It feels like you got shot in the gut, you're dislocated, and you don't know what to do. I know there'due south a ton of expert material out there on this, but this article is different for one reason: I just got dumped too, and yeah, it fucking hurts.

I'thousand writing this for myself as much equally I am for you lot. I'chiliad no genius, no adept. I'thou simply a hurt guy next to you. And we're gonna pull each other out of this mess. What we do right now, bloodied and battered, is what defines us. We can choose to be weak, lay on the cold ground and wait the arms shelling of emotion, or we can cull to become the stuff of legends.

And so tie a rag effectually that fresh wound, know it's going to give you hell, and let'due south get the fuck out of this miserable place. We're charging ahead, limp and all. Feel the hurting like a sprinter feels the burn down of that last lap. Experience information technology! Take its presence. Yes, it exists. Yeah, information technology's intense. But it exists to be conquered, and you're the only person that can exercise it. Don't back downward, don't back off. Yous're built to overcome this. Yeah, it's damn tough, simply then what? Information technology'southward the difficult things that develop us.

Take responsibility for your own thoughts and feelings, pull upwards your britches, and never forget this is for the best. I promise. Your mission is to prosper without him or her, to be independent. The way you lot handle this emotional scar will determine if it becomes a great personal story of overcoming adversity or a permanent emotional deformity.

Antoine de Saint-Exúpery said in Current of air, Sand, and Stars: "What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. Information technology is always the aforementioned step, merely you take to have it." Then permit's take the next few steps together:

Information technology's over, human being. They're gone. This is the hardest part. Fifty-fifty if she comes back, practise I really desire a daughter who rejected me? You should never accept someone who doesn't want to be your partner. If Eva Longoria doesn't come across my potential, she's not right for me. It'southward that simple. If they dumped you lot for shit yous need to make clean out of your life, and then you demand to set it not for them, but for yourself.

Every time I catch myself thinking about her, I repeat out loud: "Neediness leaving the body." Don't wallow in your loss. Exist thankful for the good times you shared, and use information technology every bit motivation to find the side by side one! Your worth has nothing to do with their approval of you. If you call up nigh it, we don't actually miss them, we miss the thought of them.  We miss a lost wax casting of them. Nosotros don't miss them as much as we miss their effect on united states. We miss being with someone who is attractive, smart, funny, and likes us. Only guess what? That'southward not them anymore. The irony is, if nosotros ever end up with them again, it tin can only be considering we prospered without them.

It's then tempting to jump downwards the rabbit pigsty and captivate over "What if I did X or didn't do Y? Would things exist dissimilar?" Frankly, information technology doesn't affair. Information technology's part of the past, and the past is expressionless. We are who we choose to be today, and that is the only affair we can command.

Guilt over the past and worry over the hereafter are both useless emotions that retard our ability to alive today in relaxed confidence. I yell out loud "Cease! Stop! Stop!" every time I begin to entertain thoughts of self-pity. Don't let anything interfere with your ability to enjoy today.

Sad man in a truck with his head on the steering wheel

Just remember: on the timeline of your whole life, this is probable a minor effect, even if it doesn't experience like it.

They may still want to be your friend. They may hate your guts. They may send mixed signals. They may call and text all the fourth dimension. They may never contact you lot again. They may human activity aloof, and still call you to wish y'all a happy altogether (this happened to me at the time of writing). They may exist confused and hurt and exercise all of the to a higher place. None of it should affect you.

Public Enemy #one is to overreact. Most people will behave out of acrimony or anxiety—both are forms of unearned worship. Take him or her off the pedestal and don't read into their actions. Don't endeavor to figure out why they would exercise this or that. At that place are also many variables to know the motivations backside that particular action at that particular fourth dimension. Over-analyzing never added a second to anyone's life. You're going to be fine with or without them. If you take to alter your identity to win them back, and then you're non really winning annihilation.

Be cool and focus on what'south in your control, not what they're doing. Don't go out of your way to talk to them, and don't get out of your style to avoid them. Both are reactive. Allow yourself a narrow range of laid-dorsum reactions to them, because it'south non near them anymore. It'south virtually taking intendance of you.

A skillful rule of thumb here is to scale back your interaction co-ordinate to the severity of your hurting—the more you hurt, the less yous should talk. If they keep calling you, calmly tell them, "Hey, I capeesh it, but I don't see the betoken in us talking anymore. I don't see you as merely a friend, so please respect that."

Success here is divers by the extent to which they don't affect your emotional state. Don't collaborate with them until you can be relaxed and confident about it.

Not only does this drive them away, but it reveals a neediness and desperation. That's not what relationships are most. Psychologist Wayne Dyer sums it upward perfectly in Your Erroneous Zones:

A relationship based on love… is one in which each partner allows the other to be what he or she chooses, with no expectations and no demands. It is a elementary association of two people who dearest each other so much that each would never await the other to be something that he or she wouldn't choose for himself. It is a union of independence, rather than dependence.

She is who she is, and you shouldn't try to alter her. Respect her selection, and don't be deluded into acting like she's the only girl for you. She may accept had chemistry with you for that period of fourth dimension, but she's non the concluding loving cup of water in the Sahara. You don't need her. Yous may feel similar you exercise, but yous don't. Y'all need food. Y'all need air and water. Y'all demand an unconditional faith in yourself. You lot don't need a particular human being or woman.

Besides, believing that he or she is amend than everyone else is an insult to literally millions of other people that y'all would find attractive and intelligent. I remember when my daughter walked away, it felt similar that unabridged demographic of girls walked away with her.

"I'll never find someone like her." Don't believe that shit! Whatsoever her characteristics (blackness, white, athletic, Christian, Muslim, intelligent, funny, caring, driven, laid dorsum, etc.), In that location ARE MORE LIKE HER.

Fuck that, there are more than better than her.

Your lack of discovery in no style makes her special.

Disclaimer: I highly recommend taking some time off to become over your ex before jumping back in the dating scene. The timing is unlike for everyone, but by and large, yous should wait until you tin avert comparing the new person to your ex. The new person deserves as much of a blank slate as possible. The worst thing y'all tin can do is immediately start dating a new person in order to "fill the void" the ex left behind.

Every twenty-four hours on my commute, I pass three road signs for an exit adorning her first name, followed by another exit with her nationality. These factors are out of my control, and I give them a Jay-Z brush off my shoulder every time. Everything that's in your control? Become rid of it. You lot need to become your mind off this girl. Life is also curt to sacrifice even one 2nd of your sanity, so change the station immediately when Gavin Degraw's "Not Over Yous"—or any other shitty breakup song—comes to haunt your ears.

The past is expressionless. Leave it in the grave instead of reliving it.

Don't compare yourself to the people they talk to and date. Their choices reverberate only on them, not you. Your self-worth is more important here, how you feel about yourself for yourself, not compared to some random other sap. Jealousy is a result of allowing something out of your control to dictate your emotions.

Never show signs of jealousy. Allow them go. Ironically, that's the most attractive matter you tin practise.

Self-explanatory. Frazzle your contacts list until yous've hung out with everyone who lives in town and talked on the phone with everyone who doesn't. Friends are a wonderful resource to keep your spirits up.

If yous can resist looking at their social media profiles, then unsubscribe from her Facebook updates so it doesn't appear on your News Feed. If you can't resist, quietly unfriend them. Don't make a big deal out of it, and don't tell anyone. If anyone brings it up with you lot, admit you unfriended them and you did it because yous felt like you needed to. There's no shame in pain. You don't owe anyone further explanation or justification. Information technology's your choice and you live by your own standards.

Have something on your saucepan list and do something today to take a step toward information technology. You accept no excuse! Every large undertaking e'er accomplished was cleaved down into steps small enough to be done in a unmarried day. If you want to be a pilot, find a programme and research classes. If you want to go skydiving, telephone call and commit to a day. If you want a six-pack, focus on eating clean and working out today. Take a step each and every day toward your goal, and how tin you non achieve it? Don't let money constrain y'all. Create a savings account and deposit a prepare corporeality each month (before you even spend anything on food!) until you have enough. I'd rather die hungry than have dreams unfulfilled.

The intensity of your goals should at to the lowest degree lucifer the degree of your emotional investment in the girl. If you're still obsessed with her, y'all're non busy and focused plenty.

Dr. Dyer sums it up perfectly:

You have go habituated in mental patterns that identify the causes of your feelings as outside yourself. You lot have put in thousands of hours of reinforcement for such thinking, and you'll need to balance the scale with thousands of hours for new thinking.

Pull the lesson from it and move on, but never search for the lesson at the expense of moving on.

Remember, it is never the calm seas that reveal the force of a vessel. The style you lot conditions the storm shows what textile yous're made of. You'll make it.

(Cover image: "A Portrait in Darkness" by Sean McGrath is licensed under CC By 2.0)