Do You Ever Truly Heal After a Breakup? Let’s Talk About it.

What's that common statistic about breakups again? That it takes 3 months for every year you were with someone to completely get over them, or something like that?

Is that really true? What exactly is this all dependent on?

Let's fucking talk about that.

After going through several breakups myself, my most recent one has really broadened my perspective and understanding upon this subject.

I remember searching through every Reddit thread and Google search right after my breakup on how long it takes to get over this shit. I was fucking tired of this suffering bullshit.

My last relationship situation is not your average relationship, as I was in a closed throuple (here's the tea on that, you're welcome).

And the main thing with being in a throuple is that there are 4 main relationships that need energy exerted into them: The separate individual relationships with the other two people, the one you have altogether, and of course the relationship you have with yourself.

Whew. Fucking tell me about it. I know I know, one person was already enough.

And let me just say, out of all the breakups I have had (which is literally only two other serious ones), this one has been the absolute hardest one, understandably as I have literally had to let go of more than one person. It's a breakup that has sent me into the most development and growth as a human, but also has sent me the most pain.

I would like to add that we were together for about a year and six months, and it wasn't exactly an amicable split (yes, don't worry I already wrote the tea about that too, here ya go).

I would say that was just the cherry on top of it all. And now, six months after the breakup, I have finally come to a place where I am not just comfortable with it, but I am so fucking happy that it happened.

Of course that still doesn't come without the waves of sadness, frustration, anger, and the fond memories that can drown me sometimes. I have learned that still having these feelings doesn't mean that I am not over them or that I long to be back together with them, actually far from it (trust me, very far).

But you know when you’re in the shitter, you don’t really realize how much shit you are actually going through? You’re just trying to survive. Then after you take some time and look back on it, you realize how much SHIT you actually went through? Yeah, that’s the point that I am at, where all of these feelings will resurface again from time to time, sometimes much stronger than they were before because I am now able to truly process everything.

Right after my breakup, I was choosing to "be the bigger person" and just try to wish them love and light and forgiveness. I LITERALLY texted my ex that I send them nothing but love and light after the absolute SHIT that I had been through when he sent me the most mid apology (I AM LITERALLY LOLing at myself). I'm embarrassed, but I understand why that version of Courtney did that.

BUT THIS version of Courtney says FUCKING FUCK THAT.

I am healing for ME, not THEM. Fuck them.

"Aren't you sounding a lil harsh? You sound salty still."

The first great piece of advice that I will give when you are going through a break up that I wish someone would've slapped into me is: Quit invalidating how you feel.

It felt so RELIEVING when I finally came to terms with how I feel, and really connected with my shadow side that I had subconsciously repressed.

As a claimed member of the spiritual community, the most toxic thing you can do is integrate a supercilious mindset of only "love and light" while judging your shadow and not integrating all parts of yourself. Nothing rejects your authentic self and emotions more than adopting this fraudulent persona, when it's not truly representative of how you feel. WE ALL HAVE A SHADOW. And the more you repress it, the more it will show in other people or situations in your life.

I remember confiding and venting to one of my ex's friends about the breakup and what happened (*sighhh* I know that was a mistake, even though I had perceived her as one of my good friends as well at the time), and I'll never forget what she told me, because it felt so fucking invalidating, even if that was not her intention.

After bawling my eyes out and her even agreeing that what happened was not right, she said, "Well we are all human still, and they're humans, too at the end of the day."

Now I understand being in her position wasn't easy when it came to hearing both situations, and I was in a very vulnerable and hurt state of mind, so I just agreed at the time. But I still remember that, because it triggered a guilt response inside of me of trying to just be understanding of everything that happened and realize that it's just for the best and I just need to try to move on. After all, we are all just humans, I should just wish them love and light and carry on (and I am not saying it's her fault that I picked up this mindset, it was more just digging at the guilt that was already inside of me).

Then I thought about it even more after a few months. She was right.

We are all humans, and that means that I still have human fucking emotions. I AM a human. A human who is allowed to feel hurt. A human who is allowed to be angry. A human who still wants to fucking cuss people out from time to time. A human who wants to thoroughly swift kick both of my exes in the face and throat sometimes. A human who is allowed to stand up for herself. A human who currently doesn’t fucking wish my exes love or light at the moment. A human is who allowed to FEEL everything.

Does this mean that I was going to literally chudo-chop them in the face? No. But I definitely felt like I wanted to.

And the best part about this? I don't feel bad at all for feeling this way.

I had a lot of repressed anger, judgement and guilt, and this really showed in my last relationship and how it ended. It wasn't these feelings that delayed my healing process, it was how I judged these feelings that affected my healing process.

Maybe you repress "toxic" traits like being judgmental, or maybe you’re avoidant sometimes . Do you ever realize that it is expressed externally in other people around you or your partner? The traits that you judge in others are the ones that you will judge in yourself. I know this because I was one of the main culprits of this mindset, always invalidating others shadow traits because I invalidated mine.

Relationships are meant to be our teacher in learning about ourself, if you let them.

When you let go of trying to be happy, and realize that happiness is just another fleeting feeling like sadness, anger, and confusion etc, the more at peace you will be with yourself. Peace comes with accepting all of the feelings, and knowing how to embody them. Then ironically, you feel happier without trying.

The more that you can accept the shadow parts of yourself, the less suffering you will have after a breakup. And this is what we call shadow work.

This doesn't mean that you accept that you can be a raging asshole and now you can go cuss out anyone who crosses your path with no repercussions. Good fucking luck with that.

This just means that you know you have an asshole side to you, and instead of trying to completely get rid of it, you now use it in a way that serves you. Maybe like when you have a boss who is being a complete dickhole and taking advantage you, you use it in a way that sets a boundary and lets him know that you will not accept shitty treatment, and that anger that you have lets you know that someone has crossed your boundary.

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Another healing endeavor that I encountered was the meaning I gave to these people, and the egoic-fantasized potential that my mind subconsciously placed upon them.

When we break up with someone, it's not so much the person that hurt us, but who we thought they were that hurts us. Our plans that we had made that will no longer come to fruition. The friends that we lose. And most importantly, who we thought we were. It's the illusion of the relationship that has been created by our own subconscious patterns and mind that we attached to that truly hurts.

Breakups hurt so bad because we are losing a part of ourselves. A part of us that we felt like we needed another person(s) to love because we didn't love that part of ourself. I take a lot of responsibility, actually FULL responsibility for how I showed up in my last relationship and how much hurt I allowed onto myself. I do not blame myself, I just take responsibility for it in a non-shame type of way, a way that just knows better now. And when you know better, you do better.

Relationships reveal parts of us that have been hidden under the surface. They can reveal our biggest insecurities, fears, and trauma-responses. It's up to us to see it as a spiritual guidance into ourselves.

And if there is one thing I have really learned, life is all about the meaning you give to something.

For example, if you give the meaning that your ex was The One, and you will never have another love like that again, then that is on YOU. These are not facts, just a belief that you have projected into your reality.

But, if you give the meaning that this was meant to be on your path to help you grow into the person that you are meant to become, and that someone better is coming, then this is also on YOU (I would choose this meaning if I were you). Because if this person was really meant for you, then you would still be together. PeriodT.

Deep down, I always knew these people were not meant for me. Actually I feel like my intuition was screaming at me that they weren't.

Which brings me to my next (and maybe most important) point.

NEVER IGNORE YOUR INTUITION.

Soo... funny (yet not) story.

The day that I met one of my exes, I told my best friend the feeling I had about her. Like something about her felt off and I didn't vibe with it, even though she was very nice. I got a "wanting" type of energy from her for some reason, but I ignored it because I didn't want to make assumptions, and I literally had just met her.

Then I met both of my ex partners (they were engaged when I met them), and I told my best friend how they really weren't for me...

So what the fuck happened?

I IGNORED MY INTUITION. From literally day one I knew they weren't for me.

Yet I continued to *fuck around and really find out* why my intuition was right.

Even throughout the entire relationship, this feeling was still there, just not as loud when it had been intentionally hidden under the surface.

What I wish I would've listened to more is: If it don't feel right, then it ain't right.

Now, at the point in my life when I met my exes, I had been healing for the first time ever in my life from my childhood trauma and patterns, and redefining myself after another breakup, and literally completely isolated myself from fucking civilization for a few months.

So they were some of the first new people to talk to me during that period.

And if you know anything about isolating yourself and healing, then you know how weird you feel trying to be social again. I thought I was being too judgmental, and they seemed nice, so I continued to just build a friendship with them, despite the feelings I was feeling (was also doing a lil trauma bonding and operating from wounding, yes you can read about that here, too).

I have now learned to not completely isolate myself of course after a breakup, and I can see the red flags now as clear as water that isn't from America.

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My last and final piece of advice from me is stop TRYING to heal.

What the fuck are you talking about? Bro, you literally just spent this entire article talking about your "healing process."

Okay, I know I said lots of "healing" and "heal" words here, but let me try to explain.

Since it wasn't exactly my first time healing after a breakup, I was making sure to do everything "right.” Like making sure I do my shadow work, and eat clean, and workout, and journal, and meditate, and watch every self-improvement and spiritual YouTube video on trauma bonding, and read all the books, and sign up for courses and literally everything under the sun that involved doing healing homework.

Sure, I was slowly but surely finding a routine and figuring this shit out, but it took me a while to realize that I was actually trying to "fix myself" instead of just be myself.

Internally I felt like I got run over by a dump truck, yet externally I was trying to impersonate David Goggins. I was hustling to be better, do better, become more, instead of just BE. But really, who the fuck was I trying to prove myself to? Who was I trying to show that I was doing better?

I had a fear of indulging back into bad habits. I was trying to "heal" out of fear of not being able to heal. I was running off of shame (not completely though), instead of just allowing it to be there.

Although I still made lots of progress of course, it has taken me a while to really get out of this pattern of thinking that I need to fix myself somehow and keep doing more. I have come to a place where I can just be me.

Now how do you do that? As simple as this may sound, it's much more difficult to allow yourself to vibe in that state of being.

What do you mean by this?

Funny how as humans it’s harder to just allow ourselves to be in state of natural being than it is to try to do more to become something/someone else.

I was paradoxically healing more when I allowed myself to be with the part of me that was angry, or the part of me that was embarrassed, or the part of me that still gets hella anxious when someone doesn’t text back, or the part of me that overthinks what I said in a conversation, or the part of me that doesn’t want to do absolute shit all day. The part that even though I have come a long way in my self development journey, I am still a struggling human who still feels lost and doesn’t know what the fuck she is doing sometimes.

To just be with me, flaws and all in whatever state of being that is.

I made the mistake (and still do) of thinking that since I am aware of why I do these things and what I should do instead to cause less suffering for myself, I was actually causing more suffering. I was draining myself trying to be “healed” and enlightened. I was trying to show others that I am doing great in my healing journey now, yet I am still struggling, I just look hotter and healthier doing it. I kept subconsciously seeing my self as project to be fixed, instead of you know, just a fucking human being. I was only reaffirming to myself that there was something wrong with who I am.

When does it end? When does the constant improvement come to a stop? What exactly is the final destination in healing? Maybe there isn’t one, and life is just about living and learning, and yes, for the 50th time, being. Maybe one day I’ll change my outlook on this, but for now this feels right.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t still improve and do things that can help with that improvement, it just means you accept yourself as you are, flaws and all. The improvement comes from a place of loving yourself, and not thinking that there is something to “fix” within you.

And that’s why healing isn’t about perfection or making tons of progress every day, it’s about allowing yourself to be, and accepting where you are now.