The New Year seemed to have passed, and the sting of an unhappy, unromantic Valentine’s Day is over, too. No wonder you feel sad. No matter how much you fight the influence from what seem like manufactured holidays, it’s still hard to beat the blues from breakups and being alone.
One of my popular videos is the one below about New Year’s Love Resolutions and getting over heartache. Even though this video was made for the holiday season, it shows you with props the best tips for beating the blues and getting back out there in the world. It’s a brief video called How to have a happy, independent New Year after a Breakup, and you won’t need to write down the tips. I’ve included them, along with others below.
Best Tips for Beating the Breakup Blues
1. Don’t wall up your heart to love. Yes, it’s certainly okay to cool it with guys for a while, but don’t make it your life mission to go it alone. When you volunteer to limit your life, you invite even more problems. You not only get rusty in reading men, but you also lose your ability to connect with you. You forget the signs in your body about your physical and emotional reactions when you are with men. You get stale in recognizing when a man is not into you or when he has not been kind—or when he has been too full of himself! Think that you would always catch these signals? Read the next warning.
2.Don’t put yourself in a situation where you a crisis makes you open your heart again. Illness in you or loved ones, as well as other scary events such as job loss, reduction in salary or loss of your home, just might make you grab the next man who comes along. You are in such a needy state that you overlook or minimize negative signals from the man.
3. Instead, learn about you first before you start dating again. Look in the mirror. Take a good look. Get brave enough to take a deep inventory about you. It’s not easy to accept your past mistakes, but, you know what? Say these next sentences out loud: “Life and happiness require trial and error. It’s impossible not to make a love mistake. Even swearing off men is a mistake that does not guarantee happiness.” So stop beating yourself up for things that happen to everyone—and are part of life!
4. Don’t hide out at work. The danger of becoming “all work and no play” is—yes, you probably guessed it—it takes you out of learning about you and men and your emotional needs. And then, when things go not so well in life, you once again run the risk of grabbing the next man who happens to land in your life. Never volunteer to close a door!
5. Don’t look for unicorns. What? I’m trying to tell you that when you look for that perfect One, Soul Mate, you may as well be looking for a unicorn. It is a good idea to have a rated checklist of the things you need in a relationship. But it’s not a good idea to have a list so long and so filled with unnecessary things such as he has to have steel blue eyes and gorgeous hair—and oh, a huge wallet. When your list is impossible to fill, then you are using its impossibility to prevent you from ever finding a good match—and therefore avoiding any chance of choosing wrong and getting hurt in love.
6. Don’t believe old sayings about finding love. “If it’s meant to be, love will just happen” or “Love happens best when you are not looking” are, once again, powerful beliefs that prevent you from the trial and error journey—and disappointments and hurts—in learning about you through your love missteps. Get out there.
7. Don’t spend too much of your time on traditional dates. Life with a partner is spent doing rather mundane things. So, hang out on your dates. Make them resemble real life. Hang out with each of your friends. Observe your man’s interactions. It’s still wise to ask him questions, but ask smart questions that give you a clear picture of what it might be like actually to be and live with this man. Does he travel a lot? Is he a slob? Does he spend every spare minute watching his favorite shows or video programs? Would your life consist of cooking and cleaning, waiting for him, doing only things he likes? Would your life consist of you solving all his problems?
See? What good does it do to spend your dates in romantic corners and runaway short vacations? Do normal things like cooking a casual dinner, running errands or wandering around local events together?
I hope these tips help you get brave!
Thank you for stopping by. Please tell me your story about how you solved a similar problem. It will help others. To learn more about me and my research-based, self-help books for women, “Smart Relationships: How Successful Women Can Find True Love” and “The Love Adventures of Almost Smart Cookie,” please go to my website www.lovevictory.com to sign up for more tips, and follow me on Twitter and Facebook
I wish you the best!
