Shortly after my recent breakup one of my clients asked me "When are you going to grieve?" I was perplexed, grieve for what? It really did not make any sense to me...at the time.
As the days turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into months I started to understand what she was talking about. When we break off a relationship, no matter what stage in life we are at, it is emotionally devistating to us. Yes, many times we are relieved to be out of a bad situation, but even bad relationships have memories, feelings and emotions attached to them.
When this all happened I told my guides I did not want to have a breakup where I spent years angry at this person. Anger takes to much energy from you. I wanted to breakup in a healthy way. Little did I know that anger is a much needed part of a separation. It is the one emotion that can truly help you get through the day. Let me tell you that I can get angry at the drop of a hat if I have too. And I have had to rely on that several times.
I may find myself watching TV and see a show that we watched together or see a couple that reminds me of us when we were happy. Now instead of getting depressed and feeling lonely I think of something that he did that really pissed me off and I go with that. Boy, I am doing really well on that. Because if you think about it we have lots of pent up emotions toward our partner. We may never plan on using it against them but from day one they have done things to just annoy the hell out us. Well when I start to feel blue, I pull one of those little gems out and run with it.
But depression and anger are not the only feelings you have after a breakup. I experienced anxiety attacks for the first time in my life. I thought I was losing my mind, I would wake up in the middle of the night and the longer I stayed awake the more problems I created in my head to worry about. I had convinced myself that I could not handle this alone. After a particularly awful morning that started off by crying for 2 hours before work, I called my doctor and made an appointment. I was really surprised to find out what was happening was fairly normal. She gave me a prescription for Xanax and told me to take that when I started to get anxious. After taking it 2-3 times I realized I did not like the way it made me feel so I came up with other ways to deal with the anxiety.
There are a ton of websites that are devoted to finding the perfect spouse, date, partner, etc. There are even more websites that tell you what to do once you find that Mr./Mrs. Perfect, but it is hard to find a good website that tells you what to do when Mr./Mrs. Perfect turn out not to be so perfect. So I spent my Sunday looking around and adding my two cents into the topic and here is what I came up with.
1. The first emotion you will experience is obviously shock. Unless you are the one doing the breaking up it never hits you the right way. Even if you knew it was coming, you are still shocked. This emotion can last anywhere from a day to months. Depending on how stable you are emotionally and what kind of support system you have. This is where your girlfriends come in handy, because we can handle just about anything with the right girls around us. They will help you except what happened and help you move forward. Your family, may help too but they are more inclined to want you to try and work it out than to walk away. Remember your girlfriends hear more of the bad stuff than your family does so they probably know more about the real situtation.
2. The next emotion is probably going to be sadness. All the sudden you are remembering your wedding, honeymoon, the night you first made love, that trip to the mountains, the beach, the grocery store, everything. For me, I went through the "I will never do ________ with him again." That was awful, I was telling myself that I will never go to Vegas again, because we got married there, I would never go to NYC again because he took me there, I would never go to Cancun again because we went there." I was pretty much locking myself into a life of going nowhere because we had done it before. How stupid is that? But this is what the saddness does to you. You can not think rationally when you are overcome with saddness. There are no guaranteed way of overcoming sadness other than to let it run it's course. Rely on your friends and family too help. Be honest with them, when they ask are you okay, tell them "No, I'm not." and let them help you through this.
3. Our best friend, Anger. Now, anger is a good emotion as I described above, but it can easily get out of hand. If you are prone to go into uncontrolable fits of anger and throw things or destroy things you need to keep that in check. What your partner may have accepted in the past during your relationship has changed. So if you were able to throw the dishes at him when you got mad before, he just may call the police now. So try as hard as you can to keep your anger in check. Do constructive things with your anger, such as, clean your house, wash your car, run, go to the gym, take up kickboxing, anything that helps you vent that anger in a healthy way. But, what ever you do, don't let your anger get the better of you and get you into trouble.
4. Another emotion you will discover is fear. Fear can be very dibilitating and well scary. For me, I was nervous about living alone. I had not lived alone before and I was not sure I could sleep by myself. But, guess what? Not only could I sleep well, I liked be alone. Make your new place yours, if you are into praying, asking God to send in protective angels to help keep you safe. If you are like me, I asked my guides to post guards to keep out anything negative that would do me harm. I found that doing this really helped me relax.
5. Anxiety again it can be devistating and if you think medication will help then by all means get some. It is not a sign of weakness that you need meds to help with this. But, it is imperative that you find ways to relax and be comfortable with yourself. Having my dogs has been a great help, if I start to get anxious I take them for a walk or we go outside and play. Anything to get my mind onto something else.
6. My personal favorite, Jealousy. When I was a teenager my mom told me that jealousy was a wasted emotion because it only hurt you. And she was right, but let me tell you when he talks about his first date you are going to be jealous. I don't care how mature you are, it hurts to know that they are able to move on with their lives and date other people. We all know they should be sitting at home in the throws of despair because you are not with them anymore. For me, it was not so much #3's dating as it was his free and easy lifestyle. He sends me emails telling me all the things he is doing for the week, laying out at the pool after noon, walking to the grocery store, going to buddist class, going to drumming classes, dance classes, going to volunteer in the mountains. When for me my weekly schedule is Mon-Friday 8:00am - 5:00pm working, 5:30-9:00 working, Saturday-Sunday 8:00 - ? working. So my schedule is full of working, I don't even remember the last time I got to lay out by the pool. Don't get me wrong I am not working because I can't stand the idea of being alone, I am working to pay the bills. My paychecks are pretty much spent before I get them. And then for him to tell me how broke he is all the time makes me have to take my own advice given in question 3 and not throw a skillet at him.
Unfortunatly there are many more emotions you will probably experience that we don't know about. But these are the basics that most people will experience. But remember that during all of this you are not alone. Your friends and family are just waiting for you to ask for their help and comfort. For me the thought of going home is what is getting me through. I know that my time is limited here in New Mexico and I am using that as my daily affirmation. For once my family seems to be the healing that I need. And to be honest there are not that many memories of me and #3 in Texas. Of all places that was one we did not frequent together. I mostly went alone and I am now grateful for that.