When you find yourself lingering somewhere between heartbreak and healing, you have reached emotional limbo. It’s not a bad place to be. It’s a step in your healing process, a sort of threshold you have to cross to get to your destination.
Emotional limbo means that you are on your path to your new life but your past still has a hold over you. Every time you take a step forward, you take one back and it keeps you in the same position. You are neither here nor there. You are not at the same place when your heart first breaks but you are not healed yet.
If you think that it’s time to cross that threshold and continue a new life where you are healed but you just can’t find the right way to do it, we are here to help. There are 7 phases you have to surpass to get yourself out of emotional limbo.
Give yourself time to mourn the past relationship
We don’t want to grieve. We don’t want sadness over our break-up overwhelming us, so we get stuck in this place of numbness where we just exist. We don’t want to deal with our feelings so we lock them up. We keep telling ourselves that we are OK, even when we are far from it.
That’s why the first step on your way to recovery is to let your feelings out. To cry when you feel like crying. Allow yourself to grieve because it’s purifying and it’s the first step to healing in the right way.
You will allow yourself to be open and vulnerable later on because you will know that your pain was what shaped you and made you stronger.
Be gentle with yourself
Sometimes we are too hard on ourselves. We blame ourselves for the things we haven’t done. We keep on rewinding the past in our mind to see if there is something that we could have done differently to have a different outcome. What we have to understand here is that not everything is in our hands. That regardless of all the love that we feel, some people weren’t right for us. It wasn’t meant to be.
That’s why you have to remember to go easy on yourself. You have to realize that everything that happened was beyond your control and it had to play itself out that way. Also, don’t push yourself too hard—healing doesn’t come overnight, it’s a process and it takes time.
Do small things for yourself every day
Grief can be all-consuming, that’s why a lot of people going through it will forget all about the importance of good food and rest. Remember to eat properly. Find a way to reduce the stress and relax. Try to get a good night’s sleep, as it will do you wonders. Don’t forget that your body and your spirit are intertwined. Nurture both.
Don’t keep things bottled up inside
It’s important to talk about things that bother you. Find a friend, a group of friends or a counselor to talk to. The worst thing you can do is not talk about it, no matter if it’s the same old story over and over again. When you say things out loud, it’s like you decrease your burden bit by bit. You feel lighter.
By letting your thoughts become alive, you can also see why everything that happened was ultimately for the best. You might not have come to that realization if you had stayed quiet and kept feeding your grief instead of releasing it. So, by all means, talk, until you have nothing more to say on the subject.
Every small step forward counts
When you are in emotional limbo, you feel stuck. You feel like you are not going anywhere, when in reality that’s not true. You are making small steps forward and they can get so small that you don’t even see them.
Learn to appreciate everything you do for yourself.
You have to know there are people who care about you and that you are not alone in your fight.
That there are people who have been through something similar and their life stories might serve both as comfort and as inspiration for what you still can achieve. You are in control of your life and you can get through anything—you just have to believe it yourself.
Put making yourself happy as the first item on your priority list
Do things that are good for you, that make you happy and that make you feel better. Take a spa weekend. Run a movie marathon with popcorn and sweets. Go hiking.
Go swimming. Bring some newness into your life. Enroll in a cooking course. Go paragliding. Learn how to dance the samba.
Try that new Mexican place that just opened. The options are aplenty and the choice is yours; the important thing is that you do something for yourself.
Time to jump
Once you’ve already been through all the previous steps, you will start to feel like limbo isn’t the right place for you anymore.
Still, the fear of the unknown and saying your final goodbye to the past can be tricky, that’s why you have to push yourself out of your comfort zone.
Even when you are not feeling 100% ready to move on, jump and hope for the best.
Scars from your past might sting a little from time to time but don’t let that trick you into thinking that you are not healed.
You already accomplished so much and you have so much strength that your past is nothing more than a painful memory and you have a brand new life to look forward to. You will know that the best smile is the one you have no one but yourself to thank for.
