Helping a friend after a breakup

Breaking up is (almost) never a health walk. Depending on the case it can be a tragedy in three acts, but if you have not been in a couple for a few decades you risk forgetting it because it seems to no longer be your problem. But what happens when * your * friend * broke up and urgently needs shock therapy?

It’s a dirty job but someone, and in this case us, will have to do it. But how? How does a broken heart come together? Let’s clarify one point immediately: it does not come together. Our friend is not a puzzle that comes apart and rebuilds from scratch putting each piece in the right place, but a person.

We will have been there too, a month ago or five years before or so many times that we have become addicted to it, and it will come naturally to us from the top of our wisdom to pass on the great teachings of the lived experience inviting her to put them into practice. But in addition to the fact that it is easy to sing when the blow has long been disposed of, we forget that that experience as personal remains applicable to us, in fact, but it is not an absolute truth that can be extended to anyone.

Let us appease every delusion of omnipotence or act of heroism, and accept that, alas, this person is ill and will have to understand for himself when and how to recompose his disintegrated heart. So we give her a package of Cleenex and wash our hands of it? Not really, but let’s go in order:

I listen
It seems obvious but it is not: it happens that we are so eager to find a solution that we end up forgetting that emotions are not activated or remotely controlled with a button. We remember that it is not we who have left each other and each separation, however trivial on paper, is different. Take this opportunity to keep your mouth closed but open your ears wide so you really know what the other feels *. We are not approximate, we validate his pain without censorship or interruption. Let’s act like a safe haven, not the financial police!

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Physical contact
If you get excited when you read the “free hugs” billboards on the street you will already be at a good point, if instead you are wild squirrels, like myself, you will struggle a little, but it must be said that a hug is sometimes the best answer: it is a sincere and concrete manifestation of support (you are literally supporting the body of the other *) and it saves you from talking at all costs (see above).

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Expose a thought without imposing it
Listening must not make you dead plants. Some words spoken at the right time can be a spark in the dark, but as no one wrote the script, they should also be used with care and grace.: avoid the optimism of bancofrigo and it is not necessary to give advice at all costs. Rather tell anecdotes, share that sadness and let the other * be able to observe it also from different perspectives. Your words will not be the solution, but maybe you can make the other * less sol * heard. It is not cheap!

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Shade in small doses
Shoveling shit on the ex-boyfriend * on duty doesn’t help, even if you’ve never endured it * and this seems like the perfect opportunity to vent your grudge. But always measuring the words with the dropper and not letting yourself get caught up in the impetus, you could shift the spotlight from the beautiful things and also remember their shortcomings, so as to slowly drop the slices of ham from the eyes and let them ripen in the other. lucid judgment.

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Accompagnarl*
We would like a magic wand to solve all the pains of our * friend * with a touch, but unfortunately we are not godmothers. We are travel companions, open and safe harbors, and our only superpower is empathy. We walk together with him / her, let us know that we are there, with the body and the mind. We won’t reconstruct a broken heart with a snap of our fingers, but we can stay by his side as he tries to find the pieces.

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