The Heroine’s Journey: Healing from A Breakup
By Dawn and Candace

Breaking up is hard to do any time of the year, but it is particularly heart wrenching when the guy dumps you during the holidays. What should be a festive, romantic time turns out to be a nightmare. In fact, according to a recent study of the Field Report published by the New York Times titled, "Break Up Takes the Economy Account," more divorces occur between the months of September and February, with the bulk of divorces filed between January 1 and February 13.

When THE ONE turns out to be one BIG mistake and you reach the point of no return, the most difficult journey you’ll ever take begins with separation and stretches on in time as you attempt to heal from the pain. The girlfriends you neglected when the relationship was hot and heavy suddenly receive your tearful midnight calls – every night.

Breaking up is a rite of passage that separates the women from the girls. It is a demanding, heroic journey that requires strength and courage to make it through.

No ending is easy, but arguably the most difficult is not when you end the relationship but when you have been unceremoniously and brutally dumped. Even if the guy attempts to be a gentleman about the breakup (Is that even possible?), it’s still a heartbreaking experience.

We’ve all been through it. The pain takes your breath away. You can’t eat, you can’t sleep. Or you eat too much, and you spend days at a time moping under the covers. You self-medicate with alcohol and drugs and ice cream. You call your girlfriends night and day. “That man done did me wrong!” you say, over and over. The grief is unbearable. At least with death there’s a finality that settles things. When you’ve been dumped like a bag of garbage, there’s a chance that you’ll see him again. Maybe he’ll call. You hope for another chance. If you could just talk to him…

If the relationship needed to come to an end, let’s hope and pray for your sake that he’ll stay gone.

Queens of Denial

Kerika Fields, author of He’s Gone...You’re Back: The Right Way to Get Over Mr. Wrong (Souls of My Sisters Books, 2009), provides wise counsel to help ease the pain of a brutal breakup. According to Fields, women on the verge of being dumped often deny the signs that are so glaringly obvious to everyone else. She calls these women “Queens of Denial,” and she says they are easy to spot.

Are you a Queen of Denial or a friend of one?

-   Do you get angry if you’re approached about obvious problems in your relationship?

-   Do you make excuses for your man’s bad behavior?

-   Do you do most of the work in your relationship? Are you the only one working to hold the relationship together?

As Fields says,

“So when you reach that point of no return, don’t you dare deny it. Instead, face it, acknowledge it, and know that the point of no return may be the end of your relationship, but it is not the end of your life…At this point, the only way out is up.”

Fight the Fear

In the African American community, we believe that there aren’t enough eligible men to go around. This instills panic, especially during the childbearing years. Fear taints our decision making around men. Too many of us settle for less than we deserve.

Our faith fails us during these times. We’re afraid of living alone, of raising children by ourselves. Courage, the thing we need most, flees in the face of doubt and confusion. Maybe he’ll change? Why won’t he change?

We begin to rationalize the relationship. Isn’t the devil you know better than the one you don’t know? If we just try harder, lose more weight, cook more, give him more sex, pray harder, he might change. Anything’s possible.

An overactive imagination that’s not based in reality will only hurt you and drive you further into denial. Now more than ever you must face reality. If you’ve finally reached the point of no return, Fields suggests making a “I’m Leaving Plan.” She says,

-         Save your money.

-         Develop a support group to help you through your transition.

-         Talk to your children and let them know what you’re planning to do.

The plan is absolutely essential to giving direction to your steps. If you don’t plan, you might end up begging him to take you back. If the guy’s been verbally, emotionally, and/or physically abusive, or even if he’s just not right for you, trust us, you don’t want him to take you back. Moreover, you don’t want to fall into a rebound relationship that could end up being worse (given your confused decision-making state of mind). Give yourself a chance to heal before getting into another relationship.

Bouncing Back

Believe it or not, though, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Healing takes time, but it will come. As Fields says,

“Bouncing back is all about exercising your resilience by reclaiming your life…Whatever you do, don’t be afraid to take chances; don’t close yourself off to the wonderful possibilities of the world or shun opportunities of finding love just because you’ve had your heart broken.”

 

If you have the courage to do the hard heart work, you’ll be set free. No guilt, no fear, no shame. You can hold your head up high as a woman who survived a trial and lived to tell the tale.

Loving yourself has become a cliché, but it’s a truism nevertheless. Love yourself especially when you’ve been hurt and rejected. Accept yourself. There’s no other way to truly heal. For some women, loving self is a challenge. A breakup will reveal to you all the ways you’ve loathed yourself. It just all pours out. Although you’ve been abandoned, true soul searching may reveal that you abandoned yourself first – your hopes for the future, your dreams, your purpose in life. If you’ve ever sacrificed your goals for the sake of a man, you abandoned yourself and he could only follow your lead. Think about it.

One of the most difficult things to do when you’re hurt and angry is to forgive. Yes, you can actually forgive your ex! If you want to know how to truly be free, we’ll let you in on a little secret: forgiveness and gratitude are the tickets to the Promised Land of freedom, relief, and joy.

If you can get to the point where you no longer harbor a grudge against your ex and where you can thank God for making you strong during the breakup, you’ll be able to sing,

Free at last

Free at last

Thank God almighty

I’m free at last!

 

From He’s Gone…You’re Back: The Right Way to Get Over Mr. Wrong by Kerika Fields (Souls of My Sisters Books, 2009).