While love is one of the best feelings in the world, it’s also one of the most painful. It’s impossible for just anyone to make you feel the way you feel around that one person. If moments of vulnerability, unconditional laughter and undeniable chemistry could be shared with just anyone, it wouldn’t mean as much. So naturally, letting go and moving on can be difficult. Here are some tips that will help shut the lid on those feelings once and for all.
- Do not give in to temptation- When you’ve been involved with someone and given so much of yourself to a relationship you’ve cultivated together, it’s hard to just stop loving them altogether. You cannot decide how you feel about them but you can choose to stop yourself from feeding this love. Feeding it entails giving in to the urge of stalking their instagram, asking your friends about them and over thinking about what you could’ve done different. Remember, your goal is to minimize the space they occupy inside your head.
2. Get busy- Allocate a certain amount of time to think about activities you can truly immerse yourself in. Involving yourself in activities you can completely lose yourself in will only reinforce the notion that you’re capable of feeling this deeply again. It will also take up a lot of your mental energy- something that would’ve otherwise been devoted to think about your ex. Trying something completely new is said to take relatively more mental effort and space.
3. Rewrite beliefs- During the time you’re taking out to move on, you’re bound to feel about certain things very strongly. You must sit yourself down, identify these beliefs (that are often quite irrational) and reconstruct them in your head. An example of such a belief could be- “I’m incapable of loving someone else as much as I loved ABC”. Countering it would be explaining to yourself that there’s so much more of life to see and so many potential people you haven’t met yet.
Accept that it is very possible to catch feelings for your ex numerous times during this period irrespective of how diligently you follow these steps. Understand that this is a process, sometimes very long, sometimes very hard and sometimes very repetitive. But all it takes is a bit of courage and belief in yourself to break these patterns. This is can get very frustrating at times, so it’s important to remember to be kind and patient with yourself. It might look like the beginning of the end but you will end up coming out stronger, wiser and more aware. A perspective riddled with optimism is sure to make this process easier.
Break ups might seem like the end of the world but they’re a test of our limits and truly bring out what it means to be human.