Adopt New Habits to Heal from Broken Relationships
... Do everything in love. 1 Cor 16:13-14... fools despise wisdom and instruction. Prov 1:7
What's required: Immediate change. Deliberate and purposeful change.
How it works: Supports healthy growth by protecting your mind, priming your body, and enriching your soul. Put yourself in the best position to handle the stress of change.
What you should know: Mind. Body. Soul.
My own experience: I learned critical habits from counseling, books, and podcasts that are listed in part below. These served to protect my thinking, minimize the number of mistakes I made, release and forgive others - and myself, and properly deal with the stress physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Why it's worth it: You're going through serious change, and that requires deliberate and purposeful approaches to handling the stress and putting you in the best position to heal.
Healthy Habits
- Discipline. Lean muscle requires more than one workout. Exercise for 1-2 hours a day for 4 months... and you'll be shocked at the transformation. The same is true for your emotional and spiritual health. This takes work, and the results are worth it. Do these things faithfully whether you see immediate changes or not. Don't step "partially" into it. DO IT! Your mission objective is to stick to plan for four (4) months. 120 days. Your worldview will change. Future dating relationships will be healthier. You will build a core resilience, worth, love, and confidence in who you are as a person.
- Release. Properly grieve every realistic thought. Avoid fictitious scenarios. They are unhealthy. Actively forgive and actively release, vocally, out loud, constantly throughout the day with every single thought that comes up. "[Name], I release you to be your best and I forgive you." I did this hundreds of times. The freedom it brings later is healthy and complete. It takes time, but constantly release and forgive.
- Forgive. Important tip on forgiveness. You don't have to know *how* to forgive... Sometimes you can't see how you ever could. But you must. Forgiveness isn't for them. This doesn't absolve them of wrong. Forgiveness is for you and your bitterness. Again, you don't have to know how to forgive... just say it. Vocalize it. Out loud. Under your breath. Hundreds of times if needed, even if you don't believe it. And eventually, after saying it enough times, you'll find that you have forgiven them. Get into the habit of reflexively saying those words every time a half-way negative thought or disappointment comes to mind. You'll be healthier for it.
- Respond with grace. Accept that you have no control over the other person and that they have free will, free reign to make whatever decisions they want. You can choose to respond or react – big difference between the two – to every decision they make. Reactions are spontaneous and dangerous because they are without thought or wisdom. Respond with grace, love, forgiveness, kindness, gentleness, goodness, self-control. (consider 1 Cor 13:4-7 and Galatians 5:22). As a Christian the Holy Spirit lives inside of you and this is the time to let the fruit of the Holy Spirit overflow out of you. This only happens if you are actively feeding your Spirit with prayer, scripture, and humility.
- Change your environment. Change furniture, change decorations, change up the house, change routine, create better habits, create better routines. Change your clothes, you have a new life and new existence. The sooner that you move into your new existence, the better off that you are going to be. Put away the pictures and memories.
- Don't use sex to get over the pain. I've spoken with people that have - and have not. I chose not to sleep around and I'm thankful for that decision. I have more respect for myself. Yes - it gives you a break mentally. Yes - we are sexual. Yes, it's easy to get these days. But sex can build powerful bonds and further wreck you and/or your brief partner. Respecting the different views on the subject, I'm glad I made the decisions I made.
- Hang around constructive friends. Be careful what friends you keep. Do you really trust their counsel?
- Stop calling your Ex. They left and you need to move on. It will take time before you are healthy enough and strong enough, grieved enough, released enough, forgiven enough to be around them. But do the work and the result is rewarding and truly the best for both of you. Doing the work is also best for the kids if you have kids between you.
- Don't drive by. Don't text. Don't ask questions. Don't innocently try to be involved. Let go! *Then later* this can foster trust. Trust allows a healthy relationship for co-parenting and an appropriate (respect the new person in their lives!) friendship. Their role with respect to you is different, and you both need to establish and abide by healthy boundaries.
Repeating from the Mind Page
- Learn about the grieving process. Study this. Do the work, and you will be in a much better spot in months... as opposed to winging it and struggling for years. Actively approach the healing with wisdom and maturity. Approach it with purpose. That's what this website is intended to help you do - as a start - not the cure.
- Continue to grieve. You'll continue to revisit and grieve over time, but you'll have core truth and a healthy understanding of what's happening. The frequency will lengthen over time, and the duration will shorten from days, to hours, to minutes. Expect it and let it happen. Don't hold it in. Get a (healthy) counselor and learn how to process and move on. You'll find yourself talking with others that have gone through divorce or serious life challenges and start picking up on signs showing they clearly haven't learned to grieve, let go, forgive, and move on... sometimes years after the event.
- Privatize. Share your thoughts and emotions with a counselor, your journal, a few friends - but NOT the other person. Privatize your feelings and don't put more fuel on the fire. Release. Let go. Forgive.
- Be present. Learn about core mindfulness. Learn how to breathe. Consider yoga. Learn how to experience and process your emotions. Don't bottle your feelings inside. Don't *tough it out*. Cry. Process. Let go. Explore how you think as you process and grieve. Explore where your thoughts go. Practice capturing negative thoughts (experience them - don't be afraid - but don't let them rule you) with affirmative statements. Continuously vocally release and forgive.
Review the Quick List
- These should be part of your new reality starting now.
- Get and STAY in counseling.
- Read or listen to several books when you travel, as you hang out, as you sleep. TV off...
- Listen to podcasts from well-known pastors and positive life coaches (e.g. Knowledge for Men because it stays positive and uplifting).
- Read affirmations 3x's per day or more.
- Read scripture. Bible, online, app, cards, whatever it takes. Every. Single. Day.
- Pray like you never have before. He listens. He doesn't want your perfect words. He wants your honesty. If God already knows your thoughts, why would you put up some pretense or wall? Why would you hide your real thoughts? He created you and knows how you think.
- Set goals. Low-Med-High goals.
- Exercise, work out, and sweat. See more under the Body tab.
- Get and stay involved in church. Critical!
- Get and stay involved in a bible study group. Critical!
- Build and expand your circle of friends. These should be healthy people of the same sex that are willing to love you where you are now. Good influences.
- Minister and mentor others. Serve. Pass on what you can. Give what you have. You grow and heal in the process.
- Journal. Privatize your thoughts and emotions. This is one of the most effective ways to process your emotions. It is among the most powerful healing tools available to you. Build truth and write down the truth as you journal.
- Share your story with others. Pass on what you've learned as you grow through this process. Don't just go through it. Grow through it.
