As a girl who has had my fair share of breakups throughout my life, I feel like I have learned a lot on how to deal with heartbreak. 

At first it feels like a shot to the gut, and you are desperate to figure out how to survive a pain so indescribable. I think young adults tend to forget about the big picture in life, and after a recent breakup I may have cracked the code on how to properly deal with these hurdles in a healthy way. If you find yourself struggling right now this may help you.

1.  Understand the Stages of Grief

Time heals all, but you need to check in on yourself to see where you are at in the process. I did a lot of research to try to properly access my feelings and this helped a lot.

1. You are desperate for answers, you think you need closure, you can’t accept the fate of the relationship.
2. And then it goes to denial, a stage where you are a bit delusional and hopeful it did not really end.
3. After this is bargaining, you will fix yourself and do anything to make it work this time.
4. Then you relapse, thinking you DID fix yourself and it’s time to get back — News flash, you didn’t, it’s only been 3 weeks.
5. This then goes to my favorite stage, anger. This anger could be at yourself or the other person, but it’s empowering. You start to gain more respect for yourself and see the bigger picture.
6. After anger comes acceptance. Maybe there was a reason you were not compatible, and it is not the end of the world. At this point you think to yourself “Did I even like this person as much as I thought I did? Or was it my ego talking.”

This can take weeks, months, or even a year. But it is always important to check in on how YOU are doing, and being honest with yourself is a beautiful thing.

2.  Feel All The Feels

Make a playlist of the saddest songs you can find. Watch the saddest movies on Netflix. You need to cry it out until there is genuinely no tears left to cry … thank you Miss Ariana Grande. 

You need to feel it out now before it starts to linger into your life, take a week or two to just sloth in your room and have your moment. Being sad feels good sometimes, and when you get to cry for a week and no one will judge, you have to jump to take that chance.

3.  No Contact Rule

Regardless of your relationship with this person, out of respect for them and yourself it is necessary to go at least 90 days without speaking. Maybe you broke up because they needed space, or time to grow, or it was toxic in general.

Doing no contact is the healthiest way to gain your own independence back, because at the end of the day you are the main character of your life. You lived before this person, and you will live after them. Contacting them will always take you a few steps back and damages all the hard work you put in! This does not mean you cannot ever speak to them again, but you need to make healing the number one priority. 

If 90 days feels ambitious, remember it takes 21 days to build a habit. Take it day by day.

4.  DON’T BE PETTY ON THE GRAM

Posting a cute Instagram is fine and makes sense, but do not live your life to make this person jealous. In doing so you are forgetting about yourself again! Your social media is just that, yours. Do not make it an obvious place full of breakup quotes and thirst traps. Post what makes you happy, and changing it up will be a little too obvious. Put good energy into the world and good energy will come back to you. 

5.  “Block him.”

We have this amazing option to block people with our phones. Don’t you wish you could do it in real life? Protecting your peace is the number one priority. The most damaging thing I see people do nowadays is stalking their ex, seeing what they are up to, looking at who they are following.  I am a huge believer in this because why hurt your own feelings by looking back? You have all this power to be your own person again, and it’s a one track road on becoming a better human in general.

This is also a great feature because it holds you accountable to the no-contact rule. They can’t speak to you, and you cannot speak to them. It gives you this psychological push to focus on your goals and the reality around you.

6.   Reminder: Being Single is Great

A lot of people praise being single for different reasons. You get to talk to other people, maybe go hookup and have fun, but for me I love it because it puts all the focus back on my goals and hobbies. 

I used to put my all into relationships, sometimes putting that person on a pedestal and their life before mine, but now it is strictly about me. You have your friends, your job, your classes.

What is something you gave up on because you were spending too much time crying and being stressed out in a relationship? Are you creative and love to paint? Were you an athlete your whole life and gave up on working out? Have you just not been a good friend and want to get back to those people who have always been there for you? 

These priorities have been on the back-burner, but it is so exciting to have the freedom to get back to the basics.

7.   Become Your Own Best Friend

In a draining relationship, we tend to forget how amazing we are on our own. Treat yourself how you treat the people you have loved in your life. Take yourself on dates, go on walks, and talk to yourself. Everyone is too damn hard on themselves including you, and if this took such a toll on your life remember that every little step is a great one.

Within the last six months, I learned that time heals all, but you can heal faster if you deal with a breakup as responsibly as possible. Once I realized this I felt like I had the cheat codes to heartbreak, all while becoming a way better version of myself. I initially started working out afterwards to get that “breakup body”, but now I take it very seriously as a passion which I am super proud of. I take my jobs more seriously, and so many more opportunities have come my way through my Tik Toks.

You are no longer that person you were in that relationship, and you can forgive yourself for how you acted. Chances are you are young and have a whole life ahead of you, and you are just learning on how to be yourself. We all have multiple soul mates in our lifetime, but the number one soulmate is YOU!