How do you heal a broken heart? 13 tips to start healing

How Do You Heal a Broken Heart?

Every night for a whole year, I cried myself to sleep. The man I believed was “the one” had broken up with me and I just couldn’t get over him. We had been together for 3 years or so. I was sure he was the one I would marry, but he clearly didn’t think the same of me…

Every night, it seemed like I’d never get over him. I felt like a part of me had died (sounds a bit dramatic I know but this is literally how I felt at the time) when he left and that I would never recover from losing him.

This hurt. A LOT!

Especially when I found out he went on to sleep around with all the women he used to call sluts.

I eventually stopped crying, but the heaviness in my heart lingered for years. I thought I was healing, that time would heal. But I was actually numbing myself, slowly suppressing the negative emotions, disconnecting and dissociating from the heartache. More often than not, I was the one being dumped and I learned to “deal” with my emotions by suppressing them.

It was only seven years later after some healing sessions, that my heart had had enough and all the suppressed grief came up out of nowhere – I did not expect this! I was forced to process all those emotions of rejection, feeling used, not good enough and unloveable that I pushed down all those years ago!

And let me tell you, I really “thought” I was over him!

Unfortunately, he was not the only one to shatter my heart into a million pieces – I’ve been heartbroken many times throughout my life. With another ex, it took me 4 years to “get over him” because I really believed he was my “soulmate”. Yes, I know, how very hopelessly romantic of me.

When it comes to processing heartache, I get it!

It can be one of the hardest things to overcome! I know because I was the Queen of being heartbroken.

It’s funny because I had no idea that going through all those heartbreaks would lead me to guide women (and men) to heal their broken hearts.

Every time, I felt I had lost a part of myself and that I would never love again. But with inner work and lots of healing tools, I always managed to open my heart again to love.

That’s why I can so empathize when clients come to me devastated. I totally feel them, I see them and the depths of their pain because I’ve been there. Not once, not twice but at least five or six times (but who’s counting)! So believe me when I say healing a broken heart is a topic I know too well.

That being said, I find this is where the danger lies for many people who go through heartbreak – meaning the danger lies in NOT taking the time to truly heal their broken heart.

They just live in the heartache for a while, sometimes even years, but do not actually process it. They fall into a victim mentality making the breakup mean something about them, that they are unlovable or unworthy of love or perhaps stay in the blame with their heart filled with anger and resentment towards their ex.

When you don’t forgive, you block your own heart from giving and receiving love.

If you do this, your wounded ego will continuously pick at emotional scars and cling to the heartache and sadness to justify how much you are hurt, how much you really loved or cared or the injustice of it all.

This then festers into negativity and cynicism about love and relationships. And then you are left wondering why you can’t move on or attract love?!

What you need to understand here is that your law of attraction is not what you think about or want in your mind, you attract what you FEEL. So if you have a lot of unhealed emotional wounds inside you, these emotions are what you are putting out 24/7.

How can you expect to attract love when your heart is closed to forgiving and receiving love?

Overtime (when you don’t process your emotional wounds) you learn to desensitize from the heartache, find ways to cope by cutting off awareness of it.

Years can go by but if you don’t process those emotional wounds, they stay inside you. Holding on to these emotional wounds, in other words your heartache, can lead to all sorts of negative patterns being played out unconsciously in relationships in the future.

Why you need to truly heal from a broken heart before opening up to love again:

So you don’t carry your old emotional baggage into new relationships. In other words, stop projecting your past emotional wounds onto your new partner when it had nothing to do with him (or her)!
Stop getting triggered, taking meaningless things personally or constantly making negative interpretations of your partner’s behaviour or motives when there may be none there
So you don’t repeat the same negative relationship patterns
So you can spot red flags from a mile away and save yourself another heartache!
Let go of mistrust and jealousy and feel confident in your relationship
So you don’t “need” your partner to complete you because you are already whole
Stop fighting or arguing and instead start communicating to actually resolve issues when they come up
Release any fears of being hurt again or commitment issues due to your past heartbreak
Create a deeper and more meaningful connection from a place of love, respect and understanding
Open your heart to give and receive love unconditionally (no hidden agendas or codependency here)
Have healthier, happier and more loving relationships

The irony is that the answer to the question “How Do You Heal a Broken Heart?” is love!

It’s a fragile, gentle process that needs your love, care and attention.

Mending your broken heart is an act of self-love and an act of love towards the other person since you stop projecting your negative emotions onto them (which is a form of emotional abuse) and blaming them for your emotional pain.

Know that there’s nothing that anyone can say or do to speed up your heart healing.

So how long does it take to heal a broken heart you may be asking?

It takes as long as it takes YOU to DECIDE to accept the truth of what happened and basically accept the end.

We often choose to suffer much longer than we need to. We tend to “quantify” the length of healing to the amount of time we were in the relationship and how much we feel “they” hurt us, betrayed us or whatever else you are telling yourself about the breakup.

We have a lot of unconscious limiting beliefs about healing such as “if I heal too quickly it will mean it wasn’t really love or that I didn’t really care”, “what will people think of me if I move on too soon?” or “if I forgive him and let go, it will mean that what he did to me was ok”.

All the above and more stems from the wounded ego’s fear. Fear that all of the stories we have been telling ourselves about the breakup may be true – that we’re unworthy of love.

What most people don’t know is that there is actually a process to heal a broken heart.

I learned from my own experience of healing my broken heart. Every time I was heartbroken, I would go see a therapist, a coach or a healer. Some techniques alleviated the pain temporarily whilst others didn’t work at all. I wanted a process, a system, as I really believed it couldn’t be this complicated!

To put this into perspective, someone once shared this analogy: imagine a boat that has a broken engine, but instead of fixing the engine, you paint the boat a new colour, redecorate the deck and move some furniture around in the cabin. So basically the boat is still broken, it just looks different and may have a different “feel” but the core of the problem is still not resolved. This is how I felt going to energy healers.

After many years of going down the new age healing path and realizing nothing was really working for me, I finally found what does work. The 2 major keys are sincerity in wanting to accept the experience and processing your emotions – that’s it, healing is actually that simple!

So through eventually learning to process my heart wounds, I noticed a pattern in my own heart healing journey. After witnessing hundreds of clients’ heart-healing processes experience the same, this lead me to create the Healing the Broken Heart program based on the patterns and processes I was observing.

It works every time although I must say it works to the depth of your intent so you must sincerely want to heal. You will need to stop romanticizing over what you thought was love, stop fantasizing about all the “what if’s” and start processing those emotional wounds so you don’t repeat the pattern.

If you’re heartbroken or struggling to get past your ex and it’s been years, check out my Healing the Broken Heart program. It is a process I created through my own journey and after working with hundreds of men and women, helping them move past their ex and open their hearts to Love. There is a self-study version if you’re on a budget or we can work one-on-one if you prefer.

The Healing the Broken Heart program can help you:

Stop re-playing old memories over and over again
Release blocks and resistance to letting your ex go so you move past your broken heart
Supports you in letting go of all the emotional pain so you can heal your heart permanently
Teach you how to finally get peace of mind with the past so you can live in the present
Detach from the past completely so you can set your heart free and move on with ease & grace

Don’t waste another moment feeling stuck with heartache! Know that there are tools to help you overcome this pain. All that being said, here are a few things you can start practicing now to help you mend your heart.

How Do You Heal a Broken Heart? 13 Tips to Help:

1. Allow yourself to feel your emotions

This is KEY here otherwise you won’t heal. Allow yourself to cry, get angry, feel the regret, loss, whatever emotions are coming up for you. Give yourself permission to feel it. It’s important that you own these emotions and not project them.

When you are truly processing emotions, you will feel such a relief after! You will feel lighter and will probably have lots of insights and realizations about the lessons the relationship was there to teach you. So if you are going round in circles feeling the same emotions, then you are not processing them, you are living in them!

2. Give yourself space

You may want to busy yourself to run away from the heartache but this is the worst thing you can do! This is actually the flight response to trauma.

Giving yourself space includes not rushing into dating here either, at least this is my humble advice. If your heart is filled with emotional pain from your ex, you will struggle to connect with anyone you date.

You may even start comparing your date with your ex and project all your wounds onto the poor guy (or gal) who has nothing to do with your past. I find this is often a behavioural response to avoid feeling the fear of being alone. You must learn to be alone and not “need” anyone to feel loved, worthy or safe. This will be challenging when you don’t want to feel your emotional pain but it’s a crucial part of healing your broken heart.

3. Reflect on the relationship & understand what went wrong

Take time to reflect on the relationship, identify unhealthy behaviours, look at where you were acting unlovingly, boundaries that were crossed and basically understand what went wrong. This is important so that you don’t make the same mistakes again and that you can spot a potential toxic partner if they ever show up again.

If you feel stuck trying to understand what went wrong, I do recommend working with a relationship coach or mental health expert as often when we are in emotional pain and still carrying old emotional baggage from previous relationships it’s challenging to clearly see our patterns.

4. Stop romanticising “what could have been” or “what if”

Come back, come back to reality! Notice what’s real in this moment.

Romanticizing is just escapism. You can stay there but you will be missing out on your life. Romanticizing only creates more heartache and keeps you stuck, unable to move on with your love life. Romanticizing is an unhealthy form of self-sabotage often based on feelings of low self-worth.

Remember that accepting reality is what heals you, and not fantasizing about its potential when the relationship has ended. Embrace the grieving process and all the painful emotions because that’s what going to help you move on.

5. Stop idealizing “what you had”

Often, when we don’t want to acknowledge the truth or feel our heartache, we tend to hold on to all the “good times” as a way to protect ourselves from feeling the emotional pain of letting go.

Yes, you can acknowledge all of that and feel grateful for all the wonderful times you had, but don’t use this as a way to avoid feeling the hurt you feel because it didn’t turn out the way you hoped for. You would be bypassing the healing and the lessons this relationship had to teach you.

Once you’ve healed, you can look back and treasure those moments but it is not the time to do this while you’re healing your heartache. Notice when you’re doing this and make a conscious effort to sit with the emotional pain you are avoiding that’s beneath this behavioural pattern.

6. Don’t be in a rush to heal

Being in a rush to heal will only slow down your healing. This is not the mindset you want to be in, as much as I know the emotional pain can feel unbearable. This way of thinking is again our way to avoid being with the painful emotions. If you’re in this state, you will tend to look for quick fixes or magical solutions which, let me tell you, don’t exist!

When you’re looking for shortcuts, you’re missing out on the real-life lesson your Soul needs and that the relationship was teaching you about love. This will only leave you frustrated for not healing or being where you want to be. You will end up taking it out on yourself, still unconsciously blaming your ex or even projecting your emotional baggage onto future partners

Be intentional with your healing, this is not about the results (although the results are inevitable when you heal)! It’s about what you learn about love in your healing process.

7. Don’t judge the duration of your healing process

Let go of all of your beliefs about the time it takes to heal. This all depends on you, how willing you are to feel your emotions, how much you resist your emotions, how humble you are and how sincere you are about learning your life lessons.

Don’t compare the time of your healing to the duration and energy you put into your relationship.

Healing doesn’t take time, it takes courage.

Just focus on yourself and do your inner work from your heart.

8. Go “no contact” (unless you have kids together)

Stop looking at his (or her) Instagram stories or stalking him on Facebook – just don’t do this to yourself!

If you need to, unfriend them or block them for a while until you are fully healed. If you decide to keep them on social media, fine but no messaging or drunk texting saying “I miss you”, no calls, no showing up at their place, no asking their friends about them and no “let’s meet for a coffee and be friends”!!

Even if you end up back together a year later, you need space and time away from your ex, without his influence or presence so that you can truly heal, go within, have realizations and grow as a person.

9. Accept “the end” & that he or she is not the one

If they were the one you would be with them and both of you would have found a way to work it out.

But you’re not, so you just have to move on with your love life.

Believe in love!

If you are meant to be together one day, you will be. At least, if you take the time to heal you will come back together from a healthier and more loving place and this definitely has potential for you both to grow in love together!

10. Know that the emotional pain you feel will last as long as you hold on to it

A lot of people don’t want to feel their emotions because they fear that if they allow themselves to go there, they won’t be able to get out. That they will be stuck there forever and this is not true! It’s only when you resist feeling an emotion that you’re stuck with it for life.

Feeling emotions is how our soul learns life lessons, not intellectually but emotionally by experiencing the emotion. Once you do that, you embody the truth in your heart and this is the only way to permanently heal, evolve and grow on a soul level.

This is also how you change your point of attraction and stop self-sabotaging behaviours without “trying”.

11. Accept that closure does not come from the other person but from within you

Know that you may never get the closure you want from your ex and that’s ok. Closure comes from the grieving process and you accepting the end, accepting what is and this can only come from processing your heartache.

You don’t need him (or her) to validate your emotional pain, you need to do that yourself.

12. Create a new routine or start up a new hobby; explore new interests

A great way to start moving forward and open yourself up is to create a new routine, maybe start a new hobby or explore new interests and spend time with friends.

It’s important to distinguish that this is not running away from your emotional pain! It’s you getting out of your comfort zone from isolating yourself and wallowing in self-pity, which only keeps you stuck in the heartache. Avoid activities that you used to do with your ex and find new ones.

13. Be easy and gentle with yourself throughout this process

No matter how big or small this heartache is, remember that healing is about loving yourself. Judging yourself or being harsh with yourself because “you’re not healing” or “you’re still not over him” is not loving and is only blocking you from healing.

So have some compassion for yourself! Pamper yourself with love by looking after your body, mind, heart and soul! The more you do this, the better you will feel about yourself and about life!

“The bravest thing you can ever do is to love again.” – Madalyn Beck

Lastly, to all the heart-broken souls out there…

It’s not the end of the world – even though it can feel that way! If you want to heal and attract love, you must first clear space in your heart, meaning release all those heart wounds so that you can receive love again!

Be brave.

Holding on to those heart wounds, thinking it’s protecting you from being hurt again, is only keeping you stuck in the past and not open to love in the present.

The only way out is through!

Love didn’t hurt you, but rather your false beliefs about love and someone’s lack of love did.

There is so much love on the other side waiting for you, once you accept these heart wounds, forgive and truly let go.

When you embody the lessons that this heartache is teaching you, you are setting yourself up for a more loving relationship in the future!

As I mentioned above, having the courage to heal is an act of self-love and once you start loving yourself in this way, you will naturally have the courage to open up to love once again. This can not only attract a more loving and compatible partner but transform your whole life!

So if you know you need support, you are committed to your healing and are ready to dive in and truly heal your beautiful heart, the Healing the Broken Heart will give you the closure and healing you need!

Whether you do it on your own through the self-paced option or one-on-one with me, both options include lots of audios, journaling prompts and step-by-step guidance to process those heart wounds so you can finally open your heart to LOVE!

If you need support on your healing journey and want more personalized guidance check out my Intuitive Coaching & Emotional Healing Sessions and let’s get you started on getting your life back.

All techniques and information I share are considered coaching, self-help or complementary therapies. I am not a licensed psychologist, psychiatrist or medical doctor, I have a degree in Health Sciences in Complementary Therapies. Everything I write and talk about comes mainly from my own experience in healing myself and the tools, techniques, and resources I learned throughout my own inner journey.

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