25 Ways to Grow From a Breakup
Your partner is gone. The relationship, with all its hopes and dreams, is over.
Or is it? What even happened?
Kübler-Ross’ five stages of grief accurately describe some of the responses that people cycle through after a breakup:
- Denial, avoidance, confusion, shock, and fear
- Anger, frustration, irritation, and anxiety
- Depression, overwhelm, collapse and helplessness
- Bargaining, pleading, reaching out to others, and telling one’s story
- Acceptance, exploring options, moving on, and inner peace
What helps get through a breakup?
- Relationships Are Not About Getting Love. They Teach Us How to Love.
What are relationships for?
If I approach relationships as a way to meet my needs for touch, empathy, affection and love, I might negotiate a balanced, sustainable exchange. But I also might grasp with craving and be scared, disappointed, or angry when my needs aren’t met. Such an approach can treat people more like vending machines than as divine sovereign beings.
What if instead, I engage in relationships to learn how to love? Bit by bit I come to accept myself and others, for who we are, without trying to poke or prod anyone to change in any way.
So when the relationship ends, and all relationships will in one way or another, the question is then, “How do I accept even this? How can I grow in my capacity for love and compassion?”
When you wake up each morning, is there a guiding value or purpose that you remember to orient your day? This intention to live more and more from an open heart can be a compass that orients us towards growth and healing.
It’s like rough rocks being polished in a rock tumbler. You fill a small container with unremarkable rocks, add a coarse abrasive and some water, and let it spin on its axis for a few hours. The transformation is incredible. The stones are unrecognizable — shiny, smooth, and sparkling with deep color. In the same way, the challenges of our lives like breakups are catalysts that draw out our innate beauty. Without trying initiations we would never know our true strength.
2. Sit With the Pain, Like an Old Friend
Put aside any judgments like:
- I shouldn’t cry, be angry, depressed, scared, lonely, or upset.
- I should be over this already.
- Nobody wants to be around this kind of a mess.
Take a deep breath and check-in with yourself. You might like to write down what you notice.
Consider, “What is the raw experience in the body? What sensations are present?”
And keep breathing.
Rumi, the 13th-century Sufi poet, beautifully describes welcoming your emotional experience:
“This human being is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”
3. Let Your Heart Break
Heartbreak is inevitable. It is the natural result of loving someone who is destined to leave us at some point or another. If we close our hearts to protect it, the pain festers. Life becomes dry. If we let the heart break, again and again, we come to know a space beyond time. The heart that breaks is not the True Heart.
Here are some snippets of poetry to cheerlead the hero’s journey into grief:
“Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
“God breaks the heart again and again and again until it stays open.”
― Hazrat Inayat Khan
“If heartbreak is inevitable and inescapable, it might be asking us to look for it and make friends with it, to see it as our constant and instructive companion, and perhaps, in the depth of its impact as well as in its hindsight, and even, its own reward. Heartbreak asks us not to look for an alternative path, because there is no alternative path. It is an introduction to what we love and have loved, as inescapable and often beautiful question, something and someone that has been with us all along, asking us to be ready for the ultimate letting go.”
― David Whyte, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words
“Grief and love are sisters, woven together from the beginning. Their kinship reminds us that there is no love that does not contain loss and no loss that is not a reminder of the love we carry for what we once held close.”
― Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow
4. Remember Love and Compassion
As you breathe, remember the love and care you have for yourself. Visualize being surrounded by loving and wise guides and mentors, from your life or imaginary, who can help hold you with compassion.
Imagine light and warmth flowing from them towards the darkest, most painful places in your body. This energy is offered, not pushed or forced. Can you hold both the love and fear in your awareness, going back and forth, and being aware of the interaction between them both?
5. Universalize the Experience
Remember that the experience you are going through, even though the particular conditions are unique to you, is universal. All people lose loved ones. All beings experience loss. All things born in space and time will fade away. As you open your heart to the pain of your loss, you also hold space for the pain of all beings.
You are not alone in this painful experience. This trial, and the humble opening it invites, connects you to all humanity. It also challenges you to connect with your soul and the deepest intention for your life. Perhaps you emerge with a sincere desire to attend to the causes of suffering in the world that guides the rest of your life.
The pain you are feeling is greater than this moment. The breakup pokes a wound. It triggers something. But the pain itself is deeper than this one incident. It might come from past lives, ancestral lineage, or be the portion of collective darkness allotted to you. What matters is whether you approach the emotional pain with respect and compassion or with the energy of war, trying to get rid of it and get on with your life without having to change.
Naomi Shihab Nye writes:
“Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.”
6. Connect With Others In Similar Situations
You are not alone, which means that you can share stories with people going through similar experiences. Just knowing someone else is struggling in the same way melts isolation and connects you with humanity. The universe, being the finely tuned scenario that it is, has a way of connecting us with the exact people we need. Maybe someone you’ve just met is going through a divorce, or an old friend is longing for an ex-partner. You can head to Reddit and check out subreddits like r/relationship_advice, r/BreakUps, or r/ExNoContact.
7. Dialogue With Your Wounded Inner Child.
If you can’t date your former partner, then you might as well date yourself. (Actually, this is a good idea any time.) And since you’ve known yourself a few years now, perhaps it’s time to get to know your darker parts. Once you understand them, life will become easier and more natural. So have tea with your inner demons. Use this opportunity to learn about and to love even your most unattractive qualities, habits, and fears.
Open your journal or a new text document and begin to write as if your fear and pain are personified as your wounded inner child. Let them express, and then dialogue with the most loving part of you, perhaps an ideal inner mother, father, or guru.
Ask your inner child, “How do you feel? What do you want? What are you scared of?”
And then your inner parent or higher self, Love itself, gets to respond.
It can look something like this:
Inner child: They don’t want to hear from me. They don’t like me. I’m too depressed to be around.
Love: I like you. I like hanging out with you, even when we just sit in silence. You are not ‘depression.’ You and I know our dear friend, depression, who like Eeyore is always a bit down.
Inner child: I miss my ex. I felt at home with them.
Love: I know, sweetie. I know. I miss them too. They still live with us, in our heart. We will always love them, and they will always love you. Really, they still love you.
Inner child: So I can be with them again?
Love: You are together now. And in an archetypical way, your mother self, your inner mother, can love you in the way that they loved you.
Inner child: But physically, do I get to be with them, to hold them, to have sex, to cook together, to travel, to tell each other the stories of our lives?
Love: Not really, not in the same way. It was too limiting for us to be with them, and the way they were with us was mostly, fundamentally unhealthy. The love was real. It still is real.
Inner child: But… I don’t get to be with them?
Love: Do you really want to be in a relationship with them?
Inner child: I want to be loved by them. I want to matter to someone. I want to be wanted. I don’t want to be alone. I’ve felt so alone for so long and they were the closest I’ve felt to home, the best that I’ve ever found. It wasn’t the best, not the healthiest, but I thought it could get better as we sorted out our foundations. It was very painful when they left emotionally. They blamed me for it too, which was confusing.
In this way, the dialogue continues.
8. Identify Any Negative Core Beliefs, Feelings of Dependency, or Attempts to Possess or Control Your Ex-Partner.
In your journal, you might ask:
Am I scared to be alone?
What does losing this person mean about me?
In what ways have I made my happiness dependent on this person?
How have I tried to possess this person, as a source of love or self-esteem?
How have I tried to control them? To make them stay and be a certain way?
You might want to hire a trustworthy guide to sort through this stuff. It’s much easier for an outside party to see your blind spots, so you might benefit from a qualified guide.
9. Breathe and Tone to Move Energy
It’s good to have tools that can help us feel better and that address all levels of being: the body, emotions, mind, will, and spirit. Breathing and toning help move stuck energy and can provide a natural high. Sitting with presence is well and good, but sometimes your habitual ways of containing yourself limits your ability to even feel emotions.
There are many variations of breathwork, but to get you started, here are some basic instructions:
Find a secluded spot where you can lay down, move, and be loud. Let the people around you know you might make some noise and not to worry or disturb you.
Play some background music to set the stage, if you like.
Lay down with your feet about a foot apart, flat on the floor with your knees standing up. Slowly breathe in through your nose, into your belly. As you breathe in, arch the small of your back. As you breathe out, flatten the low back against the floor. Continue gently rocking the pelvis in this way as you breathe in and as you breathe out.
Practice this for a few minutes and then relax. Notice what feels different in your body.
Begin again and this time as you breathe and move the pelvis, make a sound that feels good with each out-breath. Bring your awareness to a particular part of the body and feel the vibration of your voice from the inside.
Breathing is the key that unlocks feelings in the body and is easily integrated throughout the day. Any time you notice stress, sadness, or irritation, take three deep breaths into the belly.
10. Dance
If dancing sounds intimidating, try moving your body. Alone or with others, play some music and start to move your body. Let any self-judgment go as much as you can, and see how your body wants to move. What emotions want to express?
You can also kick, punch, or hit things. You’ll feel more alive afterwards.
11. Move Your Body Everyday
A regular schedule is helpful, especially one that includes moving your body. Do things that are enjoyable. Try some new activities too. You can work out at the gym, swim, walk, run, hike, practice yoga or qi gong, cycle, kayak, or play tennis, frisbee, soccer, or lacrosse. Whether by yourself or with others, moving your body releases endorphins that leave you feeling good and relaxed.
12. Spend Time in Nature
There is healing offered as you walk among the old-growth trees, touched by the sun filtering through the leaves, with the river gently flowing.
Make time to sit around a campfire, gaze at the stars, float in the ocean, and listen to the rustle of the wind.
Open yourself here and you just might receive a download, an idea that falls into place, or a song that spontaneously comes to you.
13. Sing
Singing gets you breathing, grounds you in your body, brings you joy, and the melodies evoke heartfelt emotions. Song is one of the best medicines. The perfect song can come to you spontaneously in nature or in a dream. Or you can benefit from the songs other people have “caught” and shared.
Here are three places packed with songs to get you started:
Laurence Cole’s website. Start with the song “Go Down Deep”
MaMuse teaches sing-along songs
Lisa G. Littlebird shares 365 songs
14. Change Your Story
The end of the relationship is one thing. Your reaction to it is another.
If you left your ex, then you might be more clear about what you are moving towards and what to do with your newfound freedom, time, energy, and money. You’re on to bigger and better things.
If your partner left you, then you might think it’s because you’re not good enough. It’s not. Sometimes people aren’t compatible and it’s not personal. Sometimes the timing isn’t right. The end of the relationship is not a reflection of your worthiness as a person and it does not indicate anything about future relationships.
It is worthwhile to consider the question, “How did I contribute to the end of the relationship?” Even if your partner cheated on you, it’s still valuable to ask, “In what ways did I help create that outcome?” This helps balance the tendency to be a victim and provides valuable insight for the future. The point isn’t to blame yourself, but to understanding what happened so things will be different going forward.
What does the relationship ending mean for your future? Does it mean being forever alone or settling for someone less perfect than your last partner? Or will it lead you to become who you are meant to become?
My suggestion is to tell a positive narrative where you are the hero. Maybe your past relationship was limiting you and now you are free to fulfill your destiny. You are changed by the experience and now more able to love yourself as you are, and therefore also more able to love your next partner, while still expressing desires and setting clear boundaries. You will appreciate your next partner more, and be more considerate without betraying yourself or your goals.
15. Say a Prayer
Did you know that if you don’t ask for help, the spiritual powers that be can’t help you? They honor your free will choice and don’t intervene.
So ask away. “May the powers of love in the universe, who come for the highest good of all beings, help me remember my wholeness and connect to the essence of who I am. May I be guided to the people and experiences I need to find myself, fulfill my purpose, and create the most rewarding relationships of my life.”
Use your own words if you want. Allow the essence of hope to inspire them.
16. Answer Your Prayer with an Affirmation
Saying a prayer is like sending a telegram up the chain of command from your crown to Source. Imagine a light being passed up, like the electrical impulse in a chain of neural axons. Then Source sends an answer down the line to you or to the person you’re praying for. Since you are a multidimensional being, you might as well enjoy both sides of the exchange: giving and receiving, praying and answering prayers. Plus, it’s empowering and speeds things up.
So instead of asking for something, you affirm it. Here’s an example:
“I am centered and at peace. I trust the flow of life and appreciate the opportunity to be alive today. I am guided in subtle and miraculous ways to be at the right place at the right time. Things are always working out for me. I know that perfect people will enter my life at the right time, and when they leave, it is for the best. Thank you Life for dancing with me through each falling leaf, each sunset, each person who I’ve ever met.”
At first, you might not believe such statements. But if repeat them, with feeling, they begin to sink in. Your perspective subtly shifts so it seems more possible such statements could be true. And if they are true, then everything changes.
@marinatrujillo
17. Forgive Yourself & Have Compassionate Regret for Any Harm Caused.
Some forgiveness is in order.
On some level, you allowed whatever happened. You chose the person and stayed with them as long as you did. You may have spoken with anger, snooped, or been overwhelmed with jealousy. Whatever you did, know that you were scared, and hold yourself and your actions with understanding.
If you did act in an unskillful way that caused harm, and you’re worried that forgiving yourself could allow the same behavior in the future, compassionate regret is in order. You regret causing harm, and you have compassion for yourself rather than judgment
Joseph Murphy, in his book The Cosmic Power Within You, tells of visiting a woman in a hospital who was consumed with regret and self-condemnation. He suggested she frequently say to herself:
“I fully and freely forgive everyone who has ever hurt me. I release them, and it is done with forever. Whenever I think of any one of them, I bless that person. I forget the past and give my attention to a glorious future of perfect health, harmony, and peace. My mind is poised, serene, and calm. In this atmosphere of peace and goodwill that surrounds me, I feel a deep abiding strength and freedom from all fear. I sense and feel the love and beauty of the Cosmic Healing Presence.
Day by day I become more aware of God’s love; all that is false fades away. I allow the Cosmic river of peace and healing power to flow through my whole body. I rest in the everlasting arms of peace. My peace is the deep unchanging Cosmic peace, the peace of God.”
After regularly practicing this prayer, the woman was released from the hospital and said, “I know all my trouble was hate and resentment; I feel clean inside now. Truly, peace is health and happiness.”
18. Only Send Your Ex Self-Sufficient Expressions of Joy, Not Veiled Attempts to Get Attention or Love
You will need to decide what kind of communication with your ex feels good and affirms your self-respect. If you don’t have kids or too many practicalities to take care of, choosing no contact for some time is helpful to disentangle from each other, to come back to yourself and your life.
Simple chats might evoke too much pain or bring old patterns to the fore. If you long to connect, but know it’s not for the best, make a list of all the negative aspects of the relationship and all the reasons why you are choosing something new to remind yourself when you’re feeling lonely.
Here’s a litmus test I use when considering communicating with an ex: “Does this communication bring me joy? If they never respond, will I still feel good about my message?”
If so, I can send it.
If, however, after I send it I know I will be anxious for a response, I save myself the internal strife and don’t reach out. I take pride knowing that I am choosing self-respect and inner peace by not communicating.
19. Cultivate Beauty and Pleasure
- Light candles
- Cook meals
- Take baths
- See friends
- Sleep in
- Enjoy the little pleasures of life.
Your partner brought beauty and pleasure into your life. It’s your job to find other sources of joy to compensate for their loss.
20. Appreciate Art, Music & Poetry
The artists of the world transmute the raw emotion of their lives to create music, write novels, plays, poetry, and autobiographies, paint, sculpt, draw, and sing.
Knowing the poets have been here before us reminds us that we are not alone. Beauty can yet be made from this pain.
21. Create Art, Music & Poetry
What hobbies have you neglected while in this relationship? What parts of you have you forgotten about? Often relationships end because one or both people were limiting their self-expression and development. Now that you have time and freedom, take the opportunity to express yourself and create art.
Do you enjoy dancing, singing, making music, writing poetry, or painting? Channel your raw feelings and inner process into your art and make the world a more beautiful place. While you digest your most recent life experiences you might find contentment knowing you are also helping others.
22. Become the Partner You Want To Be With
You know your next partner is going to be fabulous, and they will only choose you if you are too. So write down the qualities you want in a mate and then develop them in yourself.
Do you want to partner with someone who works out? Start yourself.
Do you want to be with someone who meditates? Start meditating.
Do you want someone who knows their purpose? Figure it out yourself.
Here’s a script you can use to mold your subconscious mind and attract your next partner. If you want to get back with your ex, then promise yourself, “I will get with [that person] or with someone even better.”
“I am now attracting a partner who is completely compatible. We laugh, joke, and are deeply at ease together. We share the same values and do not try to change each other. We are irresistibly attracted to each other, and the sexual chemistry is palpable. This person is honest, caring, joyful, energetic, generous with their time and energy, and loyal to me. These qualities that I admire are also in me, and as I remember them, they grow in me.”
In this way, you attract a suitable partner.
23. Connect With Your Inner Mate
Underlying any fear and pain around the breakup is almost always a natural, human desire to be met and loved: soul to soul, heart to heart, and body to body.
But finding this soul love in the physical world has its own timing.
In the meantime, you can connect with an ideal lover in the imaginal realm. I know this is a stretch for almost everybody, but you can always learn something with an open mind, so I ask for your patience.
What, you might wonder, is the imaginal realm?
Between the physical world and the intellectual world of ideas, lies the imaginal realm. Henry Corbin coined this word when translated Persian mystics. It is a place where archetypes live, where the mythic and mundane meet. It requires a particular mode of perception to access, one common among mystics and poets but too often trained out of modern children.
And what is an inner mate?
An inner mate is an ideal lover you build a relationship with. You can benefit from meeting inner parents too, who can parent you in the ways you always wanted but never experienced growing up. You find an inner mate by going into a light trance, feeling the desire to meet your inner mate, and visualizing meeting in a beautiful place.
Even if the experience is entirely imaginary, it impresses the subconscious mind with all the qualities of the person you imagine. You couldn’t imagine it if you didn’t have it yourself.
24. Stay Open to the Miracles of Life
My lowest moments offer an opening to life that might otherwise remain closed. Feeling pain humbles me and erodes the arrogant beliefs I have used to separate me from others and the hurt I expect from them.
The world is a miraculous place. Synchronicities can happen when we least expect them, but expecting them actually makes them more likely. Beliefs are self-fulfilling prophecies, so why not believe, “Things are always working out for me.”
By staying open to the possibilities of miracles, we move closer to the essence of our being, to who we really are. We are increasingly clear about what we’re doing and why we’re doing it.
25. Remember You Are the Light of the World
Lesson 61 in A Course in Miracles gives the teaching:
“I am the light of the world.
That is my only function.
That is what I am here.”
What would change if you accepted that as true?
By doing this inner work we are light-workers, people who bring the light of awareness to our inner and outer worlds.
We are part of a love revolution bringing freedom and peace to Earth.
We will be successful.
Thank you for being here and doing your part.
Learn more about how I help people balance being divine and being human here.
