It's Time to Move On: How to Get Over a Bad Break-Up

Breaking up is always hard to do; it’s a fact… but we’ve all experienced that one breakup that was worse than any that had gone before. The one that left us heartbroken, angry, resentful, and certain that we’d never love again.

If you’re struggling to move on following a bad breakup, then you’re not alone. But take comfort in the fact that you can and will pick yourself back up and find happiness - even romance - again, and maybe sooner than you might think possible right now.

Try using the tips below to find peace, let go, and move on, no matter how painful the breakup was.

Find the Things That Make You Tick

During the course of a relationship, especially a long-term one, it’s natural for our lives and lifestyles to begin to merge with those of our partner, and activities and hobbies we used to enjoy may quietly slip away.

As the first step to moving on, try to think of a pursuit that you used to love or an interest you had before you met your ex-partner. Perhaps you liked to paint or write or had been planning on taking an evening course in design or law. Maybe you were interested in spiritualism and attended crystal healing sessions or a monthly online medium reading. Whatever it was, take it up or make it happen again. Enlist friends for support if you need to; they’ll no doubt be more than happy to come along or be there to help you figure out how to get started again.

Let Out Your Emotions

The next part of the healing process is to make sure you’ve let out all of your emotions surrounding the breakup. It can be tempting to try to suppress negative, difficult feelings when they come up for fear of being overwhelmed by them or having to process them properly.

However, bottling up your emotions can create incredible stress within the body and mind and make it nearly impossible to move on. If letting your feelings out fully feels daunting, try allowing yourself to sit with your emotions for a short, set amount of time: say ten minutes, at first. During this time, feel and identify grief, rage, regret, sadness, guilt, and any other emotion you may feel. Allow yourself to fully experience these things, and then allow the sensations to move through and beyond you.

Journaling your feelings can also help with this process, and starting a practice of meditation can be especially useful to ground your emotions after the maelstrom of feelings has passed.

Maintain a Distance

After a breakup, it can feel impossible to resist the temptation of internet stalking our ex. Try to avoid this by realizing that no good will ever come of it and that the act of following their every move on Facebook and Insta will, ultimately, only make you feel worse. 

Summon all of your inner strength to maintain a distance - including a virtual one - from your ex. It’ll get easier every day. But if you slip and find yourself looking at his most recent social post, don’t beat yourself up, either. Just set your intention again, and keep moving forward.

Practice Self-Care

Looking after yourself well may be very low on your list of priorities in the wake of a bad break-up; however, it’s vital now more than ever.

Take care of the basics by making sure to eat a range of nutritious, comforting foods, stay hydrated, and get enough sleep. Avoid drinking too much as a way to numb your feelings; opt, instead, to pamper yourself in the evenings with a long bubble bath or by snuggling under a duvet with a great book and a few squares of dark chocolate - the latter is excellent for boosting mood.

See the Experience as a Chance to Grow

Again, this may be tough right now, but taking steps - even baby ones - to get things in perspective and think of how the break-up can offer you the opportunity to learn, grow, and develop as a person can be really useful in the process of moving on.

Be kind to yourself: it may be necessary to recognize the role you may have played in the breakdown of the relationship, but it’s important to accept that your actions would have been driven by valid feelings and past experiences, too.

If a lack of self-esteem played a part in how the relationship ultimately panned out, for example, then making moves to identify and address this could play a key role in your future happiness.

Know When to Seek Help

And finally, if you’re really struggling, and it’s been some time since the breakup occurred, then it may serve you well to seek the help of a therapist. A counselor can work with you to explore your feelings, however difficult they are, work through them, and come up with coping strategies to help you through this difficult period.

Draw on your support network: your friends and family members will be desperate to help you, so tell them what you need, whether that’s some company on weekend nights or someone to help you with a task that your ex always used to do, don’t be afraid to ask.

Lastly, know that this is a stage that will pass. And that you will come through it and emerge stronger than ever before and more than ready for whatever life - and love - throws at you going forward.