If you’ve experienced heartbreak, you are so not alone.
Heartbreak is one of the most common things that we all experience at some point or another.
This holds true often even for those who have never been in a relationship as much as it does for those married multiple times.
Heartbreak can even happen whilst you are deep in relationship.
The hope we hold for love unrequited or withdrawn carries a pain that can chafe the heart enough times to send the protective barriers up that keep us feeling safe – and alone.
The loss we feel, the grief and sadness can stay around for much longer than is healthy. It’s good to feel your emotions. Not so good to hold on to the tough ones for too long. The heaviness that fills our heart leaves no space for the joy and lightness of love. The kind that overflows.
The kind that wants to be shared.
Heartbreak can also sit in our minds as we play the scenes over and over again trying to make sense of it all. Where we went wrong. What we did or didn’t do. What was going on with the other person. This infinite loop locks us in the past leaving no possibility for us to be present here and now so that we can live a new and different future.
Step 1: Free your physical body – let it out
This may not seem obvious at first, but heartbreak sits not only in the ache around your heart. It can show up in other parts of you as well.
Feel into your body and notice what sensations come up when you recall the person or situation that broke your heart.
For example many women often feel an ache in their womb when they really tune in to their bodies.
Others will realise that that tightness in their belly or clenching of their shoulders shows up.
Whatever it is, you’ll want to encourage the sensation to loosen and move out of your body.
Some ways to facilitate this are:
Shake it off - from the tips of your fingers down to your toes shake your whole body
Dance it off - crank up the tunes!
Sound it out - give the sensation a voice and let it out
Whatever it takes to get the yuck out.
Give yourself 5-10 minutes for this.
Step 2: Next move on to your heart – allow yourself to feel
Allow yourself to feel the emotions of it all, whatever it is that comes up for you.
This could be deep sadness and grief, a sense of loss and of course hurt.
Sometimes the feelings of intense pain or hurt carry a physical quality to them. Let the emotion move through your body and out.
Give yourself 5-10 minutes for this.
Whilst it’s important to feel your emotions to heal, you don’t want to stay here for too long as it can then become counter-productive.
Step 3: Clear your mind
If you find yourself analysing and over-analysing the situation or person or yourself, then try this.
Take 2 sheets of paper.
On one paper write down all the good stuff from your experience.
Fill it with lessons learned and wisdom gained.
This you’ll be taking forward with you in your journey to new love.
On the 2nd sheet of paper write down all the nasty stuff. Everything that you want to leave behind. All the mess and anything that felt harmful – and not in a learning kind of way.
Burn the paper or rip it up and toss it out.
Fill up with fresh, clean energy
You will have created space in your body, heart and mind at this point.
Fill that space with light and love. You can do this through a heart-based meditation. Or simply by imagining a beautiful pearl of love-filled light at the centre of your chest expanding out into all the spaces that you’ve created.
Another way is to spend time with friends and family where you feel the love and soak it all in from them. Love feeds love. All kinds.
Come back to wholeness
And finally, call back into you any parts of you that you feel might have been left behind. Welcome yourself back.
Do this process as many times as it takes until you feel complete, whole and new.
And remember, healing heartbreak can take time. Be gentle and go easy.