Getting Through a Breakup With Ease

As some of you may know via my recent crash-out on social media, I recently went through a breakup. Obviously no one particularly enjoys a breakup, but I am prone to taking them particularly hard. No matter the length of the relationship, I always find myself feeling like my entire world is coming to an end. Coming from someone who despises change and can’t stand to feel even an ounce of discomfort or rejection, breakups are what my nightmares are made of. What made getting over this breakup particularly hard for me was the fact that I was the one who ended it. I unfortunately found myself in yet another toxic relationship (I am a magnet for narcissistic men) and instead of repeating old patterns, I chose myself and decided to leave the relationship. And being the one who leaves - it is so unbelievably tempting to reach back out, to “apologize”, to promise to be more agreeable and follow their “rules” just to ease the pain of another heartbreak. But, we are maturing and growing over here and I have learned the hard way that going back to a toxic relationship is never the solution, but a temporary bandage to the discomfort and sadness. With all that being said, this is by far the fastest I have ever healed from a breakup. And no, not because of the short length of the relationship because trust me, I am a professional in mourning literally month long situationships for years. Instead, I think I have finally discovered the perfect recipe to heal and overcome a breakup.

I hate nothing more than to hear “it’s just going to take time to heal” come out of anyone’s mouth when I am desperately searching for a magic solution to immediately heal from a breakup. And I hate to be the one to say it to you right now if you too are going through a breakup. But the reason everyone says it takes time to get over a breakup, is because it unfortunately does take time. The more distance you put between yourself and the relationship, the less you remember the person, the less you stay familiarized with your routines, and the more comfortable you become again with being by yourself. That being said, there are things you can do to speed up the recovery, as well as methods to cope in healthy ways during the period you are drowning in the depths of the heartbreak. So if you too are going through a breakup, I am here to hold your hand and help you through it, step by step.

Allow yourself to feel your emotions.

With any heartbreak, it is so important to begin your healing process by acknowledging and processing all of the emotions and thoughts swirling around your brain. Allow yourself to cry. Allow yourself to rot in bed. Allow yourself to slip into an oblivion of sorrow. Purging these emotions out of your body in the early stages of your heartbreak is so important. Speaking from experience, if you instead take the route of numbing your pain and refusing to acknowledge how you’re feeling, your sadness will sneak up on you later, tenfold.

Having said that, there becomes a point where you need to stand up and choose happiness. It is so easy to get stuck in the “woe is me” mindset and spend your days aimlessly pitying yourself until you eventually find yourself in a hole of deep depression. Obviously this doesn’t apply to anyone suffering with clinical depression, but in a general sense, you have complete control over your mindset and the way you choose to react to whatever life throws at you. As someone who struggles so much with the idea that we have no control over our lives, the idea that we do have control over how we respond to a given situation brings me great comfort.

As I mentioned, I am definitely guilty of acting like the world is ending and my entire life is over when I find myself going through a breakup. But, first and foremost, coming from someone who has gone through many heartbreaks in their life, I can pinky promise you right now that you will always come out on the other side, no matter how much it may not feel like it’s possible right now. Something I have really learned during this most recent breakup, is that not every breakup has to be devastating. I have recognized a pattern in myself that, when my brain hears the word “breakup”, it immediately goes into panic overdrive. It thinks breakup = extreme devastation for months to years. But that doesn’t have to be the case. If you can find a way to shift your mindset to viewing a breakup as an exciting new chapter of your life you’re entering, rather than a devastating event in your life, you are already so far along on your healing journey.

I truly cannot think of one heartbreak that did not lead to an extreme glow up to my life. My high school heartbreak led me to choose moving out of my small hometown and going to college to expand my horizons instead of staying by his side and likely achieving nothing. My freshmen year heartbreak led me to (post an extreme mental breakdown) transfer schools, take school more seriously, and jumpstart the journey to law school. The heartbreak following encouraged me to get the hell out of Boston and go to law school in New York. And the heartbreak following that encouraged me to put my all into social media, which obviously changed my life in unimaginable ways. You get the point. This is not the end of your world. This is only the beginning of your most exciting chapter yet. Instead of being scared for the future, get excited.

Focus on self care and self improvement.

It is so important when going through heartbreak to find something to put your energy into to keep yourself busy, distracted, and feeling fulfilled. What better time to work on yourself than when you are feeling most alone. This is your chance to level up and put the work in to grow into the best version of yourself. Whether it be a fitness journey, a mental health journey, growing in your career/studies or all of the above, taking the time to focus on self improvement is the best and healthiest distraction. I personally was feeling so insecure in my body during my last relationship and have been putting my all into eating healthier, drinking less, going to the gym more, etc etc., and it feels SO good to start seeing my hard work pay off!! I also have been taking this time to improve my mental health even further. If you know me, you know I have a deep struggle with anxiety and OCD. While I have been in therapy for months, I am taking this time to myself to further improve my mental state by exploring anxiety medication so that I can truly blossom into the best version of myself. I was talking to my mom the other day and I was like damn this really sucks because all of a sudden, I’m doing better in my career, I’m feeling more confident in my body, I am creating closer friendships, and I just really wish I could have been this person during the relationship - and she pointed out that the reason I am having all these improvements in my life is because the relationship is over. The best way you can improve and grow into your best self is to be forced into it by an uncomfortable/lonely period of your life so take advantage of this time to yourself!!

Take time to heal before dating/hooking up with someone else.

Unpopular opinion, but I could not disagree more with the theory that to get over someone, you need to get under someone else. I want to preface that this is not coming from any place of judgment (I have had many random hookups in my lifetime lol) - it is merely comely from personal experience that it typically only makes you feel worse (at least in the early stages of a breakup). Every time I have ever tried to move on quickly by hooking up with someone immediately after the breakup, it has only opened and deepened the wound further. When you are freshly mourning the loss of a relationship, being intimate with someone else (at least in my experience) is only going to make your heart ache for the person more. I think one of the most difficult parts of the beginning stages of a breakup is grieving the comfortability and knowingness you had with this person - and hooking up with someone new you don’t have said “comfort” with is only going to highlight the absence of your ex. This all being said, everyone is different and copes in different ways so take this piece of advice with a grain of salt (maybe it is just a me thing??)

Avoid ruminating over the what-ifs and ins and outs of the relationship.

This is definitely most applicable to my OCD besties out there, but try your hardest to avoid ruminating over all aspects of the relationship and breakup. Of course, in the beginning of the healing process, it is natural to analyze what went wrong in the relationship, what went right in the relationship, details of the breakup, etc. etc., but there comes a point where it turns from healthy reflection to literally torturing yourself. I saw a TikTok recently that said at a certain point, you have to stop talking about the breakup, about your ex, about the relationship because eventually there is “no new information”. You’re instead tor only tormenting yourself by reliving all the good and bad of the relationship over and over. By talking about it, it is only keeping you in the cycle, keeping you in the relationship, and preventing you from moving on. If you know me, you know I definitely have OCD, and rumination in general is something I really struggle with. So, of course, I am guilty of extreme rumination when I go through a breakup to the point where I will even begin to question myself and the decision I made. I’ll find myself obsessing over what my ex could or could not be feeling/doing. And I know first hand it’s a hard truth - but at a certain point - it doesn’t matter what did or didn’t go wrong in the relationship anymore, it doesn’t matter what your ex is doing or how your ex is feeling, because the relationship is over for a reason. I literally made a rule for myself after the second week of the breakup that I couldn’t talk about him anymore because I could feel myself holding on, talking in circles, and preventing myself from moving on. Also - if you, like me, suffer from OCD, anxiety medication is always an option if the rumination reaches a point where it is affecting your day to day life. If it’s any encouragement, I just got back on Prozac myself!!

Surround yourself with friends, but also find comfort in your alone time.

While I think it is so important to surround yourself with friends and loved ones during a hard time, I also think it’s so important to acclimate to the lonely feeling that comes with a breakup by spending time just with yourself. When you’re in a relationship, you get so used to doing everything with the person you’re with (except in my most recent relationship because he had a only can hangout on weekends rule lol) that doing things on your own again becomes foreign and uncomfortable as hell. Also, I have had breakups in the past where I haven’t really had that many friends around me to seek support from. One of my worst breakups to date happened in the very beginning of law school. I had just moved to NYC by myself, had zero friends in the city, and had never felt so heartbroken and alone in my life. But, looking back, that period of my life was so important and pivotal to the person I have become today. I had no choice but to embrace the loneliness and truly learn to appreciate and love spending time with myself. Instead of sulking in my “isolation”, I began to think of and treat myself as my own best friend. I guess it was kind of a form of “romanticizing” my life. I would take mini road trips by myself with a good audiobook, spend Friday nights in with my favorite takeout and a glass of wine, take long walks by myself, etc etc (you get the point). And instead of thinking of it as spending time by myself, I switched my mindset to thinking of it as spending time with myself. At the end of the day, all you have is yourself, and learning to enjoy that time and enjoy yourself is such an important skill to have. Because I was forced into learning to be so comfortable on my own, it has made me become such an independent and invincible version of myself. Now, I only allow people into my life that truly better it because I am content on my own. I think this is also the reason that, for the first time in my life, I was able to leave a toxic relationship before I wasted months/years with a person who wasn’t good for me.

Trust the universe.

I think the scariest part of a breakup is the thought that a) you lost the person you were supposed to be with; and or b) you’re going to be alone for the rest of your life. I’m not religious, but I do believe and trust in the universe, and I truly believe that (almost) everything happens for a reason and that the universe has your best interest at heart. If something is meant to be, it will be. If there is something better out there for you, the universe will remove any blockages so that you are able to attain said better thing/person. Instead of fearing a future of singleness and sadness, be so excited that this breakup is bringing you one step closer to the person that you’re supposed to be with. In the words of The Wizard Liz, (I am obsessed with her lol) how would you act if you knew that, in three months, you would be living your dream life? You never know what is waiting right around the corner for you. <3

I pinky promise you will be okay.

Love you!!!!!

xoxo, Callie