How To Get Over Someone Who Broke Your Heart

“How to Get Over Someone Who Broke Your Heart” – including you.

This is one of the most important posts I’ve ever written. Not because I’m going to teach you how to get over someone who broke your heart with some obvious advice you’ve already heard and tried, but because it addresses something I’ve recently been through.

Something I’m still working my way through, through heartbreak, acceptance, and shame.

The only difference between now and years ago is that in the past I would have allowed my feelings associated with that experience to completely paralyze me.

The grip of that paralysis would remain until I was reduced to someone I had no choice but to hate, punish, sabotage, and disrespect.

Now, those feelings manifest in a completely different way.

That’s not to say I no longer feel the pain associated with it. I feel the pain on a deeper, more constructive level now. I’m no longer eager to put the avoidance bandage over my cancer of insecurity.

The pain hurts, but it doesn’t spread like it used to.

It’s not cancer anymore. No longer does it claim a zip code and build a home for my fears to reside in and rule.

Today, I always make sure to feel my pain to the point where it drives me to action.

The action that comes from supporting you is the sole purpose of your pain.

So, I decided to take action in the best way I know how: right here, with all of you.

A few years ago, I waved the white flag to everything but the red and pink around me. I gave in to my fears and gave up on myself. I had no direction, no friends, no purpose at all.

I wanted to die but I never tried to commit suicide. I was too afraid to try and kill myself, and to fail, and risk a life where I would be in a vegetative state; dependent on the family I was trying to prove wrong.

I needed “closure” though. I was done.

The friends I never understood. They were only doing it for themselves and did for me only a fraction of the things I did (and continue to do) for them.

Most of my family members have described me as “too sensitive.” They have approached other family members who did things to them that I would have been crucified for.

I didn’t understand. All I did was try hard.

What did I do wrong?

Why did family members, classmates, friends, coworkers, bosses, and friends always feel so disappointed in me?
Why did I always feel like they knew something about me that I didn’t yet?
Why was I never part of the joke?
Why was it so easy for everyone to pull my strings?
Why was the drama always around me?
How could they just stop talking to me without any explanation when all I did was explain my every move to these people?
When it came to knowing how to get over someone, I had no idea. I still miss my ex a year after our breakup.

I was a good person. All I did was let them, with all the love in my heart, exploit my illness to please them. I was the first one there when they needed me. I was the first to rescue them, listen to their problems, send them money I didn’t have, and help them in any way I could. What was I doing that was so bad? I needed to know. I knew deep down that they loved me. I knew deep down. So, I asked them what was going on.

Here’s what I learned…

Never ask for an explanation from the person who broke your heart. Never. This rule can never be broken.

If you’re dealing with an emotionally unintelligent, toxic person, asking them “why?” is as pointless as asking a defenseless child to go and ask “why?” to the bully who just spat on them in the cafeteria.

If you’re dealing with someone who has proven their ability to humiliate, deceive, and hurt you, they will never, I repeat NEVER, empathize with you in the way you want and deserve.
You should never, ever look for an explanation when it comes to abuse, toxicity, or negative people who bring you down in any way. You should always act on their bullshit by immediately cutting off emotional and/or physical contact with them. More on that later.

This was very hard for me to learn: just because someone is related to you or has a long history with them, it does not give them a special pass.

All my life, I have been hypersensitive to people’s intentions – especially when it comes to family members and lovers. I knew their intentions were not bad and that deep down they loved me… but I always ended up falling short and breaking my heart in the end. I realized that family, lovers, and friends can love me with all their hearts and never intend to hurt me… but you can’t continue to put up with other people’s dysfunction just because you know deep down that they have an intention, but their actions simply don’t match up.

I was not the victim here. Remember – your boundaries and tolerance go hand in hand. You will only tolerate people who treat you as badly as you treat yourself. My problem was that I was allowing the good intentions of others (because we had a history, they were my relatives, I knew they weren’t “bad” people, they were kind to others, etc.) to cloud my vision of the harmful flaws in their actions.

How can intention have any value if it negates the action? We need to stop giving perceived intention so much power.

This is why I had such a hard time figuring out how to get over someone I loved.

I was investing my emotional and physical time in people who were my anchor. The moment I wanted to break the anchor (implement healthy boundaries), I felt guilty.

I have a very close family member who I can say without a doubt loves me with all his heart. He is also emotionally unavailable and his inability to communicate makes me doubt my worth and feel bad about myself.

I had spent my entire life relying on my belief in his good intentions. Not only did this make his actions even more mysterious and painful, but it also made me even more thirsty as an adult for friends and romantic partners who were also unavailable. I needed these people to validate my words so I could undo the pain he had caused.

Bottom line: I was riddled with guilt and surrounded by people who may not have been “bad people,” but who were bad for me.

So… I gave up.

I gave up. I gave up on relationship defeat. I gave up on the never-realized dream of superficial perfection. I gave up on not being chosen, not being heard, not being “right,” not being popular, not “winning.” I told myself, “These people will never be who they initially presented themselves to be or who blood ties and fairy tales dictated they would be. I lost. I walked out of this dysfunctional nightmare. I was done.”
The moment I surrendered to defeat and accepted that “loss,” was the moment the universe showed me what I had truly gained in the process of that loss.

I moved to another city, changed my phone number, and disappeared completely (I’m not saying that’s what you should do, that’s just what I did). People thought I was going crazy. And who doesn’t love watching a train wreck? I ignored it all because, for the first time in my life, I didn’t care about it.

Little by little, I started sleeping better. My health improved—both emotionally and physically. I became more protective of my progress than I was of scratching the mosquito bite that was causing me trouble.

I started feeling my feelings through writing.

In the process of ridding my life of the mocking crowd that surrounded me, the mocking crowd in my head became less and less influential until it was reduced to an occasional nuisance that I could tell to go to hell at any time (by staying on my white horse).

I was no longer afraid.

I created this blog in the process and I never gave up. Little by little, I began to attract people into my personal life and around the world who became the family and friends I always wanted and never had.

They all showed me that I was not alone and that I was making a difference. So, I kept going. I connected with clients and readers more than I did with most people I was related to. Ours is not a lazy relationship. It is the most intimate and meaningful of connections—a connection through the pain that does everything to trick us into believing we should be silent because we are alone in it.

We are programmed to want love, validation, support, and encouragement from the kind of people who will never be able to give it to us. And unfortunately, those people can be related to us.

We tie our worth to it. We risk our health for it. We live for it.

And that’s when I realized exactly how to get over someone you love.

Knowing how to get over someone you love isn’t about a magic formula or a spell. It’s about identifying the love you have and the goodness that is there. No matter how small or insignificant it may be. It’s about holding on to that for life and realizing that if you’re going to let anything define your worth, it’s better to let that define you than to lack it.

It’s also about disconnecting. That’s why I created this course. I wanted to redefine what disconnecting means to me and what it has done to me. I connect with the people I see and interact with every day. It’s not always about disconnecting physically. It’s also about disconnecting emotionally. Not so that you become an empty, emotional statue, but so that you can become more available to those who are equally available to you. This is so that you can let go of the pull of unavailable people and start being attracted to what’s good for you.

Trying to figure out how to get over someone who treats you with respect, empathizes with you, and communicates is hard enough. It’s the worst thing ever. It’s painful.

But in my experiences, I’ve found that trying to get over toxic people is much harder—which is so weird. Right?

Shouldn’t it be the fact that…

You were treated like trash.

Your mental health came at the expense of this person’s selfish agenda.

This person was able to justify deception and betrayal and put their selfish agenda ahead of you, your trust, and your heart.

You were demoted to a personal mat while their needs were met.

This person wasn’t consistent.

They were selective in their level of love, honesty, compassion, and respect.

They made you doubt yourself and your worth.

Shouldn’t all of the above make it easier to move on and get over someone?

Shouldn’t all of the above make it much easier to be indifferent to this person, their bullshit, and any strings or crumbs they might throw your way? No. Why? Because entering into any kind of relationship with this person requires compromising your self-esteem, and as long as your self-esteem remains compromised, you will always cling to what these people have no way of offering: commitment, empathy, and connection. You will always be drawn to the one thing they are good at creating: distorted reality.

Only give your time and emotional energy to people who care about you and who are interested in you through actions that do not betray their words. Listen to people’s patterns (which are made up of their actions) first. They will tell you everything you need to know.

And remember—you cannot fully listen to anyone’s actions until you are willing to listen to your own. Make the committed decision to do better because you are better and you deserve better. What you feel is normal. We are conditioned to want what is limited. It’s okay if you’re talking about a fancy car or a pair of designer shoes, but not about things like maturity, honesty, empathy, and humanity.