How to Grieve your Breakup
There is a certain grief that comes in the wake of a breakup.
It can often surprise you how lost and heartbroken you feel, especially if things were already heading down hill, or deep down you knew you wanted out.
The thing about grief is, it almost always comes on the heels of any sort of change, whether we chose it or not.
Grief and change are not just experiences we can intellectualize our way out of, there is a deep emotional component connected.
You can logically know something to be true for you, such as:
“I’m better off without them” or
“this is for the best”, or
“we were radically incompatible” or
“better things are coming (with evidence!)”
and still have a ridiculously hard time coming to terms with it,
Because you have yet to deal with the emotional component of the relationships shift.
Intellectually knowing something is for the best for you, and actually accepting and implementing what that means for your reality are not one in the same.
In order for the grief to ease as you move through the trenches of your heartbreak, you have to go beyond intellect.
You must recognize and heal the thoughts, beliefs, attachments and expectations you had for the relationship, the other person involved, and yourself.
When you grieve the end or change of something you are not just grieving the particular reality.
You are grieving what once was, what never will be again, and what never was that you deeply wanted.
Knowing someone is no longer in alignment for you is an important step on coming back home to your self and doing what’s best for you, and ultimately them. But that doesn’t always make it feel good or ok.
You can leave or be left by someone who truly felt awful for you and still deeply ache for what you imagined or wanted it to be.
You may also be grieving for the version of you that you know you must leave behind in order to be and have what your heart truly desires.
Letting go of an old identity can be painful and hard and grief inducing causing waves of emotions you hardly saw coming.
Allow yourself to acknowledge, accept, and grieve the components of the relationship and of yourself that need healing and peace.
Allow yourself to know you want and are worthy of more, while still allowing yourself the grace to grieve the version of you that once wanted different.
Grieving is not a linear, step by step process assigned only to physical death, we grieve change and loss in many forms, the process is accelerated or transformed only by your willingness to move through it, instead of avoiding or bypassing it.
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