How To Stop Breaking Your Own Heart

It’s true that most of us have had our heart broken at some point in our lives. But typically, when we talk about a broken heart, it’s something that’s been the cause of someone else. However, I truly don’t think we give enough focus to the fact that we can (and will) break our own hearts, many times over, without the help of anyone else. So let’s talk about how to stop breaking your own heart.

We are our own worst enemy at times.

Whilst having your heart broken by another person is absolutely awful – whether that’s a break-up or you’ve caught your partner cheating, perhaps a friend went behind your back in a terrible way or even grief that can cause heart break – we can also, very often, break our own hearts without even meaning to.

There are many areas in life that can lead to you breaking your own heart and I want to talk about some of those points today and share some tips on how to stop breaking your own heart.

Our minds are powerful things – we all know that by now. And a broken heart often comes from the mind, not the heart itself. We can usually think ourselves into a broken heart, based on our experiences and perspectives, our way we see the world and our own negative thoughts.

How many times have you found yourself making up terrible scenarios in your head that haven’t happened (and aren’t ever likely to) and found yourself feeling sad afterwards?

We don’t NEED to do these things to ourselves. Yet, we do.

Why?

Maybe some psychologist can tell us that.

But even if we can’t get to the bottom of why we so often break our own heart, we can look at some things that we can STOP doing, to make our lives a little more rosy and stop creating more hardship, where we don’t need it!

Here’s how to stop breaking your own heart in 7 ways:

Stop following people online that trigger you

This one is much easier said than done. I know that for a fact. Especially when you have low self esteem, body dysmorphia or even suffer from eating disorders.

But for the most part, for any of us, this isn’t ever a helpful thing to do.

Following people online that trigger you is an easy route to breaking your own heart.

The thing to remember is, more often than not, these people aren’t actively out to trigger you. Most of them you won’t even know. But perhaps that post things online that align with their life and lifestyle but trigger yours.

It’s okay to admit. And it’s okay to unfollow them. It’s okay to mute them. It’s even okay to block them. You’re not being malicious, you’re protecting your own mental health.

And definitely stop following old friends that you had a bad experience with

And on a more personal level, again, something else I have experience with is those friends you have online (either friends you’ve known in person or online friends, the same still applies) that you have a bad experience with.

You don’t need to continue following them.

Perhaps you had a bad falling out or just drifted apart. Perhaps the friendship itself ended badly and broke your heart in that way – you don’t need to CONTINUE breaking your heart over and over again by continuing to follow them online.

Lower your expectations (or don’t have any at all)

You can easily break your own heart by having far too high expectations about, well, everything.

I always feel like if you have low expectations, then you’re less likely to get disappointed. Some people might not agree with this approach but let’s face it, it’s true.

And we’ve all been disappointed by an outcome, due to having far too high an expectation around it.

So whether that’s a new place you’re going, a new food you’re trying, a new book you’re reading or something much bigger than those things, try to wind down the expectations.

Don’t corner yourself and then find you’re leaving with shattered expectations and sometimes, a broken heart.

Catch yourself when you’re spiralling 

This is like what I mentioned above. When you find yourself making up scenarios in your head that haven’t (and probably won’t) happen. Sometimes, once our brain gets going, it can be very hard to stop.

Particularly if you suffer from anxiety, where every decision will leave you thinking and re-thinking a hundred times over and conjuring up every possible scenario under the sun.

My therapist used to say to me, “you can think of every possibility under the sun but the one that will happen, is the one you hadn’t thought of”. Oh snap.

This can easily lead you to breaking your own heart as your mind spirals so much that you conjure up the worst thoughts and scenarios possible – because you didn’t nip it in the bud.

Learn to accept and let go

We all make mistakes. We all have regrets. I truly don’t believe in not having regrets because life isn’t ever straight forward and there’s always something we wish we’d done (or not done). Having regrets does NOT make you weak.

But having regrets can also lead you to breaking your own heart over and over again when you’re dwelling on them and thinking about the “what ifs”.

I think it’s okay to think about the past and ruminate on what might have been sometimes, heck, it can even be quite a fun exercise if you’re chatting about it with friends.

But what you don’t want to do is dwell too long and end up in a state of mind that leaves you feeling lacking over what you currently have in your life. Accept you made mistakes or have regrets and then learn to let them go in whatever way is comfortable for you.

Work on your negative self talk

Negative self talk is a sure fire way to breaking your own heart. I’m very familiar with this one.

Although I’m still very much working on my confidence, when I was in my twenties, I had extremely low self esteem. I would stand in front of a mirror and think about everything I hated about myself.

I didn’t NEED to do that but again, we’re back to the mind being a sneaky little trickster again. Somehow, me doing that just confirmed everything I thought was true. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.

Basically, don’t do that. Easier said than done I know but a vital thing to learn when it comes to how to stop breaking your own heart.

Honour your feelings and needs as they arise

Right, a show of hands.

Who actively seeks out sad things when they’re already sad? Who actively thinks about things when they’re mad, that are guaranteed going to made you madder? *meekly raises own hand*

This is the exact opposite of honouring your needs. We don’t want to do this. It’s only going to make a broken heart even more sore. And guess what? We’re bringing it on by ourselves.

Check in with yourself and your needs. Don’t neglect that basic self care.

How many of these things are you guilty of? Do you regularly break your own heart in a way that you know you don’t need to?

Want more exclusive content? Sign up to my mailing list for access to my freebie library to grab your Self Love Handbook and more freebies!