When it comes to breakups revenge isn’t the answer

Though revenge might seem sweet, it’s never the answer when your heart is broken.

by: E.B. Johnson

Our relationships can form a critical piece of who we are, and when we lose them it can cause us to flounder and struggle on a number of different planes. When we lose a long-standing or deeply important relationship, it can bring up rage in us, and with that a craving for revenge. When we become obsessed with revenge, though, we can become lost and trapped in a number of negative patterns that keep us stuck, scared and unhappy.

If you’re coming off the back of a devastating breakup, you have to reclaim your sense of self and do it with the same compassion, understanding and love that you would extend to a friend. You have to let go of any need to “get even” and take charge of your life by refocusing on what’s important within your soul. By learning how to rewrite your narrative, and getting a handle on who you are and what you really want, you can forge your way back to happiness and come out on the other side stronger than you ever were before. It’s a process that takes time, though, and the understanding that the journey is not an easy one.

Let’s face it: breakups suck.

There’s no denying that breakups can be truly devastating. Our relationships are an important part of who we are and they make a massive difference to both our self-confidence and our outward relations. When someone calls it quits, it can damage us on a number of levels, and it’s us to up to find that damage and heal it so that we can thrive in future.

Our relationships have a profound impact on our beliefs and the way we see ourselves in the world around us. Through our relationships, we learn how to better connect with people, and we learn how to be vulnerable; opening up in new and special ways that can make it hard to stomach the rejection that inherently comes along with a break up.

A breakup is an undoing. No matter how strong or independent we might perceive ourselves to be within that relationship, the loss of it is still a major shift that sends ripples of devstation throughout our entire existences. Every corner of our lives and self is touched by the ending of our romantic relationships, and it can make us crave revenge — even years after the event. Choosing the path of revenge is dangerous, though, and a path that has far more consequences than benefits.

How breakups impact our wellbeing.

Though some around us might treat our breakups as something flippant, they’re anything but. Splitting up with a longterm partner or spouse is a serious affair, and one that has some serious consequences for our mental functioning and emotional peace of mind.

Literal withdrawal

Getting dumped takes a serious toll on our brain, and can even invoke the same reaction as those going through withdrawal. According to researcher Dr. Brown and anthropologist Helen Fisher, breakups can create the same withdrawal patterns in the brain as those who are withdrawing from cocaine; a discovery that was revealed after a study involving those who had recently undergone a serious breakup. You don’t just obsesses over your ex because you want to. You literally can’t stop yourself.

Physical pain

When we’re struggling in the wake of a longterm relationship breakdown, we can find ourselves dealing with aches and pains or struggling to get by in general. This is because a breakup actually activates areas of the brain that are normally stimulated by physical pain, meaning that your brain can process such serious emotional pain as real, physical trauma. When someone says their “heart is aching” they aren’t really lying. That’s how their brain processes the grief of losing someone who was so important to them.

Neural obsession

Though our brains are naturally wired to recover (eventually) from a breakup, it also contains a few quirky hangups that makes this process that much longer. One such quirk occurs in the ventral tegmental area of our brain stem, which controls subconscious actions like breathing. Even though things might be over with your ex, this part of your brain remains focused on caring for that partner — leading to things like impulsively texting them or calling them, even though things are well and truly over.

Why revenge is never the answer.

For all the reasons above (among many, many other nuanced factors), you can crave revenge after a split from a longterm partner or spouse. You’re hurting, in pain and in less control of your mental and emotional stability than you’d like. It’s easy to want revenge…but it isn’t the right way to go about feeling better and moving on.

Making you feel worse

Though we think that revenge will make us feel better or provide a sense of relief it rarely — if ever — does. As a matter of fact, when we get the revenge we so desperately seek, it can often make us feel worse, or tear down our sense of self in the long run. Just as breakups can seriously affect our mental and emotional health, so too can seeking revenge. Becoming obsessed with this path leaves us obsessed with the negative (and uncontrollable) aspects of our past; and in that direction lies certain failure.

A waste of time

Revenge seems like a fulfilling way to go about the healing process, but it’s a tremendous waste of time and energy when you take a step back to look at the bigger picture. This life is short, and we only have a limited amount of charge in our battery. We can waste that energy negatively, by chasing other people and their unhappiness (which remains coupled with their own). That time and energy can be better spent, however, creating the future you want; so that you can be happy and fulfilled on your own regardless of anyone else.

Stuck in a loop

As humans, we are creatures of habit, and this includes the behavioral patterns that make up the circumstances and experiences in our lives. One of the greatest lessons we can learn in this life is that we control these patterns and loops, but getting too focused on revenge will cause you to miss this point entirely. Revenge loops are real, and they will cause you to remain stuck and miserable, while missing out on a number of powerful opportunities that could otherwise offer growth and fulfillment. When we obsess over revenge, we obsess over the negative things our life that cannot be changed, and that results in more negativity all around.

How to transcend your need for revenge after a breakup.

The good news is, you can transcend your need for revenge; and you can do it by learning how to get focused within. When we get honest about how we’re really feeling, and learn how to reach out for the things that offer opportunity and growth in the wake of breakup — we can re-engage with the positive side of moving, and learn how to need ourselves more than others.

1. Get honest about how you’re feeling

Honesty is one of the most important skills we can learn in this life, yet it seems to be one abandoned more and more in the modern world. We project ourselves across social media as the “perfect human” specimens. We share our joy, our successes, but we rarely are honest about how we’re really feeling or what we really want. Finding honest expression is critical in finding peace, but it’s a process that takes a lot of time and a lot of understanding to master.

Honesty means radical acceptance, and it means facing up to things that might make us hurt of feel uncomfortable. You have to start being brutally honest with both yourself and others if you’re looking to put things to an end, and you have to be honest if closure is both what you want and what you need.

Reach for honest expression when all else fails and be earnest about your thoughts and the emotions that are weighing you down or causing you to feel stuck. If you’re not in a place where you can speak your truth out loud, record your thoughts in a journal. Likewise, personal audio and video recording on your mobile device can be a great way to get insight and get real. Honesty is the key by which we unlock the door to all acceptance and peace, but it’s a high hill to climb and an even bigger portal to open. Part of embracing truth is embracing the journey to get there.

2. Learn how to be bigger than your anger

We are all just people trying to make it in this world, and the sooner we realize we’re more alike than different, the happier we will all be. Keep the positive things in mind and focus on putting good and grace out into the world around you. Pay it forward and let kindness be the pay that empowers you to put more kindness and good out into the universe, rather than more anger and bitterness.

Everyone gets upset. Everyone loses their temper. Remind yourself that this is universal and not restricted to any one person or place or region. Instead of passing judgement, try extending a hand of grace. That person that upset you could just be grouchy from a bad night of sleep, or maybe there’s something terrible going on in their lives. Start being the better person. Learn how to be bigger than your anger.

Take the high road. Do three things each day that put good into the environment around you and take some time to count the things you’re grateful for. Kindness makes a difference and often it is the most transformative part of a person’s day. Let your positivity empower those around you and create more positive world by force of will alone. Breakups are gutwrenching, but the pain they cause is as impermanent as anything else in this life. Hold on tight, and let go of the anger you harbor toward your former partner or spouse.

3. Start your forgiveness journey

Most self-help articles will tout the power of forgiving the people that hurt us, but too often they lose sight of the importance of forgiving ourselves.Suffering a relationship breakdown doesn’t just result in a loss of trust in others. It results in a loss of trust in ourselves. When we suffer these types of breakups, we often take that as a personal mark against who we are — coming to doubt ourselves in ways that are both toxic and self-defeating.

The true forgiveness you need to seek in the flaming wreckage of a betrayal is your own. As humans, we are prone to mistakes and missteps. No one is perfect and no one ever makes all the right choices in the right moments. Take this experience as the learning opportunity that is and have enough compassion with yourself to allow for upsets along the way.

Forgiving yourself does not mean accepting the mistakes you made or the pitfalls you fell into. It simply means detaching from the pain, bitterness and rage that’s buried deep, deep within you; eating away at who you are the future you have planned for yourself. Harboring hatred only stifles your progress. Forgive yourself and empower yourself to make the changes you need in your life and relationships.

4. See the bigger picture

Negative events, like negative thoughts, have a funny way of causing us to become hyper-obsessed, shutting out all the other good happenings and opportunities in our lives. When this happens, we stop looking at the bigger picture, and only look at the events in our past which are long gone and outwith our control. Only when we get back in touch with who we are, and learn how to see the silver lining in it all can we find our happiness again.

Take a step back and radically and honestly analyze how you’re feeling and why. Realize that revenge is a knee-jerk reaction, but also assess all the other self-defeating, “in-the-moment” beliefs, behaviors and emotions that are leaving you obsessed with rose-tinted image of the past.

If we are truly looking to build a future that is entirely our own, we have to leaarn how to become the omnipotent force in our own lives. This means seeing the bigger picture and how everything comes together to add up to the ultimate goal. Even though this relationship is over, your life isn’t. See it for it’s true form: the stepping stone to the next destination in your life. When one relationship ends, it makes room for an even better one…a relationship with our true self, and an understanding that tomorrow is another day to thrive.

5. Work in some acceptance

Only when we learn how to accept ourselves and the way we are feeling in the wake of a breakup can we truly unlock the power of our authentic self-confidence and rediscovery. We all have our baggage and the experiences that define who we are in the moment, but that person is always changing. True happiness comes only when we learn how to accept ourselves as we are, rather than seeking endless and pointless revenge.

Let go of all the judgements and preconceived notions you have about yourself and your partner. Remind yourself that the only behavior within the realm of your control is your own, and own up to that behavior and the things that drove you to those points. Embrace who you are, and embrace what you really want. No one in this universe is the combination of things that you are. Love those things, and see the beauty in them and the purpose for their creation.

If there’s something you don’t like about yourself — make a plan to change it — but only after looking it boldly in the face and accepting it for what it is.Acceptance is the key to all change and understanding, but it is often the hardest hurdle to overcome. Only when we accept something that is within our nature can we dig into the meat of it and come up with a plan to change or transform it. Spend a few minutes each day practicing this radical self-acceptance, and look to build it into your regular routine.

6. Love your needs more than revenge

Revenge requires energy that could be better used focusing on your own physical, emotional, mental and spiritual needs. When we’re in serious or longterm relationships, we can become hyper-focused on our partners in a way that causes us to exclude our own needs. After a breakup, when you’re craving revenge or a need to get even, it’s the perfect time to focus on self, and get back in touch with who you are and what you really need to get happy again.

Nourish your self worth, and turn your back on the revenge fantasies for something a lot more positive. Take a step back and come up with a self-care routine that helps you get back in touch with that authentic self that’s been sleeping at your core, and re-engage with those little passions that used to draw you on or create a vision of a better tomorrow for you.

When we think self-care, we usually think massages, vacations or treatments at a local health and beauty spa. While these things can definitely be an important component of a good self-care routine, they aren’t the end-all, be-all to self-care. In order to truly create a self-care routine that works, we have to understand the true nature of caring for ourselves inside and out. When we learn how to truly care for our inner self, we can unlock better moods, improved health and the drive and ability to go after the dreams that define our futures. Self-care isn’t a selfish act. It’s a necessary one that refuels us, rather than draining us.

7. Distract yourself

One of the best ways we can get over an ex and move past our need to get even is to keep ourselves busy. It takes the human brain about a month to form the neural pathways that help us emotionally recover from a relationship breakdown. Rather than allowing our brains to wallow in depression, we can take this time of regrowth to drop the rumination and lift our moods through keeping ourselves (and our brains) busy.

Lean into the people and things who matter; the experiences that bring you joy and fulfillment. Distract yourself with goodness, and let go of your need to see someone else suffer. Round up your social circle and get outside; find something to do, and look for new activities that can inspire new confidence or passion in you. Do things that YOU like to do, and seek out excitement or (safe) thrills.

Do things that make you feel great, and do things that allow you to connect with new people and new experiences. Little by little, you’ll notice that these things take up more space than your pain did. One day, you’ll wake up and notice that all the pain and all the hurt is gone. You’re yourself again, and you’ve got a whole new life rolled out in front of you. After about 30 days of busyness, you’ll feel like a whole new person. Of course, you’ll actually be one too.

8. Trust in time

Time and space are a powerful thing and that’s especially true when it comes to our relationship breakdowns. When we give ourselves a certain amount of distance from our exes (either physically or emotionally) we give ourselves the gift of perspective too, which can then allow us to see things for what they are. If you’re still stuck on an ex, try taking a step back and giving yourself the room to hurt, cry and move on. Don’t let the revenge monster take over. He’ll go away with time, but you can’t give him the keys to the kingdom.

Giving yourself distance can take whatever form you need. While that might be a solo-trip to an exotic country, it might also mean just cutting yourself off from certain social circles for a while. Delete your ex’s social media, and block their number or the number of anyone that might try to interfere. If you’re truly struggling with a major breakup, you need to give yourself room to breath. Limit your interruptions no matter how you get your distance, and make sure you can’t be interrupted by ghosts from Christmas past.

There’s a lot of research that shows that time is a great healer and that, coupled with distance, it can drastically help improve our emotional attachments. The more room you put between you and the person you can’t have / can’t stop thinking about, the more you will heal emotionally, but it’s something that can’t be rushed or pinned into a box. Healing can’t be hurried, and your pain won’t evaporate over night. It will get better with time, however, and the understanding that all things change as the days go by.

Putting it all together…

Breakups, no matter how they come, are an emotionally and mentally draining process that can take a serious toll on our sense of self. When you get dumped or find your partnership crumbling, it can be tempting to seek revenge; but in that way lies more pain and suffering. When we become obsessed with revenge, we make ourselves feel worth and deny ourselves a number of opportunities that might otherwise help us to feel happy and fulfilled again. If we truly want to get better, we have to drop our craving for “getting even” and start focusing on our own journey instead.

Start being honest about how you’re feeling, and embrace your emotions for the value and insight that they provide in your life. We control our emotions, though that battle may seem challenging at times. Realize that you are bigger than your anger, and start letting go of your need for revenge by forgiving yourself and the emotions and memories you are struggling to forget. When we crave revenge, it’s a sign that we’re losing sight of the bigger picture. Drop the knee-jerk reactions and get re-focused on your needs and the things that can make you feel happier and more fulfilled. Accept who you are and where you’re at, and accept too that recovering from this breakup is a challenge that is going to take a lot out of you. Distract yourself with good people and new experiences, and trust in time and space to help you conquer the process. We don’t need revenge to be happy again. We need self-compassion and an understanding of how we bloom in adversity. Embrace the transformation and become who you were always meant to be. They’re not holding you back. You are.