👥 Serves: 1 person

🎚 Difficulty: Medium

⏳ Total time: Ongoing

🥣 Ingredients: Patience, time, and self-compassion

🤓 Wholebeing Domains: Accomplishments, Discomfortability, Positive Emotion

💪 Wholebeing Skills: Acceptance, Adaptability, Flexibility, Grieving, Ordinariness, Peacefulness, Relief, Self-regulation, Vulnera-bravery

👣 Steps

Step 1 – Invest in yourself (1 hour a week)

Start by reframing the situation positively: you likely have additional free time in your schedule. Take advantage of this by investing in number one, which will help to re-establish your identity as an individual, too. Here are some suggestions to invest in yourself:

• Learn a new language, a musical instrument, or a new skill.
• Express yourself through creative writing, drawing, or painting.
• ‘Deep read’ by selecting a book over a magazine and using your critical thinking skills by making connections from page to page and chapter to chapter. This can support quicker thinking and prevent cognitive decline.
• Explore different cultures by attending performances, visiting galleries, going to food festivals, listening to different music, etc.
• Keep your body active through exercise and fuel it with nutritious food. 
• Attend workshops to further your passion or career.
• Volunteer for a cause that is meaningful to you.
• Get out of your comfort zone – get your diving certificate, go hiking, sing at an open mic…

Step 2 – Affirm what you like about yourself (10’)

When experiencing heartbreak, insecurities manage to sneak their way to the top of your mind, with your inner critic grabbing the microphone. Take back centre stage by creating a list of all the things and the qualities that you like about yourself. You might write a self-love list like this:

• I am not my mistakes.
• I am enough.
• I am loveable.
• I am kind.
• I love that I am witty and can make people laugh.
• I am a great cook.
• I am thoughtful and have never forgotten the birthday of a loved one.
• I am trustworthy.

Recite, revisit, and even re-write your list whenever you are having negative or self-defeating thoughts. You may also benefit from our recipe on “Affirmations for body positivity” or “Practising body neutrality”.

Step 3 – Soothe with self care (20’ a week)

Self-care may be a “buzzword” but it’s one with merit, as there are many benefits to scheduling time to love and treat yourself with gentleness and kindness. Prioritise your wellbeing my scheduling time to do the following:

• Slow down with a bubble bath, get a massage, or relax for a day at a spa.
• Go for a slow mindful walk with our recipe “Walking meditation” or invite a couple of friends to join you for a soul-nourishing “Gratitude walk”. 
• Buy yourself fresh flowers and don’t forget to smell them, in addition to smelling invigorating essential oils such as lemongrass, lavender or eucalyptus.
• Hack your happiness hormones to improve your mood with our recipes “Inner happiness” and “Gratitude journal”.
• Clean and re-organise your space.
• Listen to your favourite album and focus closely on the lyrics. 
• Use our recipe “Catharsis through clay” to work through your emotions with clay and our “Weekly planner for uncertain times” to find guidance in these new times.

Finally, we invite you to check out our recipe “Self-care budget” to help carve out resources to make the above happen without added stress.

Step 4 – Turn inward (40’)

Heartbreak is complicated and not too different to the grieving process. Our recipe “Gentleness through grief” might help you tend to your anguished heart to allow for healing with gentleness, deep self-understanding and self-discovery.Be kind to yourself through this time and validate every emotion, without judgement. Instead of “I shouldn’t be feeling down,” reframe it to, “I am feeling down, and that is perfectly okay.” 

You might want to consider our recipe “Solo day” to be alone and find the space to look inwardly without distractions. For some people this might be too much and you might prefer to speak to a therapist to work through complicated emotions. Our recipe “Rethinking rejection” might help you build your personal resilience whereas our recipe “Finding your inner refuge” takes you through a writing practice to find refuge from fears and desires.

Step 5 – Remember the truth (10’)

One way that heartbreak manipulates us is through abounding, intrusive thoughts and images of the person who broke our hearts, by repainting and rewriting them in an ideologised version. 

Instead, take the advice of psychologist Guy Winch, and bring yourself back to reality by writing a list of traits, events or moments that made you feel low or sad in the relationship. Instead of their toothy grin, think of their frown. Did they have one of your pet peeves?

Write a list down somewhere private so that you can revisit it whenever your mind tries to trick you.

Step 6 – Connect socially (1 hour)

An often unspoken part of heartbreak is the loss of your partner and your best friend – and oftentimes, the friends or family who were considered “their” friends and family. It can hurt and cause even deeper loneliness.

Spend time and work on your own relationships with your friends and family. You will need their support – and they will need yours. Friendship offers a beautiful feeling of belonging and can help build up your self-esteem. 

If you don’t have a large circle, try to reframe the situation as a chance to cultivate a circle of deep, authentic friendships with people who build you up. You can do this by:

• Using websites such as Meetup.com or apps such as Bumble BFF to join communities and groups, with likeminded people who share your core values and encourage your dreams.
• Finding a coach or mentor, who can help you navigate your path to self-discovery.
• Reconnecting with old friends.
• Identifying the safe people in your life through our recipe “Creating a safe squad”.