Healing Your Broken Heart

A broken heart is a terrible thing. It is, undoubtedly, one of the worst feelings in life! When you’re in it, time becomes painfully slow and all you want is to get to ‘the other side’ where there is peace and well-being  – where you can look back on your relationship with healthy detachment so that you may keep the treasured memories, learn the needed lessons, and open up again for an even better love.

While the length of time to heal a broken heart is different for everyone, as a divorce coach I believe the more intention you put into your complete healing the sooner it will happen. It takes conscious effort and consistent attention to heal from a broken heart. Here are some tips to help you tackle your broken heart:

Be a myth-buster

Don’t fall for folklore or urban tales about how long a break up will, or should, take. In the same vein don’t fall for social, religious or political conditioning about being a divorced woman or divorced mom. They are myths. Don’t buy into scarcity- thinking and believe that you will never love again, or you are too old to love again, or have too many kids, or whatever. Myths and social conditioning prolong your pain and confuse you, and most certainly make it harder to let go of your previous relationship with grace and dignity. Any time you hear something that strikes a chord of fear, take note. It’s probably a myth or conditioning. Only you have an intuitive sense of how long it will take to heal, and how to best heal. That’s powerful. Tap into that power. That’s your north star. When you hear anything that smacks of a myth, dismiss it immediately.

You’re the boss

You get to decide how your heart best heals and what is good for you. I know it sounds obvious, but many women don’t think about – or better yet, feel into – what would help them heal their heartbreak. It’s very important to take some time to get clear on how you best heal. Do you need time alone? A new challenge? More time with friends and family? How to feel drawn to care for your tender heart? Once you know what feels good to you, follow through consistently! I often remind clients that if their broken heart where a sweet child they would make different decisions. You wouldn’t force a sick child to go to a party. Why would you force yourself to do something that doesn’t feel good to you, especially when healing from a breakup?

Find your story and stick to it

Part of what prolongs heartbreak are the repeated stories we find ourselves telling about the end of the relationship. ‘My ex is a (fill in the blank)” stories tend to prolong the pain, not to mention make everyone else uncomfortable. So, in order to not be drawn back into your breakup pain every time someone asks you about your ex, you need a truthful but selective way to redirect the conversation. Come up with three good ‘stories’ you can pull out next time someone catches you off guard and asks about your breakup, and save the heartfelt details for the few people you know well and trust. You know people are going to ask, so be prepared. It’s one of the best ways you can help your hurting heart.

We can’t have love without heartbreak, and without love we would not be living. Love is life and we are meant to partake of it joyously and often. I sincerely hope your heartbreaks are few and far between, and that these tips will help to ease whatever pain you might be feeling right now.

Written By: Jeanie Rule, Founder and CEO of SoloMama