Breakups suck.
Even if you know it was the right thing.
Even if it was mutual.
Even when you know they weren’t your person.

It aches.

If your heart feels tender, tired, angry, confused, or in pieces- this is for you.

1. Let It Hurt

Feel it. All of it.

Cry. Stare into space. Cuss out the universe. Miss them. Miss the idea of them.

Wonder if you should’ve done more. Regret that you ever tried.
Laugh at a memory and then immediately cry again.

This is normal.

You’re not broken. You’re grieving.

You don’t need to rush closure, or fix it, or cover up how you feel.

Your Tool: “I’m Allowed to Feel This” Reminder

What your feeling is valid. Say it out loud:
“Of course I feel this way. This mattered to me. I’m allowed to feel what I feel.”

Give yourself grace and let it move through you.

2. The Emergency Chill List

When your mind won’t stop spinning and your heart feels like it’s in a million pieces, you don’t need a pep talk, a podcast on attachment styles, or another scroll through TikTok.

You need a moment calm. A moment to breathe.

Your Tool: Make a 3-Item Calm List

Pick three grounding go-to’s and write them down / keep them in your phone:

• Drink a cold glass of water
• Go for a walk, stretch
• Take a shower
• Blast music – move, cry, sing
• Favorite funny videos or comfort TV
• Deep slow breaths with your hand on your chest
• Put your feet in the grass

Look to your list when you feel the ache swirling you. You will always float back to center.

3. Eat Something. Drink Water.

Heartbreak is a full-body experience.

You might forget to eat. Or only eat six doughnuts and call it a day.
You might cry so hard you forget when you last drank water.

Some days, getting out of bed feels impossible, let alone doing a grocery shop and cooking a meal.

Your Tool: Snack Simple Plan

• Keep low-effort food nearby: fruit, toast, cereal, granola bards, soup, frozen pizza
• Order yourself the pizza/ take-out. Consider using Doordash/ Instacart for groceries
• Drink one full glass of water in the morning and before bed
• Eat something. Best if you can get in at least one nutritious meal, but for now dear, just eat
• Care for your body like you’d care for someone you love
• Let yourself sleep when you can

Your system is doing a lot right now. Support it.

4. Remind Yourself What’s True

Your brain might play highlight reels or start rewriting history to soothe the ache.

But there were reasons this ended. Hold those gently.

Your Tool: Clarity Receipts

List what you know in your gut, not to shame anyone, but to stay grounded.

Examples:

• I asked for what I needed, and they couldn’t meet me
• I didn’t feel emotionally safe
• Boundaries were crossed
• I want to be with someone who chooses me fully
• I cannot control what anyone does, only how I react

5. Regulate, Then Reflect

Don’t try to make meaning while you’re dysregulated.

Our minds want to figure it out, to try to answer all the questions.

In the midst of a spiral, our brains can tell us things like “I’ll never find love,” “Why wasn’t I good enough,” or try to pin-point what went wrong, or the shoulda, woulda, coulda’s. While totally valid feelings after heartbreak, thinking this way is just rubbing salt in the wound.

If your chest is tight and your thoughts are loud, pause.

Tool: Low & Slow Breathing

Inhale for 4, exhale for 6. Repeat 3–5 times.
If you like, put your hand on your chest when you breathe.
Then journal. Or walk. Or shake your body. Or nap. Reflect later.
Truth lands best in calm.

Reflection after heartbreak is important and can be life changing- consider what possible lessons you can come away with, what you liked about that relationship and what you didn’t, but- especially in the first few weeks or months of a breakup- we are riding an emotional rollercoaster that has ups and downs on the daily and our judgement is clouded. Give yourself time to ground and process.

6. Re-Root Into You

This isn’t just an ending, it’s a beginning too.
You are not starting over. You are starting deeper.

Your Tool: The “Me Now” List

How can you take care of and love yourself best right now? (Start small, you’re already reading this and that is an act of self-care.)
What are you free to do, explore, wear, feel, or stop justifying?
What truths are louder now?
Who are you when you’re not shape-shifting for someone else?

If you imagined calling all of your energy back and pouring it into you, what does that look like? Reading? Painting? Going to the gym? Investing in yourself is always a sure bet.

7. You Won’t Always Feel Like This

It might feel like this ache will last forever. But it won’t.

Not because time magically fixes everything, but because you are growing deeper, and life is evolving with you, moment by moment.

The waves will still come. But you’ll float. You will always float. Just try to breathe. Try to relax and let the waves flow.

And eventually, you’ll surf.

Your Tool: A Letter from Future You

Write a short note from your higher self, or the future version of you, who feels free, safe, and whole again.
Let them remind you what’s waiting. That maybe things do just work out. That you do feel safe again, even, to love again one day.

That version already lives inside you. And you have so much love to give. Start right now with you.

Remember:

You do not need to have all the answers. You do not need to fix it all today. You don’t need to “get over it.”

Just stay with yourself. Be kind to yourself.

Eat.
Breathe.
Drink water.
Text someone who makes you laugh.

Then do the next kind thing.

One breath. One hour. One day at a time.

You’re doing better than you think.
Just keep a crack of light.
And one day, it will feel better.
💛