5 Things To Do To Fill The Empty Space Left After A Breakup
That empty space is incredibly painful but potentially life-changing.
getty You want to know how to stop feeling empty after a breakup because there's nothing worse than that empty space.
For weeks, months, or years, you had someone in your life, with whom you shared the good times and the bad.
That person — along with the things you did together — is now gone, leaving a wide-open space that needs to be filled.
Leaving it feeling empty can be incredibly uncomfortable and cause a tremendous amount of pain.
If you want to know how to stop feeling empty after a breakup, here are 5 things to fill the empty space with.
1. Spend time with people who love you.
For many, being in a relationship fills all of that empty space when they're with their person. But, there was a time when you didn’t have this person in your life.
Who was your favorite person to hang out with before your ex? Who made you laugh? Who was your partner in crime? Who always made you feel loved?
Pick up the phone and call that person right now! Make a plan with them to do something that you used to do that made you happy.
There are many people in your life who you love and who can fill that space for you, maybe even better than your ex could!
2. Get a change in scenery.
For one of my clients, the first thing she does at the end of a relationship is to make a plan to get away from her everyday life.
Usually, it involves a short drive to visit a friend or a family member but, sometimes, she goes bigger. Once, she planned a trip to London. She had always wanted to go there and was given an opportunity to run a marathon.
Her relationship had just ended so she decided to go for it! And what happened? She kicked butt in the marathon and met a lovely British man who helped her manage her broken heart.
So, if you need to fill that empty space left after your breakup, change the scenery.
Where would you go for a change? Even if it’s just going to a friend’s house for the night, visiting your parents, or booking a flight to the Caribbean, get out of the space that you occupied with your ex.
Doing something different, even if for a brief moment, will help you fill the empty space that's feeling so painful right now.
3. Rearrange things.
This is one of my personal favorites. One of the reasons that there's so much empty space in your life is because your space is the same as it's always been.
Do you walk into your home and see the empty space your ex used to fill? Do you come home at the end of the day, as usual, and feel their absence?
Do you go out for your regular Wednesday night Thai food and it makes you feel lonely because you used to do it together?
Well, then, it’s time to shake things up!
When a client of mine went through her divorce, she decided that she was going to totally rearrange her space. She was in a lot of pain at the end of her marriage and she wanted to do something different.
So, she swapped her bedroom and living room. She moved her bedroom into the space with the fireplace and decorated it with all the things that she loved the most.
She purchased new furniture for her living room and created a space for herself to spend time knitting and watching TV.
Whenever she went to bed at the end of the night, she didn’t do so with the ghost of her ex-husband next to her. It was almost like she had moved to a whole new house and that empty space did not feel so empty.
So, try changing up your space. It might give you a whole new lease on life.
4. Try something new.
A client of mine recently went through a terrible breakup. She was blindsided and left broken and empty. And this is not the first time has happened to her.
Typically, what she does when she’s heartbroken is she stays at home, feeling sorry for herself, googling articles to justify how she feels about how her ex behaved, eating ice cream, and generally feeling sorry for herself.
She decided to do things differently this time. After spending the weekend with her mother, crying and getting love, she drove directly to a music store and bought herself a violin.
When she was younger, she played the violin. She was really good at it and it made her really happy. When she went off to college and started her career, the violin fell to the side. She wanted to bring it back.
So, she bought the violin and filled those empty spaces with the instrument that had always brought her such joy. She was able to re-familiarize herself with how to play and build her skill and find true joy.
It was far better for her than sitting in front of her computer, reading things that were making her depressed, and eating food that was bad for her.
So, leave your comfort zone. Is there something you've always wanted to do or something from your childhood that you could start doing again that would make you feel good?
5. Be productive.
When you're going through a breakup, you may want to spend your days pining for your person, binge-watching "F** Boy Island," googling information about why you were left, and processing the breakup with your friends.
This is not productive and will only hold you back from healing and moving on. Doing those things will only keep you stuck in this place of clinging to the past, struggling with your self-esteem, frozen and unable to move forward.
Try taking a course that will help you get over your breakup — one that will help you through that first week, rebuild your self-esteem, and move forward back out into the world of love and living.
Filling the empty space caused by a breakup is an important part of getting through the pain and come out the other side.
If you sit around at home, feeling sorry for yourself and not making any efforts to fill the space, you will never get past this breakup.
Get off the couch right now, spend time with people who love you, plan an excursion, rearrange stuff in your life, try something new, and be productive. There are many options for how to stop feeling empty after a breakup.
I can promise you that, with time, this empty space will be completely filled with life and love. For now, take steps to deal with it so that you can heal and move forward!
Mitzi Bockmann is an NYC-based, certified life and love coach. Let her help you find, and keep, love in this crazy world in which we live. Email her at mitzi@letyourdreamsbegin.com and get started!