Part Two

Look After Yourself

Accept that you are in a period of recovery and an essential part of this recovery is caring for yourself.  If you have recently broken up with your partner, then you may well be experiencing shock and treating this shock is an important step in helping your heart to mend.

Imagine what you would do for a very special friend who had just had a car crash or major surgery. Would you ensure that they got plenty of rest? Feed them delicious food? Buy them flowers, books or a video that would cheer them up?

Treat yourself as you would that very special friend.  Recovery from break up needs that same kind of nurturing. Be kind to yourself. Do things that make you feel better like going for a walk along the beach or in the countryside or treating yourself to a wonderful aromatherapy massage.

Acts of kindness and caring remind you that you are special.  How you choose to treat yourself during this period can help or hinder your recovery, so choose wisely!

Ask For What You Need

Keeping your pain over the break-up a secret will not help in the long run, so do find someone to confide in, no matter how difficult this is for you.  If you need help, summon up the courage and ask for it. Pick up the phone and call someone. Help is always available – the important thing is to ask for it.  Take a few moments now and identify your sources of help:

These may include:

• Friends
• Family
• Your GP
• Homeopath
• Coach
• Counsellor
• Local priest / vicar
• The Samaritans
• Internet support groups

The break-up of a relationship can be a time of great loneliness and isolation, so create your own support group from the list you’ve just made.

This will help if you are worried about burdening certain friends or family. It also can help you to obtain a wider perspective on your situation.

Accepting Support From Others

When we open up and share our pain – it seems to lessen and ceases to have such a powerful effect upon us.  So don’t keep your pain to yourself, the more you talk, the more quickly you’ll recover.

Friends are invaluable at times of break-up so accept any help that is offered to you.  Most people are more than willing to listen to you if they know you are going through a difficult time. Many people find that it’s during challenging times that they make new friends or forge deeper friendships.

Take time now to have a think about those people in your life regardless of where they live who are on your side, who like or love you and want to help you.

Distance is no longer an issue with cheap phone calls, so who do you know that you can share your sorrow with? If you are concerned with burdening people, make a list of possible people you can contact.  If there is any resistance, to contacting friends, just ask yourself: Would I be a listening ear for this person if they were in my shoes? If the answer is yes, then allow that person to do the same for you.

Part Three

Accepting your losses

Accepting the reality of the situation is one of the keys to moving on. I know that you are ready to make that step because you have indicated your desire to recover from your relationship by choosing this course.

One of the key steps to recovery is to accept your losses.  In order to accept our losses, we need to identify exactly what they are. So, start by asking yourself:

What exactly have I lost?

The most important thing that may spring to mind is the loss of someone that you loved. But there are many other losses that may be part of your relationship such as:

• loss of a home
• loss of income
• lifestyle
• loss of being a couple
• loss of friends

Spend a few quiet moments now jotting down all the things that you feel that you have lost.

Part Four

It Takes Two To Tango

One of the hardest things to accept when a relationship breaks up is that either you or the person you love does not feel the same way any more.  The reality of the situation is that however much we love or loved the other person, each of us is in charge of our own feelings.  If this were not true then it would be easy for your ex to press a button, make you feel good and then announce that they were off!  We can’t make another person love us if that’s not what they feel.

Part of the pain from heartbreak comes from still feeling in love with how your ex used to be or rather the memories of how your ex used to be.

Rachel’s story

One of my clients, (we’ll call her Rachel), came to me because she felt she wanted help in getting over the break-up of a relationship. She was having problems in accepting that the relationship was over despite the fact that her boyfriend had moved out and had cut off all contact with her.

It turned out that since the break-up Rachel had been focusing on what was good about their relationship. All her thoughts were either memories of all the good times or hopes about the future including him turning up with a bunch of flowers and begging forgiveness.

Rachel’s feelings of heartbreak were being exacerbated by her being ‘in love’ with how her ex used to be. I decided to check out the reality of their relationship. We began to focus on some of the negative aspects of this relationship for example: what she didn’t like about how her ex treated her, what annoyed her about him etc.

She noticed that by changing her focus from the things she loved to the things that were less than ideal about their relationship that her feelings changed.  Focusing on all the good times they shared had been having the effect of keeping her stuck in her feelings of pain and loss.

Part Five

Identify What Was Not Good

Focusing on the negative parts of your relationship can have a positive outcome when it comes to relationship recovery. It helps to focus on what you want to move away from.

Take some time now and be really honest with yourself. Think back to some of the not so good times with your ex. Don’t make the excuse that these did not exist. No relationship is perfect!

Think over these, how do you wish your relationship could have been different?

I wish my my ex would have:

• been more appreciative
• been more loving
• been more attentive in bed
• done their fair share of household tasks
• been honest with me
• accepted me for who I am

Add your own to the above list. As soon as you start thinking what your ex did or didn’t do, you help to flip the switch from pining for what you have lost to realising that this relationship was not all it was cracked it up to be.

One of the most helpful things that I have found during times of relationship break-up is to answer the following questions. Read through these and answer whichever is appropriate to you:

• Why would I want to be with someone who does not love me?
• Why would I want to be with someone who is not able to love me in the way that I want to be loved?
• Why would I want to be with someone who does not treat with me respect?
• Why would I want to be with someone who does not treat me with kindness?

Add your own questions that are relevant to your situation.  Be honest with yourself.

Why would you want to be with someone like that?

Accepting What Is

Until you can accept the relationship is over, then your recovery will be impeded. If you are struggling with accepting this, ask yourself: What is getting in the way of me accepting that the relationship is over?  And, what do I need to do to tackle this?

It is essential that before you go on to the next stage of this course that you have come to accept that the relationship is over.

To help with this, take a few moments to sit quietly and write down:

I am now ready to accept that this relationship is over.

Repeat this sentence out loud to yourself.  Repeat as many times as is necessary for you to accept and believe this.

Action!

Actions of the Week

List all the reasons why you want to recover from this relationship.

e.g. I want to feel happy again or I hate feeling the way I do.

It doesn’t matter if your reasons are written in the positive or negative as either can act as a powerful motivator to move yourself forward. After all, why wouldn’t you want to stop feeling the way you feel at the moment?

Finally, congratulate yourself for having started this course. Recovering from a relationship break-up is difficult but not impossible, even though recovery might seem like along way off to you at the moment. Eventually broken hearts do mend and yours will too, the time that this takes is down to you.

In the next lesson we’ll be taking a look at an important step along the road to recovery – letting go.

Part Two

What Do You Need To Let Go Of?

Check in with yourself right now and ask the question:

What emotions am I feeling right now?

Ask yourself this question throughout your journey of recovery. You may feel fine right now, but in a few days or week’s time, different emotions may have emerged.

Identifying or noticing the emotions that arise is an important step forward.  When you ‘feel’ something, it provides you with an opportunity to deal with it so that it doesn’t become destructive in the future.

When you choose to do that is up to you but learning to let go of what could be destructive emotions is vital.

Letting Go Of Guilt

If you were the one who ended the relationship, it would not be unusual for you to be feeling some guilt. It may be guilt of hurting another person’s feelings, guilt of not feeling the same as your ex or guilt of the consequences of ending the relationship for example your ex losing their home.

It is also quite common for guilt to be felt by the person who has been dumped.  I often come across clients who feel guilty that they ‘should have done more in the relationship’ or tell me that they ‘should have noticed things earlier and done something about it’.

Guilt keeps you locked into negativity. It will prevent you from being the person you want to be. Everyone makes mistakes. It’s part of being human.  So learn from your mistakes, apologise if necessary for hurting someone and move on.

The first step towards this is to identify what you feel guilty for.

Write out a list of all the reasons that you feel guilty. Start each one with:

I feel guilty because…

I gave this exercise to a client of mine who came to me because following a long-term relationship that he ended, he found it difficult to enter into another serious relationship. We explored and identified the things were holding him back and one of them was guilt. He felt guilty about ending this five-year relationship and hurting his ex girlfriend. They had parted acrimoniously and he wasn’t able at the time to explain why.

Following this exercise, he decided to write her a letter explaining the reasons why he had decided to end the relationship and apologising to her for the hurt he had caused.  He found that just the act of writing the letter helped tremendously in releasing his feelings of guilt.

Part Three

Letting Go Of Anger

Anger is a natural stage of the grief process and can come out of nowhere, when you least expect it.

This might emerge as anger at yourself for ‘messing’ up this relationship’ or at others. It can crop up through no apparent reason, just because you seem to be surrounded by blissfully happy couples or faced with paying a huge single room supplement for the holiday you’ve just booked.

Undoubtedly, you’ll feel anger towards your ex who has hurt you, let you down, or maybe even cheated on you. You have every right to be angry, so admit it. Vent your anger. But be careful how you do it.

Avoid all physical violence or wilful destruction of property – no matter how tempting it may seem. These kinds of acts may land you in prison and certainly won’t work in your favour.

A well-known act of revenge was taken by Lady Sarah Graham on her cheating husband when she raided his wine cellar, then delivered two bottles of expensive wine to every house in their village. She also cut off one arm of every jacket in his wardrobe and splashed paint over his BMW!  Her story was told on many chat shows and she made it known that whilst she did not regret her actions, she wouldn’t recommend them to others, as they had not helped her situation.

Revenge may provide some with satisfaction and excitement, but the consequences you could face far outweigh the benefits in the long run.

Find other outlets for your anger. No one method will suit everyone, sometimes a combination of things work well. It’s a case of trying out which works the best for you. Some people prefer the more physical methods of working off anger like working out at the gym or going for a run.

However, if you don’t belong to a gym or don’t enjoy the gym, you could try pillow bashing in the comfort of your own home.  Many find this a very effective method of working off anger. You simply take a pillow and bash it against the bed or sofa or pummel it. You can even add vocal effects (providing no one is in ear shot!).

Others find that writing down their anger helps. It may take the form of a furious letter that you write and never send. The important thing here is that you provide a safe outlet for your anger.

Part Four

Letting Go Of Blame

It’s very tempting to blame someone else for the break up of a relationship.  If you’ve been treated badly, it’s hard not to blame that person for the way that you are feeling.

Are you guilty of casting blame on either yourself, your ex or someone connected with your ex? Have you been going through your relationship in your mind in fine detail, assigning blame for what did and did not occur?

Casting blame on anyone, including yourself is destructive. When you assign blame, where is your focus?  Is it on something that’s positive or negative? The more you bring to mind what went wrong, what you or your ex did or didn’t do, the more you will activate your pain.

Holding on to blame will prevent you from recovering from your relationship break up. It keeps you stuck in the past.  Let go of the past. You cannot live there.

Get your blame out in the open. Ask yourself the following questions and write down your answers:

• Who do I blame?
• What do I blame (name of this person) for?

Part Five

Resistance To Letting Go

What is preventing you from letting go of what you know you need to let go of? Resistance shows up in many different forms.

Two common paths of resistance are given below.  Ask yourself if either of these apply to you or else identify any other ways in which you are resisting letting go.

Denial

This may take the form of simply denying your feelings for example denying that you feel angry, jealous or guilty.

If there is something that deep down you know that you are denying, spell it out.  Admitting to what you are denying can start to decrease the resistance and help your recovery.

Complete the following sentence:

• I am denying that I feel…
• I am denying that I feel…… because……
• I am now ready to accept that I feel…

Holding On

Are you are holding on to the hope that your ex will come back to you, beg your forgiveness, say they’ve made a terrible mistake and that they really want to be with you?

Holding on to hope is another form of resistance to letting go.  Hoping that your ex will come back to you prevents you from living your life now and in the future.

Consequences Of Not Letting Go

What are the consequences of not letting go of all of your negative emotions?  I want you to really think about this for a moment. What will happen if you hold on to these negative emotions? What will this do for your future happiness?

Do you want to recover from this relationship break up and lead a happy and fulfilled life in the fut

Action!

Actions of the Week

1. Identify all the emotions that you need to let go

For example:

• Anger
• Jealousy
• Sadness
• Guilt

Take the three that you feel will have the biggest impact on your life when you finally let go.

2. For each, list all the benefits for letting go of this emotion.

3. Find time to work on letting go of these emotions.

What actions can you take to ensure that you do this? Some people find it beneficial to write things down, choosing to write a letter to their ex. Others, let go by writing poetry, music or painting a picture.

In the next part, we’ll be taking a look at what you need to do once you have let go of your emotions in preparation for moving on.

Part Two

What’s Keeping You Stuck?

One of the things that can keep people stuck and slow their progress in recovering from a relationship is reliving the past and only thinking of the good times or the good points in their partner.

If you are constantly playing the “movie” in your mind of how wonderful life was when you were with your ex, is it any wonder that the pain of not having them in your life remains?

By playing this “movie” revisiting all the good times, you are feeding the memories and bringing back the feelings associated with those. When you come back to reality, the pain kicks in when you realise that you no longer have a future with this person.

It’s the meaning we give the images in our head that determines how much pain we feel. The hopes and dreams that we project onto these images have been cancelled and the pain that we feel is in proportion to the meaning we gave to the future.

This is why some people don’t experience much heartbreak when a relationship ends – because they’ve already mentally left.  Before the relationship ended, they did not mentally imagine a future with this partner. They do not play the mental “movies” of how great things were. More often than not, they’ve either played the ‘movie’ of what’s wrong with the relationship or the one about the future they want without you in it.

How much time, are you spending running mental images or “movies” of how great life used to be with your ex?

Become aware of just how much time you spend thinking about how things used to be. Aware of how often you mentally project images of you and your ex into the future, playing the “movie” of what happened and giving it a happy ending. Avoid these types of mental “movies” as they will not help you to recover from your heartbreak.

If you want to shorten the recovery time from this relationship then change the mental “movies” you are playing!

Put in another “video” or “DVD” - one that will remind you of all the things that you did not like about your relationship.

When those images of how wonderful life was come into your mind, change the picture to black and white and just like watching an old movie – fade the picture so that all you have left is a small white dot. Then, change the “movie.” Instead bring to mind all the things you didn’t like about your ex and see these images in glorious technicolour!

Part Three

Throw Away Those Rose Coloured Spectacles!

Viewing your ex through rose coloured spectacles can seriously hamper your chances of recovery.  Part of being heartbroken is still feeling in love with how your ex used to be.

When we’re in love and indeed when we look back on a broken relationship, it can be all too easy to ignore some of the less pleasant traits of our partners.

We’re going to put the spotlight now on some of the characteristics and habits that you did not like about your ex. Take a look at the following and start to form your own list about the things about your ex that you do not miss:

• His/her untidiness
• His/her clutter
• His/her moodiness
• He/she was not supportive
• He/she expected me to do the cooking / housework
• I always had to suggest places to go
• I always had to go over to his/her place
• He/she did not like my friends
• He/she wouldn’t surface before midday
• His/ her criticism
• His/her refusal to talk about things
• His / her lack of direction in life
• His/her lack of sex drive in recent months
• His/her unpredictability
• His/her lack of attention to me when we went out with friends
• He/she used to put his/her work/friends before me

Use the above as a guide and then construct a list of what you did not like about your ex and what you will not miss. Make a list of the points in sentence form e.g.

He never made an effort to look nice when we went out

I didn’t like the way she put me down in front of people.

Add to this list from time to time. If you have a tendency to ignore your ex’s faults and overstate their good points, this list will help redress the balance.  Also, if you have been feeling that your ex was “the best thing sliced bread” and you’ll never find anyone like them again, this exercise will help you to get a bit of perspective.

Part Four

Putting The Past To Rest

Dealing with unfinished business is essential. If the previous exercise has caused you to look at the relationship with your ex in the cold light of day, you may want to set the record straight.

If you are still harbouring things that you wished you had said or you never got the chance to say what you wanted to your ex before you broke up, do something to put the past to rest. Stop having those conversations in your head and get them down on paper!

Draw a line under this relationship with the intention of moving on. This can be done in the form of a letter. Whether you send this letter is entirely up to you.  The intention of this letter is that it gives you a chance to put your side of the story, to say all the things you wanted to say. Wait a few weeks before finally completing this letter as you may wish to change or add something. Then, decide what you want to do with the letter.

Many clients have reported that the mere writing of such a letter is cathartic and that they didn’t even need to send it.  After one break up I once wrote everything out on large balloons, then released them to the wind!

What are you going to do to release the past and put it behind you?

Avoid The Cynic

Sadly, many people who have been hurt in relationships go on to become cynical.  This can translate as being cynical about love, cynical about successful relationships or cynical about their ability to have a successful relationship.

Cynicism may build a wall around you that is designed to protect you from getting hurt.  However, in future this wall may become your prison. Cynicism is one of the biggest barriers to forming future relationships. It feeds your fears about your ability to find or sustain relationships in the future.

Cynicism can be catching! Don’t buy in to other people’s cynicism. When you hear people being cynical about love or relationships, know that you have a choice about whether to take this on board.

Think of the consequences, especially if you hope to find love in future. What effect is adopting a cynical viewpoint about love going to do for you?

Nip cynicism in the bud. Become aware of any cynical thoughts like “there aren’t any good men/women left.” Create the possibility in your mind of things being different in the future. For example by changing this to “there must be some good men/women out there and I am determined to find one.”

Part Five

The Road To Freedom

Forgiveness is the key to freedom. This is probably one of the most difficult stages on the road to recovery but one that will allow you to move on.

Forgiveness releases you from your past and allows you to move into your future unencumbered by what has happened to you.

The exercises over the past two lessons, will have given you an idea of what has been causing your pain and suggested ways of expressing and releasing this. Once you have released and let go of your emotions, the next stage is forgiveness.

Forgiveness is not ignoring what your ex did or did not do that caused you pain. It’s about acknowledging it but letting it go. Holding on to hatred, anger and guilt etc keeps us connected to that person in a negative way – like ties that bind. When we let go of that connection, we free ourselves to move on.

Resistance To Forgiveness

Remind yourself that you are the one who stands to gain most from forgiveness. You don’t even need to let your ex know that you have forgiven them.

In forgiving your ex, you are freeing yourself and giving yourself the gift that in the future your heart will be free.

Who Do You Need To Forgive?

If your ex was the one who broke off the relationship, then this question might be obvious.  Forgiving your ex may seem like a tall order whilst you’re still smarting from the pain of it all. This is why the last section concentrated on letting go of emotions.

If you really want to recover from this relationship, you need to forgive the one who broke your heart.  However, sometimes it’s not enough just to forgive the other person. Ask yourself if there is anything you need to forgive yourself for too. In going over the relationship do you find yourself thinking “I should have…”  or “I shouldn’t have…”

If so, what things do you need to forgive yourself for?

To help you work through forgiveness, complete the following sentences as many times as it takes.

• I  forgive myself for …
• I …(your name) am willing to – (if complete forgiveness seems a long way off right now) forgive you … (their name) for …

Forgiveness is not a one-off activity. There are often many layers. It’s a bit like peeling an onion. The first layer is a bit tough to peel but it does get easier.

This exercise may well bring up emotions that you may need to let go of. The more you let go and the more that you forgive, the more that it frees you to move on.

Action!

Actions of the Week

Take your learning from the past to another level.

Go through each of the answers that you gave under the headings:

• 10 things you learned about yourself in the relationship
• 10 positive things this relationship taught you

Write down what you have done or intend to do and how each of these points will help you in the future.

e.g. I learnt that I am more tolerant that I thought I was:

I have now added this to my list of good points and am working on ways of maintaining and increasing my tolerance levels. This will help me in the future because tolerance is something I think is important in a good relationship, especially if I want kids!

Often when we think of the future it can bring up fear. So, in the next lesson we’ll be taking a look at what you can do to tackle this.

Part Two

What Are You Scared Of?

Fear can immobilise a normally “strong,” “capable” person. If you are someone who is usually very good at coping with the challenges of life, it may come as quite a surprise that the thought of suddenly being “on your own” can fill you with dread.

Fears that result over the break-up of relationships can bring with them a wide range of reactions. It is normal to feel scared.  However, it’s important not to allow these fears to get out of control. Left unguarded, fears can gather like an avalanche and suddenly seem a lot worse than they actually are.

The first step to take is to identify what exactly it is that you are scared of. Is your fear related to something that has happened in the past?  If so, ask yourself what it is that you are scared of.

More than likely, your fears will concern the future. Often these fears come out when we are thinking or talking about the future. They emerge as comments such as:

“I’m scared that I’ll end up on my own”
“I’m scared of living on my own”
“No one will want me”
“I’ll never find anyone who’ll love me as much as…”
“I’m worried I’ll make the same mistake again”

Once you can identify your fears, you then have the opportunity of doing something about them. To uncover these, say to yourself,

When I think of the future:
What am I worried about?
What am I scared of?
What do I fear will happen?

Write down your answers to these and then ask yourself what is the fear that is underlying this? For example if you identified that you are worried about living on your own, the underlying fear might be fear of loneliness.

What If You Don’t Face Your Fear?

Check in with yourself right now and ask yourself for each fear that you identified:

What would be the consequences of me holding on to this fear?

Becoming aware of the consequences of not facing your fears can have a sobering effect on you, so take some time over this. Really think about how your life in the future would be if you did not overcome these fears.

• Would they affect your future happiness?
• Would they hamper your chances of finding a good relationship in the future?
• Would they increase your chances of you spending the rest of your life on your own?

What do you want to do about this fear? At the end of the day, you do have a choice. You can either keep reminding yourself and talking about your fear to others and thereby feeding it, or you can choose to do something about it.  And doing something about your fear is the only way to change it.

Part Three

Challenge Your Thinking

You cannot change what has happened in your life or in your relationship, but you can change your opinion of what happened and you can change the relationship you have with yourself.

When you have recently come out of a painful relationship break up you may well be feeling sorry for yourself and are unable to look upon this in a positive light.  However, as you start to look at what you gained from being in the relationship, you may start to see things differently. Your opinion of what happened is down to you.

You can either adopt a “poor me” opinion that will serve to feed your fears or one that will help to reduce them for example: “the break up may have been painful but I am determined that I will learn from this experience and that my life will improve.”

To stop your fears taking hold, continue to challenge your thinking. If you have been suffering from the “I’m too old” or “I’m too set in my ways” mode of thinking, then this is for you! Don’t allow your age or anything else for that matter hold you back. The only thing that matters is that you are prepared to change. In fact often age can act as an incentive to deal with fear.

Sometimes following the break up of a relationship, it is fear that often spurs people on to make positive changes in their lives. Fear of what people do not want to happen can motivate them to take steps to make sure that it doesn’t!

What fear do you have that is so great that you can use it to motivate yourself to take steps to ensure that the very thing you fear does not happen?

Become Willing To Change

When you are faced with the break up of relationship you are faced with change whether you like it or not.  Change is inevitable whether it be a change of living arrangements, change in your social life, your finances or change in your status. Change is something we cannot avoid. However fear of change is.

In order for change to take place, no matter how scared you are or how much you want things to change, nothing will happen unless you are willing to change.

Start by telling yourself:

I am willing to change.

I am willing to overcome my fear of …

Write yourself reminders of these two statements and place them where you will see them.

Identify what you can do in the way of making small changes to your everyday routine for example take a different route to work, eating different foods, sleeping on a different side of the bed. Prove to yourself by doing this that you are willing to change.

Part Four

What changes do you need to make?

Changes come in all shapes and sizes.  But when change is all lumped together, it can seem a daunting mountain to climb.

Start with one fear that you think it might be possible for you to overcome. Note down the steps that would need to be taken in order for this to happen.

One client of mine was worried about living on her own. She had gone from living with her parents, to living with friends and then to living with her husband.  Her fear was of the unknown. She felt that she had no experience to back her up.

We started by breaking her fear down and establishing the steps that she would need to take to overcome her fear. We identified the knowledge she had and the strengths she possessed that she could put to good use. We also looked at what exactly she needed to find out and whom she could ask to help her.

However, it wasn’t just the practical things that were worrying her, it was actually being on her own.  I asked her to identify what scared her about being on her own and we then looked at a variety of things that she could put into place to overcome these concerns.  Six months later, I received a poem that she’d written entitled “An Ode To Living Alone” which told of her transition from being scared to enjoying the challenges and plus points of living on her own!

If we focus on the problem and how difficult everything is then change becomes very difficult, if not impossible. As we get what we focus on, it follows that we need to focus on identifying and taking small steps towards change in order to overcome fear and accomplish change.

Part Five

Take Control Of Your Fear

Having identified exactly what your fears are, the next stage is to go beyond your fears. Look at the message that this fear is providing you with. Instead of looking at what you don’t want, focus on what you do want.

Take each of your fears and ask yourself the following question then write down the answer:

Ok, so if this is my fear, what ultimately do I want?

For example:

I’m scared that I’ll end up on my own might become:

What I want is to become happy with my own company, become my own person once more and then when I am ready, to share my life with someone.

No one will want me might translate as:

I want to become confident in who I am and know what I want so that I can take the future into my own hands and determine who I want to spend my life with.

Once you have identified what it is you want, add in one line stating your intention. For example:

I intend to overcome my fear that “No one will want me” because I want to become confident in who I am and know what I want so that I can take the future into my own hands and determine who I want to spend my life with.

Visualise Your Future

If you want to overcome your fear, you must be able to see yourself having made the changes that you want otherwise you’ll have little chance of ever achieving it.

Visualise yourself having achieved what it is that you want. This is your fantasy. Doubt or failure does not belong here. Use all of your senses to create an image of you having overcome this fear and enjoy experiencing this image as frequently as you can.

Action!

Actions of the Week

Be present in the moment.

Spend time each day practicing being fully present in an activity e.g. walking to work, washing up the dishes, getting dressed. Learn to crowd out fear from your mind.

In addition, take a fear and after examining exactly what it is, identify what small steps are needed to overcome this fear and take the first one!

Sometimes it’s not just our fears that we need to overcome to help move us forward. In the next lesson we’ll be taking a look at what you also need to do along the road to recovery – build yourself back up.

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.

Part Two

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.

Part Three

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?

Part Four

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”

Part Five

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.

Action!

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!