How to Survive and Thrive When You’re Experiencing Emotional Hurt

Nothing in life hurts quite like the emotional pain you experience severing yourself from someone you once thought you would be with forever. Time is often prescribed as the best remedy and I agree. The below are additional things I’ve found to help as well. You can heal and come out stronger than before.

Hang in there! <3

• Know that you won’t feel this way forever. I know it may seem impossible to imagine being happy again, but it’s more than possible.
• You didn’t truly lose what you think you’re missing. You probably miss the person or the relationship you shared together and are grieving from the loss of not having either now. You may have previously believed you were finally with the person of your dreams. However, if the person was actually worth losing and the right person for you, they wouldn’t have left. If the relationship was actually healthy and sustainable, it wouldn’t have ended. Read that again. You want to be with a person who recognizes your value and chooses you every day. You want a healthy, stable, flourishing relationship. You didn’t lose your person or your forever relationship because you didn’t ever have them. You actually shed excess baggage that was holding you back from having what you really want.
• Open your calendar and schedule the heck out of it. Fill up every hour as much as possible. Seriously. Reach out to every friend you know, volunteer, sign-up for that class you’ve been wanting to take. Go to the gym every day or at the very least, schedule a walk around your neighborhood. Do not give yourself endless days sitting around to process what happened alone. You can do that over time, ideally with a therapist and with friends you trust. Believe me. In the beginning, the amount of negative self-talk that naturally surfaces is not something you should face on your own. Go ahead and cry if you need to, but as much as you can, stay in community.
• Get rid of any reminders of your ex that you need to. The quicker the better.
• Write out all the negative things about your ex and the relationship. Reread that list anytime you start to think it wasn’t really that bad.
• Write out what you want in your next relationship. Not specifics like height or eye color, but characteristics. Some big ones for me? Humility. Honesty. Integrity. Doesn’t make me feel like crap. Things I didn’t think I’d have to worry about when dating guys that claim to be Christians, but I digress…
• You will probably meet a lot more people who aren’t what you’re looking for. That’s okay. You aren’t looking to marry more than one person. You just need one. Even when the odds seem bad, have faith that there is at least one good decent person out there that will love you for you. You are a good, decent person. There must be others. Don’t settle for anything else and don’t lose hope that there aren’t good people out there.