How to Heal From a Toxic Relationship
Healing from any relationship is hard. But healing from a toxic relationship comes with even more challenges. When someone leaves an abusive relationship they have often been living in a state of anxiety for some time and sometimes the normal relationship advice you would offer a friend just doesn’t apply.
Many people healing from toxic relationships are also dealing with low self-esteem, depression and damaged relationships with friends and family.
Feel Your Emotions
Leaving a toxic individual can bring up a variety of emotions including fear, anger, regret, relief, joy, shame, pain and sadness. Allowing, feeling and processing all of these emotions is a key part of healing.
Many of us have been conditioned to avoid uncomfortable emotions. Not to cry, not to get angry, not to feel sad. And so we try to escape these feelings rather than listening to them and allowing them to be felt.
Unfortunately when we numb our emotions we don’t only numb the pain and the sadness but the happiness and the joy as well. Numbing our emotions with negative habits can also have knock-on effects that lead to more issues with guilt and shame or physical problems down the line.
If you can offer yourself compassion as you sit with your emotions you will be much better able to identify where they are coming from and find ways to work through them.
Take Care of Yourself
Toxic relationships can have a huge impact on both your mental health and your physical wellbeing. When you leave a toxic relationship it is incredibly important to take care of yourself.
Prioritizing your needs and practicing self-care will help you manage the emotional stress you have likely been dealing with for some time. And remember self-care isn’t all bubble baths and candles. It can be making time to cook yourself a healthy meal, meditating even if you don’t fancy it because you know you will feel better afterwards, or watching your favorite movie.
Surround Yourself With Positive People
Surrounding yourself with positive people is a great way to remember what healthy communication and a healthy relationship look like. Toxic people have a way of isolating you from healthy relationships and toxic behavior can become such a part of your life that you forget the simple joys of being with positive people.
When you surround yourself with positive people you also create a support system of people you can trust. Reconnecting with old friends or making new ones is also a great way of making sure you don’t get lonely and tempted to make contact.
Focus On Yourself
Focusing on yourself and your own personal growth is a great way of healing from any relationship including toxic relationships.
When you focus on yourself and your personal growth you are able to understand how the toxic behaviors have affected you and how to avoid repeating these patterns in future. The first step in solving any relationship issue is to focus on yourself, even if you are dealing with a toxic person, as understanding what you need makes you better able to set boundaries. Focusing on yourself also builds resilience and will help you come out stronger.
Another reason to focus on yourself is that it can help you enjoy the single life for a while until you are healed. While you might be craving physical intimacy or friends might be suggesting online dating, taking time to focus on you and heal is really important.
Take Time To Learn To Trust Yourself Again
Learning to trust yourself again after a toxic or abusive relationship can be one of the hardest and most valuable things you can do.
Toxic relationships can erode self-trust as much if not more than they erode your trust in others. Abusive partners will gradually reduce your ability to trust yourself by making all the decisions, criticizing your choices, gaslighting you, and blaming you for anything that goes wrong in your life or theirs.
It is also very easy to feel that you should have noticed the signs, seen the red flags, and not stayed in the relationship as long as you did. Or you begin to question whether it was in fact all your fault. Not to mention the fact that in toxic relationships we often regularly abandon ourselves to make someone else happy.
When you are learning to trust yourself again, start slowly and be gentle with yourself.
Make commitments to yourself and keep them. This could be as simple as taking yourself for a coffee once a week or carving out time to have a bath. When you start honoring the little things you can make bigger and bigger commitments.
Another key element in learning to trust yourself again is learning to be authentic. And again this can be especially challenging if you have been with a toxic person as you may feel like you have forgotten who you are and what you like. Again start small with dinner choices or clothes. And spend time remembering the things you enjoyed before the relationship.
Listening to your feelings and not judging yourself are also important elements of trusting yourself.
Consider Therapy
There are many avenues you can take on your journey to healing from a toxic relationship. Different people will heal and rebuild their lives in different ways and most people will use a combination of tools from taking up new hobbies to spending more time with friends and family.
One avenue many people find useful in therapy. Perhaps you went to couples counseling to try and deal with the relationship toxicity. Now it could be time to receive your own counseling to help you get over the toxic relationship and move forward stronger and happier as a result.
Set Healthy Boundaries
Many people struggle to set boundaries, feeling that they are somehow selfish. This can be especially true of people who have been with a toxic partner as they may have had boundaries they have set consistently ignored.
Setting boundaries is an act of self-care and perfectly normal in healthy relationships. Taking the time to practice setting and maintaining boundaries will help in all areas of your life. Not just when it comes to dealing with a toxic individual.
The workbook Grit and Grace: 7 Steps to Survive Heartbreak offers a way to transform the pain of a breakup so you can heal your heart and become a stronger person. It’s full of practical steps to help you heal and have more fulfilling adult relationships in future.
