the truth about learning to love yourself after heartbreak

Oct 7

Heartbreak is ROUGH. It’s never fun, and it always takes me forever to get over someone.

I’ve written about how to decenter men from your life, journal prompts for getting over men, setting clear boundaries with guys, bouncing back when a boy ends things, and more. So you have all the tools for getting over men.

But let’s dive deep into learning how to love yourself after heartbreak and the end of a relationship.

Everyone preaches self love and focusing on yourself after breaking up, but there’s so much more to it. It can be messy, rough, nonlinear and honestly just a sad journey sometimes.

Healing also looks different for everyone. Some people are ready to jump into self love, while others need some time to be heartbroken and upset.

Taking your time to start your self love journey

You may not be ready to dive into self love right after being hurt, and that’s completely okay.

Don’t rush yourself into anything. Go at your own pace, and listen to the healthy flow of emotions that make sense to you.

In my experience, I need a few days (or even weeks) to sit in the sadness and process all the emotions.

I’m sometimes in a rush to instantly make myself feel better. And while I can distract myself, listen to uplifting music, hang out with friends, etc., I’m usually trying to avoid my feelings and dealing with my true emotions.

The best things in life come when you’re ready for it (whether you know it fully or not.) Let your emotions guide you to feeling better, and take all the time you need. It’s not a race, and dealing with heartbreak doesn’t have a cheat code or magic routine.

How to love yourself after a breakup

Lean into your feelings: Allow yourself to release all your emotions. I encourage you to cry as often and as much as you can. I encourage you to be honest with yourself and give yourself grace.

You don’t want to keep it bottled in because it will come up at the worst possible time. The first day or two after a guy ends things with me, I'm distraught, crying all the time and feeling awful.

Try to embrace that pain. You really do have to go through it to get over it. Attempting to ignore or suppress it only makes things worse for me usually.

Limit triggers: Take care of yourself by limiting triggers and actions that will only lead to harm, such as not going on their social media, not reaching out to them, refraining from asking their friends about them, limiting interactions you have with them, etc.

Remember that loving yourself is about putting yourself first and moving with your best interest at heart. And if you don’t love yourself, who will?

Decenter romantic relationships: This may be controversial, but what helps me love myself after a breakup is decentering men and romantic relationships. I really try to focus my attention on myself and the areas of my life I’ve been neglecting recently.

I feel the most peaceful and satisfied when I’m content with being single and not looking for anyone. It’s comforting and makes me feel whole.

I feel like something is missing in my life, when I’m stressing over a man. Or it feels like I’m lacking or struggling in an area.

Shifting mindset: I know heartbreak and breakups are never ideal, but try to think of it as a redirection. This relationship ended for a reason. Whatever the reason is, it’s a sign that this person is not meant for you right now.

The path to loving yourself starts with acceptance and excitement for the new version of you that is surrounded by self love and kindness.

What happens when you start loving yourself is it starts to become blindingly clear that this relationship was not right for you. Learning to love yourself is not easy, especially after a heartbreak, but it’s so rewarding to get to a place where you’re so abundantly in love with yourself.

In case you missed the latest

The healing power of writing letters you’ll never send:

Healing is a linear process, and sometimes we get so caught up in the end goal of being over someone or a situation, that we tend to forget to look at how far we’ve come in the process.

I enjoy looking back at letters or notes I’ve never sent and see how much I’ve grown as a person, since the version of me who was so hurt and emotional.

I like to look at the girl who was so desperate for someone’s approval, the girl who needed to express every way someone hurt me.

I look back at the letters of someone who has done the healing and self love work, and I’m so proud of that person.

Read more here.

Building self trust after letting yourself down

I’ve broken my own trust by going back to a situationship repeatedly that I know wasn’t meant for me and only caused me more harm.

Despite telling myself (and him) that I was done, somehow I still ended up in his bed. Despite going through therapy and no contact methods, somehow we still ended up being cool.

It really created problems within myself because I felt like I couldn’t control what I was doing and couldn’t trust myself to not go back, especially when I found myself missing him or the times he would reach out.

Trust can be so hard to gain back because your mind will go to those low moments where you’ve broken boundaries, ignored your gut instincts and allowed yourself to make poor decisions.