5 Lessons We All Need To Learn From Breakups

Saying breakups suck is one of the most obvious things I can say. But with breakups come lessons, and although those lessons are hard to see when you’re in pain and listening to Drake on repeat, they’re important. Admittedly sometimes it takes a few times to get the lesson right, but when you finally get it, you’ll realize it was worth it.

1. Value yourself.

In relationships we often let people dictate how we feel, sometimes they make us feel awful about ourselves, and other times they make us feel unstoppable. But ultimately we need to learn that the only person who should have control of how you feel is you. I think lots of people struggle with that, and it’s normal, I mean I’m a 20-year-old female halfway through college, if I truly understood how to value myself that would be a miracle. The best that we can hope for at this age is to just avoid making the same mistakes and strive to always move forward, constantly growing and learning.

2. Do things for yourself.

This goes hand in hand with lesson one; one of the things I liked the most about a certain ex is that he made me want to be better, to try new things, to push myself out of my comfort zone. But the problem there is when they’re gone then you no longer have that drive because you were letting them motivate you instead of doing it for you. We need to inspire ourselves, to not count on someone to make you want to be better, but to constantly push yourself to be better because you take pride in who you are.

3. Do not push a situation.

Most of the time we want to make things happen just the way we imagined them, so we put pressure on situations and set big expectations, but instead we need to learn to just let things happen naturally. I’m sure this is a lesson I will constantly be reminded of, and I’m OK with that, because I need that reminder. Expectations are often resentments waiting to happen, whereas if you allow people to surprise you, most of the time they will.

4. Don’t chase anyone who doesn’t want to be chased.

The qualifier is important, because sometimes people leave, but they want you to chase them, to put up a fight for them, so you’ll learn to value them more, but sometimes they really do just want to leave. If they treat you like they don’t care, chances are they probably don’t. The important thing here is to remember that the fact that they don’t care isn’t an indication of your value. Just because someone doesn’t care, doesn’t mean you don’t matter, it just means you don’t matter to them. You see the difference here?

5. Be vulnerable.

This is maybe the hardest lesson that comes from a breakup, because being vulnerable is what got us hurt in the first time, but the thing is there’s nothing wrong with crying and feeling pain. Our generation likes to brag about not having feelings, but that’s stupid because if you don’t have feelings you’re never vulnerable, and although it hurts like a bitch when someone shatters that vulnerability, it’s also pretty amazing when you get to lie in bed with someone truly naked of all the bullshit, just together.