GenZ Breakup

Namaskar, I wanted to write this article since, a lot of my clients, and most of them are very young,, are coming into therapy specifically because they’re trying to process life after a relationship that they thought was going to make it all the way to the end, or even if they knew it wasn’t, they might even feel guilty or shameful about how long they stayed in a dead-end relationship. And what we find at the end of a relationship sometimes is somewhat of an identity crisis. So much of who we are can be created or cultivated by who we spend a lot of our time with, and when we’re no longer serving those people and they’re no longer serving us, it can be really difficult to move on to the next chapter of our lives. So today, I want to give you some practical tips, things that you can try, things that have been helpful for my clients and my friends that you might be able to utilize to help you move on and get to a phase in your life where you have processed emotionally this past relationship.

Top Tips for Healing After a Breakup

1. Identify Your Triggers and Create a Plan

First tip is identifying your triggers and creating a plan to navigate them and reintroduce them into your life. So when we’re talking about a breakup, we’re talking about specific triggers that might prompt memories of that relationship, whether they are good or bad memories. So maybe there’s a song you guys used to love to listen to together, maybe there are shows you used to watch together, maybe there’s a certain street that you used to always take a walk down, and now you avoid these places because they remind you of the person that you loved in the relationship that you saw going however far that you envisioned it going. And when you’re in that place, you start limiting your own life experiences. You know, all of a sudden, you don’t watch the show you used to watch. I’ve seen it to an extreme where I have clients who can’t even use certain streaming platforms because it reminds them of being in that relationship. Certain songs turn into a certain album, turn into the entire artist—you won’t listen to that artist anymore. And what happens? We just see these small triggers really manifesting into much larger triggers that are extremely inconvenient to navigate.

• How to Start: So if you can identify the things that you are avoiding after this relationship and start working with your therapist, with your friends, or on your own on developing a plan for reintroducing those things into your life. You know, if we were to stick with that song example, maybe the first thing you do is listen to some songs by that artist, maybe something recent that came out well after you guys were even together, for example. Then you can maybe go back to that album, and then you can maybe allow yourself the opportunity to listen to those songs that are particularly prompting you to feel sad, to feel anxious, to feel hopeless, and you reintegrate those things back into your life.
• Why It’s Not Easy: And it won’t be easy. You want to make sure you’re doing it at a time where you can really process what’s happening. It’s okay if you’re sitting in your car, you got a box of Kleenex, you know you’re gonna cry—that is okay. Work with yourself and allow yourself the opportunity to fully process what this prompt or trigger means to you at this point in your life.

2. Be Honest About Your Contribution

Here’s a big one, and this is my biggest focus with my clients: Be honest with yourself about your contribution to the downfall of that relationship. What I hear more often is people giving me a laundry list of reasons why their ex never deserves them, why they’ve got to start asserting their worth, and you know, those things are important, right? We need to know what our standards are and be sure to uphold them and enforce boundaries when needed. But what I really rarely hear in those initial conversations is a sense of accountability, and it can’t just be, “Oh, I picked the wrong people.” I’m sure that is a factor, right? But if you keep doing that, let’s get more specific.

• Key Questions: Why are you attracted to people that make you feel a certain way? What have you witnessed or experienced earlier on, prior to this relationship, that supported that choice? What do you do that keeps those behaviors going, right? Are you not good at vocalizing when something makes you uncomfortable, for example? Or are you short-tempered and you yell, and they yell, and the next thing you know, it’s becoming physical?
• Action Plan: Be very, very honest with yourself because this is the only way that we can put some sort of plan in place to prevent this from happening in the future. If we recognize that maybe you have poor emotional regulation skills, for example, then we can start talking about coping skills to help you calm down when you feel triggered. That could help de-escalate your arguments with partners in the future.
• Why It Works: This is what we have to be focused on because there’s absolutely nothing you can do about that ex. We cannot change how that ex treats people. We cannot change how that ex treated you. But what we can do is focus on what you have control and influence over and assure that we use that to the best of our ability going forward in your other relationships.

3. Delete Pictures and Digital Memories

And the next one, brace yourself, because not everyone’s going to agree with this, but I do find value with my clients who have a particular fascination or obsession with the previous relationship, like it is impacting your friendships, impacting your family relationships, impacting your work relationships because you feel that impacted by what happened in the past. I would challenge you to go through and delete some of the pictures that you all have together.

• Why It’s Hard: Why? Because when we get to this point in the exercise with helping a client heal from a breakup, this is where I actually get the most resistance. I could hear for months from a client—some clients, years—about how awful this person was, how bad that time in their life was, and then I say, “Well, let’s go through some of these pictures and get rid of them, make room for your new life,” because I’ll have clients who don’t want to get on certain apps because, you know, they have their ex’s number, and that person’s gonna be suggested to them, for example. And so, they are constantly avoiding reminders of that relationship. So I say, okay, let’s go through some of these pictures, let’s delete some of these memories and make room for your new life. And what typically happens is that person eventually has to admit they don’t really want to let that person go. They don’t really want to let that relationship go. That focusing on that time in their life is part of what’s been giving their life now meaning, even if it’s anger. They are using that anger as a source of their identity. They’re using the bitterness and jadedness as a source of their identity. They’re using it as a reason to keep people away, for example.
• Why It Works: And so, this exercise, if you’re struggling with the idea of deleting pictures or, you know, at least moving them to a folder that you don’t have easy access to, that might be an indication that you’re still holding on to that relationship, and even more reason to get some professional support to help you understand more about why.

4. Write a Goodbye Letter

Write them a goodbye letter. Maybe the relationship ended on terms that you’re not necessarily happy about or comfortable with or sure about. You just feel something unfinished. Maybe you never said what you needed to say to them.

• How to Do It: Writing them a goodbye letter—and now, whether you actually mail this out or throw it away or burn it or keep it doesn’t matter—but the important thing is the catharsis of getting your thoughts and emotions out, allowing yourself the opportunity to cry and make connections and maybe listen to a song that reminds you of them, whatever it takes for you to be able to release those feelings, those stressors, those fears.
• Why It Works: And it’s not gonna just fix it, but it will help you at least make sense or put words around what you’re experiencing because I believe that with language, there’s power. If we have the language to articulate something, then we are one step closer to finding a solution.

5. Write a Hello Letter to Yourself

Relatedly, write a hello letter to yourself, to your new self, the person you want to be. Start exploring what you want your life to look like now.

• How to Start: Okay, if we are so hyper-focused on the past, how can we ever set ourselves up in the present for the future? So start allowing yourself to dream again. My clients sometimes find themselves in a depression after a breakup because they just don’t know who they are without that relationship. You know, maybe they were preparing themselves to be a spouse, maybe they were envisioning children, maybe they have children with this person, and now they’re like, “I don’t know how to be a single parent,” for example. And these things are very real experiences, very valid feelings, but I don’t want you to feel stuck there.
• Action Plan: So the only way we can start making some sort of progress is for us to have some sort of finish line in mind. So maybe you always wanted to go back to school, or maybe you wanted to pick up the guitar, or maybe you always wanted to redecorate this room that reminds you so much of them. Start allowing yourself the opportunity to be inspired again, to envision a life that maybe wasn’t even possible.

To earn a woman’s respect, focus on being the version of yourself that leads with clarity, calm, and quiet strength. That’s what we notice, and that’s what we remember.

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