Break Up Guide
Intro:
What makes me think I can jot down notes and come up with a Break Up Guide? Let’s just say I’ve been around the block a few times, in my own experience as well as in the role of holding the tissue box (which I find myself doing quite often). Being in a mediation course has certainly helped as well. And, of course, a little bit of reflection and clear thinking can go a long way…
I’d like to get around to putting down all my thoughts here, but for now, here’s what I got…
1. Listen to the pit of your stomach:
Timing is important, but often it’s ignored. Rationalization combats good timing and usually wins.
That’s ok, it’s never too late bestow the pink relationslip and move on. Put rationalization to the side for just a moment - when you’re feeling especially uncomfortable with the situation, and you can no longer ignore it (although hopefully you’ll come to it sooner than that) - and feel out the pit of your stomach.
That’s the place where you feel ‘butterflies’ when you’re nervously excited; it’s the place that churns when you feel wrong about what you’re doing. It’s the place that feels heavy, like dead weight, when you know that there is something you need to do but can’t bring yourself to do it. That’s precisely the time to bring yourself to do it.
2. The better than misery Golden Rule of Break Ups:
After the decision to break up has been finalized, by one party or both, it is crucial and necessary for the sake of a speed(ier) recovery that the two sides DO NOT communicate whatsoever over the course of the next week.
Every time the silence is broken and the separation is interrupted, the wounds are reopened and will take longer to heal.
No, within this first week all will not be forgotten and pain will not disappear, but it will diminish to a bearable point at which you can begin to feel the healing occur and time will be able to do its thing.
And this rule is always the hardest to keep and the first to be broken.
3. Love the long-run:
Humans, by nature, focus on the short-term. I suppose we are programmed that way for survival. But when it comes to relationships - which are all about survival - let yourself love and cherish the long-run.
This is especially true when you’re leaving a relationship. Everyone focuses on today - How will I go out in public without her? But the reason you broke up is not about today or tomorrow. It’s about a year from now, when you’re happier in a different situation because this one didn’t work out, for whatever reason. Try to think in terms of a month from now, two months, six, a year, three years. It helps to envision yourself in the near future, ‘normal’ again, doing what (or who) you really want to do.
4. Don’t get caught up in the abstract:
Who will ever love me again?
Don’t be ridiculous. Just because one or two or six didn’t work out doesn’t mean you are a lost cause. It’s silly to get all philosophical about it - and wallow for too long in such questions.
Instead, do something functional and proactive. Try understanding what goes wrong. Find the patterns in your relationships, work on what you can be responsible for, and go back out and prove yourself.
to be continued…
