Five Neuroscience-Informed Steps to Heal after a Painful Breakup and get Through Valentine's Day
Breakups can be some of the toughest phases of life. There are many different types of trauma we encounter in the world we live in, but breakups are especially challenging because they can be wrapped up with many different feelings such as depression, shame, guilt, regret, rejection, sadness, confusion, feeling lost, hopelessness, anger, embarrassment, even humiliation at times, and powerful grief. Most people will go through at least one breakup at some point in their lives (save the lucky, very few who marry their high school sweetheart and never get divorced).
Most of the clients I work with come to therapy because these feelings are not resolved. They are still mourning and not sure how to cope with the pain or how to move forward. I always encourage people that breakups are a unique kind of hard because although your ex keeps on living, they are in many cases “dead” to you. This is not the case for all breakups of course, but for many in which communication will abruptly stop without any explanation or with an explanation that it is incomplete, curse, or hurtful. This kind of “emotional/psychological death” will require one to go through all five stages of grief just as one would after the death of a loved one. Additionally, it’s even more confusing because the person is still alive.
From the Kubler-Ross Grief Cycle, we find five stages you will have to get through (order can bounce back and forth; phases are not linear). The phases are the following:
· denial
· anger
· bargaining
· depression
· acceptance
When moving through these phases, it is normal to cry, to be angry or irritable, to be “touchy,” and possibly overly sensitive. It is also not uncommon to experience loneliness and isolation. The following steps will help you get through this and come out the other side feeling more hopeful and more confident.
1. Seek out connection with others. When you lose a significant other to a breakup, you lose the person you did many activities with. Especially at the beginning of a breakup transition, it can be helpful to schedule coffee dates, dinners, and outings with friends or family to fill some of that time and to begin investing in other important relationships that matter. If you do not have many friends or family in the area, reach out to friends or family back home by calling, texting, and setting up specific times for Skype or Facetime chat to connect, just like you would schedule a face to face hang out with a friend who is local.
2. Create new memories! Your brain will have a nice, thick network of memories associated with your ex, so start with small steps to rewrite the story in your brain. If “grocery store = shopping with bae for dinner = joy and happiness” in your brain, then going to the same grocery store is going to trigger feelings of pain and loss. It can be helpful to find a new route, start shopping at another grocery store, and telling your brain a brand new story. I suggest going to a completely different store for a bit, even if you have to drive a few minutes farther away. Before you arrive, come up with a specific intention for the trip. Maybe it is to buy a favorite snack or get cleaning products to clean up and rearrange a specific room in your apartment, or maybe you could cook a meal you’ve never made before and go to the new grocery store for the ingredients. You have to create a new narrative in your head in order to help your brain begin to store new information for a new story. The more detailed and intentional you are, the stronger that new network of memories will become. So be specific, state in your head or out loud what the intention/purpose of your trip is, and enjoy exploring something new!
3. Find the things that “spark joy” in your life. Seek out a new hobby or pick up one that you used to enjoy in the past. Your brain is like a big map across the country with many different routes that can lead to happiness (beyond just the route of a romantic relationship). It is important to strengthen other neural pathways in your brain that lead to the destination of “I am happy.” Now that your relationship is over, if you begin focusing on painting again, skiing, lifting weights, running 5ks, reading your favorite books, or picking up dance classes, your brain will be able to see other highways that lead to happiness and recognize them.
4. Feel your feelings. Many people think that by simply focusing on other things and pushing forward, they will move on and all the pain will disappear on its own. This is not the case. Forward movement after a breakup is a bit counterintuitive. Rather than denying your feelings or trying to bury them, it actually helps you move forward faster if you allow them to express themselves and be whatever they are. That may look like tears, yelling in your car with the windows up, dancing, shaking, or sitting in silence and honoring the grief. It is ESSENTIAL to name your feelings-shame, fear, hopelessness, anger, grief, guilt, frustration. By naming your emotion, you are allowing yourself to detach from it and observe it rather than be consumed by it. This simple act will provide you with more feelings of separation and control over the emotion. You can imagine yourself sitting across from the emotion, witnessing it, validating it, and allowing it to pass through, as opposed to it feeling like it is taking you over. This will also allow you to access both the left and right hemispheres of the brain and help you begin to explore rational thoughts in addition to intense feelings.
5. Learn more about your attachment style and consider professional help. There are several types of attachment style-secure, avoidant/dismissive, anxious/preoccupied, and disorganized (a mix of anxious and avoidant). Learning about your attachment style will help you understand yourself better and communicate better in the future. One great podcast to help with this is “Therapist Uncensored” which is free and available on the Iphone podcast app and google podcast app. If that is not enough, or if you listen to the podcast and realize you may have have a tendency towards insecure attachment, seek out a mental health professional to help you with this. They are specifically trained in understanding the neuroscience of the brain and can help you rewire your mind so next time you can attach to another person with more security sourced from within yourself.
For more information about how to heal from a painful breakup or how to wade through the confusion of a toxic relationship, please feel free to email or call Alli at alli@wholehealthcounseling.net or 720-487-5300.
