How to Get Over Your Ex?

One day I opened a message from a friend, “How do I get over my ex? It’s been a couple of months, why am I still thinking about him?”

Instead of habitually typing the response back, I paused. It hit home for me.

I was in the middle of my own heartbreak.

The feeling of intense pain in a chest you go to bed with. And opening your eyes in the morning and wishing for it to be gone, but the heart knows no mercy.

And an impatient question in your head on repeat, “When am I going to be over this?”

I knew a desperate desire to finally be ok.

To go on a date and not compare, question, or suspect, but simply enjoy. To listen to your favorite romantic song and not get overwhelmed by memories that pulled you back in his arms again. To know that it is better this way, but when tears are falling down your cheeks, keep thinking, “Why did it have to end?”

Heartbreaks are hard. Every person who ever loved probably had their heart broken.

And yet, so many of us don’t know how to go through the heartbreak to arrive wholeheartedly healed on the other side.

When I read the message from my friend I could feel her desire to be done with the pain.

Somewhere along the way, we assumed that we have a switch for heartbreak. We think we could simply turn it off and just go on with our lives as we’ve never loved before.

But that’s not how it works with the pain. It has its own schedule and timeline. All we can do is to obey.

Surrendering to the pain is the hardest and yet most crucial part of the healing.

The part we haven’t been taught how to do it.

Instead we, most likely, learned how to numb, suppress or distract ourselves from our feelings.

I remember when I’ve heard the phrase “to sit with the pain” for the first time. I was completely puzzled.

“What do you mean to sit with the pain and face it?” I asked my therapist.

“It literally means sitting and letting yourself feel what’s inside,” she replied.

“But it’s awful and unbearable,” I almost cried for mercy.

“When you allow yourself to feel the full intensity of the feeling and not try run away from it, you will know that it is bearable. That’s how you heal. Through it, not around it.”

Through it, not around it.

It took many tries to manage to sit with the pain, to let myself cry, to let my heart be full of sorrow. And most of all, how not to try to fix it and be over it, to distract myself with new dates and friends, to not feeling guilty for spending evenings in bed crying.

“It’s a part of the process,” I told my friend. “And you need to learn to trust it.”

While feeling feelings is the part that helps to heal fast, engaging in our wild thoughts is not. The important part is to separate the two.

Feelings are what we feel in our body. It’s pain and tightness in the chest, it’s a heaviness in our hearts, or trembling in our hands. Feelings are usually described through one word — sadness, anxiety, grief, frustration, happiness, or joy.

What we tell ourselves about why we feel that way are our thoughts. And they are many words and the whole stories.

Every heartbreak involves the story we tell in our head. If we engage and believe that story, we may get stuck in our sorrow and it will be harder to heal wholeheartedly.

“He is an asshole, and all men are assholes. I should never trust anyone.”

“What have I done wrong? How did I mess this up? If only I was prettier/smarter/better than he wouldn’t dump me.”

“Relationship is not for me. I don’t want to open up and feel this pain again.”

We tell these stories because our mind wants to rationalize our pain and experience. It hopes it will help us to get rid of it.

If I tell myself that the guy is an asshole, then there is no point to cry over him.

But the pain can’t be rationalized. It has to be felt.

And the story that the guy is an asshole and you can’t trust anyone is not helpful if you still dream to get into a new and healthy relationship. Your story will keep you closed and scared.

“So what do I do?” my friend cried for help.

“Feel your feelings, acknowledge them in your body, give yourself time, but do not engage with the story your mind tries to create.”

You see, your mind tries to protect you from your pain. Your mind is a product of evolution and its main function is to keep you save. It has good intentions but not the best.

I remember the story I was creating in my head. “If I were good enough, he would have stayed.” I let that story to define my worthiness. I let that relationship to define my worthiness.

It took me to practice a lot of meditation and journaling to recognize the bullshit thoughts that were in my head.

The truth was that my breakup didn’t have anything to do with me. The reason was in circumstances. But that truth didn’t ease the pain.

Lao Tzu nicely put, “New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.” And heartbreak can be one of them.

“Instead of rushing into a new relationship, you can use it as an opportunity to learn more about yourself,” I wrote to my friend.

Relationships are a two-way street. If there is a crack, both people in a conscious or unconscious way contribute to it.

It can be in conscious ways by lying, cheating, or disrespecting. Or unconsciously by demanding, criticizing, controlling, shutting down, or withdrawing.

A breakup can present a window to look inside. To ask yourself an honest question: what role did I play in this breakup?

The inner work is not to blame yourself and feel guilty. The inner work is to get honest and see what habits, thought pattern, and beliefs you need to upgrade to create the relationship you dream of.

For me, it meant to work on a relationship with myself. To finally start loving and accepting myself unconditionally, so I don’t demand love and acceptance from others. To stop being afraid to voice my needs because of the fear of being rejected. To start showing up for myself instead of always pleasing my partner.

My heartbreak became a catalyst for a change. And the choice to change is present for everyone.

It’s not the time heals, but what we do with that time.

I empathetically acknowledge my friend’s pain and encouraged her to do the same. To let the process of grief run its course. To lean into the pain and trust the process.

And while she is on that journey, to use the time wisely, to look inside, and build a stable foundation for the next relationship that when it’s time will come.