If you’ve recently gone through a break up in an important relationship, you may be suffering from a very bleak and lonely outlook on life, but you do have at least one saving grace: Almost everybody has been there at one point or another. Unfortunately, some people do not take breakups well, but there are many others who have gone through them and learned very important lessons from them that you can benefit from if you allow yourself to listen and distinguish the useful advice from the useless.

Keep in mind that there is nothing wrong with going through a ‘grieving’ process. Where trouble starts to seep in is when that process becomes permanent, or it transforms into a means of self-abuse. Ultimately, every person in the world sees things from a slightly different perspective, which means that long-term relationships are the exception rather than the rule. There is nothing wrong with this; it would only be a problem if there were just 2 people in the world.

Here are a few important things to keep in mind as you work your way through your breakup:

• Allow any feelings of sadness, anger, betrayal, depression, etc, to come to you and simply acknowledge them. One of the things that cause us the most misery in our lives is resistance; note them as temporary sensations rather than misinterpreting them as a permanent identity.
• Don’t turn to drugs, pills, alcohol, ice cream or any other indulgence that is going to make you feel sluggish or further your depression. If you are suffering with feelings of worthlessness, you need to turn your energy to activities and behavior that will make you feel great about yourself, like you own the world. Start doing something that you’ve always wanted to do to improve yourself but procrastinated about.
• Get a piece of paper or sit down at your word processor and write out your feelings. As you continue to write, don’t ignore any humorous thoughts and impressions that may come to you about how you’re feeling. Be really honest with what’s going on and you’ll see that deep down your thoughts are not all doom and gloom. Allow your understanding of the breakup to expand into an understanding of relationships in general, and through this understanding see that you’re far from alone.
• Do not allow yourself to become bitter! Remember always that what you give out comes back to you, and that this breakup might be what allows you to find the person you were really meant to be with – as long as you don’t shut down and close your eyes to that possibility.

Don’t ever lose sight of the fact that there are millions of great people in the world of both sexes. By being active and taking chances, you are much more likely to meet the people who will understand you, as well as future romantic relationships and quite possibly a life partner. Life is not about dwelling in memories; it’s about taking chances, getting hurt, learning from our mistakes, having brief ‘f*** you’ thoughts that we can later laugh at, and – most importantly – maintaining our right and responsibility to be self-possessed. We don’t live in a world where we can always control other people’s actions (nor should we), but we do live in a world where we can control our own reactions to them.