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I Finally Let Go Of My Ex
If you’re visiting my website or reading this blog, you are probably standing at the door of the heartbreak hotel. I also struggled to let go of my ex.
A broken heart is a metaphor for the intense emotional stress or pain you feel when experiencing great loss or deep longing. You may have lost the love of your life, or your love is unreciprocated, resulting in your ex cheating on you, etc. Relationships can become enmeshed, meaning we can become overly connected and need to meet the other person’s needs so badly that we lose touch with our own needs, goals, desires and feelings.
The thought of being without the person can be anxiety-inducing!
I know only too well how painful a broken heart can be. The hurt goes way deeper than the feelings of sadness. An unwanted separation and divorce can affect you mentally and physically. You’ll be finding it difficult to sleep, not eating properly, and struggling to concentrate on ordinary day-to-day tasks. This can lead to a lack of lustre for life and depression.
The Symptoms
If you have at least five of the following symptoms since your breakup you could possibly be struggling with clinical depression, so please seek advice from your GP. These symptoms include:
- Difficulty with concentrating
- Problems with sleep
- Fatigue or tiredness
- Unintentional weight loss or gain
- Worthlessness, shame or guilt
- Suicidal thoughts
“There is no way to happiness – happiness is the way.”
– Thich Nhat Hanh
H eartbreak sends you spiralling downwards, to a place where you doubt absolutely everything. There is an intense desire to find the answers to so many questions. The ifs, buts, why, who, how, when, what, where? Why wasn’t I enough? How could he/she do this to me? What is wrong with me? Why is this happening? The very person you would usually turn to for comfort, to soothe and restore your confidence is the one who has caused your distress. Why does love hurt? To put it simply, the pleasure and reward centre of our brain is flooded with feel good chemicals while other areas experience a depletion of different chemicals potentially leading to a push-and-pull of positive emotions.
The deactivation of the neural pathway responsible for negative emotions like fear and social judgment can lead us to ignore red flags in a relationship, resulting in a crash later on when conflict arises or things don’t work out. An increase in dopamine similar to the euphoria associated with the use of cocaine or alcohol makes love a pleasurable experience.
On my road to recovery, I worked incredibly hard to process the amount of emotions I experienced due to my ex-husband’s many affairs ~ yes, there were more than two. Please do not judge me. I’ve had to listen to those who quiz me on “How did you not know? Surely, you must have suspected something?” Most of these instances happen in the workplace. As a faithful and trusting wife, when my husband left the family home at 6.30 am to go to the office, I never could have imagined that he would be so brazen. Leaving the house earlier to be with another woman. I believed he was working hard for the greater good of his family.
My Journey
To finally let go of my ex.
My own healing journey has not been an easy one. I have visited many therapists, read self-help books until they’ve been coming out of my ears, even listening to podcasts over and over again. I have met influential and inspiring men and women, all leading me to where I am now. I have learnt so much as a divorce and separation coach and through my continuing training as a clinical hypnotherapist.
I want you to have access to all that I have learnt, saving you time and money (valuable advice does not come cheap). Ignoring your emotions by plastering over the cracks whether it’s anger, sadness, grief or frustration will only lead to physical stress on the body in the future.
“We must embrace pain and burn it as a fuel for our journey.” – Kenji Miyazawa
One such book I read is called Men are like Waffles, Women are like Spaghetti by Bill & Pam Farrell. It explains the difference in the way men and women think and that women process life, like a plate of spaghetti.
Imagine a plate of spaghetti, thin strands of pasta interwoven and piled up together. As you pick up one strand, it is connected to another one, and the next one and the one after that. These strands are pathways in your brain; every thought and issue is connected to every other thought and issue in some way. Women can link together the logical, emotional, relational and spiritual aspects of the issue in conversation. If they can connect all the issues, the answer to the question at hand bubbles to the surface and is readily accepted. This is why a woman is typically better at multitasking and solving problems from a different perspective than men.
When you are going through a major life event such as divorce, your emotions can feel like one big, tangled bowl of spaghetti. Your brain feels muddled, a mixture of mess and disorder. Your mind becomes a knotted ball. The intense emotions and bodily sensations can make you feel frozen, overstimulated or numb. There are six responses to trauma – fight, flight, freeze, fawn, fine and faint. Everyone responds to trauma differently, and different kinds of trauma can elicit different responses in the same people; all reactions are valid. What I encourage you to do is to slowly, patiently unpick each strand of spaghetti to untangle your brain.
Feel guilty for yourself.
Letting go of your ex is hard. You may still love them. Don’t berate or beat yourself up for feeling awful. Recognise the emotions and the factors contributing to them. Worries can go round and round in your brain with no conclusion or solution. Ruminating over all and sundry won’t solve your concerns. Instead it will keep you trapped in a self-perpetuating cycle.
Untangle your brain by picking out each strand, write down anything that is going through your mind and taking up so much room in your head. This could be a worry, a feeling, a memory. Once it is out of your head and written down on paper, it is easier to know how to deal with it. When you recognise, express, validate and name the emotions you are experiencing it helps process them, move on from your ex and finally let go.
“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting
– Joseph Campbell
for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.”
Recovery
C ompassion is good for your emotional rollercoaster ride. Your heart has been broken and it’s going to take self-care and self-love to put the fragments back together. Soothe your heart by acknowledging and trying to understand what has happened. Speak to yourself, as if you were talking to a friend, with kindness and compassion. Take care of your needs by accepting yourself for who you are and not trying to be everything to everyone all the time. The path to healing and enlightenment is not a path at all, it’s actually a metaphor for the time it takes for you to allow yourself to be happy with who, where and what you already are … no matter what.
Learning to let go of my ex has been crucial for emotional healing. The journey of letting go can be challenging but rewarding. To truly let go of my ex, I found ways to cope with the emotions that arise and, ultimately, decided to move forward. Part of my journey involved self-reflection and understanding my emotions. You can let go by exploring these feelings. It’s essential to remember that this does not diminish the love once felt. It’s about finding peace within yourself, finding ways to move on and learn.
By addressing your feelings, you will gradually learn how to let go of your ex and move forward with your life. Reflection is a vital step in the healing process. Seek support and resources to help guide you through this.
Click here for another article which helped me identify the road to recovery and helped me let go.
