We all get broken hearts. It’s almost a fact of life. It’s horrible and upsetting and there’s loads of ways to deal with it and move on. Here are my tips for broken hearts. 

Time for yourself

When we go through a breakup, we suddenly get all this extra time alone. You become used to having another person around. Now you don’t have them. There’s a void that’s opened up, and you need to fill it.

Some people chose to do nothing and fill it with feelings of sadness and loss. That’s ok for a short while. It’s normal to grieve a breakup because you have lost something in a sense. However if you use all your extra time to just think about what you’ve lost, you’re not going to gain anything new.

So many time for yourself. In relationships, we make time for our partners. We don’t see friends or doing personal hobbies as often. Pick those back up. Go see your friends again, they’re there for you. Start running, or reading or knitting again.

Or you can find new things to do. Were there things you’ve been wanting to try out? Go for it. Are there things you’re invited to, but you’re sceptical about whether or not you’d enjoy it? Say yes and try it out.

Accept the break up

This part is harder than it sounds. A lot of us will think we accept a break up as soon as it’s happened. After all, you don’t really get a choice right? Wrong. The break up has happened, but you could end up avoiding confronting the issue.

Sometimes we ignore it’s happened. We just get on with our lives and pretend nothing is wrong, but that doesn’t mean we’ve accepted it. You need to go through the problem, not around it.

Break ups are a time to learn. They make up better people, and they teach us how to have better relationships in the future. Look at the things that went wrong in your relationships. Why did those things happen? How do you prevent it in future relationships?

Sometimes I like to make a list of the good things and that bad things. If you think of only the bad things, then you’re not accepting the break up really. You’re angry and you’re trying to see it negatively. It makes sense, but it doesn’t help you move on in a healthy way.

Remembering the good things is an important step. If you only keep the bad memories, then you’re in the mind set that the relationship was a waste of time. That it wasn’t worth it. Instead, try and remember some good things, and understand that there was value in it. It just happens that it didn’t work out, and that’s ok.

Let it go

An important part in dealing with a broken heart, is detaching yourself. It’s not just about accepting the relation is over. It’s also about letting go of the relationship as well.

This part comes with acceptance and making time for yourself. By working on making yourself happier, you’ll feel less dependent on the feelings created from the relationship.

It’s ok to feel sad. It’s ok to miss the person. But ultimately, you’ll let go of feelings of anger, depression, longing and self blame. You lean on friends and family for support. You don’t have to do this part alone.

When you detach yourself from the relationship, it’s not simply about forgetting it. It just means that you’ll be able to look at the past without feeling hurt. You can see it for the good things, and understand why the bad things happened.