Un-break my heart – A CBT perspective.

Unbreak my heart, say you love me again…

Wait a minute! This is not how it works… This was the first thought that crossed my mind, hearing this 90’s hit song again.

Heartbreak is a painful experience.

It is so painful because even though touted as one emotion: it is an amalgamation of three feelings and corresponding thoughts.

When you face this triple whammy of feelings you experience “hurt.”

So, what are these three feelings?

• You feel angry. You’ve been let down, rejected, and betrayed by someone you believed loved you. How dare he treat you this way? If you could get your hands on him now, you’d throttle him. You’d like to see him suffer.
• You feel self-pity. You tell yourself that you don’t deserve this. You were kind to him, and now you’ve been kicked in the guts. Unfair and unjustified. Being rejected by your lover is intolerable, and more than you should have to bear.
• You feel contempt for yourself. You tell yourself that your lover rejected you because there is something fundamentally wrong with you. He has seen your flaws and doesn’t want you, and no one else will likely want you either.

Each of these feelings need to be dealt with individually for you to unbreak your heart.

The hurt that you feel comes on top of the break-up of the relationship. Although it seems like one big problem, it’s actually two problems: (1) your relationship has ended; and (2) you feel hurt. You have two problems for the price of one.

You’ll notice that each of the feelings—anger, self-pity, and self-contempt—are associated with certain thoughts and beliefs:

Anger is associated with the thoughts about what a bad person your former lover is and how he deserves to suffer;

Self-pity is associated with thoughts about how unfair the situation is and how you deserve to be treated better; and

Self-contempt is associated with thoughts of your own character flaws and personal inadequacy.

The key to feeling better is to change your thoughts from ones that create pain and misery, to thoughts that are less painful.

Here are three steps to get you started:

1 Make a commitment to yourself.
2 Give yourself unconditional self-acceptance.
3 Set some goals and make them happen

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy can help you with re-framing your thoughts to more helpful ones