How to Fix a Broken Heart

The reason why your breakup hurts so much and what you can do about it

There are hundreds of emotions you can feel during a breakup. Sadness, bitterness, anger… The end of a relationship is the perfect smoothie of emotions, Starbucks should consider adding it to their menu.

No seriously, this mix of emotions usually takes all the energy you have and leaves you feeling empty. You went separate ways and feel like your ex-partner took all your belongings. There’s not a bit of joy or hope inside of you.

So, why do you feel so empty?

The problem with relationships

Often, when in a relationship, you unconsciously allow your partner to complete you. That is why, when your partner leaves, you feel empty. Let me explain this with an example.

Your partner made you feel good about your body image, but now that you broke up, you don’t feel like a Greek god/goddess anymore. Why? Because the confidence about your body image came from an external source instead of you.

The missing piece

Now that your partner is gone, you feel as if all those things were gone as well. Your confidence, your humor, your joy, anything you feel missing.

When in a relationship, we are so blinded by the good moments and love, that we let our guard down and stop nurturing our qualities. If our partner does it, why would we waste our time doing it twice? But then, we break up and forget that he/she was not the only source of uplift. There’s one source way more important, ourselves.

How can you make it better?

• Step 1

Think about all the qualities you loved about your partner and then, take a pen and paper and write them down.

I truly recommend writing them down because being able to write how you feel or what you think on a piece of paper takes courage. It is not a thought anymore, it is a fact, and facts hit differently.

• Step 2

Go over those things and try to find the ones you are missing within yourself.

That is the source of your pain, this empty space your partner used to fill, and now it’s completely blank.

• Step 3

Now that you know what’s missing, start nurturing those qualities. In other words, be your own source of joy.

It is going to be hard, this won’t happen overnight, but it’s the best way to feel whole again. Besides, if you do it right, you won’t have to do this again. Build these qualities and feelings once and they will be a lifelong reward.

You won’t need this type of joy from anyone else, on the contrary, you will be complete by yourself.

Conventional advice

Going out with your friends, watching a movie, reading… helps. But at the end of the day, it was as if you had a giant hole in your house and decided to spend time out to avoid seeing it, instead of repairing it. Of course, it will get your mind off it, but when you come back home, the hole will still be there.

For instance, I used to keep myself busy so that I wouldn’t have to think about how I was feeling. I read dozens of self-improvement books, started to work out relying on endorphins to keep me happy, and tried to spend as much time as possible with friends and family.

It helped, working out made me feel better, self-help books made me think about how I could improve a particular area of my life, and time with friends and family kept me busy.

But really, I was not getting over it. I was stuffing these blank spaces with temporal and again, external things. It felt good, but it was a quick fix, a Band-Aid.

Ignoring it, won’t make it go away. Understand and embrace the feeling, make room for it. Otherwise, it will just continue to come back whenever you neglect some of the things that keep you so busy.

However, there are things you will not find within yourself. How much you liked their smell, their laugh, the things that made this person so special to you, and of course, the memories. Be gentle with yourself and allow those memories to be part of who you are, don’t push them away. Be grateful you had the chance to live them and carry on making new ones.

You won’t feel like this forever, trust me.

Self-love

You must learn to love every single part of yourself on your own. You don’t need anyone else’s love to complete you. Until you do this, you won’t be able to have a healthy and lasting relationship.

There’s an African proverb that goes like this:

Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.

If you lack self-love, you have no true love to give to the world.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this article! I am grateful that I could share my knowledge with you and truly hope it somehow helped you. If you have something you would like to add or another insight on the matter, don’t hesitate to share it with me.

Have a lovely day!