If you’re suffering from a broken heart, you may worry that you’ll never find love again. Believe me when I say that your heartbreak won’t last forever, though. In fact, if you follow these steps to heal your heart, you’ll quickly work your way down the path towards healing.
Allow yourself to feel a full range of emotions.
You can’t heal a broken heart by pushing through it. Your feelings exist for a reason, so ignoring them will only make matters worse.
In fact, ignoring your feelings disconnects you from yourself. At a time of heartache, it’s important to stay present to your emotional experience. The sooner you make peace with your feelings and accept that there’s nothing wrong with how you feel, the faster you will heal. This doesn’t mean that you should wallow or become self-indulgent in your sorrow. Instead, be intentional about the process.
Give yourself time to grieve the loss.
When you feel happy or blissful, you know that those emotions will only temporarily. Yet when you feel badly, you can’t imagine that you’ll ever feel good again.
This is a delusion. The truth is that our emotions constantly change from moment to moment. Acknowledging and expressing these feelings allows you to release them in the proper ebb and flow.
All emotions compound, and this is especially true with grief. When we experience a heartbreak, we feel all of it. It’s important to accept this and set aside some time to fully process the loss of your relationship. Whether you schedule it on your calendar or simply set aside some time each day to let yourself express your anger, sadness, and pain, the processing of your heartache will help you eventually put the pieces of your broken heart back together again.
Your pain won’t disappear overnight, either. you may feel grief again in the future, and that’s OK. Healing takes time, so embrace the slow pace of healing from your breakup.
Learn from your mistakes.
You can only break patterns and consciously choose a more suitable partner when you learn from your past experiences. This is one of the most difficult steps in the healing process, but also the most important.
You need to dig deep, analyze exactly what went wrong in the relationship, and determine what caused the breakup to happen. When you do this, you’ll start to see your ex as less of a jerk and more of a teacher of sorts. In time, this will allow you to grow from the experience and move you closer to finding your true soulmate.
Forgive your ex.
When the intensity of heartbreak fades, you can start the process of disconnecting from your ex. However, this can only happen once you stop blaming your ex and start forgiving them for the pain they caused.
Forgiveness will allow you to cut the cord and free your heart so that you can eventually love again. Forgiveness doesn’t excuse bad behavior. Instead, it’s acknowledging someone’s humanity and showing them compassion for their shortcomings.
Forgive yourself, too.
Once you acknowledge your ex’s deficiencies and forgive him, you should take time to forgive yourself, too. This “golden nugget” will allow you to grow from this entire experience and move on. Forgiving yourself is the final step of healing, and after you do it, you will feel ready to start looking for your next potential love interest.
Although your heart may be shattered right now, know that this heartbreak won’t last forever. When you finally discover the one made for you, it won’t matter how many others it didn’t work out with or how long it took you to find each other. What will matter is that you can enjoy the best years of your life with someone you love.
Previously Published on YourTango
