Relationship Recovery
Module 5: Build Yourself Back Up

Welcome back to Relationship Recovery.

The grieving process can take an enormous amount of energy. Your work over the past few weeks will have been dispelled some of this energy. Now, this can be used to help you reconstruct your life.

When you have accepted that the relationship is over with your heart as well as your head, you are on the way to recovery. The amount of time this will take varies from person to person.

Building yourself back up is an essential step on the pathway to recovery. One of the reasons why many people are tempted to enter into a relationship on the rebound is to avoid being on their own and dealing with break up.

A far more productive use of your time is to learn from your relationship experience and give yourself the time to recover fully. So, this week we’re going to concentrate on helping you to do just that.

Part One

Be Kind To Yourself

Don’t be surprised if any emotions like anger, sadness, guilt etc resurface from time to time. This is natural. It won’t last forever and it’s necessary to ensure that you work through these emotions so that they do not block your path in future.

Having come through the worst of it, if you do experience any of these emotions, it can be a bit frustrating, disappointing or unnerving especially when you thought you’d ‘dealt’ with ‘that’. Be kind to yourself, remind yourself that this is another step forward on your road to recovery.

Should you find yourself in this position, ask yourself:

“Do I want to stay feeling this way?” If the answer is “no” follow this up with:

“What can I do right now to help myself feel better?”

This needs to be within the realms of possibility. The option of your ex turning up on your doorstep does not count.

Use your experience of things that have helped over the past few weeks or months to help move you forward.  It might be something simple like a cup of your favourite tea, a long soak in a bubble-filled bath or a chat with a supportive friend. Whatever you choose, make sure that it will not have any negative consequences. It’s no good eating a box of chocolates or drinking a bottle of wine if it’s going to make you feel bad afterwards.

If you feel like wallowing, then wallow, but put a time limit on it. If on the other hand, you want to move through this period as quickly as possible, call upon all the supports available to you.

Part Two

Create A New Support System

In the initial stages of break up you may only feel like contacting your closest friends or relatives. As you begin to recover from the emotional trauma and are able to tackle more, start to think about extending your “support team” and creating a new support system.

People are often willing to give you help and advice, but you have to ask for it.

Support can come in many different guises.  It can come in the form of practical support from a handy man who can do all those jobs your ex used to do, to a local computer repair person who can help you when your computer crashes.

If you are setting up home on your own maybe in a different area, it can help you to feel stronger or more able to cope if you have people you know that you can call on should the need arise.  This may involve you getting to know your neighbours or facilities in your new neighbourhood.

Identifying your support system can be an empowering exercise to do, especially for women. Although, men too can benefit from having a support system in place. Exactly who and what your support system comprises will be entirely dependent on you and your needs.

Spend a few moments now considering what support you need and who can provide that support.

To help you, these are some of the categories you might like to consider:

  • Emotional  (friends, work colleagues, family, personal coach, doctor, help groups, therapist)
  • Social (friends, neighbours, work colleagues, local gym, evening classes)
  • Stability (family, long standing and supportive friends)
  • Practical (odd job man, plumber, computer repair man, landlord, cleaning agency, neighbours)
  • Well-being (family & friends – dinners, doctor, aroma therapist, personal trainer, yoga teacher)
  • Informational (financial advisor, local library, solicitor, help groups, neighbours, work colleagues, friends)

Starting a new life as a single person can be far less daunting when you have a list of people who you can call upon for help… if and when you need it.

Part Three

Acknowledge How Far You Have Come

Taking the time to acknowledge how far you have come can give you an important boost.  Unless you are in the habit of keeping a diary, it’s often hard to realise just how far you have come since the break up.

Acknowledging what you have achieved however is an important step in building yourself back up. Treat yourself as you would a friend who was in the same boat. Resist the temptation to be judgemental. Take a few moments to look for what you have achieved no matter how small like managing to open the post each day.

Or, it might be that you plucked up the courage to leave your ex in the first place. Maybe you have been able to hold down a job during this difficult time, or have had the courage to take time off work. You might have had to locate a new place to live, or cope with a major move whilst going through this break up.

If this exercise is difficult, ask some of your close friends to provide you with feedback and to let you know when they do see some progress. They will often spot things that you miss.  Keep a note of this progress. It can be very encouraging to look back on, especially if you’re having a bad day.

Fill In The Gaps

As you begin to adjust to being single again, you may well find that you have a lot of time on your hands.  In order to prevent loneliness from setting in, you actively need to take steps to counteract it.

Allowing the emptiness to take over can prolong the time it takes you to get back to your ‘old self’ and enjoy life again.  Aim to have company as often as possible in the early stages of a relationship break up. It will cut down the moping time if nothing else. Make the effort, even if you don’t feel much like going out.  Invite friends over, organise to go to the theatre, play a game of squash or see a film. Anything that gets you out and takes your mind off things for a while and reminds you that there is life “out there.”

Part Four

Building A Stronger You

Ask anyone who has been through a traumatic event in his or her life and they will probably tell you that it made them a stronger person. Life is unfair and bad things happen to really nice people. But, it’s in times of adversity that we “grow” the most.

Until we reach that point however, the period during and after a relationship break up can be really challenging and whatever we can do to help build ourselves up the better.

When an important relationship ends it can really knock our confidence as well as our self-esteem. We communicate our self-esteem – or lack of it by our words or actions.

Start listening to your self-talk and the messages you are giving to others.  Your inner critic, the faultfinding voice inside your head can seriously affect your confidence and self-esteem if left unchecked or counter-balanced.  We all have this little voice. During a relationship break up it can become quite pronounced! It gives us messages like “you’re useless,” “you will never be good enough,” “you blew it again, can’t you ever get it right.”

Stopping the inner critic may seem impossible but you do have a choice about whether you take notice of it. You can also challenge this inner voice.

For example:

“You’re useless” could be challenged by saying to your inner voice:

“This is the first time I have attempted this so next time I will know better what to do.”

“You blew it again, can’t you ever get it right” could be counteracted by:

“It takes two to tango, I was not the only one in this relationship, we both made mistakes but I have learnt from mine which puts me in a much stronger position to have a successful relationship in future.”

Taking positive action helps to build self-esteem. It doesn’t need to be made in large leaps and bounds. Small steps are just as effective. Try the following simple exercise:

Write down five things you like about yourself for five days.

Start your sentence with “I am” or “I have” e.g. I am kind, I am thoughtful, I have a healthy body, I have a nice smile. Small acknowledgments like these can really give your self-esteem a boost.

Part Five

Keep Taking Risks

Continually taking risks is one of the things we can do that helps to build our confidence. It’s by taking risks that we find out whether we can do things or not. In order to accomplish many worthwhile things in life, we have to take risks.  You have probably taken many risks in your life without registering them as risks. For example: learning to swim, learning to drive, asking someone on a date or going for a job interview.

By placing yourself in a position where you could fail, you have undoubtedly proved to yourself time and time again in your life that you are willing to take risks.  It is that willingness to take risks that is going to stand you in good stead for the future!

  • What are you willing to do to help yourself to recover from this break-up?
  • What are you willing to do this week to build yourself up?
  • What are you willing to do in order to improve your self-image?

Project A Positive Self-Image

After the break up of a relationship, many people choose to change their image. They get a new haircut, a new look and often lose weight or get fitter. Why? Because it helps them to feel better!

A trip to the hairdressers or to an image consultant can do wonders for your confidence and self-esteem.  However, it doesn’t need to involve a huge expense. There are plenty of places you can go for free advice and often friends are more than willing to help out in the metamorphosis towards a “new you.”

Even if you don’t opt for an image update, when you go out, make an effort to look your best.  It’s so easy to neglect yourself during a relationship break up. Letting yourself go, is perhaps the easy option, but making a special effort to look after yourself contributes significantly towards relationship recovery. The more attractive you feel, the more attractive you appear to others and the more feedback you are likely to get which will give your confidence a boost.

Action!

Actions of the Week

List six things you could do to help increase your confidence, self-esteem or self-image.

It can be anything from trying out an affirmation e.g. “As each day passes I am becoming more confident in myself and my single life” to deciding to splash out on a session with an image consultant or a session with a personal trainer at the gym.

Of those six, choose three that you will do, list the next step you need to take for each of them and put a date by when you are going to take that step.

In the final lesson we’ll be taking a look at what sort of future you want to create and steps you can take to do that.