When you break up with a loved one, the first few days, weeks, or even months can be devastating. It is hard to understand what to do with yourself and your life. Mourning the loss of a once loving relationship can feel like you’re losing a part of yourself. A breakup has various stages of separation – it goes from shock, denial, anger, and depression to begging, relapse, and acceptance. But you need to be stronger for yourself. Follow these simple do’s and don’ts and have a healthy breakup.
10 Don’ts After A Breakup
We learn a lot about ourselves and others through our relationships — both the happy ones and the not-so-happy ones. However, going around in circles and feeling resentful and angry isn’t going to let you learn about yourself. It may keep you stuck in the past. Follow these 10 don’ts and have a healthy breakup.
1. Give Your Detective Skills Some Rest
Moving on in the age of Instagram and Facebook can feel like an impossible task. This is why, post-breakup, your ex’s profiles should remain off-limits. To keep you from wandering away from your feed (and onto their page), try performing a thorough online exorcism in the weeks after a breakup, which means unfollowing them on Facebook, Instagram, muting them on Twitter, and untagging any photos of the two of you together. It’s just easier for you to not constantly see what they’re up to, who they’re with, and what their life is like without you in it. Watch this video to learn 5 steps to do a digital detox.
2. Don’t Hook Up With Any Random Guy
After a breakup, you need to focus on yourself — your goals, your priorities, and your happiness. Getting right back into the dating pool might seem like a good distraction, but right now, it’s more important to give yourself the space you need to heal and reconnect with yourself as an individual. Oh, and whatever you do, do NOT start seeing someone new in an effort to make your ex jealous. By doing that, you’re just letting them dictate your actions from afar, instead of letting yourself live life on your terms. Make sure you don’t indulge in a rebound relationship and don’t go sleeping around with random guys you hardly know!
3. Don’t Compare Yourself To Their Next Love Interest
So you two weren’t a match. That’s totally OK! Just don’t beat yourself up if you see that they’re happy with someone else. Don’t go stalking their profiles. Their happiness says nothing about your worth as a person — all it says is that they’ve found someone they are more compatible with, which you’re more than capable of doing, too.
4. Don’t Wallow
In the early stages of a breakup, the best thing you can do is to let yourself feel it all the way. Wallowing for weeks or even months, isn’t healthy or productive — but neither is minimizing or ignoring the very real pain you’re feeling. Be compassionate with yourself. Process all your emotions, don’t try to push your feelings away. But once the official mourning period is over, it’s time to clear your head. Get up, go for a run, or walk somewhere beautiful. You can appreciate the good times, but to really help you get over a breakup, think through all the parts of that relationship that just didn’t work for you — and put those ‘never again’ items on your dating criteria list for next time.
5. Don’t Stop Taking Care Of Yourself
When you’re depressed, cooking a healthy meal, heading to the yoga class you used to love, or hitting the sack by 10 p.m. can seem like giant undertakings. But those very necessary acts of self-care will — not may — will go a long way towards making you feel better. At the very least, the sense of accomplishment will give you a boost of confidence, which is something you need more than ever right now. Read books, indulge in all the activities that help you relax and make you feel better. Watch this video to learn 5 simple ways to take care of yourself.
6. Don’t Immediately Try To Be Friends
It is possible to be friends with an ex. But first, be sure to give each other space at the beginning. You need to fully separate and move past the pain of the split. Once you’re both in a healthier place and you still feel the urge to reconnect, think as critically as possible about your dynamic before you jump into a platonic friendship. This only works if you both meant well and were generally kind to each other throughout the relationship. If you cared for each other but fundamentally weren’t a match or you grew apart, there’s no good reason to throw away a potential friendship. But if your relationship was not great, or if you brought out the worst qualities in one another, walking away with whatever lessons you learned is probably best.
7. Don’t Let It Affect Your Work & Social Life
If you find yourself slacking off because you’re either too distracted or too upset to focus on the tasks at hand, it’s time to take action. Opening up to a trusted colleague or supervisor, if you feel comfortable doing so, can help. If your office support system isn’t enough, it may be time to seek professional help. Knowing that you’ll have a dedicated 45 minutes or an hour every week to hash things out in a safe space may make it easier to focus on the stuff right in front of you. Nobody expects you to emerge from your grief-cocoon as a full-on social butterfly; if they’re your friends, they’ll just want to see how you’re doing. Meet them and you’ll definitely feel better.
8. Don’t Cling To Their Memories
That old sweatshirt may be cozy, but the memories attached to it probably aren’t. Toss it, and any other mementoes that bring you more pain than joy. Do not revisit an old spot. This is the geographic equivalent of holding onto the sweatshirt. Don’t specifically go out of your way to seek out a memory that will only hamper your healing. Do not listen to your song. There are about a million empowering single lady anthems out there — so why would you purposely revisit tunes that either remind you of them or remind you of how hard and sad love can be?
9. Don’t Drunk Dial Your Ex
Not just the drunk “I miss you” texts, stop sending him the sly “happy birthdays” too. Do whatever it takes to avoid falling into this trap. Hand your phone to your friends, or better yet, just delete their number. Make the break a clean one. Don’t keep calling up in the hopes of finding the closure that you may or may not get. Staying in touch just prolongs the agony of the breakup or, worse, it can cause you to enter into a potentially toxic ‘on-again, off-again’ relationship. Also, don’t have breakup sex, if you do have it, you are only recreating an emotional bond whether you want it or not.
10. Don’t Get A Crazy Haircut Or A Tattoo
You are going to regret that ‘edgy’ haircut and that cringe-worthy tattoo once this phase is over. Plus, all the pictures you get during this time will forever remind you of the bad decisions you made in life. One, getting a haircut. Second, dating him.
10 Do’s After A Breakup
From hysterical crying to binge eating and desperately texting him to trashing away his stuff, all of us do insanely weird stuff when emotions take over the best of us. Remember what Geet (Kareena Kapoor) from Jab We Met did to her ex when he ditched her? She called him and abused him on the phone before dumping his photographs in the toilet. Well, not a good idea in real life. Rather, take some inspiration from Rani (Kangana Ranaut) from Queen, go on a solo trip, shed your inhibitions and come back as a stronger woman! Find here 10 positive ways to deal with a breakup.
1. Try Keeping Yourself Busy
Block your ex! You are going to be tempted to contact your ex. Make sure you minimize that temptation by trying to focus on yourself. You need to keep yourself busy for the first few weeks. It will get better with time. Get your dose of feel-good chemicals by spending time with friends and family and focusing on self-care. Increase your endorphins by exercising. Here are 10 ways to help you quickly improve your mood.
2. Reach Out For Support
You are going to miss your ex. But instead of reaching out to them, reach out to family and friends. You may also visit your therapist. Talking to a trained professional may expedite your healing process and help you accept the tough emotions. Get an accountability partner, because discipline is not going to come easy during this stage of recovery.
3. Write A Hate Mail But Don’t Send It
Feel like you didn’t get closure? Well, closure is a very subjective idea and you can get yours by writing a hate mail to them and venting it all out. Here’s the catch though: don’t send it! Writing that mail and venting it out is all the closure you need and you’ll surely feel incredibly at ease once you do this exercise. Also, do yourself a favour and write down everything negative about them. Keep this list handy, this will serve as an easy reminder of why you’re better off without that relationship.
4. Reflect On The Relationship
After the initial pain has passed, look back on the relationship and analyze it. A breakup is sometimes the shakeup required when you want to redirect your life. Breakups are a good time to go inward and evaluate what lessons you can learn. These things happen so that you grow, evolve, and become more conscious. Pain is an amazing teacher. Use this pain to fuel your fire and create the life you want to live.
5. Let Out Your Emotions
Cry, scream, sob your eyes out, and yell. As long as you don’t hurt yourself or somebody else, it is absolutely fine. Find ways to release the pain you may be feeling. All breakups are hard. Don’t take the healing process away from yourself. Otherwise, the resentment will grow within you. You will feel some negative emotions initially. Honour your feelings and understand that they will get less intense with time. You can try listening to sad songs. This can actually make you feel better. Find a private place, let your tears run or if you prefer to be with your friends, take their help to get over your breakup. Give yourself time to grieve.
6. Take A Girls Trip
When a relationship ends, most people find it hard to cope with day-to-day life because they are left with a void. So instead of trying to desperately contact your ex, get in touch with your girlfriends and go on a trip after the lockdown ends! Not only will reconnecting with people who love and nurture you help you heal, but the change in scenery will also do heaps to distract you and make you feel better. If you cannot go on a trip, plan a sleepover, party hard and sing your favourite songs at the top of your lungs!
7. Make A Breakup Playlist
Make a breakup playlist consisting of songs that remind you why you are better off without that toxic relationship and also that you are good enough on your own. Having a kickass breakup playlist is one of the most effective ways to get over a breakup and not only will these breakup songs have you move on but also feel great about yourself. Keep all the single lady anthems in one place and anytime you feel weak, pop that playlist up on full volume!
8. Buy Yourself Some Fine Jewellery
Make sure that your shopping spree is not an impulsive action and also not a guilty pleasure. Women have been conditioned to believe that men are supposed to buy them expensive jewellery as grand gestures of love. If you’ve been eyeing a ring with a massive rock, don’t wait for a man to buy it for you! If you want it and you can afford it, why let archaic thinking get in your way? Buy it! Find here the top jewellery trends in 2021.
9. Accept That It Is Over
Coping with a breakup is tricky. You can reach acceptance way sooner by staying away from your ex. This method relies on time more than anything else. Don’t obsess over what you could have done differently. There are infinite could-haves and should-haves, and thinking about them will only cause you more pain. It really doesn’t matter anymore. Your only mission now is to get to a place where you are not battling with yourself. Do this with love and compassion. It may take some time for you to catch up with reality, but you have to accept that the relationship is over.
10. Find Yourself
Chances are that you lost a piece of yourself after the breakup. Now is the chance to find yourself again, and this can be a fun process. This is one of the positives of your breakup, so embrace it wholeheartedly! Try a new hobby you always wanted to do or try taking scented baths. You can eat chips and chocolate bars for dinner if you feel like it. Just chill. Buy yourself some new lingerie, it’ll help you feel attractive and confident! There are a lot of things that made you YOU, and you just have to find them again. Alternatively, you can try and discover new things about yourself. It can be a long journey, but you can take your time. It will be worth it.
Remember, if your relationship didn’t work out, it is because that person was not meant for you. Someone else who is meant to be yours will fit the bill someday, and they will love you just the way you are. All the best!