How to Heal and Grow After a Breakup

In this conversation, Manpreet Dhaliwal explores the complex emotions that arise after the end of a relationship. She emphasizes that feelings of grief, sadness, anger, and hope are all part of the healing process. Dhaliwal discusses the importance of allowing oneself to mourn the loss of dreams associated with the relationship and highlights the need for support from others during this time. She encourages listeners to embrace their emotions, including anger, and to find healthy outlets for expression. Ultimately, she offers hope for a brighter future beyond the pain of a breakup.

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Emails, questions:
Dhaliwalcounselling@gmail.com

Services: www.dhaliwalcounselling.com

Psychology Today Profile:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/therapists/manpreet-dhaliwal-surrey-bc/332001

Chapters

• 0:00 Navigating Emotions After Ending Relationship
• 10:45 Finding Hope After Heartbreak

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

So you have decided to end the relationship. Or the relationship has ended mutually, or the relationship has ended not at your own will or your own deciding. Whatever the way the relationship ended, you thought you were going to feel one emotion, which is relief at walking away from a relationship which was not serving you. Yet something else happens. You feel a tornado of different emotions sometimes happiness, sometimes energy, sometimes sadness and sometimes anger. You tell yourself this is not normal and you might even question whether or not you're going crazy. After all, you're feeling so many different emotions at so many different times, from smiles all the way to tears. Could this even be normal? Let me tell you one thing you are not going crazy. This is all part of the healing process. The healing process involves periods of grief and sadness, as well as rebuilding and hope. The process of grief starts when you consider whether or not to leave the relationship. It doesn't start at the end of the relationship, but it starts when you start deciding and when you start thinking about the pros and cons of the relationship and when you go through your decision making. As you go through the grief, you may experience loss and sadness, despite the relationship being an unhealthy one. This sense of loss or sadness is from the feeling that your life may not be how you envisioned it earlier or how you pictured it. There are some losses in the life you imagined that you need to mourn as the relationship comes to an end. Maybe you envisioned yourself married. Maybe you envisioned yourself married with children, living life with a family at a certain age, and now, for the time being, you have to let go of that dream. Another thing that may add to your pain is how alone you feel in the loss Because the relationship was an unhealthy one. Individuals around you may expect you to be happy. After all, you have left the relationship, which was no good. So you know they don't really understand you and at the same time, you got to put yourself in their shoes. They're seeing that you have left an unhealthy relationship, so why wouldn't you be happy? But they are unaware of the loss of broken dreams. Your friends and family may simply not understand what you're experiencing, the sense of loss you are experiencing or you're feeling. They may not know what to say or how to support you in the best way possible. In other cases, if your partner was awful, individuals may feel that you leaving your partner ends, all pain, not realizing that grief comes from the fact that the dreams related to the relationship are broken.

Speaker 1: 3:28

Now Mixed emotions arise when you grieve and as you rebuild, you see there are two polar ends that you will be moving towards through your healing journey. There will be the rebuilding goalpost and the grieving goalpost. Sometimes you will find yourself moving towards the rebuilding goalpost and other times you may find yourself moving towards the grieving goalpost. So you're going back and forth. During the rebuilding time, you might find yourself excited, hopeful, energetic and at peace. Hopeful, energetic and at peace.

Speaker 1: 4:10

These moments need to be embraced, even if they come at short spurts. It is important to find a joy in these moments. After all, grieving 24, 7, all times a day, all days of the month, will be simply too much. It'll be simply too much. No one can handle that mental toll. You need energy, you need hope. So, no matter how short these moments of rebuilding are that give you this energy, make sure to soak these moments in. At other times, you may find yourself moving towards the grieving goalpost.

Speaker 1: 4:41

Now, these moments may be tough. These moments may be ones in which you feel hopeless, afraid for yourself, upset about your future, scared about your future. Maybe you may feel hurt, you may feel sad. Moreover, you may feel heartbroken and lonely.

Speaker 1: 5:04

Anger may manifest itself differently depending where you are whether you're rebuilding or whether you're grieving. The loss in your life may make you feel angry. You may feel angry for the hurt that your partner has caused you. If you have been betrayed, you may feel anger due to the betrayal. This anger will be associated with grief. At other times, you may find your anger to be energizing. This anger may help you stay strong, rebuild your life. It may give you that energy to rebuild your life and it may give you that energy and that pull to advocate for yourself. Give you that energy and that pull to advocate for yourself. As we discussed in previous episodes, anger in women is often frowned upon, whereas anger in men is often celebrated. However, we must get away from this belief and realize anger is an emotion that we too must welcome, emotion that we too must welcome. Anger is not a problem. Anger is a healthy emotion as long as it does not lead the individual to inflict hurt or hurt upon someone else.

Speaker 1: 6:17

In the times that your anger is disempowering and associated with grief, I suggest you redirect it in different ways of expression. You may write poems to express your anger. You may write song lyrics to express your anger. Now, you don't need to be a lyricist or a singer or a poet. This is what you're doing for yourself. You never, you don't, you never. You aren't obliged to ever show your poems that you write. Whatever you write, even maybe writing in your journal, you don't ever need to show it if you don't feel comfortable showing it. This is what you're doing for yourself. So you may write for yourself, you may sing for yourself, you may dance or you may even engage in martial arts classes or martial arts exercises or kickboxing, with no real intention to achieve anything. It's just the way you are releasing that anger energy that you feel.

Speaker 1: 7:24

Once again, you may ask if he was so awful, why does it hurt so much? Why do I have to grieve? You might be holding on to the short times in which your partner was kind and good. Now you need to remember that those were probably short increment times in the relationship. However, the truth is, you need to realize that the goodness and the kindness was the way for him or her to manipulate. In other cases, the good qualities might have actually been there. At certain times, you might have even had some good moments together, and so you wish you could hold on to those moments that have been lost. In other cases, a dream has died. A dream of a family, of a happy marriage, has ended. For the period of time, you will be mourning the end of the relationship. Sure, you might find someone in the future again and remarry or be in a relationship again, but for this moment of time, you are mourning the loss of a dream with this one particular individual.

Speaker 1: 8:36

So give yourself time. Give yourself patience. Allow yourself to mourn. Allow yourself to mourn like you mourn any other ending in your life. Allow yourself to mourn. Allow yourself to mourn like you mourn any other ending in your life. Allow yourself to mourn like someone has died. Allow yourself to mourn Like the end of anything. So, noam, here is your answer to this question of am I going crazy? No, you're not going crazy. You have a right to grieve In these moments. However, like I said before, you need to give yourself patience. Patience. You need to give yourself a community of supporters, of individuals who are also patient with you and the journey that you're on.

Speaker 1: 9:25

Chances are, individuals may not realize what you need in these moments, they may simply not know what to say or what to do. They may simply see you leaving an unhealthy relationship and they might feel happy that you have left a relationship that was not serving you. So you need to be open too. You need to tell individuals what you need from them, because people can't read minds and people only know what they have been through, what they have experienced themselves. So you need to take the courage and to speak up about what you need at that moment in time, and you need to realize that you are not going crazy.

Speaker 1: 10:07

These waves of emotions are real, but they are also healthy. After all, any professional would be worried if you were instead to feel nothing at the end of the relationship, if you just went on with your life, as happy as can be after the end of a relationship. Well, some individuals may feel happy, but what I'm getting at is you are human, and to be human is to feel emotions. To be human is to feel sadness. To be human is to feel sadness. To be human is to feel anger. To be human is to feel hurt.

Speaker 1: 10:45

And let me offer you this help Many women and many men who grieve the loss of the end of the relationship. Do go on to create a beautiful new world, with or without a new partner. You may start a new business venture, take on a new hobby or maybe even find a new partner. Keep this hope alive that after the rain, the sun will shine again. The sun will shine again. My friends, I hope you enjoyed this episode and I hope you tune in for the next episodes. If you like this episode, please like the podcast. Please follow.