Candor Blog

We all know that getting over a breakup can sometimes lead to sad, lonely nights buried beneath a pile of tissues while watching “Bridget Jones’ Diary” and lip-syncing along to “All By Myself“ with Bridget. But hey, it doesn’t have to be that way. Below, 8 ways to get past the pain of a broken heart from those who have lived it.

1. Give yourself some love. You need it.

“Treat yourself with love and have the patience to ride it out until the next opportunity for love comes around.”

2. Know that you will become stronger as a result.

“I think of losing people as a huge burden, whether by death or divorce. The burden’s always there, but you get stronger and that makes the burden easier and easier to carry until it’s so light it’s forgotten.”

3. Realize that sometimes a breakup is a blessing in disguise.

“In almost every case, I was glad to be done with it. I looked to the future and saw only misery. Or [my exes] looked to the future and saw only misery. Either way, it was for the best that we split. It takes time, but you know, you kind of just move on.”

4. Find new hobbies and other ways to get your mind off the breakup.

“If I slumped into phases of just sitting there wondering about her and feeling sorry for myself, I’d just free-write my thoughts in a journal for about 20 minutes, then I’d go do something completely unrelated like read a book or dive into a mindless video game. It helped to get the emotions out of my system without sitting around for hours feeling sad.”

5. Learn to focus on the positive.

“You need to remind yourself of all the positives of being by yourself and try to avoid thinking about all the negatives as much as possible.”

6. Use this as a chance to better yourself.

“The healthiest way to get over a relationship is to reflect on what you did well and what you could have done better during the relationship. This is a time, to be honest with yourself, but also be fair. It is basically guaranteed you will come out of this much wiser than you were while in the relationship.”

7. Take time to get to know your real self again.

“It’s like a mental journey. You live and you learn but when you are a mess of emotions you have to snap back to reality. Work through what happened, then try to think for yourself and be comfortable with yourself – it’s hard but that’s what you were missing all along.”

8. Realize you will fall in love again — and with the right person.

“I met my current boyfriend after my breakup. I went from thinking about my ex every single day — thinking of him whenever any sort of sad song came on — and now he barely crosses my mind. It just takes the right person to make you realize the benefit of your previous relationship ending.”