In search for personal power after break up
In search for personal power after break up
Unwanted break up always leaves us with a feeling of loss, longing and often "obsessive" thoughts about someone who left us. While it is important to take time to understand what really happened, at a certain point, we may need something else to simply function and keep our sanity intact.
Distraction & Support
Temporarily substituting one "obsession" with another may help. Make sure though it is not another person, alcohol or drugs.
Take baby steps like going out to the cinema. Please watch comedies, not romances. Laughter has a healing effect. Don't miss any opportunity to hear, read, see something funny.
If you have a chance, visit a good therapist, who will ask you proper questions: what qualities are you missing and you think your partner was giving them to you?
Are you scared of being alone? Then it is no need to force it. Loneliness is one of the worse states for a lot of people. Seek a comfort first so you naturally will want your space and being with yourself.
Even Salomon won’t pour from an empty vessel
How you deal with a break up depends on the way you were raised up and what beliefs the society imposed on you. If you lacked being loved, having attention from the closed ones, it is hard to develop a sense of self-worth. Just as we cannot shop without money, we cannot be satisfied in the world without certain means like self-love. Surround yourself with friends who can truly support you.
Although hope, some say, dies last, here it may not be helpful, creating an illusion of better times.
Personal power
According to a dictionary, personal power is control over our life, influence on the environment. It consists not only of confidence, inner feeling of strength, assertiveness, but also self-love, self-appreciation, self-value, self-acceptance. Those qualities have an impact on every area of our life. Finding them in ourselves, instead of others, may prevent a similar situation in the future. The more of desired qualities you have within self the less likely you will be affected by the outer situation.
In our nature, we all are social, and building our personal power also consist of:
- Expertise: our abilities, skills, knowledge, experience. “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” – Desiderius Erasmus.
- Authority in terms of being persuasive, influential, commanding, forceful whether by rank given by society or own line of argument.
- Charisma meaning a gift form Greek. It is a personal attraction and charm.
- Social class, wealth, financial independence, ownership.
- Belonging to an organization, group, workplace, religious group, etc.
- Society and tradition.
- Celebrity – being popular, getting media attention.
- Relationships
Conclusion
Although everyone is different and needs different things, there is one rule that applies here:
Continuously gaining awareness about: own needs, skills, structure, preferences may improve how you deal with uncontrollable.
“Where there is a will, there must be a way.”
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Comments
Joanna:
Yes, we never know. Or as normal Slavic people would say
We never not know. (even though I don't consider myself normal. No normal, unconventional yes).
I have sent you a Friend request on Facebook - you don't have to accept it. I just thought that since we share similar views, we might benefit from friendship.
Breakups are though. In my last one, I did not do so well because I was angry with myself. All that affair was a mess of my own making and I just could not forgive myself which was channeled as "he is a moron".
Of course, that kind of thing never works and I simply took my time. My mistake was in denying, not giving him "the satisfaction" of acknowledging that he existed. I sentenced him to oblivion or so I thought.
In reality, I sentenced myself to unnecessary pain. What I should have done is writing the whole thing down - facts, thoughts and feelings and it would have been over much sooner.
The irony is that I knew how to deal with breakups, this and that, and I still could not do it. Maybe because I failed to see situational factors. And I spend the year "dating myself", mostly dancing tango and doing comedy, spending time with my son, not noticing that my "activities" are a compensation, a cover up. Not a solution.
But life goes on, like a river it keeps flowing. Sooner or later, one has to face himself and it depends on who, where, when, what, why and how, but things will change.
My first advice to anyone who is going through the acute psychological pain of any kind - write. Write it down. Write it down with all honesty.
What helped me in particular was writing about my breakup on HubPages (of all places). Five years ago - that was how I started - writing out of indignation, madness and revenge. Thinking back, I cannot help myself but laughing.
Because in the end, it led me to places I would have never dreamed to be. Essentially, I made my entrance as a writer doing a breakup dance.
Funny, I know. Rather strange thought popped into my writing head:
Maybe breakups should be choreographed?
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