How to Overcome an Emotional Break-Up
All of us have gone through an emotional break-up at one point or another. However, it’s still a really tough and difficult experience. In this article, we’re going to reveal how to overcome an emotional break-up in the best way possible.
What you need to remember is that, whether you like it or not, you’re going to go through a whole world of pain. Sometimes people try to avoid it, some ignore it, and others refuse to acknowledge it.
However, working through the pain is a necessary step to overcome an emotional break-up.
Accept what has happened
Accepting what has happened is the most difficult part of the whole process. At the beginning, you will try to deny what’s happened, get angry, and then later you will feel sad. However, this won’t change the facts.
Sometimes at the end of a relationship, we might save just a little bit of hope. But if you ever get back together with that person, you’ll just be taking steps backwards.
It’s completely normal to find yourself passing through a series of unpleasant feelings and emotions.
But this doesn’t mean that you have to run away from them, ignore them, or cover them up. You need to face up to them and accept them. It’s the only way you’ll be able to move on.
Let it all out
You mustn’t suppress your emotions or hide them. This will only be counterproductive. What you need to do is express them, although each person will have their own way of doing this. Some will choose to talk with their friends, whilst others will weep uncontrollably. Some may even prefer to be left alone for a while.
- If you’re trying to overcome an emotional break-up, find whatever works for you, and let everything out. If you prefer to be on your own, don’t just go out with friends to “forget” everything. This will just amplify your emotions when you’re on your own again.
In modern society we tend to expect people to show positive emotions and hide the negative ones, possibly so that we don’t make other people uncomfortable.
However, in this situation you need to forget all that, and express exactly what you’re feeling. Don’t feel self-conscious, and don’t restrict yourself.
Focus on what motivates you
Once you’ve moved past the previous steps, you’ll have focused on the break-up quite enough. Now you need to focus on everything you have around you and that inspires you, or makes you happy. It could be a hobby, your job, your children…
Many people seem to think that their life revolves around their partner. As a result, when it all goes downhill and they break-up, they no longer have any direction.
It’s important to look around you and pay attention to the things that motivate you.
If you find this difficult you might want to seek professional help. They’ll help you rediscover what it is that makes you feel positive about your life or gives you a purpose. Relationships are just a part of life, not the point of it.
Life goes on
When you break-up with someone, it’s completely normal to start thinking that everything around you is going to collapse. However, if you take a good look around at other people, or other similar situations, you’ll see that actually life goes on.
It doesn’t matter how big a blow this might feel right now, nor how much this break-up has hurt you. Things will get better.
With time you’ll come to learn from the experience, come back stronger, and continue with your life. A break-up isn’t really the end of anything, but more the start of something new.
Coping with your emotions is never easy. Especially when they’re caused by something that you’ve treasured so much.
But just like we have to learn to cope with losing a job, or the death of a loved one, or cope with failure, we have to learn how to overcome an emotional break-up.
- If you’ve ever thought that your relationship was the centre of your world, you’ll have learnt with every break-up that it’s really not the case.
- You are the centre of your world and around you are lots of interesting things to focus on, things which give meaning to your life (work, family, hobbies…)
If you focus too much attention on only one of these things, then it’ll hurt all the more when something goes wrong.
Have you had to overcome an emotional break-up? Have you ever made your partner the centre of your life?
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
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- Brueckner, K., & Moritz, S. (2009). Emotional valence and semantic relatedness differentially influence false recognition in mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s disease, and healthy elderly. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society. https://doi.org/10.1017/S135561770909047X
- Fonzo, G. A., Ramsawh, H. J., Flagan, T. M., Simmons, A. N., Sullivan, S. G., Allard, C. B., … Stein, M. B. (2016). Early life stress and the anxious brain: Evidence for a neural mechanism linking childhood emotional maltreatment to anxiety in adulthood. Psychological Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291715002603
