I’m going to talk to you about how you can move on after being dumped, broken up with, or left.
I have a list of five techniques that will help you to feel like you’re making progress and moving on and notice that I said feel like you’re making progress.
Because this is not something that will happen instantly and if it was, then you should probably be concerned about yourself.
When you’ve been in a relationship with someone, you don’t want to be able to just flick a switch and walk away.
I know there are some people who will tell you that that’s exactly what you should do, but if you could simply move on in an instant from one relationship to another, you would not have the ability to form close committed relationships with people.
You are better off long term to take the proper amount of time to mourn and grieve.
During this time, you should be patient with yourself while allowing yourself to feel and reflect on what’s going on what happened and the relationship itself.
In time, you will be ready to, perhaps, be with someone else or if your ex was to come back and you wanted to consider reuniting, then that would be something that you could consider.
But people often get upset at themselves and they’ll say, “Why can’t I just move on?” Or “Why do I keep loving him?” Or “Why do I keep loving her?”
It’s actually a sign that you are healthy emotionally and that you cannot just walk away.
So the first thing that I’m going to tell you before I get into the list is to be patient with yourself and that leads me right into the first technique.
1. You Don’t Have To Move On Immediately
The first mind step that you can do to begin the process or to speed up the process of moving on after being dumped or left is by embracing the idea that you don’t have to move on immediately.
That’s where a lot of the problem comes for people is that people want to do it now and they want it to be fast and so that’s the frustration they feel.
Often times, someone trying to move on is frustrated because it’s not happening quickly.
They feel like they have to sit there and want something that’s months, potentially, down the road.
If that is you, remember that just giving yourself permission to take the time that you need and to understand that it does not happen immediately and that it should not happen immediately is important.
You are going to let yourself have those difficult days
You’re not going to be upset with yourself.
You’re not going to be frustrated or complaining at yourself or feeling like there’s something wrong with you.
You’re going to give yourself permission to grieve this relationship and to slowly reach a point where you are emotionally stronger and so you should not be surprised when you have difficult days.
You should not be surprised when you have dreams and this other person shows up in your dreams.
You should not be surprised when you wake up and you don’t want to get out of bed.
If you take away some of the element of surprise in that somehow you have disappointed yourself or you’ve let yourself down, that’s helpful because you should be feeling grief over this lost relationship if you are an emotionally healthy person.
If you were in love with this person, then you will be on a road but it’s not just an immediate destination.
It is a road to a destination and along that road there’s going to be days when it feels like you’re not making progress or when you maybe even go backwards.
But it’s sort of like the old saying:
Two steps forward and one step back, but you’ve still made progress.
For most people, just being aware that this isn’t a snap-of-a-finger and this isn’t something where you just have to be told the right thing and you will be over it.
But this is an emotional process where time is on your side either way.
If you’re wanting your ex back or if you’re just wanting to be able to function emotionally like you once could and you want to reach a point where you think you have moved on to large degree, it’s going to take time.
And as I talk about in other videos, it’s like baking a cake in the oven.
You can’t just turn up the heat and get the cake faster.
The cooking time aspect is part of the recipe.
It’s not just something that we can speed up by cranking up the heat or by hearing the right words or by doing the right thing or by hopping into a rebound relationship.
It takes time and you should allow yourself that time and be patient with yourself.
2. Separate Love From Loss
I disagree with the route that says you must convince yourself that you never loved this person.
Some people will even argue with you and say, “No you didn’t love them” because they were this or this happened or you were once unhappy with them.
You know if you loved someone.
Sometimes after a breakup, what happens is that we can’t separate the love from the feeling of loss.
And I have talked about this quite a bit in that one way of getting your ex back or at least a very very important part — maybe the single most important part of getting your ex back — is allowing them to actually feel the loss.
The reason for that is because at the breakup, your ex feels control and you feel the loss.
You feel that this is being taken away from you and there’s nothing you can do about it.
But the other person feels like they’re making a decision and they’re not actually having anything taken from them — they’re giving it away.
And in their mind, they could get it back whenever they want it because they had the control to actually move it from something they possessed to something they pushed away and so they feel control.
Your ex left the relationship.
You didn’t.
So it’s their job to come back to the relationship.
It’s much like a dictator where this other person has all the control, can take your money, can take your possessions, can put you in jail and has an army.
You can’t fight back and all you can do is beg for mercy because you don’t have any power.
After a breakup, the person who was dumped often begs the other person because they feel they have no power.
The person who initiated the breakup has all the power because they have the control.
The dumped person only has the loss and that can masquerade itself as love.
So whereas I’m not saying you didn’t love them, what I’m saying is that if you take the amount that you loved your ex — or love your ex — and then you compound that with the loss, it ends up being a much more difficult mountain to climb.
Because the love and the loss feel like they’re just combined together.
That can cause the loss to feel like it continues to pile up as far as the wound that you’ve felt and the hurt that you’ve had.
And so it’s key to actually try to separate love from loss.
While I’m not saying you didn’t love this person, I can tell you that I’ve talked to a lot of people who weren’t very happy in their relationship and were even thinking about leaving the relationship themselves but then when the other person preempted them and broke up with them first, all of a sudden they felt that they really loved this person so much more than they did before.
A lot of times, I have to point out to them that just a few weeks ago they were talking about leaving the relationship themselves.
I remember a coaching client who told me that he was going to break up with his girlfriend because he was convinced that she wasn’t the one.
Two weeks later, I spoke with him again
I thought we were going to be further discussing his desire to break up with the girl he was dating but he actually informed me that she had broken up with him.
He was crying and asking me how in the world he could get her back saying that she was the love of his life!
The. Love. Of. His. Life!
I had to actually remind him and, for the record, he argued with me over whether he even contemplated leaving her!
What happened to my client’s memory?
Well, if you take the amount that he loved her and the amount of the loss and combine them, it feels like one single thing.
What we need to do is separate the love from the feeling of loss and the shock that someone could reject us and could walk away from us.
It’s an injury and it hurts.
In fact, it feels like hurting over how much we love them.
And feeling love toward them in spite of it.
In some ways, it’s similar to when someone dies and one of the problems that someone faces in their road to living forward and to being stronger is that they will feel sorry for the person who died because they are not here with us anymore.
Not getting to enjoy their family and those wonderful experiences.
And so they feel sorry for this person, which is certainly something to mourn and grieve, but what they will do is combine that with other hurts associated with that person passing away.
That makes it more difficult and it’s similar to a breakup in that way.
We’ve got to separate love from loss.
So try to think back on the relationship itself.
What it was like and what you felt in the relationship.
It could be that you were perfectly happy.
Which, of course, makes it difficult, but if you really think about it, odds are good that things were not just as perfect as, perhaps, you are painting them to be.
Stay with me.
It could be that things were really good, but even then there’s an element of separating the love from the loss and deciding which part of this is you feeling rejected and which part of this is you in shock that someone could walk away from you.
You probably feel that your value has been lowered in that maybe you don’t feel as attractive as you once did.
You might even wonder if you are worth staying with.
That is the loss talking and so when you can separate that, the good news is that the loss goes away faster and so that’s when things become more manageable.
It becomes like a snowball going down a hill, collecting momentum and more power to go further in this process.
3. Take Things One Day At A Time
This is so important with any worthwhile endeavor in life.
Taking it one day at a time because we feel like we can take on more than just one day and that’s simply not the case.
Second of all, you don’t know what the future holds.
So we try to literally fight a battle that’s not even in front of us.
We punch into thin air.
We basically bring the future to us in our present and it robs us of our present.
It also makes it to where we are taking on more than we are emotionally capable of taking on.
When you live too far into the future and you’re dreading the future or you’re worrying about the future, you’re going to give yourself a lot of anxiety and worry and sorrow.
But when you keep your focus right in front of you — this minute, this second, this hour, and this day, that is what you need to deal with. Just the day that’s in front of you because you are not going to get your ex back in one day.
It is going to take time.
That is something that in two decades, I have certainly learned.
This is a process, whether it happens or not, it will take time and so there’s no point in putting all this pressure on this day in terms of accomplishing all that you want to accomplish.
You do your best with the day in front of you.
And you don’t go further than that in your mind.
You stay right here, focused on doing your best in the moment.
This moment.
Today is all you have to deal with.
That is all the responsibility that you should take.
That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be responsible and plan for the future.
But once you’ve done what you should do — what common sense tells you to do — that’s when you dial it back and you focus on this moment.
This moment is all that you are responsible for.
And when you think too far ahead — when you worry too far ahead — that’s when you develop anxiety and nervousness.
That’s when you can feel dread for the future because you’re taking on too much.
You’re not guaranteed tomorrow, but you do have this moment right here.
Get the most out of this moment, you get the most joy that you can from it, you get love from those around you, and get the focus of this moment.
Stay right here.
I have a video and post on overcoming anxiety after a breakup and one of the things that I talk about is that when you’re doing wonderful things in your life, having special moments with people — like birthday parties, celebrations, going out to dinner, and just having a wonderful time with people — or when you’re trying to enjoy something like a sport or watching a game, what happens sometimes is that people will express later that it seemed like it just happened too quickly and they missed it.
Like they didn’t get to really enjoy it for all it’s worth.
It almost seemed like it wasn’t living up to what they built it up to be in their own mind.
That’s because we often live too much in the future.
We’re planning, we’re thinking, and it’s almost as though we’re bypassing this moment to live in a future that doesn’t even exist yet!
Then when it gets here, we’re thinking of a future moment beyond that one and so we don’t actually get to live in that moment either!
A lot of times when I’m coaching someone on how to put their best foot forward on a date, I will tell them to stay right here in this moment.
Don’t try to eat as fast as you can and sometimes I’ll even encourage people to eat something before they go on the date because eating is not the main event.
The main event is a conversation and an experience with this person where you are enjoying the seconds in front of you and not looking into the hours or days in your future.
That’s how you really enjoy the moment.
You’re not worried about what’s happening in the future
You’re enjoying and getting the most out of the moment.
And so with that process, I’m able to help people actually enjoy those special moments and to really have a lasting memory and a lasting experience.
Something they can take with them and get something positive from even years later.
It’s because you learn to focus on the moment in front of you and when you do that, you have a much smaller amount to bite off and a much smaller responsibility to have to deal with.
So you accomplish more, you experience more, and you can move on faster if that’s what you end up doing because you probably can’t get your ex back today anyway.
All you have to do is get through today.
All you have to do is focus on today — just one day at a time.
It is so important that most of the successful people who I interact with and coach have become very good at focusing on just today and just this moment.
That way they can actually do their best in the moment and get the most out of it.
They do themselves a favor because they are not developing anxiety from worrying about something that hasn’t even happened yet.
They’re not having to deal with something that could not even happen because it’s out in the future somewhere, maybe.
4. A Question and Answer Session With Yourself
A question and answer session with yourself where it’s just one question.
I encourage you to ask yourself this question:
Whenever you feel the pain of the breakup in your stomach.
Ask yourself, “Can I move on from this?”
And then simply answer it, “Yes I can.”
And that’s all you have to do.
It’s really that simple.
You just ask the question without saying “I have to move on from this” or that you haven’t yet or anything like that.
There’s no struggle, no pressure, and no expectations.
It’s just a simple question and answer.
“Can I move on from this? Yes I can.”
It’s a way you can encourage yourself but it also removes some of that pressure of having to do it right away.
It opens the door that you can move on and it does a lot of the things that I’ve already mentioned.
It reinforces it and it also allows you to relieve some pressure because if you try it, you’ll actually realize that you feel better.
Do you feel perfect?
No, but it will help you and day after day of you asking yourself this question — you can ask it several times a day — you’ll be surprised at how much better you feel.
In some ways, it’s like the “directed laughter” that i talk about in my video overcoming anxiety after a breakup and I talk about it in my Emergency Breakup Kit because it’s a powerful thing that you will just be amazed at because it sounds so simple .
Just a simple question and answer from yourself — but you will feel so much better.
So give it a try.
I’ll wait.
5. Focus On Relationships That You Have In Your Life
I don’t mean romantically, because if you’re still hurting over this last relationship, you may not have taken enough time and a lot of people will encourage you to go out on dates to get over this person.
While that’s not the worst thing you could do, it’s actually not the best or the most productive either.
And it could be a negative because you want to take enough time in the mourning process so that this next relationship is not a rebound.
Mourning is the start of a new day.
I literally just realized that.
You’re welcome.
If this person does find out that you just got out of a serious relationship, they will likely think to themselves, “Well if it was only a couple of weeks ago, is he/she ready?”
How is that going to look to this other person you’re already dating?
They are going to wonder if you’re ready and what their place is.
It can really set up some awkward dynamics that could sabotage the relationship before it begins.
But what’s most important is that you should wait until you are emotionally ready (for real).
Grieve and mourn to give yourself that time to become stronger.
Then you will be ready to actually put your best foot forward and to get the best experience from the situation.
Be in the right mindset for the right person instead of trying to operate with a hole in your heart.
But I’m talking about focusing on people who are your friends and family who are close to you and who won’t break up with you.
Become your own booking agent.
Get your phone, go to your contacts and start texting people to ask if they are free tuesday night to go bowling, go to dinner with friends, go rock climbing, to the driving range, walk your dogs together, have drinks, have a movie night, go out on a boat, go swimming — there’s all kinds of things and activities you can do with your friends.
You could even ask, “Would you like to come over and have coffee?”
That’s difficult if your friend or family member is 100 miles away or more, but maybe you could have a virtual coffee.
It’s really not cheesy.
It’s really just a Zoom meeting.
Try to catch up with some of those people that you haven’t seen in a while, rekindle some of those relationships over simple things and you can actually practice staying in the moment and getting the most out of that event.
Feeling the love from other people is something that can help you to move on and to move on faster.
It’s important to feel unconditional love from a family member or a long-time friend and you should not try to jump into a romantic relationship most likely if you’re reading this post.
Only you can decide that, but just remember, if you are still hurting over this last one, you’re probably not going to be able to focus on a new one.
You will possibly carry some level of hurt for the next year, but it usually becomes much more tolerable and managable with each passing week.
You will have ups and downs and sometimes fall into the valley, but that doesn’t mean that you haven’t made progress.
Surround yourself with people who love you.
Plan activities so that you’re not just sitting around hurting and wallowing in this.
But you are allowed those “wallowing days” too.
Get on your phone, go to your contacts and start booking events with your friends and family.
If you aren’t yet ready to move on, I HIGHLY recommend my Emergency Breakup Kit or my Emergency Marriage Kit.
They are powerful resources to give you a strong chance of getting your person back after a breakup or to reunite with your spouse after a separation.
Sincerely,
Coach Lee
Originally published at https://myexbackcoach.com on June 22, 2022.
