Conscious Uncoupling — Self Care Guide
You’re single again. These are hard words to accept when they finally arrive in your life. It sucks because we are never ready for it, even if you encouraged it.
Our culture has taught us that love is an experience like finding a pearl, you tend to hoard it when not showing it off. But, when that pearl is lost it’s a grief that is unbearable at times.
You are going through a grieving process. You will have four stages that will go in and out of and in varying order:
Sadness
Anger
Acceptance
Denial or disbelief
Conscious Uncoupling is a process of detangling the lessons from the mistakes. Because learning from your mistakes is the only thing that keeps you from repeating them. You can’t take back that past, but you can train yourself to respond the way you want to in the future. Use this time and process to learn from your mistakes, heal your wounds and get better at the loving game.
I did a 21 Day Self-Care Challenge to get over my own relationship termination. We had a strong emotional connection and spoke the same love language. But that’s where our similarities ended. We were not in alignment in the other areas of our relationship: spiritually, intellectually, instinctually, or sexually. We were both in a constant state of compromise for each other’s happiness. Admirable, but exhausting.
The Self-Care Challenge is a relationship detox. It’s a pulling away of all contact to reset your body to self-wholeness. You are going through pheromone withdrawals. Your love life was your addiction. With any addiction, you need to work through it consciously and lovingly. Here is what I did.
Start with at least 21 Days of no contact. No Social Media peeking. Unfollow, unfriend, and Facebook has a 30 day temporary unfollow you can use. If you have to see each other, keep it civil, polite and short.
Remove the pics, memorabilia of the relationship from your everyday view. Put them in a drawer, trash them if you like. But protect your heart from unnecessary self-inflicted pain.
If the other party breaks the 21-day rule, you have to start over again. Don’t respond unless it’s business matters. Discussing the relationship now is aggravating a wound that hasn’t healed yet. Your heart needs time to heal from the punch of the breakup.
Three weeks of dedicating a block of time to your own healing is critical for long-term success. You would do if it was a broken leg. You have to rest to heal.
Use these 25 tips with the Self-Care Challenge as the responsibility to love yourself. Thereby returning your energy to fuel your dreams, heart’s desire and potential. Remember, the flight attendant tells you to put the oxygen mask on yourself first then the child. Do this for you. I call it conscious caring of self.
1 Now that you have more time on your hands. Identify the times you would share with your partner and use it for your self-care time.
2 Use the Hawaiian tradition of Ho’oponopono, a tool for forgiveness. These four statements bring you back to zero-point critical for healing. It requires radical honesty of what you should have done but didn’t. Then these four statements with the why’s to go with them. I’m sorry for, please forgive me for, thank you for and I love you.
3 Get in water. Whether a shower, pool or a hot tub. Submerge your body into the fluid we came from. Waters are communication device and healing. Let yourself feel good in the waters. Begin releasing stuck emotions that want to cling to your thoughts. Remember your intention makes it so.
4 Take your shoes off and walk in grass, sand or dirt. We get antioxidants from the soil and again a natural way of healing and feeling better with each step. Kiss mother earth with you feet.
5 Call friends and share it. Get together with someone else who cares about you and will give you a hug. Can’t find someone in your top contacts without feeling embarrassed? Then go professional and call me or a relationship coach for help.
6 Ask for help in understanding in yourself. Before you go to sleep ask for answers in dreams, meditations or talk to a friend or coach for feedback.
7 Do your good routines. Read the book, practice your music, do your creative work. Anything that stimulates the satisfaction in your own ability.
8 Get a massage but no happy endings. Take a long walk, exercise that releases stored emotions, adrenaline and grief.
9 Don’t hide your feelings. Be honest when asked. Details are not necessary, it’s gossiping when we don’t have anything good to say. So censor your words. If it’s anger and frustration that needs releasing then do so in a productive manner; i.e. hit the pillow, not the wall. Drive a bicycle fast, not a car. Drink to much water, not beer.
10 Avoid rebound sex. You dilute your healing process by ignoring the problems that caused the breakup. Yes, you’ll feel good but even online porn sex leaves a hollow experience afterwards.
11 Find the healthiest treat for yourself and indulge. Get comfort food in your body.
12 Look inward. At what you could of, should of but didn’t do. Ask yourself why not? Then accept the answer and forgive yourself. Another H’oponopono for you by you.
13 Listen to music. Nature has the best rhythms for healing. With commercial music, be careful what lyrics you put inside your head. Most music stimulates longing emotions that won’t help you now. Do not play the breakup songs over and over again.
14 Follow a new whim and try something new. Food, clothing, music, art experience, sport. Building new experiences helps you break the repetition of your old memories. They won’t change until you change them.
15 Push yourself in the direction of your dreams. Take a deep breath and speak them out loud. Then take an action toward those dreams. Especially the ones that you suppressed for the relationship.
16 Correct your mistakes. Fix something in the house. Clean your room, office, garage, vehicle.
17 Get more hugs, or go to a cuddle party. These non-sexual experiences help you co-regulate and calm your heart stress. Allowing you to experience positive emotions outside of a relationship.
18 Do nothing. Set a time aside for boredom. Just be still for a bit. Feel your body as a temporary emotion, changing constantly. Let it do its thing.
19 Acknowledge your addictions. Alcohol, weed, sugar, coffee, food, porn, sports, work, exercise are self-medicating coping tools. Acknowledge how often you use them to cope with stress. Then find another option. Comfort yourself instead of chastising. Don’t ignore these emotional needs.
20 Listen for new thoughts. Visualise yourself happy again. Remind yourself to smile for no reason at all.
21 Acknowledge the pain. Sit with it and let it release itself from the body. Suppressing or ignoring pain keeps it inside and the lessons hidden.
22 Run, dance, or walk far. Empty the mind, move the body, sweat out the negative residue of emotions. Exercise releases sadness, adrenaline, anger, and grief.
23 Follow your jealous thoughts to there conclusion. Look at your own feelings then and cry it out. Feel the pain of the rejection. Choosing someone else over us hurts. Even if you were not happy in the relationship it hurts. But it happens and adulting is accepting that.
24 Let empathy come to you. Accept the condolences with sincere thanks. Accept love from anyplace it comes. Even if it’s an animal. Dogs see and read human emotions better than us.
25 Remind yourself that self-care is an everyday practice and continue it.
What happens afterward? You should have a better perspective of the relationship. Heal the wound and exercise the heart muscle.
The emotions are still there and the questions of ‘could it work’ may still linger. And you will have a list of maybes and if only’s.
But should and can you both to answer for yourself.
Healing won’t happen overnight. Remember loneliness is part of love. To appreciate the highs of it, you also have to accept the lows of it.