I believe we almost always know when a breakup is coming. The stages are all similar – shock, denial, isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally, acceptance. The only problem – we can neither fast forward the process to the healing bit nor hit the delete button to avert the breakup altogether!
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Dealing with a breakup is not easy. We’ve all been there. The echo of the last conversation replaying continually in your mind, the nausea swirling unrestrained in your empty stomach, the blood in your veins feeling like tar, traipsing around your insides, reluctant to fuel your heart, the ache wringing you out until tears would cease and empty sobs would tear at your inner being – like a being feeling raw, braving a winter wind in complete nakedness.
Suggested read: Makeup or breakup: when to let go
You find yourself questioning it all – How could this be? How could there be no more US? How could your world come crumbling down in a matter of minutes? Only to have the black mists swirling within you levitate over, floating out – maybe in a week, in a few months or some years – to give way to the light that you always carried within yourself. Just like rain clouds always pour away for the sun to come out, the questions flow out with the tears and are lost too! The new vision is that of a world where dealing with a breakup is no longer a mind-numbing pain. In fact, it is an incredibly and undeniably powerful process of validating every emotion that surfaces.
Unlike what other portals say, every emotion that you feel when you are dealing with a breakup needs to be dealt with. Stifling any one or more of these would result in incomplete healing, a partial reconciliation and coming to terms with the past and a pseudo-path for the future journey.
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The best way to do this?
Think about it, write it down, feel the connection you have to the emotion, and then let it go.
Once you have bid adieu, do not reminisce about it.
But if you aren’t sure you can do that, do not say goodbye just yet. Sit with it, explore the hues that have gone into making the emotion – whether it be rose-tinted memories of LOVE-lier times or the grotesque and ugly reminders of times when all had gone South!
Face it, confront it, challenge it, fight it – maybe even taste the blood – yes, you’d have to own your part in murdering it – but that is, perhaps, what it would take to let go of an obstinate and stubborn memory that just refuses to leave! You cannot let go of something that is intent on swirling about your insides like ominous swathes of dark clouds – refusing the bright sun entry!
Then, you’d have to sear through the fluff (no matter how much it hurts) and make it pour!
They say, you can’t let a wound heal until you let it bleed. Dealing with breakups is just like that.
Suggested read: The ex lessons: lessons from breakups
Of course, you’d say that I am a writer and therefore, it is easy for me to poetically paint the road to recovery like that! Only, it isn’t. Having a breakup, coping with it, and falling in love with it are all very different things.
And whilst I do not even need to mention that denial is a dead-end, I know that it inevitably happens – at least, for one party. The stages that I stated at the outset shall follow, in the same order, perhaps blurring their way into one another, sometimes even going back and retreating into the former-safer and less painful phase! But that is a vicious cycle of illusion and delusion that tags along with breakups ever-so-often. And one that people succumb to often-er!
So you need to traverse the huge distance between how to deal with a breakup and learning to love it – by:
Giving self time to grieve and mourn
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Permit yourself to cry, cry, cry, and then cry a li’l more. Permit yourself to cry until there’s nothing left to cry about. Let the pain drain out of your system with the tears. Depression and isolation are inevitable, but you’d need to purge yourself of the blinding pain to begin to process the pain!
Learning to block out the beautiful memories
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This is perhaps the most difficult bit. There’s the risk of succumbing to the good times, deluding oneself, and perhaps, relapsing into the bargaining phase. But you need to block the good memories with the bad ones. It is a reality check that helps you recall why the breakup happened. Of course, it hurts. It hurts bad. You might cry a lot more, even when you thought the waterworks had ceased. And that’s okay. This pain is necessary to heal. All you need to do, then, is to bless the good memories and let them go. Whilst tuck away the lessons from the bad ones in some corner of you and bid adieu too.
Getting a holistic makeover
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Dyeing your hair red or buying new clothes isn’t really a release. Sit down, introspect, and assess your part in whatever went amiss. Be as objective as possible. You made up half of the WE that failed. The ME has to figure somewhere. Don’t dwell on what your partner did wrong – but pick your own mistakes, own them, and forgive yourself for your part in why the former-WE ended. This shall enable you to reshape the beliefs, ideas, and values that steered you in the wrong direction – so whenever the next time is, you do not repeat the same mistakes.
Embracing the power of love
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Yep, medicine for a broken heart is love. Choose to embrace the love of your near and dear ones. Some might be exasperated far too quickly, but the ones who really care shall drag you out of it – and you should be ever-so-more grateful for their love!
Suggested read: Lessons only your first breakup will teach you
Understanding the reality of your ex
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Heading down the rage road is so easy – one can always choose to play the victim in a ‘hit-and-run’ case where the partner was behind the wheel. The problem, however, is this should not stretch too long. You can allow yourself to feel the rage for a while but you have to learn to eventually let it go. You will have to realize that you weren’t ideal for each other, but that does not make either of you bad people. So, bless him, wish him all the luck and happiness, and move on.
Learning to love self
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There is no greater truth than knowing that we cannot truly accept love if we don’t love ourselves first. If we learn to nurture and cherish ourselves, it will transcend to all other parts of our lives and allow us to open up to receive love from others. Do the soul searching you need to grow into self-love – forgive yourself, forgive him, love yourself, love the world, and thank the Almighty for everything you’ve had and have.
Fully choosing your ‘present’
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Rethink plans, goals, choices, projects – even risks. Understand that single ≠ lonely. Be thankful for your ‘present’ and give it the present of choice – the choice to love and live it fully.
The route for how to deal with a breakup may be a short one or a tortuous and torturously long one, replete with obstacles that threaten to throw you back into former lanes. But whoever said that the road to recovery was easy! And this path is one of falling in love again – with the very thing that took away your love – the breakup. It is bound to be even more difficult. But do whatever makes it easy for you. Coz you are a lovely human being who deserves to live fully, love fully, and be loved fully in return. And that shall only happen when you love your breakup fully, move on fully – from the past into the present, for the future! 
Featured image source: Google, copyright-free image under Creative Commons License
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