“How long does it take to forget someone?” This is one of those questions I’ve Googled so many times that I can type it out at lightning speed without even looking at the keyboard.

I speak to men and women every day who have gone through a painful breakup. Many of them are still trying to figure out how to forget their ex while dating someone new who, while seemingly ticking all the boxes, only highlights their ex’s absence.

And we all know… the more you search for an eraser, the more highlighters you find.

I’ve been through breakups where I felt suicidal. I was convinced I would never love again and that life as I knew it was over.

And in a way, it was.

The one thing I built my whole worth and happiness on was gone.

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I don’t want to sugarcoat it and give this clichéd answer that life didn’t really end and that I quickly got my strength back and lived happily ever after, the end.

IDID. My life as I knew it was definitely over.

Like the death of a loved one, the death of each relationship took something from me that I’ve never quite gotten back to the way it was before.

How long does it take to get over someone? I don’t think there’s any set time. I’ve been in long-term relationships that were easier to get over than relationships I was in for a few months and… a year later, I was still trying my best to put one foot in front of the other. All this from a relationship that lasted three months.

How do you forget someone who saw your soul?

Is there a way to undo the undoable?

How are you supposed to live your life authentically in complete contradiction to the reality of your grief?

Today, as far as I’ve moved away from my past relationships and friendships that ended in painful breakups, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t still haunted by the most random things on occasion. You never know when the ghosts of past friendships and relationships will come calling.

But over time, you realize that these ghosts are just aftershocks of an emotional earthquake that shattered the foundation on which your emotional home was built.

It can be much easier to experience these consequences once you know they won’t tear your home down again.

So, how do you secure this knowledge?

How long does it take to get over someone?

It doesn’t matter how much you know you need to get over a breakup—you first need to ask yourself if you want to get over it now.

Remember, as humans, we won’t engage in anything that we don’t get satisfied with—even if that satisfaction is the comfort we get from knowing our sadness, our stalking, our obsessive thoughts, our self-blame, our misery, our “what ifs,” our “could have/should have,” and our abandonment issues. Liz Brown taught me that.

How long does it take to get over someone after a breakup? Everyone is different, but this will help…

Here are five major things that kept me from moving on and being the one who walked away…

If you understand and apply the lessons, you will be recovering and living your best life much sooner than your heart can believe right now.

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How long does it take to get over someone? Killer #1: Unhealthiness is the hardest.

Understand that the worst relationships have their best moments. That’s all they are—moments.

The value of those individual moments is magnified exponentially. It’s not because of their actual quality, but because of the literal lack of quality of the relationships surrounding them.

Unhealthy relationships are the hardest to overcome because they always have little seeds of ambiguity, questioning, and lack of understanding/closure that create a lot of anxiety (and what seems like an unbearable amount of “unfinished business”). The fear that your ex will move on and go back to the way they were in the beginning takes over.

The only way out is: Decide to unsubscribe from the fake news about your insecurities.

Emotionally available, compassionate, responsible, mature adults do not suddenly turn into detached, emotionally bankrupt, dishonest, and toxic people because of something you do or don’t do.

No matter how badly you’ve been treated or how wonderful you’ve been, no one has the power to spark a complete moral and personal transformation in me.

You don’t have that power either.

You’re not a toxic talker. You’re a person who commands respect through your actions and allows people to own their behavior.

It’s normal for you to miss the fast food that is good at the moment. Deceiving yourself to the point of calling yourself caviar does nothing but push you out of your comfort zone and make you your emotional fast-food factory.

How long does it take to get over someone? Killer #2: Fear that blocks comfort.

Looking back, I was more afraid of giving up on my hopes, dreams, plans, and “our routine” (even if it was destructive/draining/toxic), than I was of losing my ex.

Never be afraid of losing a toxic person. If someone has proven capable of devaluing you, cheating on you, being cold or cold, evasive or deceitful, trust me when I say that they were already lost when you found them.

Hold on to the parts that feel good. They are there.

I learned through yoga that when you stretch a tight muscle, yes, it will feel uncomfortable, and sometimes painful, but other muscles feel good during that stretch because they are always working harder than others.

Be comfortable that no one is cheating on you, lying to you, deceiving you, giving you an STD, messing with your mind, sending you conflicting text messages, texting you drunk or high, keeping online dating profiles open, or deflecting blame.

If you allow fear to creep in, it will disrupt your innate ability to experience emotional release and relief.

It’s much easier to decide to stop arguing and denying reality than it is to blindly believe bullshit.

You’ve already done enough in your relationship. Why continue?

How long does it take to get over someone? Killer #3: Blindness. You can’t accept what they are until you recognize what they aren’t.

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Looking back, the hardest thing for me was not giving up on the one chance I had at living a happy life forever. The hardest thing for me was accepting who my ex had revealed himself to me and then letting go of everything he represented.

If you’re afraid your ex will move on and become steady, compassionate, and in a better relationship with a better partner, ask yourself, “Where am I giving this person credit that he or she doesn’t yet (or never) deserve?”

If it takes you to shine a light on a relationship/partner so you can admire their light, trust me when I say, their glow won’t last once the light leaves the building.

You created the happiness you felt in your relationship.

How long does it take to forget someone? Killer #4: Prioritizing safety at all costs.

No matter what happened in your breakup, most breakups are painful to some degree. Because of this, we cling to what makes us feel safe.

The moment I thought about starting over — putting myself out there again, dating someone new, stepping out of my comfort zone, and taking action… it was too much.

So, I retreated to my emotional comfort of feeling inadequate and like I deserved what I got. This led to a dangerous delusion and denial of my ex because I couldn’t separate what he did/didn’t do from my feelings of worthlessness.

Just as you can’t be in denial and acceptance at the same time, you can’t be avoidant and responsible at the same time. I couldn’t let go.

Holding on to your ex in any way will prolong the time it will take you to get over the breakup.

You need to disable the part of you that believes you can’t be happy without a toxic person. Not strengthen it by avoiding the responsibility you have for your own experiences in this life.

I have caused myself and others so much unnecessary pain by giving a false narrative to the breakup simply because it fit the pain of my childhood. This has accomplished nothing but a massive reliance on other people’s validation and tying all of my worth to making cats (toxic people) bark.

How long does it take to get over someone? Killer #5: Resistance, shutting down, and accepting your mortality.

Give in to the pain and work your way through it because it is here to pass, not to stay.

How long does it take to get over someone? My best answer: Forget about time. Focus on creating space. Don’t listen to anyone who says you have to be over it by now or has any opinion about specific time frames – there is no time because no one else is you.

We all process pain in our own time.

If you can’t stop stalking social media, don’t worry about it now. It’s okay. As long as you go through this process with the filter of reality and understand that the person in those photos is someone you don’t know, you’ll be fine. Grieve the death of the person you thought you knew.

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If you don’t, you’re breathing life into a fictional character fueled by your feelings of inadequacy.

Even after breakups where I felt like there was no way I could ever be okay again, guess what? I lived. I lived despite what died inside of me. I realized that the parts of me that died were never meant to live—the insecurity, the self-doubt, the inability to call it a duck when it’s pecking at feathers in a pond.

I didn’t take it day by day or hour by hour. I took it minute by minute.

Slowly, time passed and I realized I hadn’t felt a pain contraction in a while.

I heard our song, walked across the street, thought of us… and it wasn’t as painful or “close” as it had been before. There was space around everything.

Not because I woke up one day, read an article, and suddenly space was created. It was because, little by little, I stumbled, crawled, fell again, got up again, and eventually… walked away from him.