Romantic Dating

One of the worst things you can do is to not allow yourself all the time you need to emotionally heal from breakup. Many of us have been guilty of doing just that.

We are in so much pain and so desperate for relief from that pain that we try to speed the process up a little bit. Usually, this speeding up results in us lying to ourselves about where we really are in the grieving process.

In many cases we push those unwanted fears, hurts and insecurities down so far it's easy to convince ourselves that we really have had enough time to emotionally heal from breakup and are ready to start dating and move on.

The problem is that when we do that we are just prolonging our pain, though of course, we don't realize it at the time.

You see, if you try to bury your pain it is still alive and can come back and attack you when you least expect it. You've no doubt heard the saying "out of sight out of mind", well that is what happens.

We convince ourselves that we don't have any pain left simply because we don't "see it" and that we have fully grieved for our old relationship when in reality we haven't.

So, when our guard is down and we least expect it, there it is all over again. It is like all the scary movies where the maniac isn't really dead and whenever someone relaxes he attacks again.

The nice thing is that there are things you can do to diminish the likelihood of this happening:

1. First of all, give yourself permission to grieve for as long as it takes. Sometimes those that love us the most are the worst offenders when it comes to trying to rush us through our grieving process.

They hate to see us in pain because they love us and they try to encourage us to "get back out there". They mean well but often this is the worst advice possible.

I know you have enough to think about just trying to get over your ex and you don't really want to have to gauge if the advice you are getting from the people in your life is good or bad, but that is what you have to do.

Only you can know how you are really feeling. Your best bet is to find a quiet place and just sit and think for a while. If you do this without distractions you will probably get the right answer.

2. If you think you are ready to move on and that you are over the worst of your breakup pain, but you still have some doubts, you are probably not ready.

One way you may be able to tell, assuming you have people in your life who can and will tell it like it is, is to ask some of those oh so honest friends.

You may still be giving off signs that your ex is still on your mind. Maybe you are talking about them more than you realize, maybe you still haven't taken their picture down off of your wall.

Whatever it is, an honest friend can point that out to you.

Do yourself a favor and be willing to give yourself permission, and all the time you need, to emotionally heal from breakup. That is the best way to ensure that all your other relationships from that point on will be happy and fulfilling.