Relationship Recovery
Module 6: Creating a New Future

Clear Your Clutter

The end of a relationship often provides an opportunity for you to have a good clear out both physically and emotionally. Getting rid of your ex’s clutter can be a cathartic and cleansing experience. However it’s also a good time for you to have a good clear out. Holding on to clutter can keep you in the past. So, if you have been feeling a bit stuck and finding it difficult to move on, take time and clear some space!

Clearing things out on the physical level can also help you to shift things on a mental level. Some people, me included find that this often happens instinctively.

In the midst of a really painful break up when I could hardly think straight, I started to clear out my kitchen cupboards!  As I meticulously went through every item, memories of meals my ex had cooked came flooding back as well as the tears, but I felt an awful lot better by the end.  I felt as if I was making a new start. In throwing away all the out of date items, I’d created both space in my cupboard and in my mind.

To enjoy the benefits that clutter clearing can bring, you’ll need some clutter! I would bet that there are very few people who do not have any clutter.

Quite simply, clutter is:

• Things you do not use
• Things you do not love
• Things which are untidy or disorganised
• Anything that’s unfinished

If your space is so cluttered that you don’t know where to start, pick the area that bugs you the most and start with that or a small drawer that you’ve been meaning to sort out for a long time.

Try clutter clearing as an experiment. Identify an area of your home.

Start Afresh

Once you have cleared away a little space, you may want to give some thought as to how you want your space to be from now on.

If you’re still living in the same home that you shared with your ex, give some thought as to how you can make it your own.

How can you reclaim your space? I posed this question to a client of mine who was recently divorced. She wanted to erase her husband’s memory from her home and decided to really go to town with reclaiming her space. She brought in a space clearer to clear her husband’s “energy” from the flat, re-painted the walls, surrounded herself with things that she loved and even bought new bed linen!

There’s something to be said for sleeping in bedding with no history and no memories.

Changing your surroundings so that they reflect your tastes can be a powerful way to announce to yourself and the rest of the world that you are ready to start a new phase of your life.

Discover New Oceans

Finding yourself single can be a daunting prospect. However, allowing a period of recovery after a break up is one that cannot be recommended highly enough.  It can be one of the most strengthening and confidence building periods of your life – if you allow it to be.

Being without a partner is something that is going to happen to us all at some time in our lives if we are to live to an old age. To have had the experience of being able to live life happily as a single person and take responsibility for our own happiness is of huge benefit.

Life is too short to waste on brooding over events in the past.  You deserve to be happy. So set yourself an intention to enjoy being single. When you set a clear intention, the rest will follow.

Write out these words for yourself and place them somewhere you can see them:

I intend to enjoy being single.

When considering your new life ahead, you have the choice between thinking optimistically or pessimistically. Optimism creates happiness, pessimism creates misery.

Which one do you prefer?

Rebuild Your Social Life

Being single no matter how long it lasts, provides you with an ideal opportunity to try activities and interests that you’ve always meant to get round to.

What are you waiting for?

• Are you waiting until you feel confident enough to go to that Salsa class?
• Are you waiting until you feel happier?
• Until you have plucked up courage?
• Until you have lost weight or until you have bought some new clothes before you venture out?

Don’t play the “waiting game.” You could be waiting for ages and miss out on a lot of fun in the meantime.  Build a bridge between waiting and taking action. That bridge is called “be willing.”

Make a note of what you are willing to do. For example:

I am willing to find out about the Salsa classes in my area.

Willingness harnesses the power of intention and allows new possibilities to come into your life.

Avoiding The Rebound

One of the temptations following the end of a relationship is that of rushing into another. Sadly, many people who have just come out of long-term relationships, avoid embracing the newly single life phase of their lives; neither do they get into “dating for fun.” These folks go straight into looking for a replacement long-term partner. Finding someone to immediately fill the void your ex left behind is unlikely to help your recovery.

Dating too soon often leads to comparisons to your ex and can make you feel lonelier than not dating did. It can also set you back further, emotionally, than before you had started to date again.

A rebound relationship is one that you form before you have finished grieving for your ex. So how do you know when you are ready to move on?

• When you no longer harbour angry feelings about your ex
• When you’re no longer trying to prove that you’re over it – to your ex or to anyone else
• When you’ve stopped counting the days and weeks since the break-up
• When you stop wondering if your ex misses you
• When you stop making excuses to get in touch
• When you stop going to places just hoping to bump into your ex
• When something really good or bad happens, you inadvertently phone someone else to share it with
• When you start to go back to places you enjoyed going to, but were avoiding, because they reminded you of your ex
• When memories of your ex don’t hurt you or make you cry
• When you have actually arrived at the conclusion the break-up was “for the best”

Create Your Future

Your future starts right here, right now. It began when you got out of bed this morning. You have the chance to create happiness in your future whether it is this afternoon, tomorrow or in one month’s time.

Recovery from relationship break up is often a rocky road. One day you’re ok then next you can be feeling really low. In the words of the quote by Abraham Lincoln I used in Week One  “The best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time.”

So, if you’re having a bad day, you have every possibility that tomorrow will be better.  Once you’re over the worst, you have two options. You can either, give in to your negative feelings and let them drag you down, or you can decide to make the best of your time and choose some pleasant distractions.

Taking things one day at a time is fine, but there will come a time when you start thinking a little beyond the day ahead.  Use this time when it arrives to create ideas about what you want to do.

Go over the “I wonder…” list you made.

• What appeals to you most on that list?
• What would you like to do over the next six months?
• What would really excite you?
• What would give you a sense of achievement?
• When you have the answers to those questions, ask yourself:
  • When would I like to do this by? and
  • What is the very first step I would need to take?

Develop a concrete plan of action. Break down whatever goal you have chosen into small manageable steps.

Actions of the Week

Create a plan of action for your immediate future.

• Write out your intentions for the next month
• Write next to each intention what you are willing to do
• Work out the next steps for each thing on your list that you intend to do
• Put a date by when you will accomplish them

Finally, identify what you will do to celebrate for each step accomplished.

It could be something simple taking a long soak in a candlelit bath, a day out by the seaside or anything else you enjoy. The more steps you take, the more enjoyment you’ll get!

A Final Note

Relationship recovery is one of the most challenging things we face in life.  A broken heart is often the price we pay for learning important lessons about ourselves and others. However, every cloud has a silver lining and this experience can prepare you for finding future happiness.

I hope by now that you are feeling much better and are looking forward to the future. Remember, people who love once can love again and when one relationship comes to an end, it does not mean that this was your last chance. Enjoy your single life and make the most of it however long it lasts.

Good luck!