5 NO-NONSENSE WAYS, TO SEND YOUR EX PACKING FOR GOOD.
Ok, so you just got dumped. It was awful. You looked down at your phone and there it was, a text from your now ex saying something like “it's over baby, xoxo Gossip Girl.”
Or it was even worse and your partner said they “loved you, but they weren’t in love with you." Yeah right.
Or get ready for this: they died. Yep, that happens.
It really doesn’t matter if your break-up was with your love of 50 years or with that dude from OKCupid who looks just like Anderson Cooper and decided to stop emailing you. Or even if it was with the cutie who works at Gap, who you’re not exactly dating, but you could be...
Getting over a broken heart is hard. Maybe one of the hardest things in the world.
I hear about body shame, eating disorders, chronic dieting, and body dysmorphia on an almost daily basis in my psychotherapy practice. Seems like everyone with a heartbeat and a Facebook account thinks that their thighs are too big. Somehow, fitting in with our peers is predicated on fitting into our skinny jeans. This is sad and it is dangerous. The emotional byproducts of negative body image are poor self-esteem, isolation, self-neglect and a hungry loneliness that's never quite satisfied.
If we take a page from almost any ladymag, we end up with more than just tips on how to f*ck like a vampire or undress for success. It’s an oversimplification for sure, but without proper community and self-support, internalized messages from popular culture can turn us into bullies against our own bodies.
AND THESE DAYS, OUR VAGINAS ARE NEXT ON THE HIT LIST.
SHIT HAPPENS.
People leave us, we flunk out of college, our iPhones get stolen, our grandmothers die. Loss is a matter of fact for everyone walking this earth, and we each have our own unique and understandable emotional response. Grief is a natural reaction to the feeling that something or someone we treasure has been taken away from us. The grieving process includes a variety of coping strategies including denial, isolation, anger, bargaining, or depression. I'd like to add my personal favorites: righteous indignation, moving to a new town, or getting a morbid tattoo. The thing to remember, however, is that grief does not take orders from our brains!
YOU CAN'T HURRY LOVE, AND YOU CAN'T HURRY GRIEF.
It takes time to heal. Sometimes weeks, sometimes months, and sometimes if you're very unlucky, longer than The Final Rose Episode of The Bachelorette. But regardless of the time frame, remember to be patient and kind with yourself, and to let your process unfold naturally.
