How to get over a breakup Archives

How to Get Over a Breakup – Part 4 (Moving Forward and Dating Again)

Let the morning bring me word
of your unfailing love,
for I have put my trust in you.
Show me the way I should go,
for to you I lift up my soul.
Psalm 143:8

Sunrise in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains can be spectacular. The first rays of sunlight crawl across the eastern plains, and gradually increasing in brightness to reveal—like footlights on a stage—the splendor of majestic Pikes Peak.

Goodbye darkness, hello light!

It’s a fresh start in your heart, too, as breakup pain is fading and hope is waking up.

Now it is day, and you are rebuilding—waking up to the rest of your life, finding purpose and vision, and learning to make healthier choices in relationships next time.

You have changed.

And, like re-growth comes after a forest fire, restoration comes after a breakup too. Your past will always be a part of who you are; history happened. But as you walk forward by faith, you discover new companions like inner strength and unexpected joy. Hope arises.

Things start to get better.

As you learn to live “beyond the breakup” and find your way forward, you discover that letting go of the past is truly possible.

You come alive again and remember things you’ve forgotten or put aside like: gratitude, friendships, serving others and maybe even living your dreams.

The promise of a new day signals a chance for new beginnings. And when the time is right, you may want to start dating again.

Dating again—and making better choices.
In this new season of your life, you may want to think about how you will do things differently in your next dating relationship.

Think about the kind of person you want to date and how you’ll date—the world’s way or God’s way. In Western culture, dating is often recreational and include levels of emotional and physical intimacy that are contrary to Christian beliefs.

For the Christ-follower, we choose to follow God’s Word, the Bible for how to treat people in life. And while the Bible does not have an Intro to Dating 101 section, we know that He desires people to treat each other with honesty, respect and honor.

We can look at the commands of living a holy life and apply them to all our relationships, including dating and marriage. The book of Ephesians lists a few:

Be completely humble, be patient, bear with one another (4:2);
Speak truthfully (4:25);
In your anger do not sin (4:26);
Build up others with your words (4:29);
Get rid of bitterness (4:31);
Be kind and compassionate;
Forgive each other (4:32); and
Live a life of love (5:2).

Sounds like a good place to start.

Finding Mr. Right
When you think about whom you want to date or marry, many essential traits come to mind. What do you want in another person? Whom do you want to become?

Here are five traits to consider—to be and to look for as a Christian who wants to connect with another believer—Christian, Communication, Character, Chemistry, and Calling.

Christian means that the other person has a committed walk with God, He has accepted Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, and he’s on a path of growth and discovery. What else does that mean for you? Do you want someone who will attend church with you every Sunday? Do you want to pray together as a couple? Think about how you want to live out your spiritual life with another person.

Communication is talking and listening, building rapport and intimacy, sharing, and more. What kind of communication important to you in a relationship? Are you comfortable going deep in conversation? What is “good communication” to you?

Character refers to temperament, personality and moral fiber. Does he have integrity? Does his keep his promises? How do your personalities mesh? How do you handle conflicts when they arise?

Chemistry is another word for attraction. Is he handsome in your eyes? Does he have qualities that appeal to you? Of course, chemistry and attraction are important in a relationship, but true beauty is more than a perfect smile or fit body. It’s both inner and outer qualities, and how that person makes you feel.

Calling is the term I’ll use here for God’s vision for your relationship. Is it right for the long term? Has God called you to marriage with this man to be his life partner? Of course, you don’t know that at the start of a relationship. As you get to know each other, and every step of the way, be in prayer about God’s leading for you two as a couple.

Look how far you’ve come in your heart healing journey!

Despite the darkness, morning always comes.

Remember, that even on days when clouds block the sun’s rays, the sun is still there—even when you cannot see it. Likewise, obstacles will come in your love life, too. But the light of God’s love and truth remains constant, even when you cannot see or feel it.

With God’s power and presence, you can move forward with hope and confidence.

It’s a brand-new day!

By Jackie M. Johnson

How to Get Over a Breakup – Part 3 (Healing Emotions and Forgiveness)

O LORD my God, I called to you for help and you healed me.
Psalm 30:2

After the sun has set on your relationship, and you’ve gone through the darkest time, you’re farther along the heart healing journey.

It’s nearly Dawn.

Here, you are still processing the pain, but you are also continuing to look ahead to the future.

It’s a time of adjustment and emotional repair to steady yourself after a tidal wave has rocked your love boat. Even a sailboat after a squall needs some time in dry dock to repair the hull and mend the sails. There will be new adventures ahead, but for now, it’s heart restoration time.

The next step in the process is to deal with your emotions and discover the healing power of forgiveness.

A lot of singles choose to ignore the pain of getting dumped, and think it will just go away.

The thing is, without dealing with your feelings, you wind up carrying your breakup baggage into the next relationship—and the next.

But when you do go through the heart healing process instead of avoiding it, you will be better prepared to find and keep the lasting love you truly desire.

Healing emotional pain
Pain, anger, resentment and betrayal are thorny issues. Rejection hurts, and the loss of love and affection can make us do crazy things sometimes. Instead of stuffing your emotions or doing nothing, it is essential to identify, express and release your emotional pain.

Left unexpressed in healthy ways, emotional pain can wreak havoc in your love life. You may sabotage a perfectly good relationship because of your own commitment fears. Or, you may withhold affection and trust because others have wounded you deeply.

One huge emotion people feel after a breakup is rejection. When someone you love pushes you way, it hurts. And you may tell yourself lies like, “No one will ever love me.” But keep reminding yourself of God’s unchanging truths. Because truth combats lies like light overcomes the darkness.

The truth is….not being chosen doesn’t mean you’re not acceptable.

The truth is…you are still worthy and wonderful whether the person who left you realizes it or not. You may not feel very wonderful right now, but don’t let what one person thinks erode your sense of self.

The truth is…you will always be significant and important in the eyes of the One who loves you most: God. You are worth being loved well. And, God has His best for those who wait on Him.

Forgiveness: the key to your breakthrough
What helped me most to move forward in my past breakups has been the healing power of forgiveness—when God gives you the ability to forgive the person who hurt you, and forgive yourself.

When you don’t forgive, and hold onto the pain, it hurts you—not the other person. Pent up pain turns into bitterness, resentment, or offense and the emotional poison works its way into other areas of your life.

Sometimes you may think that if you forgive someone, you let them “off the hook.” And there needs to be justice. But forgiveness is not forgetting about what happened or acting like everything is okay. It doesn’t mean that you condone what happened, agree with it or like it.

Instead, you’re putting them on God’s hook, so to speak, not your hook, and trusting God to deal with it fairly because He said He would. God ensures justice is served; not you.

“Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.” (Romans 12:19)

Indeed, the God of unconditional love is also our advocate for justice.

Our perspective changes when we realize what God has done for us. Because He has first forgiven us, Christ commands us to forgive. With the power God gives us—we can forgive.

Here is a helpful Bible verse: Ephesians 4:31, 32, “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

Forgiveness is the balm that heals the heart. When the pain has been dealt with you can leave the past in the past.

Lastly, it’s reassuring to know that God can see in the dark even when you cannot.

Psalm 139:11-12 reminds us, “…even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.”

God knows where you are all the time—in the midnight hour and in the noonday sun. He sees, He knows, He cares, and He will lead you through the darkness of your heartbreak and into healing and better days.

Much better days.

By Jackie M. Johnson

How to Get Over a Breakup – Part 2 (Learning from Loss)

Though I sit in darkness, the LORD will be my light.
Micah 7:8

If you’ve ever gone through a relationship breakup, you’ve probably heard something like this:

“It’s not you, it’s me.”

“I’ve found someone else.”

“This isn’t working anymore.”

Or, maybe something worse.

Whether the ending was sudden or gradual, your life has a different pace now. It has more empty spaces. But unfortunately, you may want to fill the absence with what you think will satisfy—and it could be an unhealthy way of coping. A false comforter.

Getting comfort and support is essential to the healing process. It may feel like the darkest time—like it’s always midnight—but, thankfully, light always overcomes darkness, and God provides nightlights of hope.

Here are some ideas for getting the comfort and support you need from your breakup:

• Let yourself cry. Crying is a normal and healthy response to a sad situation.

• Pray. Talk to God about your situation and invite Him into pain. Ask Him to heal and show you the way through. Rest in the comfort of the One who loves you more than you know.

• Talk with trusted friends or family members. Telling your story can help to ease your heart’s pain. When someone listens, we feel validated. However, be selective about how much you choose to tell and with whom you share.

• Write in a journal or notebook. When your feelings appear on a page (or even typed online), they are no longer swirling inside your head. You can vent your emotions, release your pain and do so in the privacy of your personal journal.

• Be encouraged. This is a time of transition. You’re going from a being couple to a single, from a “we” to a “me.” Change takes time and we all handle it differently, so be good to yourself in the process.

Grieve your losses. One of the biggest lessons I learned in my season of post-breakup darkness was the importance of grieving losses—going through not around the pain. It was a pivotal point in getting back to freedom and joy.

Here’s the thing: The pain won’t just go away if you ignore it. It can get stuck inside of you if you don’t deal with it. Emotional pain can pile up like garbage, blocking your movement forward into healing, wholeness and joy.

For some people, getting over a breakup takes a few weeks or months. For others it can take a year or more depending upon the level of relationship, the depth of love, the person’s emotional past, and how they handle emotions in general.

Everyone heals in their own way and their own timing because love and loss are unique for each person.

Here are some ideas on how to process your pain and release your sadness through grieving:

Acknowledge your loss. Getting through this season of grief and sadness begins by acknowledging that a loss has happened. Whether you left, he left, or it was a mutual agreement, something that was there is now gone.

Ask for help. Pray and ask the Holy Spirit to help you do what you cannot do on your own. With His power, you will be able to express and release emotional pain. In time you will get unstuck, and move back to feeling good again.

Recognize what you’ve lost and what remains. It can be helpful to make a list of your losses. Losing a significant love relationship is a loss, but you may have also incurred other losses during this time.

For instance, you may be feeling the loss of companionship and friendship, time spent with that person, the loss of affection and physical touch. Breaking up could mean the loss of a dream of a life together with that person.

And then make a list what remains. For example, you could list your life, your health, your family and friends, your creativity and other things. Thank God for those things.

Celebrate all you have and you will find that thankfulness leads to joy.

One day at a time, once choice at a time, healing happens.

With God’s strength at work in you, you can release the heartaches of today, and come closer to the freedom and joyful days of tomorrow.

When it feels like the darkness is closing in, trust that God is at work in your life—even when you cannot see. He will be with you through the night and lead you to hope, healing and brighter days ahead.

Just follow the Light…

By Jackie M. Johnson

How to Get Over a Breakup – Part 1 (Stabilize the Situation)

Years ago, I was talking with a guy friend (let’s call him Mitch). I was going through a heart-wrenching breakup at the time and I decided to ask him for his best advice on how to deal with it.

“So, how do you get over a breakup?” I asked my friend.

“You just do,” he replied nonchalantly.

“What do you mean? ‘You just do,’ I questioned, “How do you get over it?”

I was bewildered. I wanted action steps, a practical “how to” approach. Something.

But he had nothing to give me.

Thankfully, over the months that followed my baffling conversation with Mitch, I was able to find other avenues for healing my breakup blues.

I scoured the Bible, God’s words of life and wisdom, to find out about comfort and heart healing. I camped in the Psalms for a while and found in David a comrade. He poured his heart out to God about his trials and then looked up and worshipped Him.

Often during that tough time, I would say, “I do not understand, Lord, but I will trust you.”

I talked to my female friends. I went to a Christian counselor. I listened to praise music and went for walks in the woods talking with the Lord.

And…I found answers.

The good news is that God redeems loss and pain and heals the heart to love again.

It takes time to get over a breakup, to be sure. It also takes lots of prayer and telling yourself the truth—about your situation, about the other person, and about yourself, but healing eventually comes.

Sure, it’s not easy to deal with rejection and other myriad emotions that come from being dumped—or dumping someone else—but it is possible.

After all of my own horrible breakups, I’ve learned some helpful wisdom and was able to heal and move forward, In the process, I wrote a book called “When Love Ends and the Ice Cream Carton Is Empty” (Moody Publishers) that helps you through all of the stages of breakup pain. It also gives you what you need to know for your new beginning.

This hard-won wisdom, forged in the dark times of emotional pain, will help to lead you back into the light. The book follows the cycle of a day—twilight, night, dawn and day—as a metaphor for the healing process.

Twilight is a time of endings. The sun is setting on your hopes and dreams of a future with this person. Yet how you deal with endings (or don’t) will determine the quality of your future love relationships.

Night is the dark time; you are grieving your losses. You’ve lost love, friendship, physical touch, and more. Thankfully, God provides “night lights” in the darkness, like His comfort, wisdom and love to guide the way back to joy and new beginnings.

Dawn is symbolic of awakening. Just as the first fingers of morning inch across the horizon shining sunlight on a new day, hope awakens in your heart healing journey. You begin to learn how God redeems losses and restores brokenness. You discover your true identity as a dearly-loved child of God. You regain confidence. You start to wake up again.

Day is your path to a new beginning. You find that letting go of the past is truly possible. It’s time to move forward into your future. You come alive and remember things you’ve forgotten or put aside like: gratitude, friendships and maybe even living your dreams. Radiance has returned, and with the light of Christ in you, you are ready to be a light to the world.

I will share with you inspiration from each of those four sections in four blog posts this week. Each post will be a different aspect on the “how to get over a breakup” topic.

So, let’s get started…

In the first days and weeks after a breakup, it’s important to stabilize the situation, get the comfort and support you need and begin to grieve your losses.

Stabilize the situation.
Breakups are painful because something has been broken: your precious heart. Like a physical injury, an emotional wound needs care and recovery time.

You need to protect your broken heart just as you would protect a broken arm. If you broke your arm, you’d immediately rush to the hospital and get a cast. Why? Because a cast protects the area from further injury and it allows the healing and repairing process to begin.

With a broken heart, you also need protection in order to stabilize the situation. A heart boundary or healthy emotional wall is needed for a time and for a purpose.

That means, separating from the source of pain (being away from the person you just broke up with) so you can prevent further injury and begin the healing process.

It can be extremely difficult not to communicate with him or her, but it will be easier to heal in the end.

You may be tempted to reach out to him or her and connect because that’s what you’re used to—it’s comfortable and familiar—but your goal here is not connecting, it’s disconnecting. It feels awful and lonely and different. But that’s just part of the process.

Of course, every situation is different. I’m not saying that you have to cut off all contact completely or forever. Some women I know have been able to be friends with people they’ve dated, but not right away. A time of separation is essential if you are ever going to have a platonic friendship in the future.

Breakups can be complicated, and you may need to have a few talks to get to the finale. But use wisdom and discretion. Hard as it can be, I’ve found that being away from the other person completely, at least initially, was more healing in the long run than the slow hanging-on-to-fragments-of-what’s-left relationship death.

Pray about it and ask God how to best tie up the loose ends of your ending.

Here’s some good news: When a broken bone is healed, it grows back even stronger. In the same way that a cast on a broken arm is for a time and a purpose, healing the emotional wreckage of your breakup is also for a season.

You won’t be in this painful place forever.

And your heart may grow back even stronger.

As your Breakup Recovery Coach, I’m proud of you for taking the first steps in this journey from darkness to light—from sadness and anger back into freedom, peace and joy.

There are better days ahead. It’s time for your heart healing journey to begin.

By Jackie M. Johnson

Getting Over a Breakup – Jackie M. Johnson on Dr. James Dobson’s “Family Talk” – Day 2

Are you going through a painful breakup?

Do you know someone who is? If so, listen up.

This week I’m talking with Dr. James Dobson on his radio show, “Family Talk” about getting over a breakup and my helpful breakup recovery book, “When Love Ends and the Ice Cream Carton Is Empty.” (Moody Publishers)

Here’s the link to Day 2 of the program.

I hope it helps, heals and blesses you.

Excerpt from “When Love Ends”…

“You may not believe this right now but the day will come when you don’t think about him every day. And the mention of his name doesn’t pierce your heart like a verbal arrow.

You can drive past your special place and it no longer has a hold on you. It’s just a place. You know God loves you and he is with you and that makes all the difference.

And you come to realize that endings are a part of life and so are new beginnings.

You learn that God heals brokenness and brings joy and hope and healing and one day everything really will be OK. Maybe not today, but some day.

And one day you look up and smile as it begins to settle in your heart that God really is in control, that he cares, that he’s working all things together for the good and in the midst of your mess, God surprises you.

And things begin to change.

It’s time to heal your broken heart. The rest of your life is waiting.”

By Jackie M. Johnson

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