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Grief isn't the same for everyone, and neither is healing from it.
By Karen Finn — Written on Jan 22, 2020
Living through heartbreak is one of the uniting experiences of humanity.
Nearly everyone suffers from lost love. Many suffer through more than one and discover that each loss feels differently. The difference is due to each relationship being unique and the fact that people change over time.
So despite the commonality of grieving over a heartbreak, everyone grieves differently.
If that’s true, how can anyone hope to find help with not only how to get over a breakup but also how to get your heart and head in the place to love again?
Easily — if they remember that dealing with grief is not a one-size-fits-all experience.
In fact, The Atlantic reports that there are three different ways people grieve. About 10 percent of people who lose a loved one experience chronic grief. Between 30 and 40 percent plunge into grief and gradually recover. And that leaves 50 – 60 percent who quickly appear to be fine despite day-to-day fluctuations.
This means that what may be terrific advice for healing heartbreak for someone else may not make any sense at all to you.
Keeping in mind that your experience is unique, consider these things you can do to get over a breakup and survive your post-heartbreak grief:
1. Remember that laughter is the best medicine.
For many people, shifting their thoughts from sadness to happiness is as simple as remembering to laugh.
If you’d like to try laughter as your solace, jokes and quotes are a great place to start.
2. Develop your own rituals.
Breaking all the molds may be more your style of grieving. So do something unusual that makes sense to you. Throw yourself a party celebrating the beginning of a new phase of your life. Marry yourself to acknowledge that you’re perfectly happy being on your own.
Take a divorce (or breakup) selfie and announce to the world (or at least all of your friends on Facebook or Instagram) that you’re happily single again. Or do something for yourself that’s completely different simply because it brings you a sense of peace and comfort.
3. View your breakup as a chance to be resilient.
Your breakup could be exactly the opportunity you’ve been looking for to learn how to not wallow in pain any longer. This could be your chance to really understand what it means to be resilient in the face of heartbreak so you can be more resilient the next time you face any setback.
4. Talk about it until you don’t need to talk about it anymore.
You know your friends will only listen to your story of heartbreak for so long before they’re ready to start talking about something else. So be willing to invest in talking with a helping professional.
These people know how to listen and provide unbiased insights that frankly most of your friends don’t know how to do.
5. Live your life.
You know that life will go on regardless of how much pain you may be in right now. Every second you have a choice between being in your own private world of pain or participating in your larger world.
Regardless of how you process grief, you’ll eventually emerge into your larger world again. Why not allow yourself at least a little experience of your larger life every day even if all that means to you is remembering to take a few deep breaths?
Allowing yourself to experiment with these tips will give you tremendous insight into how you process grief.
And once you know that, you’ll know what else you can do to make sure you make it through your post-heartbreak grief as quickly as you can — regardless of what others might tell you or expect from you, you’ll know you’re doing what’s right for you.
More for You:
Dr. Karen Finn is a divorce coach. She works with clients who are struggling with divorce and not sure how to stop the pain and move forward with their lives. You can join her anonymous newsletter group for free advice or schedule a FREE 30-minute conversation with Karen directly in her Time Trade calendar.