5 Powerful Tools To Stay Afloat When You’re Drowning In Your Breakup

Have you ever had that feeling that everything is happening to everyone except for you?

Today I found out that one of my best friends in the whole world is pregnant. I cried from happiness, in fact I’m quite sure I may be even more excited than she is.

Over the weekend I met the son of a friend of mine whom I’m quite sure I came close to loving in my 20’s. I am also so happy for him and his beautiful girlfriend, truly.

Five of my close friends are getting married this summer.

My status: day 11 of breakup.

As I’m sitting at the hairdresser becoming blonder for no reason (turns our I looked better with darker hair) I can’t help but notice that I am still at the early stages of recovering from heartbreak. After this I’ll have to meet someone new, vet them, make sure they are aligned with me in terms of values and wants, personality and dreams, see if they like me back, see if they’re viable to build anything, try to survive all of this and hope I’ll come out of it alive. In 35 years I haven’t been able to find someone who would walk with me through this jungle that is life but it’s supposed to happen now, as my biological clock alarm is blowing up.

It feels a little bit like when your house alarm goes off blasting loud and in the meantime you keep trying to enter the code and somehow it just won’t shut itself off. It’s high pressure enough to get the code in right when the alarm is not even close to being on, when the sound is blasting and no code seems to work it becomes truly impossible.

I know I’m supposed to keep walking and believing but some days it’s harder to hope than others. Today is one of those days.

I have been looking all over for ways in which you can stay positive even when you feel like curling up into a bed and crying for the rest of time.

After reading countless articles which all provide you with great advise but made me feel like I’m the only person who is unable to get up after a breakup, I found 5 easy tools I can put in place from today so I thought I would write them out, in case you need them too.

To be clear, I haven’t mastered them yet. I’m trying.

1. Get rid of that sense of anxiety, here’s how.

As I sit here and pretend to be okay only to feel my heart inside me shatter more and more, I decided to an anxiety technique I learned during a coaching session. My client said that she had read about a technique which allows you to ease this overwhelming sense of anxiety.

It works like this:

1. Close your eyes and scan your body. Where is it hurting? Where do you feel tense? What doesn’t feel right?
2. Instead of focusing on fixing your overwhelming feelings, focus only and exclusively on your body ache. Your only goal is to ease the physical tension. If you feel tension in your stomach, that’s where you need to focus your energy. Picture that physical pain easing, picture the knot slowly being untangled, the strings are softer and you can finally release it.
3. Breathe deeply with your eyes closed to perpetuate this ‘untangled’ feeling and ensure it lasts a bit longer.

I closed my eyes and I focused on that feeling of tenseness in my chest, that anxiety I feel each time I try to breathe that is so intense I just cannot inhale all the way. I focused on it and decided to untie this knot.

The results were not immediate if you are still in your own head but if you apply this with consistency you can do it.

2. Shift the power balance from the other person to you.

Now that you have eased that tension a bit, chances are you are still thinking of what the other person is thinking, feeling and wanting much more than you’re focused on your own needs. You need to change this perspective and start taking care of yourself again.

I hate people who talk about self love because it’s so damn difficult for me, it is so much more simple to focus on what he could need or what he may be thinking that actively deciding I shouldn’t leave my brain there is torture.

Do things that help you feel like you again, that help connect you to this very moment in time, a moment in which you exist and are okay.

Here are some ideas:

• Sports is a proven method to ease stress. Use it.
• Get a massage.
• Mani-pedi? New hair?
• Talk to yourself with kindness. This is not an option, this is a must.
• Take a long walk.
• Read a book.
• Creative activities: write, play an instrument, paint, whatever works for you.
• Don’t stay home alone all the time, get out and meet friends or new people.

This applies even to thoughts. How am I feeling right now? What do I want and need? Would I really want to go back to a person who is making me feel like this?

3. What are you grateful (to yourself) for?

My spontaneous answer to the gratefulness question is my friends and family, who are amazing and health.

At the moment I am feeling so low about myself I struggle to feel gratefulness on anything that has to do about me however it’s very important that you find something you are grateful about involving You.

For example, I am grateful I can slowly focus on my job again, or I am grateful I am healthy, I am grateful I’m still standing no matter how much pain he inflicted on me through this unexpected breakup. My list is short at the moment and it shouldn’t be. I am grateful I have a heart who dares to feel, who is capable of being vulnerable. I am grateful I can love again and again. I am grateful I’m still able to trust people even after all the pain and disappointments of the past 35 years.

4. Don’t fall into your coping strategies.

My coping strategies would entail a bit more wine than usual, ex boyfriends to achieve some validation and physical contact, being alone.

Whatever your coping strategy is, it will make you spiral, you need to call your support system and tell them when you’re about to put it into action. You can do this, you can do this differently.

Personally, I have activated a bit of coping strategies here and there and it makes me feel awful because I know I have and I am actively trying to stop.

If you do fall into coping strategy, please don’t be harsh on yourself. You are trying. This is not like when you start a diet, don’t try to start again next Monday: tomorrow is the best day to try again and to start over.

5. Do what you actually want to do.

Don’t go overboard in trying to please people around you. Your energy is limited and it’s so important not to disperse it any more than you currently are. You need that energy to recover. If you feel like you absolutely don’t want to do something, please, don’t do it.

This is so difficult to put into practice, but vital to stay afloat.

Bonus activity:

Letter to yourself

I mentioned it earlier but in this part of the breakup, when you are going through all the grieving stages probably at no specific order you need to mind the words you tell yourself. In fact, I would take a moment to write a letter to yourself as if you were your own best friend. The task is to write something that you can read again when you are going through moments of deep pain. I will try this myself and share it with you.

Others don’t know what you need to hear, so sometimes you are going to need to say it to yourself.

At times we ask people for advise, for their opinion, for their input and it makes it even worse because let’s be frank, they have no bloody idea of how you are feeling or of what you need. They don’t know what you have experienced and just like you, if they love you, they’ll be trying to write a narrative that suits this situation. The truth is neither you nor them have the real narrative because reality is always relative.

So write your own narrative, one that helps you swim when they waves are dragging you down. One that brings you back to loving yourself when you need it the most.

In conclusion, be happy for other’s happiness, always.

When I met Brown I had a moment of uncontrollable happiness. The moment lasted two months. Some friends were happy with me, others, who were going through a tougher time, preferred not to listen to my happiness. I never ever want to be someone who is not happy for the success and joy of her friends as I’m sure you don’t either.

To my happy friends reading this, I am so very happy that your life is sunny, there is nothing which gives me greater joy than listening to this, this article has nothing to do with this. I hope I can join you in this happy party so very soon, I hope I can join your wedding and baby announcements with something positive of my own, I hope I can wake up again not feeling alone. I hope I don’t have to call you in tears and annoy you with the very annoying voices that have taken over my usually very positive mind.

All in all, there is no simple solution. Last week I felt invincible and this week I have been crying non stop. Maybe the fact that I am feeling all these emotions is a positive, maybe we all need to feel them to reach the other side.

The only thing you can control, is how you take care of yourself through the pain, it’s the person you put out there into the world.

It’s the work you do when you show up for yourself, when you ensure you are mentally healthy so that in turn you don’t hurt others with you unresolved trauma and reflected pain inflicted on you by others in your past.

I vouch to continue to try to be the very best version of Me that I am capable of putting out there into the world, in the hopes that the world brings me a beautiful soul to sparkle with and to hold my hand through this tumultuous journey we call life. In fact, I wish this for every friend, for every person around me and for each and every one of you beautiful souls out there courageously looking for love.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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