In my earlier blog, “When you lose someone to find yourself – 4 lessons I learnt while coping with loss”, I spoke about the lessons one can learn from a breakup or loss. While it is all great to say that life gives you the opportunity to find yourself when you lose someone; how does one do that? Following are some ways that might help you in your journey of self-discovery.
- Find a purpose – so far, maybe the only purpose of your life was pleasing your loved one. Just like addictions are replaced with another, the smartest thing to do is give yourself a purpose. It could be your career, children, and social cause… anything that makes you stand up and take notice of yourself.
- Pursue a hobby – go back to the basics to find who you really are. I’m sure you have always had a hobby, go all out and pursue it – body building, dance, cooking, swimming, gardening or writing. Let it be anything, let it be worthwhile your time and energy. Believe me, it will take away a lot of your energy and focus in the right direction
- Avoid romantic movies – especially if you are going through a heartbreak, avoid romantic movies at any cost, at least till the time you are not confident that you can handle those scenes and they won’t remind you of your past. Instead watch comedy, action, thriller etc. comedy will light you up and give you a sense of humor whereas action movies will help me become more aggressive towards your goals
- Avoid negative company – all your friends or acquaintances who will sympathize with you and cry along are great but not ideal for a time when you are reeling loss. They won’t help you overcome loss. Instead look for people who call a spade a spade and tell you the truth about yourself
- Don’t look for re-bounds – the worst you can do to yourself and someone else is to look for a re-bound. You never know, the one who left you may have used you as his/her re-bound. You will only continue the cycle. In essence, you will hurt someone else in the same way you were hurt. And mind you, it won’t help you in overcoming your loss; instead you will become the reason for someone else’s pain
- Don’t hurry into another relation – take your time, work on yourself – your dreams, hobbies or whatever it is you choose. Before you start looking out again, re-gain yourself and come out of your past completely. You don’t want someone else to be a bad pancake for you so take time to find someone else. Remember, the void is within you. Don’t hurry into finding someone else to fill it. You will end up with nothing but more void and more pain in someone else’s life also
- Don’t doubt or pity yourself – your life and you are much more precious than you think you are. You can’t judge yourself only from a single person’s perspective. We start doubting our self and think lowly or our self. Sometimes, we even end up believing that we won’t find anyone after this or that we don’t deserve anyone. You can’t and shouldn’t doubt yourself because of someone who didn’t even bother be in your life.
In conclusion, it is okay to lose someone, even if that someone is the one you loved the most in this world. When you let go of that person completely and you stop doubting or pitying yourself for the loss, you start realizing how amazing and unique a person you are. If you’re strong enough, you also realize how important this entire episode was in your life because this loss would have taught you many lessons, it may have shown you some sides of yours that you never knew are there in you. You start valuing people even more. If you take your loss positively, you start loving back those who love you. In a nutshell, you start living again. Remember, you will never the same You as you were before the loss. You will be very New YOU. It is your choice now, if you want the new You to be better or worse. Only when you decide to make it the better You, you actually lose someone to find yourself… the New, Better YOU.