I had imagined our futures together. Repeatedly. I pictured her smiling face looking up at me at our wedding. We had discussed what we would name our children. I fell in love with her, hard. And one day it was all over.
I could have done it a lot sooner if I knew how to properly address what was really going on in my unconscious mind… and I want to help you get through things much faster, by laying out that process in this article. The Chemical Process You Experience During A Break Up
When you are in love with someone, your brain is hit with massive surges of dopamine (brain scans have shown that our minds follow very similar patterns when influenced by cocaine or nicotine). When you no longer have access to your intimate partner (post-breakup), your brain doesn’t fall out of love with them… it simply continues to be in love with them, but you no longer have access to them. And, like a crying baby who doesn’t have access to his mother that it so yearns for, our minds “rejector stimulus” is on overdrive. We simultaneously feel the pain of abandonment, the deep craving for a “fix” of our drug (aka partner) of choice and our once-regular hits of dopamine and oxytocin are nowhere to be found.
Getting Over A Break Up — Do These Things First:
1. Remind Yourself Of The Good, The Bad, And The Awful
Part of the reason we get stuck in processing our break up is that we idealize the relationship as a big collection of amazing, emotionally fulfilling times with very little downside. In reality, you fought frequently and there were core incompatibilities that drove you apart.
Whatever it was that felt dormant, go and inhabit that side of yourself to the fullest degree. You only suffer in a breakup to the extent that you lost yourself during the relationship… so there might be some leftover negative emotional residue if you felt like you weren’t fully allowed to be yourself around your partner. So go be you… all of you! 4. Use Your New Found Energy For Positive Growth
Get your exercise routine dialled, learn a new skill, or build a new business.
Re-frame your processing of the breakup as something that generally trends upwards and you won’t be as taken aback by the down days (when you see something that reminds you of your ex, smell their perfume on someone, etc.).
It could be something along the lines of “She made me feel appreciated/proud/good about myself.” Whatever that thing is, one of the reasons that you’re suffering this long after your break up is because whatever she did for you is still a large void in your life. You may be emotionally and psychologically addicted to your ex because they were your only source of a certain emotion, thought, or feeling that you only got from them. Some examples of this would be… – You have low self-esteem and she made you see yourself through her much more positive perspective – You are reluctant to give yourself any praise for a job well done and she would lavish you with praise and congratulations – You feel directionless in life and your relationship with her gave you a project to work on – You aren’t good at keeping yourself accountable or on track with your goals and she helped you tremendously in this area of your life Whatever your ex gave you, you are likely still suffering because you barely give yourself any of the emotional benefit that she gave you tons of.
So the action step part of this section is to start giving yourself the thing that she used to give you. Like a bird who lands on a tree branch only to have it break out from underneath it’s feet, you still have wings. You can make yourself soar without her. Is Getting Over Your Ex Truly Possible? Do I still do mental gymnastics sometimes and begin convincing myself that I’m still not over her? Yes, I do. As do a handful of my clients that are engaged to other women. But our brains are experts at convincing ourselves (logically) that we want things that aren’t good for us (because we want them emotionally). When I slow down for longer than a minute and think about why we broke up (several times) it was because we weren’t right for each other. She is my ex for a reason… just like yours is your ex for a reason. If it was meant to be then it would have been easier and you both would have fought to keep it going. But now it’s in the past and all that’s left to do is to let go of it. They came into your life to teach you a lesson about yourself, and now it’s time to gracefully let go of that person. You are better off for having known them, and you both bumped into each other on your life’s journey so that you can better prepare each other for your next respective relationships. Source: goodmenproject.com
