“Rebounding”, possibly the most commonly practiced method of dealing with a break up. What causes it? Well, I once heard that you get out of a relationship what you put in. And a relationship is exactly that, a give and receive type deal. While you’re in a relationship, you are used to giving and receiving. Once the relationship ends, the habit is hard to break. So, finding a new partner right away offers a quick fix.
Another method is taking that habit and focusing it on yourself. You’re already used to giving so why not give to yourself? After going through a break up, I turned to a friend for some advice on getting myself back on track. She had some very good suggestions on how to spend some quality time with myself and put the focus back on me. Money is a little tight right now but she pointed out that there are a lot of things that I could do for free. Enjoying nature by taking a walk in the park or going to the beach was the first thing she mentioned. Taking a bath with some candles and a good book. Well, I’m not a big fan of taking baths, I think that’s more of a girl thing. But, I understood what she meant. The idea is to get back to doing the things that I enjoy.
After taking a close look at what I was doing before the relationship began, I slowly started to get back into the things that I enjoy doing. I got back into writing. I dug up some projects that I started and didn’t finish because I was caught up in the rush of a new found love. The change didn’t happen overnight. It was a recovery process but it did happen. The first step was simply taking a deep breath and asking myself, “What do I enjoy doing?”
Photo courtesy Kameel at iStockphoto
It’s taken me close to six years to get back on track. I hope it happens a lot faster for you. Rebounding is never a good way to go in my opinion. I can see why people do it but it seems to me when a time comes that you can’t rebound you are then forced to take time for yourself and after years of being a couple that can be really difficult.
Maybe it all comes down to what “back on track” means. It doesn’t necessarily mean being in a new relationship, or finding some approximation of the life you had before. I think that’s an unconscious assumption that a lot of us make that gets in the way of moving forward–that what “moving forward” really means is to come as close as we can to moving backward. If we can’t have the person/relationship that we just lost, then we’ll try to replicate it…but there was a reason it ended and trying to replicate what didn’t work inevitably doesn’t work…and few people actually move forward while trying to recapture something lost. Moving forward requires an open mind about what the future should look like, I think.