5 Beautifully Powerful Ways to Heal from a Break-Up that Really Work

I’ve worked as an alternative therapist for a long time and have seen these 5 tools offer amazing support for someone going through a relationship break up. I’ve absolutely used them myself when going through more than one relationship loss. These tools range from a common therapy modality to alternative medicines and practices.  Let’s explore them.

1. One of the most effective therapies available, I believe, is what’s now called Internal Family Systems. It’s actually been around for decades, and was known in one of it’s original forms as Psychosynthesis. The process entails getting to the aspects of our Self that hold the original wound - whether that’s a belief system, trauma from abuse or neglect, abandonment fears, even unspecified fears or neuroses that you can’t quite explain.

   Once you get clear on what exactly that part is holding, you can begin to provide what was missing. This helps that aspect of yourself release the fear and come back into right relationship with the healthy parts of the your being. These aspects of ourselves are always younger (hence the inner child moniker) and separated from the truth of who we really are.

   The goal is to bring them back into a healed and integrated state. Getting to the parts of ourselves that have been re-wounded or triggered from a break up can go really far in healing the grief and evolving past the wounds.

1. Energy Therapy - This is what I specialize in and it makes my work infinitely more powerful and valuable. All of the information about your state of being are stored in the energy body. It makes it an amazing asset to use as a diagnostic tool if you know how to read it accurately.

   Not only can I see what is stored in the energy body regarding how the client is handling the break up, I can see how it’s stored and what’s needed to help release and heal the wounds. Then I can energetically provide the “antidote” or the frequencies that will help the client process much more efficiently and in alignment with what their heart and spirit are needing.

   This is important because energy therapies always include the heart and spirit needs of the client. And, most importantly, it’s happening outside of the mind, the mental body, which can often get in the way of getting to the core or essence of the emotion or wound.

1. Grounding practices - This tool has to do with staying in your body when under stress. Years ago I came across the quote by Francisco Varela that states “When a living system is in ill health, the remedy is found by connecting with more of itself.” This is based on the belief that every living organism possesses innate health assets—such as restorative, energetic, and cognitive capabilities—that need to be reinforced to move back into balanced states of being.

   The natural thing to do when faced with devastating life experiences is to get away from pain and grief, which often translates into leaving our bodies. Which is the opposite of that quote.

   Which means you’re now dealing with two losses - the loss of the partner, and the loss of yourself. By working with grounding practices such as anti-anxiety breath work, vagus nerve modulation, yoga, qigong, getting out in nature with feet on the earth, bodywork, etc, you bring yourself back to yourself. Exactly where you need to be. A consistent practice of grounding is invaluable in dealing with pain and grief.

1. Calling in effective help - By this I don’t just mean help from friends and family. I mean help from all kinds of sources that most don’t think of. Obviously this would mean bringing in good therapeutic help in the the form of therapists and healers of all kinds of modalities like acupuncture, cranio-sacral, etc.

   But this also means help from the unseen world - guides, angelic beings, ancestors, as well as from the natural world - animals, birds, water beings, trees. I absolutely take these relationships seriously and encourage clients in doing the same.

   Not asking for help from these sources is missing out on powerful presences that can really offer support. You just need to ask. And then pay attention to how it shows up, because those realities don’t usually work in ways we expect, or in the timing we expect. Because going through a break up means we need all the help we can get.

1. And finally there’s plant medicines that help with psycho-emotional crises in very beautiful ways. One of my favorite forms is using flower and vibrational essences.

   Even though they can be much more subtle than other forms of plant medicines, I have found them to have a profound effect on helping people navigate the emotional train wreck of a break up.

   You think they’re not really doing much until you realize you’re handling your emotions better, or not getting as triggered, or feeling more distance from the grief and pain. Essences are an integral part of my work with clients, and I use them daily myself.

Obviously getting over a divorce or break up requires a deep and serious process with lots of ups and downs, but these 5 tools can cover a lot of ground. They are all powerful and effective in their own right, but put together they can make a huge difference in how you get through it, and how long it takes to come out the other side.