Psychologist On How To Get Over Your Ex | The 5 Stages Of Healing From A Breakup Or Divorce

a breakup creates a whirlwind of emotions shock pain longing resentment shame anger emotional hunger sometimes also jealousy it's a lot to go through in this video I'll share Susan Anderson's five stages of healing from a breakup to help you better understand and process your experience before I get to the five stages I want to say something about the idea of the healing from a breakup as happening in stages on the one hand yes it's a process you start somewhere in a desperate and painful place and eventually you emerge healed most likely even more resilient than

you were before on the other hand this process is not the same for everyone not even for every breakup the same person goes through so although I'll be inviting you on a walk through Susan Anderson's stages of healing from abandonment it wouldn't surprise me if it's different for you you may not experience this process as stages or you may not experience a specific stage at all or the order in which you go through these experiences may be different for you the stages I'm about to share are not the only right way to process a breakup

Some people prefer not to Envision it as a progression of stages that looks something like this but they like to think of it as something more like this a process of forward movement that can come back to any feeling at any point in time another way to Invision it is in the form of a spiral like this a cycle of repeated returning back to Old emotions but on increasingly deeper levels sometimes you might feel like the five stages are all happening at once until one day only the last stage of healing is left any of

these versions of envisioning it is okay so please feel free to Envision it as you find helpful for yourself these stages are not meant to be seen as a norm to measure yourself up against to see how well you're performing in the healing and processing of your breakup if it feels like that to you find a different way of envisioning it one that makes you feel soothed relieved and encouraged having said that let's get started with stage one shattering a breakup shatters your world and the first stage of processing that is most likely a State

of Shock your life is changed dramatically if you have children with your ex their lives have also changed your hopes ideas plans and dreams for the future have been shattered your understanding of the past and the quality of your relationship to ex has been shattered your idea of what kind of a person your ex is may be shattered your idea of who you are may be shattered and this is one of the main differences in healing from a breakup compared to loss through death it's not that someone was taken from you by a force of

nature but someone actively chose not to be with you they maybe even chose someone else over you or you chose to leave but you may feel like you could have or should have been able to make it work and that you failed and that's why in the phase of shattering people's self-esteem is often also shattered for many people the emotional injury of shattering feels like a physical injury to their heart during shattering your nervous system will also respond by releasing more stress hormones and activating the fight flight freeze Fawn response to your brain your breakup

is a threat to your survival that's why you'll probably not only have intense emotional reactions but also intense physical ones this could mean you have trouble eating sleeping or relaxing you might awake at night in a state of P Panic have digestive issues or be in a chronic state of hypervigilance the deep pain of this stage can reawaken old abandonment pain from the past which can then mix into the present experience you might feel hopeless like you'll never feel good and whole again like life will never be the same again you might also oscillate back

and forth between all kinds of extremes thinking that your partner is a terrible person for what they did to you and then later feeling like the breakup was justified stage two withdrawal after the shock of shattering has worn off a bit and you haven't seen your lost love in a while you may start terribly missing them during this stage your brain activates similar mechanisms that are active in the brains of addicts when they're in withdrawal from opioids or cocaine it's an intense almost unbearable yearning for the other person when you're together with someone your body

brain and mind get used to the sense of belonging connection and security this relationship provides you with it's not specifically noticeable more like a background fundament someone to be in contact with every day someone to eat meals with to sit in silence with it's easy to underestimate how much this provides us with and withdrawal is the stage in which you're acutely aware of what you've lost or given up stage three internalizing the re ction internalizing is a psychoanalytic term which means you take something personally you make it about who you are and your worth it's

when you allow an experience to influence and change your beliefs about yourself maybe also about life people and relationships at the beginning of this stage your psyche may turn the pain of your loss against you you'll ruminate about why this happened happened and what you could or should have done differently to prevent it this stage describes how when you go through a breakup you start to rethink a lot of things this can be both an opportunity or a trap it's a trap if you remain stuck in the initial disappointment resentment and negative thoughts insecurities and

doubts about yourself and other people it's an opportunity if you eventually emerge from it with more differentiated beliefs Having learned something having let go of feelings of worthlessness both from the past in the present and for the future stage for rage most of the time anger and rage is definitely part of the experience of a breakup you'll probably feel at least irritated and short-tempered maybe also explosive the anger following a breakup can be constructive or destructive it's destructive if you remain stuck in resisting reality stuck in a response of I don't want this I can't

believe this this can't be true this is natural and human at first but if you remain in this place it drains your energy makes you bitter and keeps you stuck in a self-concept of an abandoned or defective person other destructive forms of anger are when we carry anger into situations that have nothing to do with it like snapping at random other people or Revenge trying to heal our Pain by inflicting pain none of these destructive forms of anger will help you heal your pain all they do is create more pain for others and yourself what

you can do though is you can channel the energy that goes along with anger into something constructive becoming proactive instead of isolating and voiding this could mean taking positive actions for yourself double down on the things you know are good for you like physical exercise healthy meals relaxation and grounding techniques time spent in nature journaling it could also mean stepping out of isolation and connecting with friends and family it could also mean rewriting your mental story of the relationship you had with your ex and especially to find a new way to tell the ending a

way that restores your sense of selfworth and is full of strength and wisdom this can include acknowledgements of what you want to work on in yourself and it can include a rational objective analysis of who contributed what to the relationship which allows you to remove your ex from their pedestal and to reclaim your power of deciding how you want to see yourself this is an ending in which neither your ex nor your relationship status get to decide over your lovability or worth stage five lifting this is the stage when your feelings start lifting and improving

your grief lessons and you start feeling an inner lightness confidence and hope this happens both spontaneously at times and at other times as a result of your positive actions when lifting goes wrong it's not a true transformation of feelings but a disconnect from them this happens when you don't go through authentic healing either because you don't know how or because you don't want to experience the pain that goes along with that or because you don't want to invest the time and energy into it this is called premature closure the result of disconnecting from your feelings

is that it debilitates you for your next relationship if you're disconnected from your feelings you can't give others access to them either and that prevents a true emotional connection from forming and if this is a very ingrain pattern of often based on several abandonment traumas in your life you may become or have become emotionally addicted to abandonment chasing after unavailable people or disconnecting from your interest in a good committed relationship alog together so it's important to allow yourself and to be willing to go through the process of healing from a break up so that you

emerge authentically lifted and healed if you do this a breakup can lead to powerful insights change wisdom and emotional maturing you can learn and practice how to acknowledge and accept reality you can learn how to soothe abandonment pain both from the present and that pain which goes beyond the current breakup you can learn how to manage your feelings in general and how to generate a positive mindset attitude and mood you can build self-esteem develop inner strength and security build self-reliance you can learn how to improve your relationship skills and ability to empathize in love with

that I'm coming to the end of this video I hope this was helpful I've linked videos that go into further detail with some of the main points of this video in the description box below my main message in this video is breakups are messy they'll send you through cycles of spontaneous emotions thoughts and urges that's natural and human don't criticize and shame yourself for that breakups are painful enough as it is don't add condemning yourself for natural human response es instead practice acknowledging all of these emotions and mustering the willingness to process your breakup and

become proactive that'll enable you to go through this pain and emerge healed all the best for that till next time take care [Music]