How To Heal After A Friendship Break Up

Like everything in life, sometimes friendships come to an end. While a friendship break up might be apart of the circle of life, it can still hurt like crazy. Just like a break up with a romantic partner, losing a friend can be a traumatic and sad event. You loved your ex-friend, you laughed, cried and shared secrets with this person, and now they aren’t in your life.

While it might be a hard transition at first, I promise you that it get’s better. The sun always rises, and soon your pain will go away and you will start feeling like yourself again. Here are my 5 top tips to help you get through your friendship break up,

Tips for getting over a friendship break up

1. Embrace Your Feelings

The first step to moving on from any event in your life is to embrace how you are feeling. There is no need to pretend that you feel better then you do. You are only human, and one of the best parts of being human is getting to experience all of the emotions, so take the time to embrace them. You might feel lonely, mad, sad, frustrated, stuck, etc. and that’s ok. Take time to embrace your feelings. Journal them out, or talk with a family member, friend or therapist about what you are feeling and why you are feeling it. The healing process can start when you can own how you are feeling.

2. Take Time For Yourself

When you are going through any sort of hardship it is important to take time to rest and enjoy a little self-care. You just lost an important person in your life, it is totally ok for you to take some time to love yourself. Have a spa day, enjoy a bath, do a hobby that you love, go on an adventure, read a good book, try a new activity, spend the whole day watching Netflix, meditate, exercise, or anything else that makes you feel good.

3. Forgive

Forgiveness is the key to being able to move on with your life after a friendship break up. In Hawaii they have this forgiveness mantra that states that in order to fully forgive someone you need to state that you love them, you thank them, you are sorry, and you forgive them. You don’t have to make contact with your ex-friend to forgive them. Grab a journal and write out the 4 Hawaiian steps to forgiveness. I have personally done this forgiveness process with everyone that I needed to forgive in my life, and trust me it actually works and feels so revealing to write out.

4. Reflect

Once you had time to embrace your feelings and start the healing process, take some time to reflect on the relationship. You don’t have to dwell on the relationship, in fact, I recommend not dwelling on it, but take time to examine it. What happened that lead to the break up? Is there anything, constructive, that you can learn from, that can help you in future relationships? This is not an excess to beat yourself up or blame other people for your current life circumstances, but it is a great opportunity to grow. Find the lessons in this situation and use them to improve yourself.

5. Let Go

It’s time to let go of what happen. I know that this is hard to do, but it is so important. Know that it is ok if it takes you awhile to let go. Some great ways to help you let go are:

• write a goodbye letter to your ex-friend, that you don’t send. You could tear it up or burn it after you are done.
• Grab toilet paper and write out your feelings or a goodbye and flush it down the toilet.
• Get rid of any of their stuff.
• Declare it! Literally, drive to some open space and shout out that you are letting go and moving on.
• Have a funeral for the friendship. You don’t have to bury anything, but you could take time to say goodbye and release the past.

No matter what happens, please remember that you are loved and that things will get better. Hang in there and don’t be afraid to take time to rest and recharge, soon you will feel like yourself again.

Love you always,