People Building

I’m writing this article on the advice of Beckiola, the office elf. She thought it would make a good subject as she has recently experienced a relationship break-up.

Here are some of the key things to remember and do in break up situations to help you get you through to the other side:

Change location. Call to mind an image of the face of the person you have broken up with. Then call to mind the image of someone you have previously separated from and got over. Notice how the location is difference. Now put the person you have broken up with in the location of the person you have got over and notice what’s different. I just tried this with Becki and she said that moving the recent ex to the place where the past ex was made him feel smaller and not so in the way of her future. Instead he was just annoying. (Which was better).

Keep a balanced memory. It’s easy if you’re feeling a bit melancholy to only remember the good times you had and what you are going to be missing out on. It’s important to remember the good times so that you don’t end up despising that person in the future but remember too the reasons why you split up. Even if you didn’t see the break up coming, the fact that they were prepared to let you go is enough to tell you that you were not meant to be together.

Remember that the bad feeling will go. It’s a grieving process and whilst you might not feel better day by day you will feel better week by week. If you were to chart your progress it would have peaks and troughs but would also show a general upward trend towards feeling better.

Standards. Use the relationship to re-evaluate the relationship standards you have for the future. If you look back on what you have just come out of and realise that there were things that you adapted to which you normally wouldn’t have accepted (like a particular level of intellect that prior to being in that relationship, if someone had asked you if that were important and you would have replied “yes” but then you disregarded that to be in the relationship you have just ended, reinstate that as a rule for next time before you go jumping in at the deep end.

Baking soda and vinegar. No one person is “bad” or horrible, they perhaps just have a different way of showing up in the world to what you do. Some two people are just not a good fit, it doesn’t mean that either of you are rubbish in anyway. I’ve probably given you this analogy before but neither baking soda or vinegar is good or bad. They both have their individual positive uses. However when you mix them together in a confined sealed space, it creates an explosion. That happens in relationships too.

Don’t look back in anger. Instead reflect on what you can learn from the experience you had. What would you do differently next time – not just what did they do wrong that you didn’t like – but how would you show up differently next time around? How could you have reacted differently in specific scenarios that would have cause something different to happen?

Most importantly of all of these things is to remember that every day you are getting better and the next time someone comes along you will make darn sure that they are of suitable enough quality before you allow them to convince you to trade in your well earned singledom.