Relationships can be very exciting experiences, and they’re a necessary part of our individual growth. However, not every relationship lasts forever, and breakups can really bring you down. Regardless of who initiated it all, here are a few tips that I wholeheartedly stand by to help you cope with this change in your life. Self-care and self-love are your best tools, so be sure to use them often.
1. Cut your technology ties
With social media these days, it’s pretty easy to keep tabs on every move a person makes by looking at their Facebook page, Instagram, or whatever else you can think of. Being that connected can make it hard to distance yourself from a person, and it can drive you crazy trying to figure out if their recently added friends are people who they’re dating — or if that person in the picture is their new significant other.
Do yourself a favor and hide them from your feeds by unfollowing them, blocking them, or doing whatever you need to do. This is something I stand true to, and this has helped me through the end of every relationship, good or bad.
2. Keep yourself busy
It’s really easy to throw yourself a pity party when you are lying in bed at three in the afternoon, eating Oreos and looking at all of the pictures that you and your ex look happy in.
Call up your friends, get out of the house, and laugh a lot. Through all of my good and bad breakups, my friends were always there for me, and it was a much needed reminder of all the good I still had in my life. Even taking a night to pamper yourself and do nothing — whatever you want to do — will do wonders for keeping your spirits up.
3. Be honest
If you truly care about someone, you owe it to them to be open and honest about why things aren’t working out between the two of you. It’s important because it can help give a sense of closure to both parties and can help clear up any miscommunication that might be perceived otherwise. Just remember that vulnerable emotions are at stake, so take the softer side of honesty versus brutal honesty.
4. Don’t trash talk
If someone hurts you emotionally, anger is a very natural reaction. The post-breakup period is a vulnerable time in any person’s life, and often times you will say a lot you don’t mean. So, as much as you want to blurt out how much of a jerk they were, or how you hated the way they [insert annoying thing here], don’t do it. You’ll likely feel bad about it later, and you just don’t need any more negativity heading your way.
5. Stop thinking you lost your soulmate
This is the absolute most important tip, in my opinion, and if you take away nothing else from this article, take this with you. In one of my favorite episodes of Sex and the City (I have many favorites, of course), the girls are discussing their opinions on the ideas of soulmates, and I think Miranda nails it perfectly when she calls the idea dangerous. I think it’s preposterous to believe that there is only ONE perfect person out there for you, considering there are — what — seven billion people in the world? The fixation on a soulmate will only make each and every breakup harder, as you will spend too much time grieving the imaginary perfect life you lost instead of appreciating the unknown that you have left. In short, the old cliché stands: There are plenty of fish in the sea.