How To Fix Your Post-Breakup Heartbreak In 5 Easy Steps

It hurts to say goodbye. It hurts to let go. It hurts to start over. It hurts, and it hurts like hell. Suddenly, and sometimes without warning, everything is gone. Passionate kisses, flowers, cards, candlelit dinners, lazing around in bed, road trips, sweet texts, phone calls, all of it. Life as you once knew it is gone and your heart with it.

All you want to do is curl up in a fetal position, hide under your covers, and try to stop your tears. But the hurt feels interminable. Will you ever get over it? Will you ever get through it? Will you ever be able to love again?

People will tell you that healing a broken heart takes time. But how much time? The conventional math goes something like this: The time it takes to heal is equal to half the time you were together. So if you were a couple for five years, that means 2.5 years to heal. Ten years? I can’t imagine pining away for five years.

Sorry, I just don’t have that kind of time, and I don’t think you do either. So let’s dispense with the conventional BS.

Having lived as long as I have, and with all the goodbyes I’ve had in my life, I’ve learned to cut the healing time down to weeks, even days, with a few simple steps. Most go against the conventional grain, but they work. If you’re ready to follow a few or all of these, you’ve already begun the healing process. Let’s go.

Immediately toss out momentos. I don’t care what anyone tells you, salvaging momentos from a broken relationship is not helpful in the healing process. They bind you to a dead past; get rid of them. I’m talking about: photos from your phone and elsewhere. Cards. Notes. Stuff he left at your place. Gifts, unless really valuable or useful. Confession, okay, I did hang on to a Bluetooth stereo system that my last boyfriend gave me. It was cool and useful, and I needed a good system. But generally, saving mementos from a failed relationship is like burning down your house and keeping a piece of the charred wood from the blaze.

Create a crime sheet. Sit down with pen in hand or use the notes function on your smartphone. List every single flaw you can think of that describes your ex, and be specific. My last crime sheet had items like: binge drinker, mean and sullen, low libido, non-communicative, never made plans, secretive, workaholic, low priority on relationship, and so forth. (Insert scary face emoji here: Once I had a boyfriend with a real crime sheet – i.e. prison record – but that’s an essay for another time!) Read your crime sheet daily, several times a day if you need to. This will help you with the next step.

Follow the no-contact rule. Under no circumstances are you to contact this person. Like picking a scab, all it takes is one text or one phone call or one email and you’ve reopened old wounds. You will never heal if you continue to try to live in the past. Not contacting them is the most powerful message you can send, and be sure to block them on all your social media. If you want a new healthy relationship, you’ve got to move confidently and hopefully into the future – no looking back. And forget about closure. You got it the minute someone hurt you and left.

Open up your dating apps now – all of them. Now is the perfect time to meet new guys online or elsewhere. Let potential dates see you. Enjoy the compliments they send you. If someone interests you and vice versa, communicate with each other and let him make a date. Date often and a lot. Keep in mind, though, that the purpose of a date is to have fun. If he turns out to be somebody special, that’s even better.

Here’s the deal: You can’t have a relationship again unless you put yourself out there. You can’t have a relationship again if your attitude is “I’ll never love again” – a mindset that brings only pain and stops the healing process. You can’t have a relationship again if you’re not open to new people, places, and experiences. One great guy will help you get over that one bad guy.

Make an immediate cosmetic overhaul. Emotional pain not only hurts, it can also immobilize you. The solution? Change something about your appearance. Your hair color – go platinum, go red, go pink. Start a diet or an exercise program. Schedule a breast enhancement or a facelift. Have a manicure or a facial.

After one breakup, I took a makeup class. I got hair extensions two days after a split. Following a divorce, I headed to a health spa for three days and detoxed physically and mentally. Another time, I had a boob job.

There’s solid psychology at work here. Physical change leads to positive psychological change. It is a metamorphosis like emerging from a cocoon. You are ceremoniously signaling the shedding of the old version of you and welcoming the new. A change in appearance is very liberating, and it gives you a newfound sense of self-confidence. Honestly if you took only this one action, you will heal rapidly.

Yes, you are hurting. But look at it like this: Right now, you are between two love stories. It is a time of self-discovery you can use to have fun, meet interesting new people, and build even better relationships.

For sure, goodbyes hurt. But losing someone who was not good for you is not a loss. It is a gain. Someday the hurt will be useful to you. And it will bring you closer to the one who is meant to love you.

To get there faster than you ever thought possible, take these steps. Stop feeling sad and start healing. Act now.