The Secret is Letting Go :)

My friends often say that they admire my positive outlook in life. I’ve had my share of heartaches, almost got to the point that I became cynical about love. Although it seems that I tend to move on quickly or that I don’t really dwell so much over a break-up, the truth is, I do. I just don’t like to make myself miserable over things that I can’t fix anymore. I guess, experience is the key to make it easy to move on after a break up. Here are some tips that I would like to share to everyone…

1. Give yourself a chance to grieve. Sometimes, we tend to desperately want to move on so quickly without realizing that we should give ourselves a chance to mourn, after all, a lost love needs closure and there’s nothing like a good cry.

2. Remove reminders of your ex. No, don’t throw anything, someday you might want to look back and give yourself a good laugh. Just keep all those sappy, sentimental items you have laying around. Delete his number from your cell phone or your speed dial, get rid of those pictures of you together and put them away where you can’t see it everyday. Seeing them around will only prolong the nostalgia and you will only torture yourself with constant reminders.

3. Be angry and sad. If being angry helps, then so be it. It’s quite normal to feel angry and sad after a break-up regardless of the reason why you ended the relationship. These emotions should be dealt with in a positive and healthy way. Talk to friends, clean out your closets, work out, and try to write poems. Just remember, don’t let your anger buckle up inside or do something destructive to yourself.

4. Pamper yourself. Go to the spa, eat healthy, exercise, get a haircut, get enough sleep. Don’t let the break up make you look miserable and ugly. And mostly, don’t let it make you physically sick. When your body is healthy, you feel good and when you feel good, you make good decisions and have a healthy self-esteem.

5. Be Patient. Life can seem empty after a break up. Everything seems bleak and it’s depressing sometimes. Don’t be too eager to move on. As they always say, wounds needs time to heal and heartache is not something you can cure overnight, it takes time and I know waiting is difficult but love has its own time table, you can’t really tell your heart to forget someone you dearly love but you can help ease your pain by allowing yourself to move on.

6. Acceptance. If you’re a hopeless romantic like me, you have these notions that love should be forever but in the harsh reality of life, forever is just a state of mind and we may claim to be all-knowing about love but the truth is love will always remain a mystery. Sometimes you just have to accept that your relationship with your ex is over for a reason, you are simply not meant to be.

7. Open your heart again. When you’ve given yourself enough time to work through your emotions, you can now begin to open your heart again. This is where I usually fail, I tend to guard my heart and shield myself against love not realizing that I deserve to be happy, that one day my heart will still find that someone that God intended for me and if I have to find him one day, I need to open my heart again and take the risk to fall in love again.

On a special note, I don’t consider myself numb or cold but whenever I’m heartbroken I just give all the broken pieces to God and allow Him to work on my pain. Remember, God can heal a broken heart but you have to trust Him with all the pieces.