We are going to get a little philosophical here. Psychology is actually the outcropping of philosophy. Before there were therapists, there were philosopher,s and people would consult with them about their issues. So, talking about human stuff is essentially philosophy.
In studying and helping people for 30 years, I know two things. Humans are super complicated, and yet there are some striking similarities that cut through all people. One of those is that we hate loss. Humans will do all kinds of things to avoid feeling like they have lost something. We memorialize things in books, we build monuments lest we forget, we write songs to sing, build altars to keep the dead with us, we cling to what we have even when it might not be right. We just don’t like to lose. Every parent of a toddler knows this. If your kid has something they should not, like your expensive new iPhone, you can’t just take it away from them. They will get VERY angry. You have to trade them for something else, so you dig in your purse and find a hairbrush or something and offer it in exchange for the phone. So the kid doesn’t feel the loss because they get something back when they give something up. It’s a universal human thing to hate loss.
So, breakups are hard because they bring up the idea that we can lose what we have. Even if we aren’t sure we WANT what we have, we still don’t like the idea that we might lose it. People deal differently with the loss of a relationship. Sometimes they swing into trying to celebrate it, like “good riddance!” That person was an ass hat. That avoids feeling the pain of loss by just positivizing it. Some people wallow in the pain of it and can’t get out, and become melancholic. Then, when that pain becomes too great, they numb it with alcohol, recreational drugs, video games, or building a boat in their garage. Distraction and chemical numbing can be seductive tools to avoid the feeling of loss that you can’t seem to manage. Jumping back into dating too soon can also distract us, and with online dating, it’s so easy to just re-activate your profile and, voila! You have 100 new matches to make you forget about the loss.
So if those are all unhealthy ways to deal with loss, what’s the healthy way? It’s not glamorous or sexy, but the healthy thing to do is sit with it a bit. Think about what that person meant to you. What did you like about them? What were some of your best memories with them? How did they help you grow? What did you learn from the relationship?
There are a lot of relationship models out there now. It used to be that you were supposed to keep dating until you found “the one”. Which is a weird proposition. It’s the only thing I can think of in life where you fail and fail and fail until you get it right just once, and then it’s over. In this model, none of our dating relationships last until one does. I think the zeitgeist of things being nonbinary, of everything existing on a spectrum, from gender to monogamy to sexuality, has opened this up a bit. Some folks will not want to partner at all and may call themselves aromantic. Which is fine and now an acknowledged choice. Others will want to be serial monogamists, and still others are in consensually open relationships. So it’s interesting that there is so much choice now. But when you boil it down, I still think that on a micro level in a relationship, there is always a bond going between two discrete people, who may or may not have bonds to others. When that bond is broken, there is loss. So, regardless of the model you subscribe to, you have to deal with loss if you are going to have relationships.
Which brings us to another basic tenet of humans, regardless of their differences. Humans do best when we can make meaning of things. We are meaning makers. Hence our poetry, art, literature, drama, music, spirituality, philosophy, and psychology. We want to make meaning of things; it seems to be in our DNA. And we know from the trauma literature that if you go through something quite stressful, one of the best predictors of how you will end up in the long run is whether or not you have made some meaning out of the pain.
We can use this in breakups to really help guide us to the other side. So first, feel the pain. Notice if you want to move away from it right away through dissociation or distraction. Try to let yourself experience it, even in small doses. Learn to tolerate those feelings of loss. It will make you a much braver, more resilient person all the way around.
Next, find the meaning. What did you learn from this relationship? There’s a saying that people come into your life for a reason, a season, or forever. If you have broken up, we can gather it’s not the forever part. So what was the reason or the season? What did you need to learn from that person or that experience? When you can make a coherent story out of the pain and loss, you are much more likely to be able to move on successfully and not feel plagued by the experience.
Journaling is a great tool here. We know, in large part thanks to Dr. Pennebaker here at UT Austin, that writing about, or even speaking about, hard things benefits our physical and emotional health. So write about the relationship. Or if you are allergic to a pen or a keyboard, you can use voice-to-text or just record audio. It all works the same. Putting your thoughts and feelings into language organizes them and helps you to find the meaning. And that helps you move on.
And back to philosophy, there is the story of the two wolves. It’s often attributed to native Americans. An elder tells his grandson about the conflict going on inside everyone. He says we each have two wolves inside of us. One is the baser wolf, full of lies, pride, ego, greed, hatred, etc. The other is the higher wolf full of love, kindness, empathy, truth, etc. The child asks which wolf will win the fight, and the grandfather says, “The one you feed.”
So in a breakup, which wolf are you feeding? Are you wallowing in self-pity? Are you demonizing your ex and trash-talking them to anyone within earshot? Are you marinating in all of the worst parts of the relationship like a horror movie on a loop? Or are you facing your grief, honoring the lessons that the relationship brought into your life, trusting that “hurt people hurt people”? Meaning that neither of you is perfect, and that in your imperfections, you could not love each other well enough to keep things moving forward. Can you forgive both yourself and your ex, tapping into grace and lovingkindness, or what the Buddhist tradition calls Metta, and let that be the balm for the hurt? Can you wish your ex well, and hope that they find peace in their relationships in the future, and also give that intention to yourself?
You have the power of choice, even if the relationship ending was not your idea. You have the power to choose what meaning you make of what happened, what wisdom you take away from it, and which wolf you keep feeding. Choose wisely and you will continue to grow and evolve and learn that loss is a necessary, and even positive part of life.
Wishing you health and happiness,
Dr. Jordan
