Here's the memo.
Let go of your ex and love you.
When a relationship ends,
Even if we're the ones to end it,
It's brutal.
Even if it's so clear it needed to end,
It will be a grieving process.
So give yourself permission to be miserable and messy for a little while.
For the first few weeks,
Let yourself be sad.
Cry,
Talk about it with your friends,
Journal,
Listen to sad songs,
Look at the pictures if you need to,
Feel angry,
Disappointed,
Confused or heartbroken.
It's all okay.
Grief is not linear and feels different for everyone.
And understanding the process of loss can help you feel a little less crazy as you move through it.
You've likely heard of the five stages of grief developed by Dr.
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross.
Those stages are denial,
Anger,
Bargaining,
Depression,
And acceptance.
And then later on with David Kessler,
She added stage six,
Meaning.
So let's do a quick review.
Patient,
Less demanding,
More attractive,
Or easier to love.
Here's where we may try to convince ourselves if we can just figure out what went wrong,
We can somehow change or undo the loss.
And this is also where obsession takes hold.
Our minds keep searching for an answer that will make the pain go away or give us back a sense of control.
Depression.
This can feel like sadness,
Emptiness,
Exhaustion,
Or a loss of interest in the things that used to bring us pleasure.
You may miss the person,
Feel lonely,
Or struggle to imagine what your life will look like without them.
This doesn't mean you're happy about what happened or that you no longer miss the person.
It means you're gradually beginning to accept reality as it is,
Rather than continuing to fight against what you wish it were.
You start to make room for a life that looks different from the one you imagined.
Meaning,
This is where you can be grateful for the relationship and for all it gave and taught you.
And you can take the love,
If you're still feeling it,
And the lessons you learned into your life going forward.
The crazy part with grief is you can experience all these feelings even when you know the relationship wasn't right for you.
You can be relieved it's over and still miss them terribly.
You can feel angry one day and nostalgic another.
The next.
You can know you made the right decision and still grieve the future you thought you'd have together.
Give yourself a few weeks to really feel what you're feeling.
Let yourself have the sad days.
Lean on people who care about you.
Get the feelings out and then slowly begin to gently turn your attention back to yourself.
Not because you should be over it by now and not because your feelings are wrong,
But because you deserve to have a life that's bigger than this life.
As you move through your grieving process and begin to adjust to your new normal,
There are things you can do to help yourself along the way.
Free-flow your thoughts.
Allow whatever feelings to come up and out onto the page without judgment.
You don't have to make sense of everything.
You don't have to find answers.
Just give yourself some space.
Many times a breakup will bring up earlier losses we have sadness about,
So just let it all come out.
2.
Begin to compartmentalize your loss.
It's happened,
It's sad,
But you don't want to get stuck in the sadness.
How do we do this?
Work with yourself.
Start to set some boundaries around how much time and energy you give this person in your day.
You might say,
Okay,
I'm allowed to think,
Journal,
And talk about this person for one hour a day,
And that's it.
Then,
If they pop up,
I'll choose a different thought.
Like,
Maybe an image of the worst part of the relationship could help.
When we're grieving,
We tend to remember the Instagram version of the relationship.
Another boundary you could set is,
But I'm not going to talk about them out loud.
The point here isn't to punish yourself for thinking about someone,
It's to begin to create a little space between you and the obsession.
Because when we give someone unlimited access to our thoughts,
Especially someone who's no longer in our lives,
We can end up giving them far more energy than we really want to.
Instead of asking yourself,
Why did they do that?
What are they thinking?
Will they come back?
Do they miss me?
Try asking,
What is something fun and loving I can do for myself today?
You're not always going to be able to stop the first thought when it comes up,
But you can practice interrupting it and choosing a different thought.
And that is a practice and it creates a powerful shift.
Ask yourself,
If I wasn't thinking about this person right now,
What would I be thinking about?
What might I be doing?
What might I be looking forward to?
What might bring me joy?
Find out.
Maybe it's reconnecting with an old friend,
Exploring a new interest,
Getting outside,
Taking a class,
Or finally doing something you've been putting off.
You might also want to seek therapy or talk with a trusted confidant,
Preferably someone who's gone through something similar and And 5.
Explore the deeper wounds this loss may have brought to the surface.
Stated,
Why can't I stop thinking about them?
The past.
And these could include early experiences of abandonment,
Rejection,
Or not feeling chosen.
All this stuff can come bubbling up to the surface when we're going through a breakup.
So the intensity of what you're feeling is likely not entirely about this person or how long you knew them.
It's also always about what the situation is revealing about you and your own history.
And while I know this is so painful,
It's also an incredible opportunity because healing from this situation,
As well as deeper losses it brings to the surface,
Is truly a path to freedom.
I really wish I could protect every person I know from feeling this kind of emotional pain,
But it's unavoidable if we really risk opening our hearts to love.
So just remember,
You are not alone.
And that's your memo.
