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Breaking up with someone you love so much is always hard. How many sleepless nights have you been through since...
The post To Let Go Of A Past Relationship, You Need To Go Through These 5 Stages appeared first on Lifehack.
Breaking up with someone you love so much is always hard. How many sleepless nights have you been through since...
The post To Let Go Of A Past Relationship, You Need To Go Through These 5 Stages appeared first on Lifehack.
Breaking up with someone you love so much is always hard.
How many sleepless nights have you been through since the day you said goodbye? How many painful days have you been through since the day you fell apart? How long have you been trapped in the past and unable to move on?
You want to forget. And you want to forgive. But it you just can’t.
You thought you had forgotten the best memories of the past. But whenever you walk past the place where you two first met, the good old days pop up in your mind again and you just can’t help but burst into tears.
You thought you had forgiven him for everything he did to you. But whenever you see his/her face appearing on your Facebook news feed, you find your heart is filled with a complicated feeling of melancholy and anger.
Letting go is never easy. But here’s what we can do with the grief and loss.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a Swiss psychiatrist, introduced the five stages of grief in her book On Death and Dying (1969).[1] The model was initially inspired by her work with terminally ill patients. But now it is also widely adopted to explain the behavior of people who experience grief and loss. After all, facing death and facing the death of a relationship share so much in common.
The first reaction to the loss of a relationship is to deny the reality of the situation. This is a defence mechanism to stop you from dealing with painful feelings.[2] You try to pretend everything’s alright but deep down in your heart you know it is not real.
When you have the feeling that you’re denying the loss of a cherished one, you should focus on accepting the brutal truth:
As time goes by, the reality becomes less blurry and you would gradually feel the pain of heartbreak. The pain is sometimes redirected and expressed as anger. You need someone to be blamed for causing you pain: your ex, people around you, the universe, or even yourself. Rationally, you know they might not be the one to be blamed but you just can’t control your emotions.
What you need here is to forgive:
When you realize that the reality is pushing you towards to the edge of a cliff, you panic and strive to survive. You would do everything and anything to reverse the situation. You look for any possible ways to win him/her back, perhaps through negotiation or threat. You just don’t want to feel the pain.
But for most of the time, things don’t happen as you wish. You should better let it go:
When you finally realize you can do nothing to alter whatever you are experiencing, you are real depressed: feeling tired all the time, not wanting to do anything, avoiding friends and family, losing appetite or overeating, suffering from insomnia or sleeping too much. The hopelessness makes you feel hard to move on.
Nobody says it is easy but you should regain your mental and physical health before it is too late:
Now, you are almost there. When you begin to accept whatever happens on you, you would gradually be able to make peace with the loss. It doesn’t guarantee happiness as you are still in one of the stages of grief, but you will be less emotional and begin to find some light along the road. And the light will eventually guide you home.
Things that evoke memories might still trigger your emotions but you can prevent self-absorption again:
We always want a long-lasting relationship. We want someone to stay with us whatever happens in life. We want to hold on. But sometimes what makes us strong is letting go instead.
When you look back in the future, you will be surprised at how much you have grown.
[1] | ^ | Psychology Today: The 5 Stages of Grieving the End of a Relationship |
[2] | ^ | Psych Central: 15 Common Defense Mechanisms |
The post To Let Go Of A Past Relationship, You Need To Go Through These 5 Stages appeared first on Lifehack.