When your ex breaks your heart, there is very little else you can focus on. The pain you feel makes you angry and unwilling to forgive the person who did this to you. But, as time goes on, the wounds begin to heal. You will find out that it is possible to learn how to forgive someone who broke your heart.
Forgiveness will not happen immediately. You might find that some days are easier than others. And, you might have moments that remind you of the pain. But, as time goes on, you will move on and learn to trust in your strength. Your resilience will grow, and your joy for life will return.
As time moves on, you will learn that the best way to get over heartbreak is to take care of yourself. The best way to learn how to forgive someone who broke your heart is to stop focusing on the heartache. The more you focus on the pain, the more the pain will take over your life. It is easier to say than to do.
Why Forgiveness is Difficult to Achieve
Forgiveness is difficult to find. This is why we need so much help in getting over people who have hurt us. There are several reasons why it is hard to learn how to forgive someone who broke your heart.
Pain Comes From Language and Memories
One of the reasons why forgiveness is difficult is because our language is tied to memories. The human brain has difficulty living in the present. Our minds like to return to the past and relive memories; it’s almost like watching a movie in our minds. The language of the past creates pain as we think about why our exes did what they did.
Our memories actually become challenging to move past as we think about them more. Painful memories are harsh because we develop attachments through them the more we think about them.
Our Anger Gets in the Way
When we are angry about the pain of heartache, we can lose control. Anger becomes more potent than other emotions, and we struggle to move past it. We think we should be angry, so we are. But the anger gets in the way of forgiveness or other rational thoughts and acts.
If we want to forgive, we have to lose our bias about the situation. That is tough to do when we have so much anger. We need to see beyond our personal experiences so we can forgive and get on with our lives. This is easier to say than to do.
Fear Is a Powerful Emotion
Forgiveness is tough when you have doubts in your life. If a breakup has hurt you, you probably do not want to consider getting into another relationship. But, this won’t be possible until you have forgiveness for your ex and yourself. Fear is a powerful emotion, like anger. And, both can get in the way of rational thought.
If you’ve been angry and afraid for a long time, you might be afraid of experience life without those two emotions. You might shut yourself off from other people, even if they are trying to make you feel better. If you can move beyond being afraid, you can develop endurance so you can get through tougher situations than an uncomfortable breakup.
You Want to Make Your Ex Suffer
When someone has hurt you, you might feel that you want to return the favor. It is a natural feeling to want to bring pain to the person who hurt you. This desire can get in the way of forgiveness. It can also create stress in your life as you struggle to work through wanting to get revenge, especially if you are an ethical person who doesn’t usually feel this way.
Some people also get stuck in the mode of being a victim, which also makes it challenging to consider forgiveness. You might begin to define yourself as the victim of the heartbreak, and forgiveness could complicate the way you view yourself.
Offering forgiveness is tough to do, but not doing it makes life even harder to live. When we avoid forgiving those who hurt us, like our exes, we can have a negative physical response. By forgiving people, we actually make our lives better.
Two Types of Forgiveness
Researchers have studied the effects of forgiveness and found that forgiveness works on two levels: decisional and emotional. We need to forgive people for what the decisions they make that do not agree with our ideal outcome. We also need to forgive people for the emotions we experience.
With decisional forgiveness, we stop wanting to get revenge. With emotional forgiveness, we use positive emotions to get over the negative ones. You might even start to feel better about the person who hurt you.
However, if you continue to ruminate on the heartache or pain, you will continue to avoid forgiveness. The pain will continue, and your stress levels will continue to grow. You will continue to be a victim who blames other people for your negative emotions. Nothing good comes from feeling this way.
Fortunately, there are several ways you can get over the negative emotions and reach a state of forgiveness.
Take Back Your Power
When you focus on the breakup, it begins to take over your life. As the victim of heartbreak, you’ve already given up some control of your thoughts and emotions. When you continue to think about the breakup and let it bother you, you have given power to the person who hurt you.
As soon as you realize that you have given the ex control of your emotions and well-being, the sooner you can take back your power. As you take back control of your feelings, forgiveness will start to seep into your life. And, once you realize that forgiveness feels better than pain, you will be able to move on and live your life again.
Recognize the Pain, Then Move On
Rather than getting stuck in the cycle of pain and heartache, you should do what you can to get out of it. The more you think about your heartbreak, the more it hurts. And, the more you suffer. Your emotions are real, and they deserve your attention. But, after you’ve experienced the feelings and lived with them for a while, move on. Don’t relive your emotions. Once is enough.
Acceptance Provides Freedom
When you recognize that the relationship is over, forgiveness is on the way. Your ex broke your heart, and eventually, you should accept it. One way to learn how to forgive someone who broke your heart is to accept the end of the relationship. Acceptance does not mean that you want to hang out with your ex. It simply means that you no longer have to suffer.
Ending pain is how you forgive someone who broke your heart. Your ex will not make your heart stop hurting. Only you can do that. And, only then will you begin to find the freedom that comes from forgiveness. You don’t have to like your ex or feel anything about what your ex did. All you are doing is give yourself room to live freely again.
Understand How Your Negative Emotions Affect You Physically
When you choose not to forgive your ex, you hold on to negative emotions. Over time, those emotions begin to affect your body physically. The body contains several hormones, and cortisol is the one that creates physical issues. As the stress from negative emotions builds up, the body releases cortisol.
As cortisol moves through the body, it weakens the body. The aging process speeds up, and the risk of heart disease increases. The risk of depression increases, and the body experiences more chronic pain. The best way to avoid the damage from cortisol is to stop reflecting on the pain the breakup caused.
The more you know about your body’s reaction to the stress and pain of a breakup, the better prepared you can be to deal with it. It is worth it to take time to let go of the pain and focus your energy on what matters more – your well-being.
Understand That Forgiveness is Not Just For Spiritual People
Forgiveness does not have to connect to spirituality or religious faith. You do not have to consider yourself an excellent person to be able to forgive someone. You can forgive a person so you can take care of yourself.
Forgiving someone does not mean you forget what they’ve done to you. Instead, it means that you are freeing yourself from the pain that a person caused you.
When you learn that forgiveness is for you and not for the person who caused you pain, you can live a happier life. Learning to forgive begins with letting go of your understanding of what happened. You don’t need to understand why your ex broke up with you to start the forgiveness process.
If you are overly concerned with understanding the reasoning behind the actions, you will continue to feel pain and heartache. Instead, you should focus on letting the battle go. It’s done, and nothing can be done to change it. So, when you let the action go, you begin to heal to free your mind from the pain of the past. It doesn’t take a spiritual person to do this.
Learn to Use Your Breath
Even if you have forgiven your ex, there might be moments when the painful experience is triggered. As you think about your heartache, your heart might start to race, and those terrible feelings might resurface. Instead of going through the painful emotions, you can get over them by focusing on your breath.
When you return to your breath, you return to the present moment. You get out of your head, and those painful moments from the past stop resurfacing. Pay close attention to your inhales and exhales. After a few moments, the pain you felt should dissipate as you get back in touch with the present.
Recognize Your Imperfections
No one is perfect. Your ex proved it by breaking up with you. Remember that you aren’t perfect, too. By doing this, you can forgive yourself, which will give you more room to forgive your ex. You haven’t done anything wrong, but it is essential to forgive yourself. You might look back one day and become angry with the way you reacted. But, forgiveness keeps that from happening.
Forgiving someone imperfect is a rational thing to do. People do not make decisions that we agree with, so we need to be able to let our feelings go. You probably consider your ex’s decision to be a mistake, but it felt right to your ex, which is why you should practice forgiveness.
Don’t you want to be forgiven when you make mistakes? Think of your ex the same way. By having empathy for your ex, forgiveness is easier to understand. Remember, you don’t have to go back to your ex or like what your ex did to you. It’s just about forgiving, so you can move on.
Experience Forgiveness Through Closure
Some people benefit from experiencing closure, which can come in a plethora of ways. You might need to have a moment to talk to your ex. You might need time with a therapist. Closure might also happen if you write a letter about the experience. Some people need the time actually to cement the fact that the relationship is over.
People who need closure sometimes need to vent their frustration with the way the relationship ended. Take care of your need for closure. Experience the emotions you need to experience. Then, forgive and move on because you have bigger and better things to do than to wallow in sadness and heartache.
Continue to Forgive Until You Don’t Need to Do It Anymore
When your heartache has healed, your forgiveness has worked. Until that moment, you might need to keep forgiving for an indeterminate amount of time. While you continue to overlook, you should continue to move on in your life. Don’t focus on the pain or let it hold you back. If you experience emotions that bring you back to heartache, start to forgive again.
The pain will decrease. The time it takes will vary from person to person. No matter how long it takes, continue to tell yourself to forgive your ex. Eventually, you will believe that you have forgiven your ex, and you will no longer need to remind yourself.
Set an Intention to Forgive
Intentions are powerful tools that can help people accomplish challenging tasks. When you set a plan, you bring a goal into the front of the mind. Some people like to say their intentions aloud. The purpose becomes like a prayer, as a way to ask the universe for support. By sincerely setting an intention to strive for forgiveness, you get closer to achieving your desired outcome.
You can also treat an intention like a mantra. If you meditate, you can repeat your forgiveness mantra in your mind or aloud. Like any meditation, eventually, you will find peace. Forgiveness should come, too.
Change Your Thoughts
When you are ready to forgive, it’s time to stop thinking about how your ex hurt you. Pain is easy to remember because it triggers so many sensations. If you keep thinking about the pain, it will continue to hurt, and your anger will continue to fester. To deal with this, you have to take control of your thoughts.
As the thoughts of pain and anger enter your mind, you have to make an effort to stop thinking about it. Eventually, the feelings will subside, forgiveness will arrive, and you will find peace.
Find Something Good
At this point in your relationship, you might question what you ever saw in your ex. But, at some point, you loved this person. Yes, your ex has caused you an immense about of pain, but your ex does have positive qualities. To get over the pain, it can be helpful to look for the good in your ex.
The good things you think about do not have to be related to you. Maybe your ex regularly donates money to charity. Or, your ex is involved in a group that works hard to protect the environment. Your ex might be kind to animals. When you think about something positive about your ex, you will find it easier to get over the end of the relationship.
Looking at the good things your ex has done might not be easy to do right after the breakup. You might do well to wait until time has passed, and your relationship has been over for a while. If you are still harboring anger, this technique might bring you the peace you crave.
Consider That Life Is About Lessons, Not Regrets
With the pain and suffering that the breakup brought you, you might regret ever meeting your ex. Instead of thinking about the relationship and regretting what happened, you will have an easier time forgetting your ex if you consider the experience as a life lesson. Life is full of ups and downs. If we believe every down is a regret, we will never be at peace with ourselves.
Instead of being angry at yourself, think of what you can learn. But, if you think of every disappointment as a regret, you will have difficulty forgiving yourself and others for mistakes. You cannot predict the future, so you do not know what successes and failures you will experience. Life is meant to be lived. You should worry about regretting experiences.
It is easier to think of experiences as lessons if you are thankful for what you have learned. Take the breakup as a way to learn about relationships. Pay attention to your experience, successes and failures. You can’t know everything your ex thought, but you can learn from your thoughts and feelings about the situations.
Keep those good memories in your heart. Don’t regret getting to your ex. Be grateful for everything you have learned along the way. Those experiences are what makes you a unique individual.
Become Happy on Your Own
It is perfectly ok to have pain in your life. Everyone experiences it both emotionally and physically. But, it is not ok to continue to live with the pain forever. Eventually, you have to move on. One way to do this is to learn to find happiness on your own.
You can find happiness by doing things that you enjoy doing. You can also find happiness by spending time with people you like. If your pain is getting in the way of your satisfaction, you need to deal with the pain. See a therapist. Find some closure. Do what you need to do, so you can enjoy being you again.
All too often, people who have experienced painful breakups find it challenging to let go of resentment. Negative emotions like resentment and anger can get in the way of finding peace and being happy. It is essential to let go of the negative feelings by experiencing them for a set amount of time, then putting them away.
Don’t neglect the emotions, or they will continue to pop up. After you’ve been angry about your ex, let it go and live life again.
Find Your Personal Forgiveness
Even though you didn’t cause the breakup or create your pain, you do need to forgive yourself. The forgiveness you need involves freeing yourself from carrying around the pain and heartache you are experiencing. You forgive yourself so you can get on when life and stop feeling hurt. When you forgive yourself, you can get on with life.
Forgiveness might not happen overnight, but after some time has passed, it is possible. The more you strive to get back to regular life, the easier it is to move on and forgive yourself and your ex. You do not need to carry around the pain and heartache. It can break you down and crush your soul.
