Going through first break up. Advice?

[liamnewsom202]

Last saturday I broke up with my first girl friend of a few months over a year. I learned many things from her but as our relationship went on I found the way I grew was the opposite of where she did. The way awakenings usually happen can be pretty ugly so it led to alot of misunderstanding and communication issues between the two of us. We both became quite unhappy and anxious around each other mainly because the way we show and accept love is quite different. The kinds of thoughts and ideas that I found my self leaning towards seemed cold and emotionless to her and I found I was constantly battling with my own truth and what made sense to her. Resentment grew until we reached total emotional unavailability. We decided to break up and it hit me like a train. The feelings of frusteration and feelings of wishing we wernt together completely faded and I fell right into co dependency and watched as I called her back hours later at mercy to my own ego. It felt like I was trying to cling back and was in utter shock of the ramifications of this but when we talked again it became clear that the more we talked and tried to negotiate we just became frustrated and threw in the towel. Peace was found and there were no hard feelings we wished each other off well and made sure that we were doing the right thing. This helped and gave me closure and I felt in control. Ive been focusing on staying close to truth and trying to allow all my feelings but it truly does come in waves. I feel like il be focused on my music work then the memories will all come back. Sometimes I feel like I know im upset and lonely but it distracts me from my work. I dont want to try and numb my feelings with distractions like work or video games but I find it hard to concentrate and I get overloaded with all kinds of thoughts and creativity doesn't really want to come. The sheer potential for this has inspired me at times and brought me peace knowing I no longer need to explain myself to anyone and I can work on really finding comfort in solitude but I just feel like I dont want to lose track of my emotions and try and hide behind these deeper insights. What do you guys make of my situation. How do you balance work with needing time to feel emotions and when meditating how can I get these emotions to the surface instead of just ignoring them. Is staying present and grounded through the emotions without distraction technically meditation? Is meditation itself a distraction? Ha as you can tell I still have lots to learn and am in the phase of having to really dig now that shes gone but im just looking for any advice or anything that jumps out to you guys. Thanks

[Nahm]

@liamnewsom202

Instead of saying what comes to mind, observe the inner working of yourself, thoughts & feeling, silently. If at work, commit to three second of this in your interactions, before speaking. You will inevitably realize it was never what’s happening which created emotions about it, but rather, how you think about what’s happening. You’ll more deeply realize you can think, and feel, how you want to, and you are free. 

[SageModeAustin]

@liamnewsom202 Get ready for hindsight bias, regret, grief, anger, shame, all of the emotions basically. It fucking blows. Just take each day bit by bit and try to stay sober and keep working on yourself. Eventually, time will re-contextualize everything and you will be grateful for having her in your life as an experience. Also who knows maybe you guys will reconnect at a more appropriate time again, but that's up to "God." Good luck brother. 

[Preety_India]

 

Meditation is not a distraction unless you want it to be. You are dealing with a breakup which can be hard to deal with so give yourself a "healing period" and a "healing process," during this process you need to vent rather than ignore or hide your feelings. Meditation is not the suppression of feelings, it's about achieving peace and clarity. Thoughts and emotions can easily become intense and troubling, although allowing such thoughts is making you feel free in the moment, but the moment these thoughts become intrusive and overbearing, you would want to desperately run away from them. At that time, meditation will ground you and not let you go overboard with your emotions. Think of meditation as an aid for emotional balance rather than repression or suppression of emotions. 

The aftermath of a breakup can be filled with feelings of regret, guilt, shame, anger, revenge, discomfort etc, learn to not to be too attached to these emotions but let them come and go because this is the healing process, it's like watching your wounds heal but you have to see the blood, it's not pleasant to look at it but don't be too impacted by it. So the healing process will not be pleasant and you will need to cope with it before you emerge completely out of it. 

When your time is harder, you'll find it difficult to look at the big picture, don't be too impatient to suddenly decide the trajectory of your life, take one day at a time. 

Your reactions may be overwhelming but let them be. Just don't be too affected by them. The release of these emotions is important during "after breakup" period. Take as much rest as you need. 

Self care is important during the post break up period because this is the time during which most people neglect themselves a lot and so you need to be careful about that part. 

It's good to know that you find comfort in solitude and see its potential in honing creativity. 

It's a bit hard during this time to keep a balance between both work and emotional release and I have been through that. You'll need to be strong and focus on work when you need and when you devoted sufficient time to work during the day, you could take some time off to rest a bit during which you could allow your emotions to be released. This is a hard thing to do but meditation will greatly help you to balance this delicate mental control. Calm your mind down and just be in the moment and do what needs your maximum attention in that moment, a sort of "in the moment" meditation practice that you can do daily just before starting work. This is basically taming the mind. This does not mean that you are blocking emotions, you are only putting them off for later because you got work to do. 

The exact dilemma you're facing is that you don't want to lose your emotions but you also don't them to impact, distract and upset you and keep you away from work. This is a very common issue faced during the "aftermath" period. However don't be too hard on your heart. Work can be done slowly. Your emotions are important. So they shouldn't be ignored or else it leads to repression inside leading to formation of shadows or even agitating when those emotions are not addressed. Hence I emphasized so much on releasing those emotions. Imagine emotions like hot steam blowing across your face. The steam needs to blow and be fully released but you shouldn't end up burning your face. So you need a cushion to protect your face. Similarly you need a safety valve so that the pressure is controlled. Meditation at this point will serve as a safety valve. So don't ignore your emotions. 

How to get emotions to the surface? By letting yourself feel the way you feel without feeling sorry or bad for it. Let it come. If you felt anger or backlash or guilt, let it be. Don't act on these emotions, like calling your girlfriend, all that, it will only make it worse. Just let the emotions be felt. 

Two most important thoughts to have during such a period to have a proper closure at the time of exiting the period are 

• Acceptance (acceptance of the situation) 
• Letting Go. 

You might experience a lot of resistance and mental turmoil, "should I call her or not?" "was this right?" etc etc type of thoughts bugging you and almost throwing you off the edge. During such thoughts, immediately bring in "Acceptance".... Let go.. Let go all the resistance and friction. Accept whatever happened even if the mind doesn't want to. Bring in peace through acceptance and letting go. 

 

 

[liamnewsom202]

thanks you for all your replies. i have felt a bit better this week mainly just being more adjusted to the situation and less in the initial shock. Its really easy to get carried away in feelings and either feeling shame or guilt about things but then it had a phase where it turned into anger. That anger as unconcious as it is it felt nice to finally regain my self and no longer feel like this overwhelming self pity and have this urge to want to yell obscenities and poke projected holes on my ex. Ive worked on using this energy in my art and making the best of it.