We've all experienced the break-up of a relationship.
Regardless of whether you initiate the break up or not, it is a hard and painful experience.
The hardest part, I believe, would be coping with life after the break up.
Make no mistake; even though it is a break up, there is still a grief process that both partners will experience.
You will experience the loss of the relationship, the future that relationship would have bought and the personal connections made not with just your partner but also their family, friends and colleagues.
Like all grief processes you will experience a wide range of emotions, however, remember it is a process.
This means it will have an end and that end will be when you have felt all the negative emotions associated with the break up and you feel ready to move onto the next stage of your life.
How long that takes is up to you.
The time a person will grieve for is different for everyone and can be dependent on how much "work" an individual is willing to put into moving through the process.
I'm going to share with you 5 tips that will not only help you move through the grief of a breakup, but will also help you survive the emotions that come with it.
1.
Eat, drink water, get exercise and get plenty of sleep.
It is easy to neglect these basic health requirements when we're grieving, however, it is even more important to include them in routine.
It will take a lot of energy living in a highly emotional state; maintain healthy habits will help you not only continue but also stay healthy after you've finished grieving.
Not only that, regular exercise will provide an excellent platform for venting excess negative emotions and sleep will give you a daily break from grief.
2.
Maintain a holistic view of your relationship and former partner.
Often when there's a break up, we only remember the good points of our partner and the relationship.
We put them up on a pedestal and build it up until we believe that they were the only ones for us and that it was a perfect relationship.
By ignoring the reasons why the break up occurred (the bad parts of the relationship), we end up pining and longing for the past, which ultimately prevent us from moving forward.
Maintain a holistic view of your relationship and former partner by writing down the good points and the bad points of the relationship.
You'll constantly remind yourself why the break up occurred and you'll be more accepting of the situation, making it easier to move forward.
3.
Make a list of mistakes you made and things you can do better.
It is common to blame your partner after a break up; it helps us feel better about ourselves.
However, a relationship involves 2 people.
By placing all the blame on the other person, we can overlook aspects of ourselves that we will carry into our next relationship.
By identifying things we can do better, we have the best chance of using these lessons in the future which will result in more satisfying relationships.
4.
Spend time with family and friends.
Isolating yourself will increase your feelings of loneliness which help you to feel more depressed and intensify your negative emotions.
Making the effort to spend time with family and friends (and it will be an effort in the beginning) will help us feel like we belong and will help us to feel happier.
Our family and friends love us, surround you with their love.
Also if you're like me, when we enter into a relationship, you tend to neglect some of those closest to you, this is the perfect opportunity to reconnect with those we lose touch with.
5.
Give yourself time to grieve.
Like I said before, everyone is different in the time it takes to grieve.
It is something you must do at your own pace.
You will get people who will urge you to meet someone new, move on quicker or even tell you how long grieving should take.
They do this because they care and don't want to see you in pain.
Regardless, you must go as slow or as fast as you need.
Trying to move on too quickly could lead to disastrous consequences.
You are the expert of your own life.
Breaking up is hard and it's easy to fall into the trap of believing that you can't survive.
By believing that you can, following these tips and moving through the grief process, you will discover that you will live to love again.