Healing After a Breakup | Processing Grief Guilt Anxiety and Depression

Hey there everybody, and welcome to this presentation on recovering after a breakup, dealing with grief, guilt and anxiety. I'm your host, Dr. Donnellice Snipes. In this presentation, we're going to explore issues of grief, guilt and anxiety after a breakup and finally explore strategies to help people start healing and feeling better. We often focus on primary grief after a breakup. That is grieving over the loss of the relationship. I'm not with this person anymore. But we often fail to consider secondary losses that need to be grieved. Like the loss of mutual friends, the loss of routine that the two of you had together. Maybe the loss of housing, maybe you're moving out, or maybe the loss of financial support because the two of you used to split bills. You may also experience the loss of your role or your identity because you're no longer such and such a significant other. You are just you now. And you may also lose some dreams. Maybe you envisioned the two of you getting married or staying married and having children and doing this and that or retiring together. And that's not going to happen now. So there are a lot of secondary losses and tertiary, if you want to look at it that way, that need to be identified and processed. Some you may be able to work through pretty easily, others may take a minute. We also need to consider guilt associated with breakups. Most of the time when we go through a breakup, there will be a period where we reflect and we feel guilty about things that we did and think maybe we caused it. So we may need to process that guilt and we're going to talk in a few minutes about how guilt is anger at ourselves. We also may have changes in self reference and your default mode and the need to alter those schema that you have. When we're in a relationship again, we see ourselves as so and so's significant other. We see ourselves as successful in relationships. We see ourselves in a particular way. So that's our default mode. When that is no longer the case, our brain doesn't really know how to process that because something goes wrong, for example. And your default mode may be to pick up the phone and call your significant other. Well, you can't do that anymore. You can't pick up the phone and call that person. So your brain is sent kind of scrambling because your default strategies work anymore. And your self perception as somebody who is in a relationship that doesn't fit anymore. It doesn't mean that you won't ever be in a relationship again. But it requires some restructuring of the way you view yourself and you view the world. And depressive symptoms may result from just the stress of the breakup. You know, we know that depression is part of the grieving process, but when we go through a change, any change, it's exhausting. Change takes energy and effort. Change is stressful and can keep us from getting adequate sleep. It can be exhausting and draining in and of itself, and it can contribute to feelings of exhaustion and apathy and some of those things we associate with depression. So let's talk about each of these things. Remember, grief has five denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. We're going to skip over denial, because if you're experiencing breakup grief, you're probably recognizing that it is a reality. So anger and guilt and a little bit of anxiety maybe be some of your first reactions. You may be angry at the person for doing what they did to break up the relationship or the situation. Maybe the relationship ends because the person got transferred across the country, or maybe the repl. Relationship ends for some other reason. A situation that caused the two of you to make the decision to no longer be in a relationship together. And sometimes it's taken out of your hands. When a person passes away, then there's. It's still a breakup of sorts. It's still something you need to grieve. There can be guilt or anger at yourself for things that you think you might have done wrong. And it's important to remember that Hindsight might be 2020. When you look back at fights that you had, ways that you interacted, things that you did, you may be able to see, maybe I shouldn't have done that. But in hindsight, you're not considering generally all of the factors that were at play, your characteristics and vulnerabilities in the moment. So maybe that day that you had that particular disagreement, you had not gotten adequate sleep, or you were in pain, or you were sick, or you were stressed out because of work. And not that that is an excuse, but it's important to recognize that our reactions, our behaviors, are not just don't exist just in isolation. They're impacted by our environment, our experiences from the day, any vulnerabilities like hunger, fatigue, pain, pain, sickness we're feeling. So it's important to recognize if you can remember if you had any other vulnerabilities going on right then. Now, there may be some characteristics, like you have difficulty listening without interrupting people, or you have difficulty not getting defensive. Okay, That's a personal characteristic that may contribute. That's something that you can work on. You know, a lot of times in situations where there's change we learn things about ourself that we may want to change to morph into this new reality, this new normal, if you will. But again, it is important to recognize and only take responsibility for those things that are your responsibility. The other person. I always say it takes two to tango. The other person. Their characteristics and their vulnerabilities in the moment may have also contributed to the situation and situational influences. Like if you had this disagreement in public versus in private, you may have reacted differently. You know, if it happens in public, you. You may feel more threatened. You may feel like you've got to stand up for yourself, where in private it may go a little more smoothly, or vice versa. Maybe in public you bite your tongue, but if it happens in private, you tend to be more verbally aggressive. If it was with your friends, you may have felt emboldened because you had backup. If it was with their friends, you may have felt outnumbered because they had backup. And your reaction may have also been based on what you actually knew. I talk to a lot of people these days who meet people online and they assume that they know what the other person is like, who they are, what they're doing, and they may be being, I hope I'm using the term correctly, catfished. So it is important to recognize that maybe you've been in this virtual relationship with somebody, or you thought you were for four or six months and turns out they had a significant other all along and the person that you thought you knew didn't really exist. It was just a. It was just an act. Or you thought, thought you knew that the two of you were together, but in reality you were just an affair, an emotional affair at the very least. So it is important to recognize that you made the best decisions you could with the skills you had in the moment. And I try to believe that the other person also made the best decisions and acted the best way they could with the skills they had in the moment. It doesn't mean that there's not room for growth, but guilt can be oppressive if we hold onto it, if we nurture it. Anger and guilt are fight or flight stress responses mainly fight and indicate feelings of threat or unsafeness. In order to process anger, anxiety and guilt, it's important to start by mindfully and non judgmentally noticing how you're feeling and what you're thinking. You can do this by journaling, or if you don't like long hand journaling, logging. You can even record it into a voice recorder if you hate writing, whatever it takes. And there's also voice to text, you know, whatever works for you. But it can be helpful to get it out on paper so you can actually see your thoughts. And I know that sounds weird, but they've done research that has indicated that when people are able to see their thoughts, see what they're thinking, they get it out there, it stays longer, they ponder it for longer. If they just say it, you say it. And as soon as the sound's gone, sometimes the thought feels like it's gone, but if it's staring you back in the face, it causes you more pause, it causes you to ponder it a little bit more. And when you're journaling and logging, you can get a better handle on all of the feelings and thoughts that you're having because sometimes there's just too much to remember. So you can go back and you can look and you can say, okay, these are the thoughts that I'm regularly having now, what are the underlying themes and how can I process them? So when you are journaling or logging, identify what you're angry about or afraid of. A lot of times it surrounds themes of rejection and powerlessness, but not always. So when you have those thoughts, whatever the thought is, jot it down. And you know, you may have this initial list of thoughts that you jot down and two weeks later you have this other thought that comes from out of nowhere. Okay, add it to the list. You're going to deal with those thoughts, but it's important to mindfully be aware, to take note of what you're thinking. Explore ways in which this loss is triggering unresolved past issues like other breakups or abandonment issues or adoption issues, or even trauma issues that may not even be related to a relationship. You know, maybe you experienced trauma in your past that has, you know, not relationship oriented, and you were in a relationship with somebody who made you feel safe and now that person is gone, so now you don't feel safe anymore and you're wondering who's going to be your, your safety person. So breakups can trigger a lot of anxiety and unsafeness about a lot of different things. And instead of telling ourselves how we should or shouldn't feel, it's important to just notice and acknowledge, validate how we do feel and then figure out how to deal with it. Develop distress tolerant thoughts. Distress intolerant thoughts are when you tell yourself, I can't stand this, I need to make this stop, I can't go one more day. Distress tolerant thoughts are those thoughts that say, yeah, this really sucks, or this is unpleasant and I can get through it and I have support that I can lean on. So distress tolerant thoughts are exactly what they sound like. They're things that you tell yourself that remind you that it's unpleasant. It's not something you want to do, but you can do it. These feelings are not going to overpower you. You can also develop distress tolerance skills and I've done a lot of videos on those. But some of the easiest ones, if you will, are unhooking. Instead of saying I am devastated, saying I am having the feeling that I'm devastated. If I am devastated, it's part of me and it feels like it can overwhelm me if I say I'm having the feeling that, that I'm devastated. A feeling is something. It's like I'm having, you know, ice cream. I'm having, you know, a bad day. It's something that is more transient. It's something that is outside of ourselves. So unhooking can help. I am having the thought that this is the worst thing ever. You can also create a thought box. And this can be helpful for some people who find that they just can't shut their mind off and they can't focus on anything. Now, I'm not saying it works for everybody. You know, there's a certain time in the early process where your mind is going to be racing and it's going to be difficult to get focused. But as you move away from that breakup event, it may be helpful when you start having thoughts or anxieties or frustrations to jot them down, put them in a thought box or you can jot them down on a notepad on your digital device. Whatever works for you. And then know at the end of the day, you know, five o', clock, seven o', clock, whatever works for you, you will give yourself permission to attend to Those thoughts for 30 minutes or an hour. You want to put a cap on it though, so you don't start pondering it and get stuck in it. I encourage people to set an actual alarm, like the alarm on their stove, so they don't get sucked into it too much and spend too much time. Now, of course, if you are feeling suicidal, it is important to reach out for professional help. This video is not appropriate for handling people who are in extreme crisis and you never want to minimize that. If you are feeling out of control, if you are feeling like you're in crisis, there is no shame in reaching out to reaching out for help. Once you have identified your thoughts and started developing distress tolerant thoughts and distress tolerance skills, Then you can start figuring out how you can down regulate into your wise mind. For a lot of people, one of the easiest ways is breathing. Breathe in for four, hold for four and exhale for four. Do that two or three times. That deep breathing triggers the rest and digest. It helps down regulate that that fight or flight activity so you can get again into your wise mind. It helps you switch from what we call your default mode which is fight or flight. Get me out of here. Just keep me safe. Not thinking, just doing to your executive network that says, okay, let me consider all the facts and figure out what options I have to improve the next moment. Once you have down regulated into your wise mind, begin examining each thought that's causing you to feel angry or anxious using the FCP method. What are the facts supporting and against your beliefs? Such as she left me because I'm not good enough. Okay, what are the facts for and against that belief? I will never find someone like her again. What are the facts for and against that belief? And you're not going with what your assumptions are. You want actual hardcore observable facts. When random thoughts arise, write them down and process them either during your processing time or right then. If you don't have a processing time, what aspects of the situation do you have control over going forward? Now, the past is the past. You have no control over the past. But you can control your reactions to that person. You can control your what you do with your feelings when you experience them. You can control what you choose to do moving forward. You can control your interpretations of situations. If you're one of those people who tends to be excessively pessimistic, you know, you might embrace those dialectics and try to see both sides, the good and the bad in the situation. Now I'm not saying toxic optimism, I'm saying tragic optimism. That is recognizing the suck of the moment, but having hope that it can get better. And you have control over your behaviors. You have control over whether you call up that person. You have control over whether you, you know, drive by their house. You have control over whether you start dating again or not. So there are things you do have control over again. Remember, feelings are your friend. It's what you do with them that can be problematic. When your body feels anxious or angry or guilty or some of those fight or flight oriented feelings, that's your body saying, hey, pay attention, there might be a problem here. There might be a threat, you might be in danger. Notice I keep saying might. The brain can only process information when it's in default Mode based on prior experiences. So that causes you to dump energy. When the HPA axis, when your fight or flight system kicks off, dumps energy. The ideal situation is you get that energy, then you switch over to the Executive Network. That can say, okay, now, in the past this may have been indicated a problem. Let me look at the current context and figure out what my options are. So you switch over to executive Network. That's again, easier said than done. But feelings, we want to notice them, we want to validate them because they are giving us information. They're giving us information about what might be a problem or what might be something we want to do. Again, if we're feeling happy or elated, those feelings are telling us to do something too. So you're looking at the facts for and against your belief. You're looking at what aspects of the situation you have control over going forward. And you're looking at what is the probability that this thought or my worst fear is going to come true as long as I do things that are within my control. So if your belief is I will never find someone like her again, okay, you look at the facts, figure out how, you know how likely that is. You know, what is the. What are the facts for and against it? Do you even believe it? And then you look at what aspects of the situation you have control over. Well, if you never start dating again, then you're not going to find somebody like her again. You know, if you stay in your house, you avoid dating, that's obviously going to fulfill that prophecy. But if you get out there, you know, you do have control over trying to meet people. What is the probability that if you get out and you start dating again, that you will find someone that you want to be with? Maybe not exactly like your ex, because, you know, obviously you and your ex did not gel for some reason. But what is the probability that you will never find someone again? And then there's forgiveness. And that is often thought of as one of the many F words. Forgiveness I think of as a power play because you're choosing to accept the situation and refusing to let it steal any more of your energy that you could use to move toward the life you want. Think of it like when you're driving along and if you get stuck in the mud, if you are holding on to anger and resentment, it's like staying in the mud and pressing that accelerator and spinning your wheels and getting deeper and deeper and deeper and it's going to get harder and harder and harder to get unstuck. Forgiveness is when you choose to use that energy instead of flooring the gas pedal to get out and get a board to put under the. Under the tire so you can get traction and you can get out of there. Forgiveness is using your energy in a positive way to help you move forward. So what does it involve? Well, four R's. Recognize what you are angry, resentful, or feeling guilty about. You know, that's the first thing. You got to figure out where this is coming from. Number two, remorse. If it's something you did to someone else, if you feel guilty about something, then you may need to feel remorse. Now, you can't control if somebody else is going to feel remorse. That is, you know, when you're talking about forgiving somebody else, that R doesn't really apply. But when you're talking about anger at yourself for something, then remorse can be important. But notice if it is something you did to someone else or didn't do that you should have or yourself. Sometimes we feel guilty for putting ourselves through something, and it's important to acknowledge that and be cognizant of that. All right? Once you recognize what you're feeling guilty or angry about, you have identified that you're feeling remorseful. You know, that's. That's good because that's your body telling you, okay, now here's some energy. Let's do something about it. So we move on to rectify if it is towards somebody else. You may need to make amends or apologize for what you did or what you didn't do. But obviously you may only want. You only want to do this when it's appropriate and safe. Sometimes it's not safe to even encounter this other person again. So amends and apologies sometimes need to be made to the person. Sometimes can be done in using a technique with a counselor called empty chair, or writing a letter that you don't ever mail. You know, there are a lot of ways to work on rectifying if you have to make amends or apologies. But it is important to make sure that you stay safe while doing it and learn from it. And that's part of rectifying when something happens. If somebody wrongs you in some way, learn from it so you're less likely to get wronged by that person or other people in the future. If you do something that you feel guilty about, learn from it so you don't do it again. If you feel guilty about some of the things that you did in your relationship, okay, well, you can't un. Ring a bell, but you can learn from it. Ask yourself, why did I do that? What caused me to engage in those behaviors, and how can I keep from doing it in the future? And counselors can help you examine issues with that. I believe that behavior is a form of communication. So what you do is trying to tell you something about what your needs are or the fact that you feel unsafe. So again, counselors can help you explore if it's something that you haven't dealt with from your past, if you've got some abandonment issues coming from insecure attachments in your past, or if you need to learn from it because maybe that particular relationship was just terribly unhealthy. But learning from it, and the final R is release. And that is really hard. It's hard to quit being angry. But release is what we often think of when we think forgiveness. You're not saying it's okay. You're saying it is what it is. I recognized it. I did what I needed to do to rectify the situation or protect myself from having it happen again. And I am going to choose not to steal energy from the future and tie it up in the past. I refuse to keep sending energy back there to this thing that I can't change. It's done. Bargaining is the next stage in the grief process. And you may think of it in terms of the fight or flight response system. You have fight, flee, and then you also have frantic or fawning. And when people are frantic, they're, like, doing anything. They're just frantically trying to undo what they undo this loss. Fawning is very similar to frantic in that the person is desperately trying to appease the powers that be to make this loss go away, to make it, you know, not happen. So in bargaining, somebody may say, if I do xyz, then they will come back. People bargain with their higher power a lot, and they say, if I start being a better person, then you will give me this back. I will stop hurting. Another aspect, and this is more in the fawning area, is misremembering the past, telling themselves, you know what? Maybe it actually wasn't that bad. Maybe we broke up and. And, you know, I made something, a mountain out of a molehill. So bargaining can take different shades, if you will, but ultimately it's trying to invalidate how you feel or figure out a way to undo what's been done. It's important to remember that change causes crisis, and crisis causes change. Just like when a butterfly. Well, when a caterpillar, ra. Wraps themselves up into a cocoon and morphs into this butterfly. It's not that they just all of a sudden take off their coat and they've got wings on their back. They go through this pretty gruesome process to become butterflies. And during that process, change, they wrap in the cocoon. That's a change. They're no longer footloose and fancy free we, which causes crisis. It precipitates this metamorphosis. And this metamorphosis, when they come out of their cocoon causes them to change. As butterflies, they act differently than they did when they were caterpillars. They fly instead of creep and crawl. So remember that change causes crisis, and crisis causes change. Grief, loss, change, breakups. It's not easy. Notice your thoughts. Mindfully revisit the tools that we just talked about for processing anger, anxiety, and guilt. Explore your anxious beliefs about whether it's really something you want or if it's just less scary than being alone. Do you really want to go back to that or are you just trying to avoid change? What aspects of the situation do you currently actually have control over? You know, if I do xyz, then this other person will, you know, abc. No, we can't guarantee that we don't have control over other people's behavior. Also, explore your anxious beliefs about what it means to you to be alone, broken up. What memories do you have about prior breakups or being alone that may be scary to you or open old wounds? And what messages have you received from your culture, from your family, about breakups, about being alone, and what do you think about those? So it's important to process not only your own personal thoughts, but what messages are you getting from your culture. The next stage is depression. And people don't move through grief in this nice, orderly fashion, where they go anger, bargaining, depression, voila, acceptance. No. My clinical experience is people tend to bounce back and forth between denial, anger, bargaining, and depression for quite a while until they process their stuff, so to speak, and are at the point that they are ready to let go of that hurt when they are not feeling afraid anymore and they can move into this new reality, which is scary, they're having to get outside their comfort zone. So depression, when you realize that you're powerless to change the fact that you lost something important to you. Depressive symptoms result from the stress of the breakup as well as being part of the grieving process. When our HPA axis, our threat response system is activated, you dump cortisol, you dump adrenaline, you dump thyroxine, you dump a whole lot of what we call excitatory neurochemicals your body is saying there might be a threat. You need this energy to stay safe. Well, when that stays turned on even a little bit, it keeps you from getting good quality deep sleep. So then you start having disruptions into your circadian rhythm, which will start disrupting your sleep. And when your hormones are secreted, your cortisol, your gonadal hormones, your thyroid hormones, things start getting all out of whack. Now those hormones and your circadian rhythms are also related to the availability of your brain chemicals called neurotransmitters. So when your circadian rhythms get disrupted, we start seeing alterations in sleep, eating, energy, motivation, mood. You know, a lot of stuff starts getting funky, if you will, and people start experiencing increased pain. When you are stressed for an extended period, cortisol, your main stress hormone, loses its ability to be an anti inflammatory. So the inflammatory cytokines that are released in order to help your body repair after a stressful event, they just go floating around unopposed, which increases inflammation. It can trigger or worsen autoimmune issues. And you may experience feelings of apathy, hopelessness, and helplessness, partly because you're not getting good enough sleep and your brain can't clear out all of the adenosine and everything else. So you feel foggy a lot of the time. You have a hard time concentrating and you're recognizing you're dealing with the reality of this loss. So your neurotransmitters are balanced differently. Your neurotransmitters are balanced in a way that is not going to reflect happiness and elation and curiosity and those other feelings. And depression is your body's drop back, if you will, for recovery. When you start feeling depressed, your body, you have less energy. Your body is saying you need to rest, you need to get rebalanced because we're out of whack. Think of depression kind of like a car that is running on oil that hasn't been changed for 30,000 miles. Okay. You know, it's still kind of putting along, but it's not very efficient and there's a whole lot of smoke. Addressing depression. Be kind to yourself, Be compassionate. One day at a time. Depression is not something that you can will away. Now you can pay attention to what you're eating and stay hydrated and, you know, all that other stuff. But it's also important to give yourself some time to move through this process. If you are in a relationship with somebody for a minute, it's going to take a minute to adjust to your new reality. Regardless of whether you were the Dumper or the dumpee or even if it was mutual. Breakups involve change and that's hard, that's exhausting and that will trigger that HPA axis. Maintaining your circadian rhythms is really important. You know, I said your HPA axis is activated. Things you can do. Try not to think about or do your processing work right before bed. You know, you don't want to get that HPA axis activated right before you're trying to go to sleep. Create a sleep routine. I have several videos on the YouTube channel on sleep hygiene that can help you work to maintain your circadian rhythms. Minimize your naps during the day. Try to stay awake when the sun is up and sleep when the sun is down. Set aside processing time so you don't feel like you are constantly processing things. Recognize your energy may be lower for a bit and have self compassion. Now might not be the time to invite your entire family over and offer to cook Thanksgiving dinner. You know, that is, that takes a lot of energy. So recognize what you can do and do, do what you must. You know, if you need to, you know, get prepackaged food for a little while because you just don't have the energy to cook. Okay, well cut yourself some slack and reevaluate in a week or two weeks to see, okay, can I start doing a little bit more? Get emotional and instrumental support. Emotional support is pretty self explanatory. Instrumental support is support from friends that are helping you do things that you need to do. They're going grocery shopping for you, they are going with you to run errands. They are assisting you in some way when you interact with others who are providing support, emotional or instrumental. It can help release oxytocin, our bonding hormone. Now when you break up, your body goes, that bond is broken. So your oxytocin levels tend to go down when you start interacting with people who can give you emotional and instrumental support. Even if it's not romantic, even if it's your, your neighbors or your church family or you know, the group that you volunteer with that helps with increasing oxytocin levels and does have a significant impact on mood and attention. Keep a log of your mood. Look for improvements in frequency, intensity and duration of your grief bursts. So you're going to have grief bursts for a little while while you're grieving this loss, while you're moving through this process and, and that's okay. What we want to do is see you going from, you know, feeling overwhelmed and incapacitated all day to, you know, maybe having a couple of grief bursts a day to eventually, you know, only a couple a week, and then eventually none. But it's a process. It's a gradual process where, where as you get further away from that event, it often becomes less overwhelming because your brain starts developing new default schema. So it's not constantly looking for that file not found. It's not constantly looking for that schema that has to do with your significant other. It's developing alternatives to put in its place. Moving toward acceptance. Once you are ready, then moving towards acceptance. You can start by defining what a rich and meaningful life looks like for you. And I call this your pet projects. What people, experiences and things are important in your life. So you'll have a definition and I encourage you to at the very least have a sheet of paper for each one of those things. On the front of that sheet of paper you can describe what, for example, with people, for each person, describe what that relationship will look like, the things that you will do, et cetera. On the back of that paper you can identify, you know, three or four things that you are going to start doing to nurture that relationship to help make it evolve into what you're hoping or try to help it evolve into what you're hoping it will be. Same thing for your experiences. Maybe you want to start rock climbing. Great. Write down rock climbing, why you think it would be awesome. On the back steps you need to take in order to start rock climbing, you want to figure out effective, purposeful ways to use your energy. Instead of just stealing your energy from the present or the future and just giving it to the resentments and anger of the past, how can you take that energy that you've got and use it to propel you forward? So once you've defined your rich and meaningful life, think of that as a 10. That's on the scale of 1 to 10. That's a 10. Then look at it and say, okay, where am I at now? Maybe you already have 2/3 of those things, so you're already a 6. Great. Maybe you've only got 2 or 3 of those things. Okay, so you're at a 2. What would it take to move up one level? Not to get to a 10, but what would it take to move up 1 level on that scale? In the meantime, you can work on hacking your neurotransmitters, if you will. Eating healthfully, food based nutrition. I'm not talking about a bunch of supplements. I'm talking about learning how to eat healthfully and colorfully. Get those antioxidants in there, make sure you're getting enough protein and water, moderate, minimize, or ideally eliminate. But you know, I'll pick my battles. Caffeine and nicotine, those stimulants, activate that HPA axis, that threat response system. If you're trying to let it have a break so it can recover, so you can relax, then caffeine is really not going to be super helpful. Regulate your circadian rhythms. Consider aromatherapy. And not every smell works for every person. But they have found that certain smells like rosemary, bergamot, lavender, chamomile, actually can trigger some serotonin and dopamine and other neurotransmitters. And in the video on enhancing your neurotransmitters, I go through those different essential oils. But aromatherapy, and I use that term really loosely, can also include just smells that you smell during the day. If you smell something that you really love. Like I love a really good dark roast coffee. When I smell that, I have this relaxing feeling kind of surge throughout my body. Is it an essential oil? No, it's coffee. But I have positive associations with that smell, so it helps me have one of those, ah moments. Think about what sorts of scents you want to integrate into your environment. Some people like apple and cinnamon. Some people like, you know, there are some that you can get just in, like air fresheners, whatever works for you. Exercise. Yeah, I know if it started with an F, it would be an F word. So we can call it fitness. There's another F word. I'm not talking about necessarily going to the gym and, you know, taking an aerobics class or pumping iron or whatever. I'm talking about moving your body. If that means dancing around the house like a crazy person, do that. If that means vigorously cleaning your house, if that means going out on a walk with the dog, whatever it means moving your body increases oxygenation and increases, at the very least, serotonin and dopamine. If you exercise in your target heart rate zone, there's evidence it also increases endorphins. Things that make you happy or used to. You may feel kind of anhedonic, apathetic. Right now. You just don't care about much of anything. That's fine. Explore things that used to make you happy, like some of your favorite comedians. Start listening to them. At first you may listen to them and just be like, oh, ha ha ha. But then all of a sudden, in a couple weeks, you may start noticing that you're listening to them and you're actually starting to really lol. And that's when you know that your neurotransmitters and your HPA axis may be starting to get back in alignment. So try to do at least one thing each day for at least 10 minutes that makes you happy or at least used to make you happy. Just try it. Awe experiences. And these are experiences that prompt the sense of awe. Like standing at the base of a waterfall or seeing a double rainbow, or for me, even watching, like, waves come in and crash, especially big waves that are just. Or surfers, or watching somebody that is a phenomenal athlete just perform this poetic movement and it's just breathtaking. Those awe experiences actually increase our positive neurotransmitters. Redecorate. If you've got a lot of reminders of your significant other around your house. You know, redecorate, move the furniture around, get some different throw pillows. Consider changing some pictures if you can. Whatever you can do, consider changing some colors. If you notice that you've got a lot of drab colors, you know, maybe now's the time to have an accent wall. Whatever it is that can help you visually alter the environment to be more relaxing and inviting and do something nice for someone or something. This is another way to enhance the release of dopamine and oxytocin. You don't have to necessarily touch something to get oxytocin, but if you're doing something nice for someone, it actually triggers the release of that bonding chemical. The same thing is true if you do it for animals. Like you feed the birds and you watch them. That sense of I did something nice for the birds and the birds appreciate it actually triggers oxytocin. Or going out into nature and picking up trash or weeding in your local state park with the permission of the park ranger, of course, so you know that you're creating a more hospitable environment for the critters that live there. Any of those things that help you feel like you're making a positive difference are going to increase oxytocin, which will increase dopamine and serotonin. After a breakup, it's important to focus on the primary loss, the relationship, but also secondary losses that need to be grieved. Like friends, routine, your identity as somebody's significant other, your hopes and dreams for the future. You need to process your guilt about what your aspect was, what your contribution was to that breakup. You may need to process changes in self reference and your default mode. Because if you are no longer such and such a significant other or that person is not in your life, then your default mode of responding may be reaching out for one of those schema for, you know, this is what I do in this situation. And encountering a file not found, you got to figure out something else to do. You can't call them anymore. You can't go over to their house. You also need to process depressive symptoms that result from stress as well as the breakup. Anger, anxiety, and guilt are all threat responses that are designed to motivate you to do something to help you feel safer. When you break up, it precipitates a change. It forces you out of your comfort zone. When you get forced out of that comfort zone, you feel unsafe. So what can you do to help yourself feel safe during this change process?