Healing from A Divorce or Breakup

First of all, talk about your loss with people who are willing to listen.  You might even want to seek out a licensed therapist to help you through this time.  It’s important to let yourself know that you can and will make it through this time. 

Stick to your daily routines.  Continue to eat, sleep and exercise at the same times you always have.  If you don’t exercise, now could be a good time to start.  Exercise causes our bodies to release endorphins that serve to help us feel better. 

You may feel that you will never love again.  You may feel you were foolish in having trusted that individual.  You may have felt that he or she was the “right” one for you and there will never be another.  None of those thoughts is true. 

There is not just one person out there for you; there are many right people out there for you.  If someone is ultimately not with you, then they were definitely not the right person.  The only thing true about that relationship experience is that you probably learned something about yourself that you can take forward into future relationships.

It’s your thoughts that determine your happiness, not the person you’re with.  Just stay away from idealizing or demonizing the other person. 

Stay away from alcohol or drugs they will only make the recovery from your loss more difficult by adding their own required recovery time to your healing process.  They only complicate the healing process. 

Don’t block the memories, allow yourself to feel as they come up and pass.  Allow yourself to grieve and cry and spend time alone when you feel you need to. 

It’s OK to Look at pictures of the two of you and feel the pain, and cry.  But set a time limit on yourself for doing this, say to only 5 or 10 minutes.  Then when the time is up, tell yourself you are done with that for now and change your thoughts by distracting yourself with something else more interesting or pleasant.

Do not seek revenge against this person. 

Rebound relationships help you to get over the old guy/gal.  They last about 90 days.

Isolating yourself from the world does not protect yourself or identity.  You need to be in contact with others.  Allowing yourself to be vulnerable actually protects your self better, because it allows others in and they enhance and validate your experience of other. 

How you position yourself when telling others of your break up will direct the way they respond to you.  Just tell them factually about it.  And say, “This is something I needed to do for myself and I would like to have your support, and if you are not able to, then let’s not discuss it.“

To mothers tell them that you love them for raising you right to know when to protect yourself and do what you need to do.  This is not an experience of failure, but rather and experience of success in learning what is right for you. 

For more information on Dr. Jim's award-winning self-help audios with free samples, log onto www.TheDrWaltonSeries.com.  For videos and more information on handling your thoughts and feelings, and to obtain free audio affirmations, log onto his website at LAtherapist.com.   You can check out his Facebook page at www.DrJamesWalton.com 

Learn How Men and Women React Differently to a Break Up and What You Can Do to Heal.

Men have more difficulty handling their emotions than women.  Simply because men have been trained to be more independent so they have developed fewer skills at handling their emotions.  They become emotionally overwhelmed more easily and demonstrate it by shutting off emotionally and withdrawing, going into denial or becoming workaholics.  All of this is a bid to cut themselves off from those overwhelming feelings of hurt and pain. 

In the process, those feelings lie dormant and are actually never healed.  When we don’t heal those feelings, we don’t allow ourselves to fall in love again and we miss out on one of the most rewarding, healing and satisfying experiences in our lives that of falling in love again.

The secret that women use in handling their feelings is that women are able to think and feel at the same time.  As a result, women will express their emotions more.  They are better able to verbalize what they are feeling.  By verbalizing their feelings, they are able to come to a healing resolution more quickly than men.

Men, on the other hand, are either in thinking mode or feeling mode.  When men are in pain from a break up, they go right into feeling mode and become overwhelmed with those feelings resulting in shut down, paralysis, withdraw or angry bitterness.  Men cannot make good decisions for themselves or anyone else under those conditions.

Whether you are a woman or a man, it’s important to acknowledge that you are going through a crisis and be more compassionate and gentle with yourself.  Remove any blame you may be putting on yourself for anything you may have done to contribute to the break up or for trusting or having been vulnerable to your ex.  It’s important to be able to trust and experience vulnerability.  Its part of being in a relationship and it allows us to experience closeness with another. 

For more information on handling your thoughts and feelings, join Dr. Jim's Facebook Page at DrJamesWalton.com.  Click the link to listen to a free sample of Dr. Jim’s Healing A Broken Heart.