Ugh, where do I start? I guess by acknowledging that breakups suck. Breakups involve losing someone you were so close to, someone who meant the world to you, someone you would have done anything for. It is not easy. So, I was pretty crushed about my breakup for a while. I would think about it all day and let myself get into a rut, wondering why. Why do I feel like I’m never enough? Why didn’t he prioritize me? Why did he have to make me feel like this? SO MANY WHYS!! And that was not getting me anywhere. So, I turned the questions around. How can I feel like I am enough for myself? How can I prioritize myself? How can I make myself not feel like this? Here are the three most important things I did to answer these questions.
- Plan Over Mood: keep yourself busy but understand when it’s time to feel
Give yourself a time and place to think about your breakup, and give yourself a time and place to focus on what’s in front of you. For example, when I am in class and think about the breakup, I must tell myself, “No, not now.” Now is when I am focusing on what is right in front of me. Now, I am giving my teacher and my classmates my time. Now, I am paying attention to something that will benefit me. The same goes for when I would be in the gym working out. Maybe I would get a little upset when I started to think of it, but that didn’t mean I would stop my routine. I was in the gym doing something for me. I was sticking to my plan, sticking to my schedule, and keeping myself busy. PLAN OVER MOOD!! But you also need to understand your feelings. If you are sad and don’t have plans, you don’t have to make yourself busy to distract yourself. You need to feel your emotions and understand why you are feeling the way you are. If you keep putting your feelings off, they aren’t going away; they are just being put off to the side and will hit you later. You need to allow yourself to get over it. If you’re sad and don’t have plans, don’t make them. You are allowed to take that time to feel.
- Express your feelings: Talk, write, cry, yell, laugh when you are feeling.
I can not stress how huge this is. After my breakup, I wanted to tell my ex how much he hurt me. I wanted to thank him for what he did right and, at the same time, make him realize what he lost. There was so much I wanted to express and say, so I wrote it down; I talked to my friends and allowed myself to feel sad and angry. When I remember a time when my ex made me feel upset or unhappy, I would write it down so that when I would get sad, I could look back and think, “Why am I crying over a man who did that to me.” When you talk or write out your feelings, you will start to understand parts of yourself or your relationship that you didn’t understand before.
An example of this is when I was talking to a friend about how sad I was that he hadn’t texted me or reached out. And I realized part of why I was unhappy wasn’t because I missed him; I was scared he wasn’t missing me. I was sad because it felt like I was more miserable than he was. And wow, that realization helped me move on. So please know your feelings are valid, and allow yourself to express them in different ways that work for you.
- Change Your Mindset: You GET to start again.
Something that has been the hardest for me is realizing that I have to start all over again. The feeling that nobody would find me as beautiful, that nobody would be interested in me again. I get scared knowing that I have to get comfortable on an intimate level again with someone. But that isn’t how you or I should be thinking. A breakup should be a form of growth. Look back at your relationship and see what went right, what went wrong, what you liked, what made you upset. Look at these things and allow them to help you understand more about yourself and what you need out of your next relationship. After doing this with mine, I can see that I know how I need to be treated to feel loved. I know what I need from my next partner to feel important. And I know what I won’t be putting up with again. You GET to start over.
Breakups suck, but you can do this. You are valuable and loved by so many people. One person being out of your life doesn’t change that.