9 Healthy Ways To Move On After A Devastating Breakup
How to fall in love with your life again.
beaveraphotos | Canva After my divorce, I started dating again. I was surprised to find love again, but the problem was ... he was a player and I was setting myself up for a broken heart. We dated on and off for seven years, and then I began working on my life coaching certification. And a common topic that always came up during my training was learning how to love yourself again after a breakup. Because even if the breakup was your idea, it can still leave you heartbroken.
Realizing that I’d never love myself or my life if we stayed together led me to a breakup. This is a hard realization to make when you love someone. Yet, deep down, I knew that I needed — and deserved — more from a relationship. Learning how to get over a breakup and making the choice to make myself a priority was hard. But let me tell you, darling, it's better to be alone than to be in a relationship where you will never be his priority. That’s the thing about life: It’s always changing. If your goal is loving yourself and your life, then sometimes, you have to make tough and painful decisions.
Even if you know that it’s the right decision, it’s still a major change and you have to find your way back. Those hard decisions are painful and may make you feel a little lost. You must learn how to heal your broken heart and love your life again in a way that honors yourself. Those first few months were emotionally rocky. At first, I threw myself into work and travel. If you ask me how to love myself again after a tough life change, I can tell you that trying to be busy all the time isn't the solution.
Sure, it can help you numb the pain a little. But numbing — whether it’s with food, shopping, exercise, or busyness — will never lead you to love yourself or your life. See, the thing is, sometimes the hard and most challenging events are catalysts. My breakup with him wasn’t the only major life change I had managed. I had to remind myself that each major decision, especially the ones that were hard and painful, always led me back home to myself — like my divorce, the loss of my mom and later my dad, and the decision to leave Texas. Each of those hard decisions — painful at the time — led me to fall more deeply in love with my life, time and time again.
At first, you may feel like you're just trying to survive. But, the truth is that you deserve to thrive. These are the changes that you need to move through if you want to truly learn how to move on with your life. The tough moments in life give you the reminder that you deserve to love yourself and your life.
Here are 9 healthy ways to move on after a devastating breakup:
1. Make the decision that you want to love yourself first.
A decision is a powerful thing.
2. Create a vision for your life.
How can you love your life if you aren't clear about what you want?
3. Take care of yourself.
Ensure you eat well and get enough sleep.
4. Examine your past.
In fact, make a list of all your past successes. Reminding yourself that you've been successful at managing changes in the past.
5. Do things that make you feel excited or joyful.
6. Indulge in the little luxuries that make life feel nourishing.
Especially focus on the luxuries that aren't expensive, those are the most priceless. Treating yourself kindly will help you love yourself.
7. Rework your habits and routines.
This is key to ensuring your actions are aligned with your desires.
8. Set non-negotiable standards for your life.
A major life change may have you wondering who you are. By defining your roles, you can get clear. Clarity on who you are will help you figure out how to love your life again.
9. Change up your environment.
By clearing excess you create positive space to find your way back home to yourself.
The hardest changes can help you learn how to love yourself and your life again. It's important to remember that you don't have to settle. You deserve to love yourself and have a life worth living. All of it. And that means that you may have to make tough decisions. Those tough decisions allow you to find your inner strength and find ways to love yourself even more. Because, darling, the beauty of life is that life is always shifting and changing. That's a good thing, even when life feels challenging. No matter how lost you may feel at times, it's a path to loving your life again. Or maybe for the first time ever.
Debra Smouse is a life coach and author whose work has been published in TIME, Huffington Post, MSN, Psychology Today, and more.