Today we’re going to talk about how to heal your heart. There are so many cool ways to heal your heart, and we’re going to dig into some of them!
How to Heal a Broken Heart FAQ
How does a broken heart feel?
First of all, let’s just acknowledge that a broken heart feels like pain. It feels physically, literally painful.
And it’s so interesting how you can feel collapsed. Like, you don’t have it, agitated, restless, overstimulated, exhausted, and hurting. Tight in the chest. Literally tight in the chest, right? Like you can’t breathe. Heavy, dark. Ah, that’s all so real.
And there are so many great solutions that we’re going to talk about, and I’m thrilled about that.
Know that the brain processes pain, whether it’s physical or emotional, in the same location. So even though a broken heart is an emotional experience, it is painful nonetheless. And that is real and that is literal.
And then it’s going to make sense how some of the solutions have to do with the body because you can’t separate the mind from the body. The pain center in the brain gets activated when your heart is broken.
Does the pain of divorce ever go away?
So, does the pain you’re going through from this divorce ever go away? Absolutely.
It’s going to pass, and it is so human to think, “What if this never ends?” And I’ve had that thought so many times in my life about so many various pains; the ones that seem unbearable. I don’t usually get that thought unless the pain is unbearable. But when the pain is unbearable, we women get terrified that we’re going to get stuck there. And that there’s no solution and there’s no way out.
And so if you’ve been having that thought after divorce, I know you. I see you. I’ve heard that thought. I’ve had that thought after my divorce too. It’s not real. It’s a lie.
This pain is going to go away.
Now, how quickly it goes away or whether or not it resurfaces or how thoroughly it goes away, you have a lot of control over. But, it will pass.
The heartbreak will last directly proportionate to how well you nurse your heartbreak after you are injured.
We need some kind of nursing, some care, right? And the more we women nurse ourselves and the more we allow ourselves to be nursed through this pain, the quicker you will rebound. The quicker you will heal, the more thoroughly you will heal. The more supported you will feel during your healing after divorce. I want you to remember that this heartbreak needs to be nursed well, with lots of love and TLC. And let’s get into some of the strategies of how you can stop your heart from hurting emotionally.
How can I stop my heart from hurting emotionally?
There are so many cool strategies. And some of them might be a little surprising.
Because of the mind-body connection, what you think is how you will feel physically. And how you feel physically ends up impacting how you think and how you feel emotionally.
Many of the things you can do to help nurse this heartbreak after divorce are going to be in the body realm. I have found that bodywork, having someone physically provide nursing care for your body, is incredibly impactful for heartbreak.
- Acupuncture and massage – specifically craniosacral massage – but many types of massage will help with heartbreak.
- Yoga, especially in person, with an instructor who understands heartbreak. Trauma-informed yoga is having a moment, and it will help so much with healing heartbreak.
All of these types of bodywork help heal at the intersection of physical pain and mental/emotional pain. And it’s so powerful.
How long does heartbreak last after divorce?
It is that literal, hands-on care from those healers that will help support you and heal you through it. This is like if you sprained your ankle, how bad would it hurt? How long would it last? Well, it depends on how well you nurse it, right? If you sprained that ankle, and you immobilize it, you wrap it and put ice on it, and you take some pain meds, and you don’t put too much pressure on it. It’s going to heal much faster, and it’s not going to hurt as bad. It’s the same thing with your heart.
Let’s talk about some other awesome things that women can do to nurture and nourish their hearts through this.
- Arnica is a homeopathic remedy for physical pain. But it’s very effective for grief.
- Dandelion tea is rich in antioxidants that support the heart, which is a great, helpful tool.
- There is a supplement from Standard Process called Cardio-Plus, and it is a brilliant heartbreak supplement. You often have to get it through a provider, but sometimes you can find it on Amazon. I’ve taken this on and off the last couple of years of my life because I’ve only just learned about it. It is so powerful for healing heartbreak.
- Essential oils are really lovely.
- And certain crystals help support the heart as you’re working through things.
- I’ve used many Young Living essential oil blends, to help with healing heartbreak, that are incredibly grounding. They have a great new blend called Inner Child—that one really helps with raw, raw, raw emotional stuff.
All this stuff provides this nice nursing care for heartbreak.
Bodywork. Supplements. Being tender. All allow you to stem that flow of pain that you’re experiencing. I think this is why therapy feels so good when you’re going through heartbreak.
Because when you’re heartbroken, you’re not nursing yourself very well, right? You’re just collapsed.
And so, when you can sit with your therapist and she can just hold space for you it’s going to help reduce that pain in the long run.
How can you accept a relationship is over?
When you’re working on healing your heart after divorce, you’re also working on accepting that your relationship is over. And that can be really hard. And oftentimes people don’t know how to accept when a relationship is over and they keep kind of ruminating on what was, what could be, if they only, etc.
I think moving through that as women, needing to accept that our relationship is over, calls for you to get curious about why this is unfolding in the way that it is. It calls for you to be open to the idea that you’re being funneled in a very important and valuable direction. It’s an interesting thing to take a look at.
- What have the prayers of your heart been over the last couple of years?
- What have you been praying for? Have you been praying for peace, love, or healing?
- What have been the deepest desires of your heart that you’ve been asking God or the universe for?
Because somehow, in the unfolding of all of this, you’re being funneled in the direction of exactly what you prayed for. And so, getting really curious and open-minded, and considering the idea that everything is working out for you – even though it’s coming through this heartbreak – kind of helps nudge you in the direction of acceptance, right?
So if we go back to the sprained ankle, and you refuse to acknowledge that it’s sprained. And you keep pushing hard on your body, it gets worse, not better, right? It keeps hurting, you keep not healing, and it keeps being unbearably painful. So we tell ourselves, “I can’t rest because I have to pay the bills. I have to take care of the people. I have to go to work. I have to do the things. And I have to wash the dishes.”
But sometimes we have to say, “Oh, I can’t keep standing on this ankle, or else I’m going to really cause damage. I’m never going to get better.”
And sometimes you have to come to that place of, “Fu%k, I guess I have to let go. Or else I’m going to suffer endlessly.”
I don’t want that for you. I want you to get super curious as you’re working through acceptance about what the bigger picture is. What’s the bigger picture here?
How do you cope with loving someone you can’t be with?
The next piece of this is so deep. And it’s about coping with loving someone that you can’t be with. When you’re healing your heart, figuring out how to cope with loving someone you can’t be with is, I think, one of the trickiest things in life.
It’s hard to accept that someone we love so deeply is not a great fit for us. My journey to cope with loving someone I can’t be with has been layer after layer of surrendering.
In accepting that there is more love for me available deep inside of myself and with other people than there is with certain people who I just can’t be close with.
Because it’s just not available, that process of surrendering and accepting has been so much of my work. I’ve gone through those phases of anger, rage, resentment, frustration, longing, grief, and sadness. Victimhood, right? I have gone through all of these things. And still, sometimes, sometimes daily, I find my mind looping about why?
So I keep coming back to the mat. To look at how I can heal my heart.
- How can I expand my heart?
- How can I seek those spaces and relationships with people where it feels so delicious?
- How can I forgive myself and others even more?
These are the tools that I have used over and over, day after day. Deepening my love for myself, and my self-acceptance. Because that’s what gets triggered, right?
When you love someone that you can’t be with, it’s like, “Why am I not enough? Why am I not worth it? Why can’t they just do it?”
There is so much there about accepting myself and accepting them. And to do that, we women have to unhook all this judgment. And to unhook all the judgment, we have to take a look at long-held beliefs, and long-held ideas. What people should or should not be. We hear people say things like, “children shouldn’t be abused” and “mothers shouldn’t do this or that.” “Spouses shouldn’t cheat.” All these statements, they’re statements of belief. About how things should or shouldn’t be. And quite frankly, they’re not real. They’re not true.
Because the reality is these things happen. And so, because they happen, and because I believe that I can live a fulfilled and happy and loving peaceful life regardless of my circumstances, then that becomes my mission.
To surrender those judgments and to find a higher way of living and loving. And it’s been quite a quest. And it drives me. It really does. It drives me. And it’s why I’m here with you today. Because this constant passion for finding love, acceptance, and peace regardless of my circumstances inspires me to share my journey.
That path of wellness – and it is beautiful. And it just keeps giving back to me as I stay on the path. So keep the faith, keep the faith. All along that path, it’s about opening your heart.
How do I open my heart after this divorce?
It’s just setting that intention that you’ll get there no matter what. And there’s no timestamp on it. There’s no due date. As long as your intention is to be able to open your heart after divorce, it doesn’t matter when.
When you set the intention, the solutions are going to come to you, and you don’t have to overthink it, and you don’t have to get anxious about it. The solutions will come because it is your deepest heart’s intention.
What happens emotionally after divorce?
Some women are not yet divorced, and they are still conflicted about the whole thing. And they want to know what happens emotionally after divorce. Because they’re trying to figure out, is it worth it? Is it the right choice? Should I stay, or should I go? Will I make the wrong decision? Or did I make the wrong decision if they’ve already gone ahead with the divorce?
And we women know that the truth is that after divorce, some things get better, and some things get worse. That some things get clearer and some things get muddier. And that’s just a very real path of deconstructing your life as you knew it, to construct a new one.
And sometimes, the reason that life after divorce gets harder is that we women are still trying to hold on to old pieces, and we’re trying to pull them forward into a new life, and they don’t fit right anymore. And we sometimes try to insist on them fitting in. We have a hard time having faith through the process. I would say emotionally, after divorce, there’s a massive release and a vast freeing, and then there’s a really big challenge to one’s faith.
Divorce is a faith walk – that I’m going to stick with this decision, and I’m going to walk in faith, knowing that this is the path that I’m meant to be on. And I’m going to embrace the path and not doubt or second guess or make myself miserable by beating myself up over whether or not it’s going perfectly. It’s OK.
I’m going to walk this path in faith. Believing that I’m on the right track. And no, it’s not going to be perfect. Along the way, it’s going to be messy as F, and that’s OK. It’s more than OK. It is the journey of the phoenix rising from the ashes, right? That phoenix is not cute. When it burns down, and it’s reborn, it’s not cute. But through that growth process, oh man, it becomes stunningly gorgeous. And that is the path you’re on. You are moving from not cute to stunningly gorgeous. And I am here for that journey with you.
How do I regain my happiness after divorce?
If you’re wondering how to regain your happiness after this divorce, you’re doing it!
- You’re on the path to tapping into the truth of this path, the truth of who you are.
- You are getting to know yourself better.
- You are focusing on healing this heartbreak.
- You are focusing on finding your way.
- You’re focusing on building a life that you can love, and that you are passionate about.
One where you feel loved and accepted by yourself, by others, and by your future partner. And know that your happiness after divorce is inevitable. So long as you remain committed to knowing and loving yourself deeply.
Because the only thing that will come with knowing and loving yourself deeply is other people knowing and loving you deeply. And with that comes happiness, joy, freedom, and peace, and abundance. And all of the things you’re looking for. You are on the right track.
Trust that. And keep following the clues, love. Keep taking a step, keep reaching out, and keep using a tool. Keep taking an action. And take something from what you read today and put it into action.
It’s not enough to just hear something, right? We, women, do have to take an action. These words create a spark, but then you gotta do the thing to really grow into it, to really learn from it, to really have the experience of it. We learn through experience more than we learn from listening.
Listening plants a seed. But then doing the action allows the seed to take root and grow. So, take some action from what you read today, and then trust that action.
I love you so much, and I cannot wait for you to heal this broken heart so that you don’t have to be in so much pain anymore.
