How To Overcome a Broken Heart

Nothing breaks like a heart

These lyrics are perfect and straightforward. Miley Cyrus captures the pain felt when a relationship ends while not being prescriptive on how the pain feels. A broken heart can be the worse pain to endure. Not surprising, separation or divorce can be the hardest experience we go through in life.

At the end of a relationship, regardless of who ended the relationship. Everyone rides that emotional roller coaster of sadness, confusion, anxiety, exhaustion, frustration and anger. Ending a relationship not only changes everything you have become accustomed too. There is grief over the relationship, but also the loss of the future you may have hoped for together. Even if you held it as a wish and never spoke of it.

Being productive or getting through the day may feel like the last thing on your mind, moving through the day with detached emotions like a robot. It is normal for a relationship breakup to affect a person’s self-esteem and self-worth. With the internal dialogue is becoming a source of negative self-talk. Self-criticism can be one of the most damaging aspects of separation. The antidote to self-criticism is self-compassion. Self-compassion during a relationship breakup tops my list for relationship breakup self-care.

Selfcare through Self Compassion

Noone likes feeling the discomfort that emotions can trigger. Self-compassion is an awareness and acceptance of what you are feeling. Truth is most people do struggle after a relationship breakup. Having self-compassion during this time can be challenging. Being compassionate to others feels easier than providing comfort and care to yourself, but it is the same thing. You may be feeling like it is all your fault that the relationship ended and yourself criticism is valid. Ignoring your pain does not provide the self-compassion you need. Kristin Neff explains the three components of self-compassion in this 6 minute video.

The first step is to acknowledge to yourself that, right now, things are hard for me. The second step is to ask yourself “right now, what do I need to comfort and care for myself?” Your inner critic may refuse to step down. To appease this, an exploration of what was yours during the relationship may lead to developing self-compassion, presenting you with the opportunity for personal growth. Making lemonade from lemons so to speak. Learning from your experience is where I can help.

Learning from the Past

A single event may trigger the relationship to an end. The demise of a relationship is usually resultant from several contributing factors. Exploring these contributing factors can provide insight into opportunities for self-growth. For example, understanding love languages, attachment styles or relationship patterns etc.

Exploring previous relationships may feel like a waste of time after all the relationship has ended. Identifying what occurred in the past can help you not to repeat the same relationship mistakes in the future. Providing an opportunity for healing and self-growth by improving your relationship skills. Some of these include:

• Identify love languages to meet the needs of your partner or how to express your needs.
• Identify relationship red-flags.
• Discover relationship deal breakers.
• Understanding emotional triggers to learn how to respond instead.
• Do you chase after relationships, or do you like to be pursued?
• Are you repeating the relationship dynamic of your parents?
• What is it that you want from a relationship? Are you seeking companionship, or are you ready to start a family?
• Plus many more.

You cannot change what happened in the past, but you can permit yourself to heal from the past. Understanding yourself better as a person allows you to approach a relationship from a different perspective. Enabling you to seek out those people who in a relationship make you feel accepted, appreciated and loved.