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Have you ever been in love? Did you get your heart broken at some point in your life? Have you experienced unrequited love?
Love can be bittersweet. When it comes into our lives it can be the most magical thing - or can cause the most painful agony, for a myriad of reasons. People who experience falling in love are fortunate. What did Samuel Butler say? “It is better to have loved and lost, than to have never lost at all.” However, letting go and moving on is not quite that easy. In fact it can drive one to distraction that they neglect their responsibilities, lose reason, sink into depression or worse contemplate ending it all.
The 64 million-dollar question is: how does one mend a broken heart?
A heartbreak is one of the most unusual kinds of pain. There are no physical injuries that you can attribute it to. No visible scars, no panacea that can be procured to heal it. It’s a huge emotional and mental pain that can be quite debilitating and triggers other emotions in us. Like most things that are important, it takes time. Time does heal - most wounds. But recognise that it is a process, partly that is within your control and the rest is up to chance and circumstance.
5 steps to mending a broken heart:
1. Accepting It
When a person goes into a relationship, they launch themselves into it lock, stock and barrel, with every intention of making it work and last. So much so that when it does disintegrate, it is a challenge to accept that it is over, and that it didn’t work or that the person you trusted the most with your heart has let you down. There is a short period where you are allowed to be in denial, so that you may go over the relationship and try to look at it slightly distanced.
Since the wound is so fresh, it is difficult to be level-headed, but again all in good time. You may also feel that maybe, just maybe, that it was all a misunderstanding and that the object of your affection will come back and say, “I think we made a mistake. Let’s give it another try.” If two months have passed and this has not happened yet, then it’s time to be brave and face reality. They aren’t coming back.
Once you have come to the conclusion that it is over, you can start picking up the tiny million pieces of your heart, though no one heard the ear-piercing sound of it breaking but you.
2. Grieving
It is imperative that you grieve the loss - losing the person you loved the most, losing your heart, losing the dream of spending the rest of your life happily ever after with this wonderful human being. You have every right to mourn the death of a relationship. Express this inexplicable pain in your chest that seems to dominate every other feeling in your body. Cry - man or woman. It is perfectly acceptable to go over memories, love notes, text messages in your phone, gifts and photos.
While in this process, you will feel a multitude of emotions ranging from joy (when remembering how you first met) to anger (when reminded of the times you’ve been hurt - by this person and all the others before them), to confusion (not knowing exactly what went wrong), to uncertainty (where do you go from here) to excitement (thinking of the time you will fall in love again), to self-doubt (maybe it was your fault), to insecurity (not knowing if you’re good enough), to deep sorrow.
All these are valid emotions and it is beneficial to give yourself licence to experience them without guilt.
3. Creating Closure
Closure simply means an appropriate ending or punctuation to a relationship that has ended. It comes in different shapes and forms, which is highly dependent on the heartbroken. Some people believe closure comes when they are able to say a proper goodbye to the loved one - whether that’s yelling at them or a bit more civilised is your call. Others want questions answered. In some cases all it takes is collecting visible reminders of the relationship and storing them somewhere, or burning them. But whatever it is that you need to create closure and appropriately end that chapter of your life, do it. Otherwise, the memory will keep haunting you and you’ll never be able to move on.
4. Getting Over It
People say the best way to get over someone is to get under someone.
