TORONTO -- While Valentine’s Day is a time to celebrate love, not everyone is marking the romantic holiday.
Relationship columnist and author Amy Chan told CTV’s Your Morning that Valentine’s Day can be an especially difficult time for those who have recently gone through a breakup and are working to emotionally heal.
“When people go through a breakup, they carry with them compound trauma,” Chan explained in an interview on Thursday. “There’s an old adage that goes, ‘Time heals all wounds.’ Time helps remove the emotional intensity, but only doing the work to heal the wounds will actually heal the wounds.”
In her new book, “Breakup Bootcamp: The Science of Rewiring Your Heart,” Chan explains that getting over a breakup requires emotional and mental work in order to break detrimental patterns that those dealing with heartache tend to repeat in relationships.
Chan said the first step in getting over an ex-partner and mending a broken heart is not to vilify the former flame.
“If you're still stuck blaming your ex, vilifying your ex, hoping for your ex to change, the reality is, you're still in a relationship with your ex,” Chan said.
“Sometimes we hold on to the pain because that's the last part of the relationship we've got left, but that emotional charge keeps you hooked on your ex,” she added.
Chan said it is crucial to the healing process that one stays off social media and avoid virtually stalking their ex.
When in a relationship, Chan explained that people have neural pathways that have been wired together. She said a person might know the relationship is over on a cognitive level after a breakup, but the body is still in a state of shock.
Chan said the body is left craving that dopamine, “those feel good chemicals,” it had during the relationship, and scrolling through an ex-partner’s social media negatively feeds into those cravings.
“You have to think of your ex as if they're your drug dealer. Every time you scroll down memory lane, you're only strengthening those old neural pathways,” Chan said.
To help with this, Chan recommends a 60-day digital detox, which includes blocking the former partner’s number from one’s phone and removing them off social media.
She said that those working to get over a breakup should also remove any physical reminders of their ex from their home.
“We don't have to go so far and light it on fire, but put it all in a box, donate it. If you can't get rid of it yet, just keep it out of sight,” Chan said.
“The reason why is you don't want all these physical reminders or digital reminders to keep triggering you back into memory lane,” she added.
However, Chan said these tips won’t instantly make one’s heartache go away.
Chan said getting over a breakup requires time for healing, otherwise “you carry on that compound trauma and you bring that baggage into your next relationship.”
While going through a breakup can be devastating, Chan said it can also be an exciting time in one’s life.
“Sometimes a breakup is the shakeup you need to redirect your life,” she said.
Chan suggests holding a Zoom party with one’s closest friends to celebrate the occasion and create a video montage of the event. Chan said friends can support the person going through a breakup by sharing what they love the most about them. Then, when that person is missing their ex, they can re-watch the video.
“[The video] reminds you that you're awesome and just because it didn't work out with this person, it doesn't mean it's the end of your life or your love story. It just means it's the end of one chapter, and that means you're ready to start your next,” Chan said.
Despite going through a breakup, Chan said it shouldn’t deter people from getting into another. She said the “greatest lesson” in life is opening one’s heart to others, even when it hurts to do so.
“If you’ve been heartbroken, frustrated with love, I know it can feel almost natural to close off and put walls up in defence so you don’t get hurt again. But know that you have the tools to get back up, know that you can build your muscles of resilience and love with an open heart,” Chan said.
