“My feet will want to walk to where you are sleeping but I shall go on living.”— Pablo Neruda

The Magical Way

I lied.  There is no magical way to get over a broken heart.  I bet you’ve had your heart broken before – and yet, here you are, still alive (even if barely) trying to figure out how to move forward.

What Everyone Says You Should Do

So-called experts will give you all kinds of tips for getting over a broken heart.  They give you these amazing (oh gee, why didn’t I think of that) types of advice such as: Go out with friends! Start dating again! Get a new hobby! Volunteer! Exercise! Cut your hair!  Learn a new skill!

Does any of that actually work?  Frankly, I want to punch people in the face when they give advice like that.

Yes, yes, all of those things are good to do and yes, they may work on some surface level and can definitely get your mind off things, for a while, anyway.  But, do they really help you HEAL your broken heart?  I would say no, not really.

Every relationship leaves a scar.  Some scars run deep and some are more superficial.   It isn’t necessarily the depth of the love that you shared that causes the deepest scars or the deepest pain.

Sometimes the idea of the person and what you thought they represented leaves the most devastation in its wake.  Maybe it’s the ending that was the final straw in a cycle of disappointments.  Sometimes it is a betrayal of your trust.

But, maybe all of those scars form over your wounded heart to give you strength.  They give you strength to carry on and to keep searching, because to give up is to let the wound fester – and festering wounds lead to death.

What DO you do?

I say that you should do whatever feels right for you. Cry. Cry a lot.  Meditate. Walk on the beach. Journal.  Go throw things (preferably not at cars or people). Try batting cages.  Take up boxing so you can actually punch someone in the face and not get arrested.

Most importantly, you need to acknowledge how you feel.  Let yourself be okay with feeling sad, frustrated, disappointed, cheated on, irritated, angry or whatever gazillion feelings the loss of the relationship left you with.

You can do all those little things that experts advise and I’m sure they will help to some extent. They will at least distract you from wallowing in misery.  But you will never, ever truly heal if you don’t feel the feelings, understand what happened and mourn the relationship.

Unfortunately that person you thought was your future isn’t likely coming back, and the only way out of the pain is through it.  Feel what you need to feel. Every day your heart will hurt a little less. Eventually the scars will form over the wound.  It may take a week, or a month or a year, but let the body do its job and heal itself.

In the end all the advice in the world won’t mend your heart. Only you can mend your heart. But, never fear, mend it will. One day you will let it back out in the sunlight and allow it to feel again, because there is no magical way to get over a broken heart.