What is a broken heart?
For me, a broken heart is that feeling you get when the thing you were so deeply hoping for doesn't happen. It's an enormous shock that can cause us a lot of pain. It is not just confined to a break-up with a lover; it can come from all sorts of relationships we have throughout our life.
Step 1: Acknowledge the Pain
When your heart is broken, acknowledge the feeling. This step is vital, because the depth of sadness and/or shock is huge and will never go away if it is not acknowledged. Many people avoid this with extreme behaviour - drink, drugs, new relationships, and it's got to be said that for some it seems that this works.
However, my own experience tells me to avoid extreme behaviour and aim to find much healthier ways to express what is going on. There are two solutions that I have used throughout out my life.
The first is to write. Every day for five minutes or any time that wave of pain and sometimes nausea overcomes you. Just jot down anything that comes out. Don't think about it and don't expect it to make sense. Then throw it away. It's important to throw it away so that you don't judge what you are doing. This has nothing to do with analyzing the situation. This is pure expression for that purpose only.
The second thing is that you need to move your body. This can be down at the gym, swimming, dancing in your living room. You need to keep your body moving.
The point of this step is not to deny what is going on but to find simple but healthy ways to let it out.
Step 2: Get Support from the Right People
When dealing with a broken heart you need to be aware of whom you are going to mix with. My experience dictates the following:
Friends
You need friends you can tell your story to. Preferably they shouldn't all know each other. That way you avoid the feeling that everyone's talking about you, and you also limit how boring your story might become if you repeat yourself too much to either one person or a group.
It is, however, very important to tell your story as many times as you want or need to. But try not to do it to the same people/group of people.
Avoiding Bad Influences
It is also important, at least in the beginning, to avoid any influences (drugs, alcohol, even some of your friends!) that are going to let you act impulsively, especially if that impulsiveness translates into you approaching the person/people who has/have broken your heart.
It's not a good idea because feelings of shame and guilt and that sick feeling in your stomach surely follow.
So although you may feel the freedom to party and go wild, I am suggesting, at least for the first three months, not to do this. That time will come but it's not yet.
Therapists
Get professional help. This time in our lives is a very raw period. And there is something so truthful and vulnerable about being such a bad way that makes it also a moment to seek help in the form of professional help.
It's important to note here that I'm not an advocate of therapy as something that someone does continually, but in these moments it is important to get help from someone who is outside of your life and who has no emotional attachment. This can be incredibly helpful.
These moments are the moments when everything is changing and professional support has a strong chance of giving you the information you need to move forward in the right way.
My own experience was to find a professional when I was at the lowest point of my experience because I truly thought I was going mad. If you feel this, then some form of professional help should be sought with the following three aims:
a) the first is to prevent you from actually going mad,
b) the second is to find ways to discuss what's going on and how to function (as we all must certainly do, despite what is going on)
c) the third is to delve deeper into ourselves and to start to sort out why we are where we are, and what we can do to look at and solve the deeper issues.
Therapy is not for everyone. It requires personal investment of resources both in terms of time and money. If you go down this route:
a) seek introductions to known therapists;
b) meet them and see how you work together - usually therapists will offer the first session free to establish this.
Alone time
It's important to have time alone and just be. Sadness and depression and pain are real and need to be felt. Things you can do on your own are reading, perhaps watching a TV series back to back, maybe even music etc.
For me, I could not stand to listen to any form of music. It made me feel sick. I stuck to watching the TV series - one I remember was 'The Wire', which I devoured most evening and weekends.
Being alone, at this stage, is vital. This is the space where without knowing it (and definitely not feeling it) you start to heal.
Step 3: Ritual
Ritual: We underestimate the importance of ritual. Of drawing lines in the sand, both happy lines and sad lines.
A broken heart offers many chances to bring ritual back.
But first why is ritual so important? It may be that the word ritual itself sounds a bit 'out there', but what I mean by ritual is stopping, acknowledging what is going on by making some kind of action and intention, leading to completion and the chance to move on.
We do this all the time with births, weddings, funerals etc. But these are very few instances in a life filled with almost constant change. Without taking a moment to stop, take stock, acknowledge, put a line in the sand, and move on, life appears to be a confused jumble of chaos.
In the West we have decided we have no time and, for the most part, we have lost the ability to even see these moments. They can be big moments but they can also be small moments. It's important not to sweat the small stuff, but it is equally important to recognize that the small stuff makes up the bigger stuff so acknowledge as much as you can.
However, we are discussing broken hearts and they fall into the category of the big moments. A very simple ritual is to do the following:
1. Make some time where you are on your own - about 20 minutes.
2. Light a candle.
3. Name the situation - what is going on for you - say it out loud. "I feel... "
4. Say what you want to come out of this time - feel safer, feel better, feel stronger. I'd like to feel... "
5. At the end of 20 minutes blow the candle out and say "I am exactly where I need to be and I am strong enough to deal with what is going on"
You can repeat this as often as you like. It is surprising what happens when you give a little space to acknowledge what is going on.
Step 4: It's all About Health
This step is all about health. There are four types of health that create a whole person - mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health. And what I mean about spiritual health for this purpose is the human spirit - not necessarily a religious connotation.
Being truly healthy requires the upkeep of all of these areas. Imagine each of these four areas is a circle (i.e. four circles) and where they all touch the center is the level of your current health. So each circle, each of the four areas, needs to have attention so that the cumulative level of health is good.
However, a broken heart depletes energy very quickly. And each of the areas/circles will be low, possibly almost empty, at this point in life. My own experience is that the two areas that one can work on 'easiest' are physical health and spiritual health. This is because they are the most tangible.
Physical health: we all know that eating well and exercise keep us physically healthy. Never is this more true than when there is a broken heart involved. And yet it is also the time when it is difficult to care about physical health. If you can keep up a routine of physical exercise three times a week at least then go for it. Anything that pumps the heart and is repetitive ends up helping with a meditative state. It's hard to think too much when you've got to stay on the treadmill or keep in the right swimming lane. If you really have no energy then you really must go for at least three walks, preferably out in nature, every week. In addition eating is important and I found that in the first few months I relied on friends to feed me good food or I invited friends round so that I didn't just cook for one.
One thing you should also do, if you are not doing it already, is drink a lot of water.
Spiritual health: this is thinking about how you lift your own spirit. What keeps you interested in what's going on? Is it a good book, films, going to open mic nights, meditating, dancing, roller skating, painting, writing poetry, writing ditties, dyeing clothes? This is the creative part of you that can never die and holds the key to being able to lift you up. Many of us give up this side of life at school when we are told we will never be a painter or a writer etc. And we simply give it up.
So if you don't know what will do this for you, think about what you used to do when you were a kid. Think about the times you felt lighter. What were you doing? This doesn't have to big things, it can be very small things that you don't have to tell anyone you are doing - like writing poetry.
Step 4 is beginning to take responsibility and see what choices you have. These two 'circles' of health will help the other two (mental and emotional health) to gather energy.
Step 5: Building Self-confidence
It's time to really start to look at building self-confidence which, let's be honest, has been knocked, even if we are 'appearing' fine.
It's so hard to understand why things don't work out. No, actually usually it's impossible to understand which is why we feel mad for quite some time after a relationship stops. So the best thing is to really be gentle with yourself and understand that you may never understand why something didn't work out and the more you think about it the harder you are going to be on yourself. Easily said. Which is why it's important to focus on how you start to feel better about yourself. We've already talked about exercise and keeping your body moving. We now need to focus on changing how you look. It's a very strange thing to start to look after your body and give it the best chance it has to look great. But it really works. And that doesn't matter if you are tall, short, voluptuous, skinny, etc, etc. This is not about wanting to be something else, this is about using what you've got and using it to your best ability - basically making the most of what you have.
Here's how:
1. Skin. The biggest organ you have, and it needs looking after. If you don't have a skin regime you need to have one, but I appreciate that it can't start with all the things that a beauty consultant might want you to start with (it's over-powering if you have never had a skin regime). So for those who can't do it all, a gentle exfoliator used in the bath for your face, serum and a moisturizer when you get out. For your body a shower gel with exfoliation and a cream to rub on. It'll take an extra 3-4 minutes and it will make a difference. I bathe a lot as I love water and it calms me down. I put a few drops of olive oil in my bath to cover my body's moisturisation.
2. Clothes. Clothes, their shape, their colour, make such a difference. If you can get a stylist for a day (and most of us can't) some department stores have in-house shoppers who are free. Watching programmes on shapes etc will also help. The reason you need to this is you need to see yourself through someone else's eyes and you need to understand what works with your shape. Then you get a good friend around (make sure it's someone who you trust to be tactful but honest), pull out your wardrobe and try things on. Get rid of things that don't work, and put 'outfits' together. Putting outfits together is so helpful on the mornings that you feel ugly and horrible. You pull one of these outfits on, don't look in the mirror, and leave. You'll be surprised how this really starts to build up your confidence. Stop wearing all the black and grey stuff and get yourself upgraded. It is important to note that it costs nothing to go through your wardrobe, and it is recommended before going shopping.
3. Hair. The crowning glory. Well kept hair is fundamental to looking good. Good haircuts kept up, colour put in if you are going grey, a change of colour - all give an extraordinary feeling of freedom. Who are you anyway? Who do you want to be? Hair is a way to try out new looks and push those boundaries that we often get trapped in while in relationships.
4. Nails. Whether you bite your nails or grow them easily having nails done or at least tidy is really important, so if you can afford it, do it, if not learn to shape and paint your nails (practice). Often these new voucher schemes offer the chance to have nails done cheaply. Don't forget your feet, at least in the summer. What a difference a pedicure makes.
Remember. This is not about other people. This is about you starting to acknowledge that you are a person with energy to share. Making yourself look better only makes you feel better and you can do this without actually 'feeling' better. What I mean by this is that it's an action process that doesn't require you to 'feel' good about doing it, it just requires you to follow the steps above and this process will pull you forward. Good luck and keep at it.
Step 6: The Power of You
There is a very fundamental understanding that needs to be reached on what power you have within your life. Much is written about the choices we have and the choices we make. Much is written about blame and responsibility.
The truth is that it's easy to blame others and external situations for one's downfall. But what happens if we blame others all the time is that what we are saying is that because we had nothing to do with what went on, we will never be able to change anything. So though blame is an easy option to begin with, what you are actually doing in the long term is abdicating any chance of changing you situation. After all if it's nothing to do you with you, you don't have to do anything, right?
Wrong. Or at least wrong if you want to have a life that you have control over.
And this is where it gets a bit complicated. What you actually need to do is take responsibility for your own life. The complicated bit is that this does NOT mean blaming yourself for what has gone on. This is equally unhelpful. What you do by taking is responsibility is to pose the first question which is 'what can I do to change things for the better?'
So here comes the responsibility that you have to yourself. You have the absolute power to decide how you react to what happens to you. To be clear. This does not mean that you can change what will happen to you. It means that you can change how you react to what happens to you. It may seem almost insignificant, but actually the power in this subtle but dramatic change is extraordinary.
For now, in step 6, watch how you react to what happens to you and think, and try to react differently.
Step 7: The Spiral of Life.
I've noticed that some things happen to some people that never happen to me. Or even, the same things happen to me that I've never heard of happening to anyone else. Patterns seem to exist everywhere. And if patterns exist, then they can be changed.
In Step 6, I talked about the main choice we all have to change the way we react to what happens to us. In many ways what we do by changing our reaction is to change a pattern.
However, it does seem that the fundamental aspects of our own individual patterns don't disappear. This means that it seems likely that throughout you will have the same patterns; what happens if you choose to change how you react to them is that the pattern loses its intensity. It's as if each time you choose a different and better way to react you give yourself the chance to see the bigger picture.
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