5 Things to Do After a Break Up

Getting over a broken heart is hard work. This list may make it a bit easier.

1. Put Away the Pictures After a Break Up.
Some day, you may be over your ex enough to look at those photos and experience happy memories. But for now, they're just reminding you of a past you're trying to get past. After a break up, box the pictures up, put them away, and don't take them out until the sadness is behind you. If you are feeling angry and bitter after a break up, and like you may want to burn them or take a pair of scissors to them, resist the urge. These are your memories, and you should honor them. If you have to, give them to a friend for safe-keeping.

2. Get Busy After a Break Up.
After a break up, you probably don't feel like doing anything. You just want to sack out on your couch and drink yourself into a stupor. And maybe we all need a few days of that to properly mourn. Maybe we need a few weeks of that even, if the relationship was longer. But at some point after a break up, you need to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and bury your pain in a flurry of activity. Join new clubs, go out with friends, start a new hobby, get politically active, take a class. The less time you have on your hands, the less time you have to think about the ex. The more exhausted you are after a break up, the easier it will be to fall asleep at night instead of tossing and turning with thoughts like coulda, woulda, shoulda.

3. Keep Perspective After a Break Up.
It might feel like someone has died, but a break up is seldom that serious. If you were married, or with someone for decades, the break up is serious emotional turmoil, and you may need to get some counseling. People should respect your genuine grief. But if the relationship was of shorter duration or intensity, you need to keep it in perspective. If this was your first love, it may feel like the worst pain you've ever experienced, and it may well be! But rest assured, there's more where that came from. And things could be worse. After a break up, it might be helpful to read some books or watch some movies about people who have it worse than you do. A personal favorite is the movie Alive, about an athletic team that got stranded in the mountains. I figured that any day I didn't have to eat my friends to survive was a pretty good day.

4. Meet New People After a Break Up.
One of the things we mourn, after a break up, is the security of having a special connection to someone in our life. There's no way around it; making new connections helps ease that pain. It's important to make new friends, meet new people, and even date new people after a break up. After a break up, we need to reach out to the world, instead of closing in on ourselves. And seeing ourselves through the eyes of someone new inevitably helps our self-esteem. The only caveat here is to watch out for getting too caught up in the moment; don't profess love to someone new while you're still nursing a broken heart. Rebound relationships are our way of using other people to make ourselves feel good, and that's only a temporary high. In the end, the guilt will kill you. So invite new people into your life, but draw clear boundaries and expectations.

5. Improve Your Life After a Break Up.
When you can't work on a relationship, there's only one thing left to concentrate on. Improving yourself. This isn't a one-size-fits-all solution. For some of us, it might mean volunteering and doing more charity work. For others, it might mean getting more organized, decorating our house, or getting to all those chores we've been putting off. After a break up, when you feel like no one else loves you, you have to love yourself. Treat yourself to bubble baths. Buy something for yourself. Make sure you're getting enough sleep and eating right. Whatever you choose, take all the energy you would have put into your ex, and put it to use improving your own life. This way, you'll be ready when the next romance comes your way.