Ways to fix a broken heart

When thoughts of your ex arise, try not to stop or block them. Instead, Bottari says, practice being a “witness” to these thoughts. When the thoughts come up, take a step back and acknowledge them.

“You know you are experiencing them; they are passing through your mind. You observe them. You practice observing and letting them go,” she explains.

“The minute you pay attention to one and label it as something ‘important,’ you are no longer witnessing them. You are now judging them. Judging brings more negative emotions since your expectations were not met.”

5.

If you’re not feeling up to meeting friends out or are having a hard time following through on commitments, try to share your feelings with others.

“Try to reconsider your needs at this time and let others know what you are dealing with,” says Bottari. “Many people have felt the same way and will understand that you might need some time to return to your normal state. ”

6.

When the pain of a breakup is too hard to bear, you may find that focusing on the needs of others can help bring feelings of wellbeing and distract you from focusing on yourself, explains Bottari.

Consider volunteering at a local soup kitchen or animal shelter, helping a friend in need with meals or cleaning, or cutting a neighbor’s grass.

7.

You may find it helpful to talk to a trusted friend, family member, or therapist about emotions related to your breakup or ex-partner.

If you’re not comfortable sharing all of your feelings, consider writing them down or meditating on them. You can also engage in another project, such as painting, that may help you release what’s on your mind.

8.

Research shows that exercise can reduce stress. “Use exercise as a healthy outlet to manage feelings of anxiety, sadness, lethargy, and stress,” Bottari says.

A daily walk, bike ride, or online workout video are ways to work exercise into your daily routine when you’re feeling sad or stressed about the breakup.

9.

If you continue to feel overwhelmed by unwanted thoughts and emotions, consider staying away from places, music, and people who remind you of your ex for a little while.

“Try to go places that make you feel safe. Surround yourself with people that care about you. Go places that you have never been. Take a day trip and explore,” suggests Bottari.

10.

If possible, try to make meaning of the relationship ending, or accept that there’s no meaning to why it ended.

“Over time, you may come to realize that the end of your relationship was ultimately in your best interest. However, it is possible that you might not be able to find any positive in the relationship ending. Both are valid conclusions. Try to have faith and keep moving forward,” says Bottari.

A breakup can leave you feeling sad and alone, no matter who made the decision to split up. Cycling through a variety of feelings after a breakup is normal, especially if it was unexpected.

“We forget that we are meant to grow and change and learn. That doesn’t always happen at the same time or in the same way in a relationship,” says Moffa.

“Sometimes, one person changes and the other doesn’t. So, be gentle with yourself. You’re changing and growing and healing. We can’t do that all by force.”

Remember, it’s OK to not feel OK for a while. Give yourself time to process the loss of the relationship and practice self-compassion.

12 Ways to Mend a Broken Heart

Bess Myerson once wrote that “to fall in love is awfully simple, but to fall out of love is simply awful,” especially if you are the one who wanted the relationship to last. But to stop loving isn’t an option. Author Henri Nouwen writes, “When those you love deeply reject you, leave you, or die, your heart will be broken. But that should not hold you back from loving deeply. The pain that comes from deep love makes your love ever more fruitful.” But how do we get beyond the pain? Here are 12 techniques I’ve gathered from experts and from conversations with friends on how they patched up their hearts and tried, ever so gradually, to move on.

1. Go through it, not around it.

I realize the most difficult task for a person with a broken heart is to stand still and feel the crack. But that is exactly what she must do. Because no shortcut is without its share of obstructions. Here’s a simple fact: You have to grieve in order to move on. During the 18 months of my severe depression, my therapist repeated almost every visit: “Go through it. Not around it.” Because if I went around some of the issues that were tearing me apart inside, then I would bump into them somewhere down the line, just like being caught in the center of a traffic circle. By going through the intense pain, I eventually surfaced as a stronger person ready to tackle problems head on. Soon the pain lost its stronghold over me.

2. Stand on your own.

One of the most liberating thoughts I repeat to myself when I’m immersed in grief and sadness is this: I don’t need anyone or anything to make me happy. That job is all my own, with a little help from God. When I’m experiencing the intense pangs of grief, it is so difficult to trust that I can be whole without that person in my life. But I have learned over and over again that I can. I really can. It is my job to fill the emptiness, and I can do it … creatively, and with the help of my higher power.

3. Detach.

Attempting to fill the void yourself–without rushing to a new relationship or trying desperately to win your lover back–is essentially what detaching is all about. The Buddha taught that attachment that leads to suffering. So the most direct path to happiness and peace is detachment. In his book, Eastern Wisdom for Western Minds, Victor M. Parachin tells a wonderful story about an old gardener who sought advice from a monk. Writes Parachin:

“Great Monk, let me ask you: How can I attain liberation?” The Great Monk replied: “Who tied you up?” This old gardener answered: “Nobody tied me up.” The Great Monk said: “Then why do you seek liberation?”

4. List your strengths.

As I wrote in my “12 Ways to Keep Going” post, a technique that helps me when I feel raw and defeated to try anymore is to list my strengths. I say to myself, “Self, you have been sober for 20 years!! Weaklings can’t pull off that! And here you are, alive, after those 18 months of intense suicidal thoughts. Plus you haven’t smoked a cigarette since that funeral back in December of last year!” I say all of that while listening to the Rocky soundtrack, and by the last line, I’m ready to tackle my next challenge: move on from this sadness and try to be a productive individual in this world. If you can’t list your strengths, start a self-esteem file. Click here to learn how you build one.

5. Allow some fantasizing.

Grief wouldn’t be the natural process that it should be without some yearning for the person you just lost. Dr. Christine Whelan, who writes the “Pure Sex, Pure Column” on BustedHalo.com, explains the logic of allowing a bit of fantasy. She writes:

If you are trying to banish a sexual fantasy from your head, telling yourself “I’m not going to fantasize about her” or “I won’t think about what it would be like to be intimate with him” might make it worse: In a famous psychological study from the 1980s, a group of subjects were told to think about anything but whatever they did, they were not supposed to think about a white bear. Guess what they all thought about?

6. Help someone else.

When I’m in pain, the only guaranteed antidote to my suffering is to box up all of my feelings, sort them, and then try to find a use for them. That’s why writing Beyond Bluecontributes a big chunk to my recovery, why moderating Group Beyond Blue has me excited to wake up every day. When you turn your attention to another person–especially someone who is struggling with the same kind of pain–you forget about yourself for a split moment. And let’s face it, that, on some days, feels like a miracle.

7. Laugh. And cry.

Laughter heals on many levels as I explain in my “9 Ways Humor Heals” post, and so does crying. You think it’s just a coincidence that you always feel better after a good cry? Nope, there are many physiological reasons that contribute to the healing power of tears. Some of them have been documented by biochemist William Frey who has spent 15 years as head of a research team studying tears. Among their findings is that emotional tears (as compared to tears of irritation, like when you cut an onion) contain toxic biochemical byproducts, so that weeping removes these toxic substances and relieves emotional stress. So go grab a box of Kleenex and cry your afternoon away.

8. Make a good and bad list.

You need to know which activities will make you feel good, and which ones will make you want to toilet paper your ex-lover’s home (or apartment). You won’t really know which activity belongs on which list until you start trying things, but I suspect that things like checking out his wall on Facebook and seeing that he has just posted a photo of his gorgeous new girlfriend is not going to make you feel good, so put that on the “don’t attempt” list, along with e-mails and phone calls to his buddies fishing for information about him. On the “feels peachy” list might be found such ventures as: deleting all of his e-mails and voicemails, pawning off the jewelry he gave you (using the cash for a much-needed massage?), laughing over coffee with a new friend who doesn’t know him from Adam (to ensure his name won’t come up).

9. Work it out.

Working out your grief quite literally–by running, swimming, walking, or kick-boxing–is going to give you immediate relief. On a physiological level–because exercise increases the activity of serotonin and/or norepinehrine and stimulates brain chemicals that foster growth of nerve cells–but also on an emotional level, because you are taking charge and becoming the master of your mind and body. Plus you can visualize the fellow who is responsible for your pain and you can kick him in the face. Now doesn’t that feel good?

10. Create a new world.

This is especially important if your world has collided with his, meaning that mutual friends who have seen him in the last week feel the need to tell you about it. Create your own safe world–full of new friends who wouldn’t recognize him in a crowd and don’t know how to spell his name–where he is not allowed to drop by for a figurative or literal surprise visit. Take this opportunity to try something new–scuba diving lessons, an art class, a book club, a blog–so to program your mind and body to expect a fresh beginning … without him.

11. Find hope.

There’s a powerful quote in the movieThe Tale of Despereaux that I’ve been thinking about ever since I heard it: “There is one emotion that is stronger than fear, and that is forgiveness.” I suppose that’s why, at my father’s deathbed, the moment of reconciliation between us made me less scared to lose him. But forgiveness requires hope: believing that a better place exists, that the aching emptiness experienced in your every activity won’t be with you forever, that one day you’ll be excited to make coffee in the morning or go to a movie with friends. Hope is believing that the sadness can evaporate, that if you try like hell to move on with your life, your smile won’t always be forced. Therefore in order to forgive and to move past fear, you need to find hope.

12. Love deeply. Again and again.

Once our hearts are bruised and burned from a relationship that ended, we have two options: we can close off pieces of our heart so that one day no one will be able to get inside. Or we can love again. Deeply, just as intensely as we did before. Henri Nouwen urges to love again because the heart only expands with the love we are able to pour forth. He writes:

The more you have loved and have allowed yourself to suffer because of your love, the more you will be able to let your heart grow wider and deeper. When your love is truly giving and receiving, those whom you love will not leave your heart even when they depart from you. The pain of rejection, absence, and death can become fruitful. Yes, as you love deeply the ground of your heart will be broken more and more, but you will rejoice in the abundance of the fruit it will bear.

life hacks from a psychologist when parting with a loved one or death of a loved one

What to do, what to remember, and how to survive grief due to a breakup with a partner, the loss of a friend or the death of a loved one.

Anastasia Nikiforova

There is probably no person who has never experienced a broken heart. We usually associate this concept with the end of a romantic relationship, but grief is not an easy thing. The death of a loved one, the loss of a job, a career change, the loss of a close friend can break our hearts. All this leaves us confused and feeling that the world will never be the same again. nine0003

Contents of article

There is no magic patch for a broken heart - it will take time to heal. But there are practices that help support yourself and protect your emotional well-being. Here are some recommendations from psychotherapists and healthline.com.

How to take care of yourself

Even if your last concern is to think about your needs, taking care of yourself is important. A broken heart needs strength - and so do you.

Allow yourself to grieve

There is no one “universal” grief that everyone experiences in the same way. So the best thing you can do is give yourself permission to feel what hurts inside: sadness, anger, loneliness, or guilt.

And although we are all different, perhaps close people will be able to feel our pain, recognize something of their own in it and support us.

Take care of yourself

It is easy for a broken heart to distract us from our daily needs. But grief is not only an emotional experience, it drains you physically. Scientists have proven that physical and emotional pain use the same pathways in the brain, so feelings cannot be considered separately from the body. nine0003

Exercise, deep breathing, and meditation can help you deal with your feelings. But don't beat yourself up if you don't have the strength to do all this - just move in small steps, one day at a time. And don't forget to drink enough water.

Let others know what you need

Everyone deals with loss differently. Someone prefers to close completely, others have enough circle of friends, others live through feelings, sharing them with a large audience on social networks. Decide how it works for you and how other people can help - keep your distance, be in close contact or more distant, etc. nine0003

Write down things that can help you (“card method”)

How it works:

1. Make a list of what you need, including material and emotional support. This may include talking on the phone, hugging, helping with groceries, etc.
2. Take a stack of cards and write down one item on each.
3. When people ask how they can help, give them one of the cards or let them choose their own. Some people are not very good at comforting, but are brilliant in planning tasks, others are always ready to be in touch. Choosing from several ready-made items will allow your loved ones to understand how to help you, and it will unload your head, already clouded with worries. nine0050

Go outside

Studies have shown that just 2 hours a week in the fresh air improves our mental and physical health. It's great if you can take in the scenery while walking, but even just walking can help.

Read self-help books and listen to podcasts

Knowing that others have gone through and dealt with similar experiences can help reduce feelings of loneliness. Books and podcasts are a great way to accept and live your feelings. nine0003

Try to do something nice for yourself

Set aside time every day for something positive - watching a funny series or funny videos, meeting friends, reading a good book. Planning for moments that bring joy is vital to healing a broken heart.

Seek professional help

It is very important to talk about your feelings with others and not try to bury them in yourself. Easier said than done, so a meeting with a psychologist or psychotherapist may be helpful. Even two or three meetings may be enough. nine0003

Skills worth learning

Coping with grief is important, but it is also helpful to develop new habits and skills to help you overcome the loss.

Accepting your pain

Don't waste time feeling ashamed or guilty about your feelings, it's better to put all your energy into healing. Schedule 10-15 minutes a day to mourn well, this is normal in your situation. After a while, you may find that you want to do it less and less. nine0003

Self-compassion

This means treating yourself with love and respect, without judgment. Think about what you would say to a loved one who is going through difficult times, how would you show him that you care? This is how you should treat yourself.

Unloading the schedule

When we are in pain, it can be very difficult to focus on business. Keep this in mind when planning your work or social workload, leaving room for "feeling breaks." nine0003

Cultivating new traditions

If you end a relationship or lose a loved one, it may turn out that a whole piece of life full of rituals and traditions has gone with him (holidays are especially difficult).

Enlist the help of friends and family to create something new to replace what has been lost—traditions and memories.

Keeping notes

Writing in a diary or private blog can help you recognize and record feelings that you are not ready to share with other people. nine0003

Chat with a support group

This could be a social media group, forum or online support group. Regular communication in a safe environment, sharing feelings and experiences with those who have experienced similar things, can be very healing.

Getting in touch with soul and body

Experiencing loss or change can separate us from ourselves. You can return contact with the soul and body through physical exercises, walks in nature or meditation practices. nine0003

Things to remember

Our society, in movies and songs, has distorted ideas about how recovery from loss works. That is why it is so important to have realistic expectations.

Your experience is important

The death of a loved one is an obvious form of grief, but it can also be hidden, with the loss of a friendship or relationship. Even a career change or the departure of children from home can cause it.

The popular phrase “Children in Africa are starving” has never made anyone feel better. No one exclaimed, “Why am I crying, my problems are not problems at all in comparison with the problem of world hunger!” nine0003

It doesn't matter why you are in pain, what matters is that you are in pain. These feelings affect your life.

It's not a competition

It's natural to compare your experience with other people's, but grief is not a competition.

You can lose a friend to death, or you can lose a friendship, and the feelings will be very similar: you will have to learn to live in a world without important close relationships.

No expiration date in grief

Grief is not the same for everyone, it does not have a timetable like a train. Avoid those who say "it's time to move on" - you have the right to heal for as long as you need.

You can't avoid pain

No matter how hard it is, you have to go through it. The more you delay acknowledging your pain, feelings, and emotions, the further recovery is delayed.

Sometimes feelings will come over

As the experience of grief develops, the intensity of sadness will also change. Sometimes it will be soft waves coming and going, and sometimes feelings will overwhelm you, without any control. Don't judge yourself for the way your emotions show up.

You will have periods of happiness

It is perfectly normal to feel moments of joy even when you are sad. Focus on the present and allow yourself to accept the good things that are happening in life. nine0003

If you are experiencing the loss of a loved one, happiness may be accompanied by feelings of guilt. But joy is very important in order to move forward, and forcing yourself into negativity will not change the situation for the better.

It's okay to feel abnormal

Even if you do your best to heal your broken heart, sometimes there will be bad days. Take them for granted - you will continue healing tomorrow. It's normal to feel abnormal from time to time. nine0003

You'll need time

Don't expect your pain to go away before it's all gone. Try to accept the new reality and the fact that you will need time to process grief and heal.

What can you read?

Books help to distract and heal a broken heart, especially if they are personal stories about how other people experienced grief. Here are some stories that might help.

• Strayed Cheryl — Beautiful little things. Inspirational stories for those who do not know how to live on
• Lamotte Ann Small victories. How to Feel Happiness Every Day"
• Joan Didion "A Year of Magical Thinking" Joan Didion
• Nat Tit "The Lotus Grows Out of Mud. How to Transform Suffering into Happiness"
• Brown Brené "Gifts of Imperfection. How to love yourself just the way you are"

Have you had your heart broken?

Sadly, the hard experience of loss can change our lives forever. But pain follows light, so it's worth keeping moving forward. Survival time will end and a new life will begin , slightly different, but no less valuable.0003

Four methods of healing a broken heart

31,674

Man and woman Know thyself

“We parted two months ago by mutual agreement. By this point, it was clear to both of us that our difficult relationship would lead nowhere. I don't want him back, but I can't forget him either. All the time I remember those days and nights when we were good together. I often cry. It is difficult to do even daily activities. Advise me what to do,” asks 29-year-old Anastasia. nine0003

32-year-old Eugene echoes her: “I have been in love with Marina for a long time, I tried to court, but I immediately realized that this was a hopeless case: she would soon marry someone else. I would really like to just forget her and switch. I've tried dating other women... that's not it at all! After each meeting, I think that everything would be different with Marina. These thoughts are driving me crazy."

Immersed in a painful sense of loss, all those who have suffered from unrequited love since Antiquity ask themselves: how to endure this ordeal - one of the most difficult? Who will help to heal from love? The ancient Roman poet Ovid tried to answer this question with a long poem "The Cure for Love". nine0003

Today, the internet is the go-to guide, where you can find numerous stories about "how I forgot my ex" or cure love with wikiHow, the premier online guide that "teaches you to do everything. " The longest of his instructions on how to fall out of love includes 17 steps.

Ovid's recipes

In the second year of our era, when Ovid was accused of wasting his talent only on singing love, he responded by writing a poem of 814 verses in which he teaches "the art of falling out of love." Here are some quotes from her. nine0003

“Avoid idleness: idleness breeds love and nourishes it. She is both the cause and the food for this so sweet affliction.”

***

“Keep apparent calmness, and this calmness, at first feigned, will become real. May you have the strength to consider yourself healed, and you will definitely be healed.

***

“Isn't it wiser to remain silent than to keep repeating that you no longer love? The one who says, "I don't love anymore," still loves. Gradually, and not immediately, we extinguish our flame. Hurry slowly and you will be saved from adversity. nine0003

Society tends to view unrequited love as a nuisance that reduces our social "efficiency. " And since surgeons have learned how to transplant a heart, we are also trying to heal it with the help of modern methods. But which one do you prefer?

We interviewed four specialists. Their approaches are different but effective. The choice depends on the goals that we set for ourselves.

Psychodrama to complete the relationship

Ekaterina Lopukhina, psychodramatist

Motto: become the author of your own life. We often feel that something is happening to us, and we can only worry about it. But we also compose our life, and every author knows that the hero goes through trials in order to acquire new qualities. Psychodrama helps to make trials a part of life experience, to understand how and why they change us.

How it works: reach agreement with all parts of your personality. Our suffering is explained by the conflict of parts: one wants to return to the relationship, the other wants to end it. There is one that is angry and one that is sad. The psychodramatist will offer to isolate each part as a separate character and give it the opportunity to express position and feelings. Then these parts can enter into a dialogue, but even the first stage of the work - distinguishing between individual voices in the inner turmoil - already helps the sufferer from love. nine0003

It is also possible to discover that part of ourselves that we feel we have lost with the end of a relationship. What was I like in these relationships, what do I miss so much? Our task is to “call” this part with its qualities back and find a place for it in our life. There is a lot to be said in a relationship. And if they are interrupted, the feelings and thoughts addressed to the partner remain unexpressed. Psychodrama offers a conversation with an imaginary partner in a symbolic space.

What has been started must be completed so that there is no story without an end, which makes us scroll through failed explanations in our heads. In addition, we can come up with farewell rituals and act them out. nine0003

Limitations: the method is not suitable for those whose emotions are difficult to control, who are "overwhelmed" or "knocked down" by feelings. It is also unlikely to suit those who, in principle, find it difficult and do not want to speak.

Hypnosis to calm down

Miriam Ruhr, Coach

Motto: do not interfere with another to go his way, but go your own. Ericksonian hypnosis is like an ambulance, it offers the victim of love to say goodbye to affective addiction as soon as possible. The client is first asked to remember his grief, then prompted to let go of the loved one from memory, "dissolving" the emotional charge associated with him. In this way, you can quickly go through the mandatory and necessary stages of mourning: denial, anger, feelings of injustice, sadness and even depression, and then renewal. All this happens in less than six months. nine0003

How it works: change the perception of loss through metaphors. Assuming a comfortable position, plunging into a state of slightly altered consciousness, the client follows the therapist's metaphors. These metaphors show the loss of love in a different light and allow you to take it with more calmness. At this stage, the client is helped to "unanchor" the trauma and then new anchors are created for safer reactions.

A precaution in this technique: throughout the process, the therapist checks that regrets, desire, longing, resentment, or hatred towards the former partner have indeed been "deprogrammed". After all, hating him is out of the question (that would be another way to maintain affection). nine0003

Restrictions: some cannot be hypnotized. Hypnosis is often associated with suggestion: if an idea, an image, a belief is suggested to us, will the reaction to them be the same as if they arose on their own? Everyone has their own answer to this.

Psychoanalysis to recover

Maria Eril, psychotherapist

Motto: to restore narcissistic integrity. Each of us is characterized by narcissism. It breaks down when the relationship breaks. Our social status is changing: we become loners. We are losing our usual support: next to us there is no longer the one who raised our self-esteem, said: “you look good”, “you are the best” ...

The period before a breakup is often also painful: we felt wrong, we heard reproaches and accusations. This is how integrity is lost. And psychoanalysis helps to restore it.

How it works: take your time and understand what is happening. If we set ourselves the task of quickly falling out of love, then we achieve the opposite, aggravating suffering with a new failure. It is better to prepare for the fact that we have a difficult period ahead. The more we take care of ourselves, the more likely we will be able to pass it safely. And although the desire to quickly finish the love story is understandable, trying to unwind and get distracted is not the best tactic here. nine0003

Some are looking for new sexual adventures, new partners. Often this experience makes the situation worse. Compared to the meaninglessness of random meetings, the value of lost relationships will increase. For the same reason, you should not try to continue your sexual life without a partner. Overall, masturbation is a positive experience, a way to get to know yourself better. But after parting, the images that arise in sexual fantasies are associated with the person we have lost. This can make it harder to access orgasm, and not achieving orgasm is another blow to self-esteem. nine0003

Therefore, it is better to turn to the inner child, to the pleasures that the sensation of the physical body gives us: to run, to walk. It is important to understand that "I am good on my own, without a partner, I fill the world, the world is more interesting with me than without me."

Restrictions: this method is for those who have the time and money. And also the desire to look for the origins of their problems. For those who do not want or are not ready to go through disturbing memories, the psychoanalytic method of free association will not be the most suitable. nine0003

Philosophy to console yourself

Julia Sineokaya, philosopher

Motto: parting with a loved one does not mean parting with love. Learning how to stop loving is impossible, and not necessary. Love is the greatest blessing. In the dialogue about love "Feast", Plato proves that love is much more important than being loved, love is the main gift of the gods to people, only love opens the way to gaining meaning, self-improvement, immortality. Undoubtedly, losing a loved one is a tragedy. It hurts when he doesn't love you back. It is even more painful when the feeling goes out of life irrevocably. nine0003

How it works: ask yourself questions and answer them honestly. One of these important questions is what exactly torments us: love or desire to possess, an unsatisfied sense of ownership. If you really love, your love cannot be taken away from you as long as you yourself are alive.

If a loved one is alive, but does not want to be with you, give him the freedom to be himself, and if possible, continue to do good for him without expecting a reward, because you do it from an excess of feeling, and do not lend and do not doing the exchange. The greatest joy is to do good to the one you love. You can do otherwise, say to yourself: "I do not know how to love those who do not love me." This formula can help, heal, and if it works, great! However, this will mean that your feeling was not true love. nine0003

To meet a person whom you deeply loved, with whom you spent a happy time, is the rarest gift that you will keep in your soul, having learned over time to draw from it not suffering, but strength. There is nothing eternal, this is the wisdom and tragedy of being. If your beloved has left your life or even left the world forever, this does not mean at all that love is dead - it will remain with you as joy, as a talisman, as something that will never leave and betray you, warm your soul in harsh times . Do not look for a cure for love - love! Love is the best gift that life gives us. nine0003

Limitations: philosophy teaches you to think and create your own image of the world, giving meaning to life.

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