How to deal with heartbreak and rejection
A broken heart. Even though it is not really broken it really hurts. The person you thought is ‘The One’ left and now you have to deal with breakup pain.
The beginning is the hardest because the pain is so overwhelming that it feels like you won’t survive it. All you want is for God to bring you back together.
But the worst part is that once you start to face the pain, fear starts to pop up. The reality of the breakup brings a big cloud of depression and hopelessness that you weren’t prepared for.
And once again you are sure that you won’t make it to the other side.
But I’m here to tell you, you will.
I know, because I have been there myself. But after months of grieving and losing almost 15 pounds because I could not eat or sleep, I’ve finally healed from a very painful breakup. And in this post, I share exactly how to deal with heartbreak and rejection.
Why does heartbreak hurt so much?
Before we get into the steps you need to take to heal after a breakup, I figured it made sense to clear the air first.
As mentioned above, a breakup hurts. Not just emotionally but also physically. You can’t breathe, lose all strength in your limbs and cry uncontrollably.
In my case, I also experienced sharp pain in my stomach every time I thought of my ex. In addition, the emotional turmoil got so exhausting that I felt like I was walking around with a constant migraine.
And at one point I was wondering why does heartbreak hurt so much?
Well, the answer is that our brains can’t tell the difference between heartbreak and physical pain. Turns out that when we experience rejection the same part of our brain is activated then when we break a leg.
Meaning we process heartbreak the same way we process any other pain in our body.
How long does it take heartbreak to go away?
According to research done by Yelp Eat24, it takes about 3.5 months to get over a breakup. However, the process of “completely” healing heartbreak and moving on takes a little bit more than six months.
Of course, it also depends on the depth of your relationship, how long you were together and how strong your soul tie is.
A soul tie is the strong emotional, spiritual, and physical bond you build with a romantic partner.
It’s often forged when you sleep together, but also when you open up emotionally to each other. And that soul tie is often what lingers around after the breakup and triggers memories and a strong longing for him.
When I broke up with my ex-boyfriend it took me more than a year to heal from that breakup, because I had avoided it. Rather than tackling my soul tie head on I decided to act as I could just move on.
But the reality is unless you follow a proven system to break your soul tie, the pain of the breakup will continue to haunt you. You will continue to dream and think of him daily. And every time you do it will trigger painful emotions that are keeping you from moving on.
To help you untangle your soul tie and finally feel happy again, I created a worksheet for you. Download the FREE WORKSHEET here!
How to deal with heartbreak in 10 Steps
1. Acknowledge your heartbreak
The first thing you need to do if you want to learn how to deal with heartbreak and rejection is that you need to allow yourself to feel the pain. Maybe that means that you take a day off work, school, or your daily schedule. Assess how you feel and express your emotions.
You might have to lay in bed all day and cry, or go for a run and scream in the middle of the park.
Whatever it is that you have to do to empty yourself of the sadness and grieve (without hurting yourself or others), do it. This will help your body release some of the stress hormones.
But then once you’re done, accept that he simply was “Not The One”. Maybe he didn’t want to get married or was looking for something else. Decide to move on rather than stay in a state of paralysis for too long.
2. Forgive and Release
When I say forgive, I’m not just talking about forgiving him.
If you know me, then you know that I believe that, we women always know better. We have a holy spirit inspired intuition that usually tells us days, weeks, or months in advance if something is off, by showing us deal breakers in the relationship.
But too often we decide to ignore it and end up in a situation we could have avoided.
That’s why I want you to forgive him for whatever happened, but then also to forgive yourself for:
- letting it go on for so long
- not speaking up when you should have
- hoping and praying that something would change
Remember that God ended your relationship for a reason, and that’s okay. Forgive and release.
3. Remove him from your life
I know this one can be hard, but it’s also one of the most important steps on how to deal with heartbreak and rejection. While you might be able to delete his number from your phone, it is way harder when it comes to removing pictures of the two of you.
I advise that you remove or delete anything that triggers painful memories like pictures, texts, and social media connections.
Why? Because in a moment of vulnerability, especially late at night, these are the things that will trigger you to call or text “one last time” just to see if…
Don’t do it.
Instead, write down your feelings in a journal and pray over them and ask God to still your heart.
4. Assess your emotions and give them to God
Luckily as a Christian woman, you don’t have to overcome the feeling of heartbreak alone. But you can tap into the strength and peace that God provides. Matthew 11:28 says:
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
While God clearly does not say that he will make things undone, he does promise comfort and a break. When we go to God with our pain of rejection, getting over a breakup becomes bearable and less overwhelming.
5. Spend time with friends and family
When you are grieving the intimacy and community that your ex brought to your life. The last thing you want to do is to isolate yourself from people that can fill in for him (to a certain extent).
Reach out to family and friends and make the most of their support. Allow them to shower you with love, care, and wisdom.
You will find that their presence will distract you. And at this point, every hour you don’t think of him gets you closer to being over him.
6. Enjoy your single season
Yea, yea, yea. The last thing you want to think about after a breakup is being single. Especially, because you spend a good amount of time daydreaming about getting married.
But singleness is oftentimes a blessing in disguise. It allows you to focus all your attention on only one person – and that’s yourself.
Learn to cater to yourself and practice self-love by doing things that make you feel good. Take yourself to the movies, emphasize health & fitness, or simply make it a habit to spend an hour with the Lord in the morning, praying and meditating.
These small habits will infuse your single season with joy and help you be more patient while you wait.
7. Focus on the future
While you might be inclined to dwell in the past and daydream about the good times. Those memories will ultimately hurt you.
Let go of what was and focus on what will be. Concentrate on your relationship with God now, so that you can look forward to a more fulfilled and meaningful relationship in the future.
The thing that keeps us in bondage to our ex-boyfriends is that we are afraid of uncertainty. So, you have to create a vision of a future that you enjoy and know is possible. God can still bring you an amazing husband.
So, start praying for him now.
8. Decide to start new
The word “break up” means you are parting ways with something. Therefore, now is the time to close an old chapter of your life and start something new.
Create something new in your life and let this be the moment where you decide that from now on you will live the life you love.
Maybe you have been willing to devote more time to your health and fitness. Maybe you’d like to start learning a new language or travel through South America. Whatever it is, the time is now.
As you move forward, you will start attracting new things. Opportunities, friendships, and hopefully love.
9. Focus on what you learned
No matter how good or bad your relationship was, chances are you learned something about yourself or the other person.
I always say that dating is to find out whether or not the two of you want to spend your lives together. It’s a time of observation and evaluation. So if the relationship ended, ask yourself what led to it and how you can avoid it in the future.
Don’t sabotage yourself by looking for mistakes in yourself, but rather find out what the major challenges were and what you would do better next time.
More often than not, you will find that the relationship grew you as a person and that you learned something new about yourself.
10. Meditate on Scripture
Last but certainly not least! My top tip on how to get over a breakup!
One of my favorite things to do is Word studies in the Bible. A word study allows you to deepen your knowledge by analyzing specific words and their different meanings throughout the Bible.
You can look at words and concepts such as Love, Happiness/ Joy, trusting God, or Singleness.
By gaining more knowledge of a specific word, phrase, or biblical concept in the Bible you can gain a better understanding of what it means and how to deal with it.
Getting over heartbreak is not easy.
You start to internalize the no and tie it to your beauty, skills, talents, worth, and value as a human being. Which makes you feel like you are not enough and wonder what’s wrong with you.
And I know it feels horrible to be rejected by someone you love. But it is important to learn to reframe the rejection and not allow it to smash your self-worth.
Luckily there are also a few steps you can take that will help you to deal with rejection better.
How do you deal with rejection from someone you love?
Talk to yourself
One of the most offensive things that happen after you have been rejected by a guy you love, is that your brain starts to feed you limiting beliefs.
Suddenly, you feel like you have been rejected and abandoned by every man that you have dated in the past and every friendship that died.
That’s not true!
And you have to nip these thoughts in the bud before you start believing them. The truth is you are a great person, that didn’t fit with another great person.
So take control of your thoughts by banishing every negative voice and affirming yourself.
Understand that there is a reason for it
One of my favorite quotes says:
‘Man’s rejection is God’s protection.’
What that means, is simply that God will allow for someone to not agree with who you are, what you want, or what you expect from them. So that he can bring you ‘The One’ that does.
Too often you hold on to bad relationships because you like the intimacy and familiarity that it provides. You start to believe that you won’t ever find someone again if you let go of that person.
But in reality, God has a reason why he allowed someone to enter and exit your life. You have to trust God when a relationship ends and prepare for someone better to enter your life.
Remind yourself that you are NOT a failure
Rejection doesn’t define you. The fact that something didn’t work out doesn’t mean that nothing ever will. In contrast, it means that you have the opportunity to fine-tune what you want your future relationship to look like.
Just because one person didn’t love you, doesn’t mean you are unlovable. One person’s taste and one person’s opinion will never define who you are.
Remember how much you are loved
I remember one situation when my sister was extremely sad about something that happened. When I came in with her youngest son (who was only 1 year old) he immediately proceeded to go to her and just hug her.
That moment spoke nothing but love and I was reminded how powerful it is to remember how much you are loved.
Your parents, your siblings, or your kids show your love regularly, and far too often we take that love and affection for granted. I want you to think of that love and let it fill up your heart.
Even better is, call or visit these family members and experience that joy first hand. Remember that even if there is one person that rejected you, there are so many more people that choose to love you.
It’s not you, it’s him
The default thoughts after a breakup are usually to think of all the things that you did wrong. And what led him to reject you.
But sometimes, it might be him. Try to move out of the self-beating and think about what might be going on in his life at the moment that didn’t allow him to continue your relationship.
Maybe it’s his missing relationship with Christ that makes it hard for him to show and receive real love? Maybe it’s his current season that preoccupies his mind so that he can’t commit to you.
Whatever it is, it might just not have anything to do with you.
Understand that you are not alone
As painful as it might seem to be single again after a relationship. One thing is for sure you are not the only one.
There is a whole group of people out there that are single and have gone through the pain of heartbreak before.
Surround yourself with other women who will uplift you and remind you of your value and strength. Don’t believe the lie, that it’s always and only you that these things happen to.
But instead, remember that many people have been in the same situation before. You are not the only one that learning how to deal with heartbreak and rejection. And just like them you can be hopeful about your future.
How to improve yourself after a breakup
And last but not least, after you successfully dealt with the heartbreak and rejection, it’s time to focus on yourself after a breakup. After all, the goal is to get back out on the dating scene as your best self.
Learn from the past
What do you do when you’re playing a game and you lose? You analyze what went wrong and try to do it better the next time.
That’s what you should do after a relationship ends and you feel rejected. Ideally, have a conversation with him that will help you understand what areas the two of you didn’t agree on.
Identify the red flags that led to the breakup and brainstorm how you can avoid them next time. If you didn’t have a healthy break-up, then take that as a sign too.
Was it a toxic relationship? Did one of you not respect the other person enough? Are you even ready for a relationship at this point in your life?
Whatever it is, make it a learning experience. Identify the areas that need improvement and understand that he might have rejected a value of yours, but someone else will appreciate that value.
Practice self-love
If you follow me on Instagram then you know that I love “Self-Love Saturdays”!
What are Self-Love Saturdays?
Those are the days where I show myself some love. I partake in different activities that bring me joy such as working out, eating good food, going shopping, getting a manicure, or going to the movies.
And most importantly I make sure I feel good about myself all day.
Sometimes that means walking around in leggings and being comfortable, other times it means dressing up and feeling beautiful.
Whatever activates your Serotonin (happy hormones), do it and rejoice in being the great person you are and that will attract the right guy at the right time.
Remind yourself of your worth
It is way too easy to get caught up wallowing in your feelings and thinking “woe is me”.
But I want you to do the exact opposite.
Remind yourself of your worth by making a list of 5 to 10 qualities you possess that a partner would find desirable. Are you kind? Are you emotionally available? Or are you considerate?
Whatever it is that you value in yourself and know are good qualities, expand on it. Write down how these qualities show in your interactions and why they are a blessing to someone else.
Once you do that, you will realize that he missed out on a catch!
Expect acceptance
The fact is that people want to be with people that make them feel good, so learn to become that person that brings joy and encouragement to a person or a group.
Use your feminine allure to demand acceptance from others by conveying positivity and joy. Other people will be drawn to it and want you in their lives.
And you will see how your friendships and relationships will change for the better.
Getting over heartbreak is not easy. And even if it seems like it doesn’t make sense and you are wondering why it had to happen. Remember that:
And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. –
Romans 8:28
Do you have any tips on how to deal with heartbreak and rejection? Share BELOW!
