5 Steps To Deal With Heartbreak

If you're reading this then you're probably in the exact same place I am. You're going through a break-up, you're crying on the regular and everything reminds you of them. All. The. Time.

It hurts, I know it does. So here are 5 steps you should follow to help you deal with your heartbreak.

Step 1: Allow yourself to feel your emotions.

CRY IT OUT! I cannot stress enough how important it is to let your emotions out. Don't just cry on the day and then be like "okay time to move on", unless that's your style and you're okay with that.

Actually feel your emotions. Feel the grief and the pain and the sadness. Don't bottle it up or try to push it away. Or, you know if you're like my ex, don't download dating apps and try to pretend like you're over a 3.5 year relationship after 3.5 weeks...anyway...

The point is: feel your emotions. Figure out why you feel a certain way and actually allow yourself some time to be in your emotions. It's much healthier than pretending the emotions aren't there.

Step 2: Know when it's time to stop.

After a break-up there is always that strange period of time where the two of you still talk and you say "yeah of course we can be friends!" but inevitably it makes you miss them more and everything gets a little bit more complicated. Know when it's time to stop that contact.

Cut them off, remove them from your social media, do whatever you have to do in order to distance yourselves from them. For me it has been a month since my break-up and nine days since I last day of contact. I have cried every day since, but I know in the end I will thank myself for knowing when to stop - even though I get the urge to message them all the time.

Also know when to stop living in your head. Like I said it's good to feel your emotions, but there is a time where you need to stop thinking about past adventures, or what your guys wishes were for the future. It doesn't help to torture yourself by thinking about everything you did as a couple.

Sometimes you simply have to say: "That was in the past. Now, I'm in the present and I cannot let the past upset me."

Step 3: Write lists to help you heal.

One of the best bits of advice my friends gave me was to create a list of all the things I didn't want in my next relationship, and honestly it helped so much. It helped me realise the negative things that had occurred in my past relationship and helped reinforce the reason why I hadn't been 100% happy in that relationship.

For example one of the things I wrote was: "I want someone who wants to spend time with me"

Although I deeply miss the person I had been in a relationship with, creating that list also reminds me of what I want from my next relationship and teaches me that currently I am remembering my ex with rose-tinted glasses on, and the relationship I had been in wasn't perfect, which is why it ended.

I have another list titled "The Big Fat Reminder" which reminds me that I am worthy of love, that I am enough, and generally all things centered around self-love that helps remind myself that I am stronger than just being a victim of a rough break-up.

Step 4: Fill your life with joy.

To some you, this may feel like the hardest step. I know it is for me. When in a relationship, I craved the other person's attention so much that I couldn't enjoy spending time alone. I would wait until I was spending time with them to feel like there was joy in my life. Now I'm alone, I have to work extra hard to not default into my waiting around mode, because he's not coming back anymore. Instead, I do things that I enjoy.

A few things I do to bring joy into my life are: reading, listening to happy music, spending time with my family, making dinner with my friends once a week, watching TikTok videos of a funny guy. All of these things bring me joy, and although I'm not alone in all of these activities, doing these things allow me to feel comfortable with being alone and allows me to realise I can be happy and bring joy into my life while being alone.

BIG REMINDER: Being alone doesn't always mean being lonely.

Step 5: Do something new.

After going through the initial period of the break-up I suffered an identity crisis where I wasn't really sure who I was without that person in my life. I had to move back into my parent's house in my home town after moving to a new city with my ex-partner and I felt like I had gone back to square one.

The future I had planned for me and my relationship is now something I have to try and forget about, so I have to focus on new things for my future.

Recently I went to a new city to see an old friend, I sparked up a conversation with a co-worker in order to make new friends, and I started making sure I had different rules for every day. For example, Thursday nights are "listen to happy music nights" and Friday nights are "cute pants nights". Although the rules may seem repetitive, it gives me something to look forward to throughout the week and forces me to discover new music etc.

All of these steps won't cure your heartbreak, but they will make it a little bit easier. Like I said before I have cried everyday for the last nine days despite following these steps every single day, but that doesn't mean I'm not healing. It just means I'm dealing with my heartbreak in a healthy manner, and eventually I'll have a day where I don't cry and things will seem a little bit easier.

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