Do You Need a Breakup Makeover?

Every breakup is unique, but they all share one thing in common: they are the end of one thing and the beginning of another.

Breakups can leave you feeling hollowed out, displaced and rudderless. They can take an emotional, psychological and even physical toll on you if you allow it to.

Conversely, once you have accepted the relationship’s end, a breakup can be seen as just another doorway, a threshold between the life you had and the one now waiting for you. You can use this opportunity to refamiliarize yourself with dreams or personal goals you may have put aside while in your relationship and set forth writing your own story once again.

All seasons come to an end. Some transition peacefully and pleasantly while others rage and storm and grapple to stay awhile longer. Neither is wrong but they will end, nonetheless.

We are born, reshaped and reborn with each new person, experience and perspective, so you may as well settle in for the entire trip. Set your heels, hold on tight if it helps, but let go when the situation calls for it and allow the river and the seasons take you where they will.

Take heart. You’re not alone. We all get caught up eventually and either navigate or are ushered along to exactly where we are meant to be.

In the meantime, here are some helpful things to consider in order to give yourself a breakup makeover, while waiting for the wind or the water to rise.

1. Change your surroundings

For instance, redecorate your bedroom and reclaim places in your home that are important to you. Go on a trip, somewhere you always wanted to see. Or spend time somewhere that brings you peace. It’s so important to focus on your individual wants and needs for a time while you map out your next chapters.

2. Journal

Write. Write a lot, even if you’re not sure what to write about. Write the way you did when you were younger, when you were more self-focused and observing the beauty and the world around you. It’s still there. It never left. You will find in time that your ability to “see” has returned, as if a veil has been lifted and light and color have returned. This is the gift of self-reflection and observation that we often relinquish if we’re not fierce or obstinate enough to uphold and defend in the throes of a relationship or the long Waltz of a marriage.

3. Spend time with friends

Laugh. Spend time with people that get you there. Revisit and reconnect with those that know the “you” you and they love most. This is a chance for renewal, for reframing, for rebooting and reshaping your life and the way you want to live it. We do not all get this opportunity and if we do it does not come around often.

Enduring friends will help remind you of any unclaimed dreams and may even join you on new quests, adventures and misadventures in any attempt to retrieve them.

4. Create your perfect partner avatar

Now, if you’ve come this far and are now sidling down a path toward any misplaced dreams or picking up your identity at the carousel where it was long ago checked, it may be time to check seat assignments for the future. Take some time to consider the profile of your perfect partner in crime or lifelong companion. What does that person look like? What baggage might THEY be attempting to get through “carry on,” and will they pass all security checks?

Make three paragraphs that describe this perfect person for you, as you imagine your life unfolding in an “around the world” multi-destination set of flights to parts unknown, in the magical future, where you may go to all the places you want to go to, once again.

Final Thoughts

“In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.”

This is often misattributed to Buddha, but it is from “Buddha’s Little Instruction Book,” by Jack Kornfeld. Although never uttered by Buddha, it is nonetheless a wonderful way of looking at accepting breakups and embracing life.

Good luck and Godspeed.