5 Tips on How To Mend a Broken Heart

by Susie and Otto Collins, Relationship Coaches

Anyone who has gone through a breakup or divorce and has come out the other side with a broken heart, knows what we are talking about.

It can be a very painful experience!

One of the ways to help yourself to feel better and actually heal from a breakup or divorce is to begin to listen to what you are telling yourself. In other words, pay attention to your “self talk.”

We all talk to ourselves all of the time and this is what we calling 'self talk.' These thoughts come and go in our minds and they can either help us go through life with relative ease or struggling at every step of the way.

In our experience, this 'self talk' can either keep you stuck in the past--mulling over what went wrong or what you should have done differently--or stuck in the future--worrying about what might happen at some point down the road.

Or 'self talk' can help you to stay in the present moment, dealing practically with what's happening right now, and move powerfully and positively into your future.

One of the best kept secrets is that you can change your thoughts. Believe it or not, many people learn how to do it.

Here are 5 ways to change 'self talk' to help you ease your pain from your breakup or divorce...

1. Become aware of what you are telling yourself.

Believe it or not, our houghts are habits that we've created along the way. For instance, there's the "guilt" set of thoughts, the "worry" set of thoughts, the "fear" set of thoughts, the "I'm always going to be alone" set of thoughts, the "nothing's wrong" set of thoughts or the "sunny outlook" set of thoughts--you get the idea.

If you want to begin healing your pain, start paying attention to your particular set of thoughts. You might even give them a name.

Maybe you've not had these thoughts until your breakup or maybe they've been with you for a long time. Whichever is the case, just begin noticing what thoughts roll through your mind.

2. Once you have become aware of your thoughts, decide the thoughts that make you feel better, easier about your situation and those that don't. Take a legal pad or notebook and at the top of the page, make 2 columns with these headings: "Feel better" and "Feel Worse."

Keep the legal pad or notebook where you can easily reach it. As thoughts come to you, write them down under one of those two categories. Do this long enough for you to see on paper, your patterns of thinking that are either helping you or pulling you down.

3. Identify one reoccurring thought or pattern that is bringing you pain and make the commitment to yourself to change it. Write your commitment down and post it where you'll see it often.

It could go something like this...

"I commit to changing my thoughts about how alone I am right now. I may not be with a partner right now but I don't have to constantly remind myself."

4. Chose a thought that is better.

Taking our example, this thought is probably not going to be that you are completely joyful, are with your perfect partner, or feel completely satisfied with your current situation. It may be that a better thought is that when a thought comes up about how alone you are, you change that thought to "I can call Bonnie or Carol and either talk with them or arrange to go to dinner or a movie."

5. Practice in each moment and break your habit.

Have you ever broken a habit? It takes being aware of what you are doing and then making a change in the moment. Your thought pattern is a habit and can be changed--but you have to believe the thought that you are changing to--and you have to practice it.

If feeling better is important to you, this is valuable information that will help you to move forward in your healing process from your breakup or divorce.