When faced with a true, final breakup, it’s likely that you will also feel a physical pain: the broken heart.

Besides the true ache of lost love you may also feel:

• unrelenting sadness
• food has lost it’s flavor and loss of appetite
• your interest cannot be held for long on the things that once brought you joy and happiness
• listlessness and boredom
• inner peace with listening to depressing music (try anything by “The Smiths”) and reading depressing, sad poetry and novels but yet a lack of joy in your daily routine

There is no time like now to release your inner demons and look forward to another day.

As hard as the truth is, life does go on.

You need to find your path again, find your purpose again.

But take your time, you need to heal. You need to find yourself again, the one you were before you were in a couple.

Follow these three steps to regain your emotional and physical health again.

1 – STOP everything you are doing (after competing this article, of course) and get a blank piece of paper. On this paper you need to write down exactly how you are feeling about your breakup. Continue writing on this paper but let’s move to the third person point of view. Write down what has happened as if you were a spectator only. As if you are outside of yourself watching everything happen. Try to capture every action, every seen emotion, every step of the breaking up, even if your story starts days or weeks earlier in time.

2 – Plan a treat day for yourself. This day will be for yourself, a treat day of things that you have held off doing, for whatever reason, and you now have the time and a lack of someone holding you back. This might be a shopping day, a day of travel, a day of entertainment. Do this one day for yourself, with no other goal than to enjoy what was unavailable to you before. A makeover, haircut, pedicure, trip to the museum, travel to another town, you name it, this day is for you. Even if you can’t do this day immediately, you can plan for it to happen soon.

3 – Decide to be available for what life has next for you. The secret of life is that it holds many surprises and you have to be open, and capable, of accepting the new challenges that come your way. Giving up and just “letting things happen” can no longer be a viable alternative to making the decisions in your life, that will affect the rest of your life. You will have made the positive decision to meet the challenges in your life head on when you no longer shirk from responsibility. Stand up, dust yourself off and smile into the sun. You are ready to shine!

You can and will heal from your broken heart but this takes time and a personal understanding that you can accept the hand that life has dealt you. And that you can and will take the steps forward to make your life a fun life again.

3 steps toward a new you, a new life, disposal of the old you and onto the new you.

Only YOU can make the decision to move forward… and YOU do need to move forward.