better overtime because you gain perspective. A reframe of things.

4. Empathy.

This was probably the one where I had like an a-ha moment or the one that helped me get over my breakup the most. And this is also the one that took the longest to get.

Once I felt empathetic for him, things changed immediately, things started making sense. I started to feel good again. With time I’ve learned, or I believe, that people really do try the best that they can. I think that people do all that they know. It’s not about giving the other person an excuse, it’s more so about giving you peace of mind that that person did try their best in that relationship and it had nothing to do with you.

It’s all about their journey, their perspective on certain things and it just didn’t end up working out in the way that you expected it to work out and that’s okay. To give you an example, I expected PJ to behave and act a certain way when it came to family because in my perspective or my reality, what family is to me are people that are very close to each other … they’re everything. Family is everything to me, it’s all I’ve known, and he didn’t come from that.

He came from the complete opposite of that. So for me to expect him to all of a sudden behave and act the same way or feel the same way towards family as I do was foolish on my end. It was foolish because he had a different journey, he has different perspectives on things, and who am I to say that my perspective is right compared to his?

I truly believe he was doing the best he could under his circumstances, what he knows, his reality, and what he has seen throughout his life. He tried his best when it came to attempting to conform to my expectations and it got to a point where he couldn’t reach those expectations and we ended up separating. (Expectations is a whole different conversation but I even had fault there, I shouldn’t have placed an expectation on him to conform to my values.)

Being empathetic towards that, really taking a step back from my thoughts and my views and really thinking, hmm wait a second, he grew up this way, he knows this about family (to continue with my example), it’s starting to make sense.

This allowed me to view things through a whole new lens, really. Being empathetic for people in general makes you see them as human. They are humans with their own perspectives, past, and I really think that people behave in the absolute best way they know how. Sometimes people do not share your same values and or have the same capacity to show up in a relationship like you do. One is not better than the other, things just did not align.

5. Distractions, distractions, distractions!

The fifth tip is simply to distract yourself, especially in the beginning. Don’t be alone, your thoughts are going to eat you up! (Trust me, I know!!) You’re at this point where you’re sad and you probably don’t want to get out of bed, you probably don’t want to do much of anything honestly so find your friends, reach out to family (even though you may not want to!), force yourself to really get out there and contact people. Go out! I do think it’s healthy and necessary to deal with your feelings and deal with what you’re going through alone at times but overall, it is helpful to be around people who love you and you enjoy being around. Make a list of all the things you have been wanting to do for a while now, and go do them.

I hope this post provided you value 🙂 If you ANY questions whatsoever, please reach out to me. I know this is a tough time but know that it will pass. Nothing last forever.

Take care,

Mary