It's not something we typically think of as being a great learning experience, but that's exactly what heartbreak is. If we never experience it and all stay with our high school sweethearts or middle school first loves then we would never grow as people. It's best to experience heartbreak and learn valuable lessons from it and here's why.
1. It makes you realize what you want from a partner.
We don’t usually realize it as we are crying with our faces bashed into our pillows and listening to Ed Sheeran, but breakups usually happen for a reason. It gives us a chance to see what our failed relationship was missing and what we want out of the next one.
2. It lets you feel raw and open.
It’s not the best feeling in the world, in fact it might be one of the worst, but it is a powerful feeling. We feel raw and open to the world around us which makes us vow to “never open ourselves up to someone again.” That usually isn’t true, but the walls we build up after a heartbreak help us to make sure the next person who knocks them down will be the right one.
3. When you get over a broken heart you become a stronger person.
Somewhere between the tears and the raw feelings of not being good enough we get stronger. It takes a lot to build us back up after we fall down and shatter into a million heartbroken pieces, but when we do it makes us stronger. It takes less than a day to break, but it takes days, weeks or months to put ourselves back together again.
4. It lets you rediscover who you are.
Psycologist Anita Sanz said that breaking up causes an identity shift from “being a part of a couple to being single again” and that “rapid shifts in identity cause disorientation for most people, requiring time and emotional and cognitive processing to reorient to their new identity.” Basically this means that part of the reason that breakups are so painful is because we lose that part of who we had become along with the person we were in love with. The positive side about this is that we can find our single selves again and the person we were before the relationship. We get to reconnect with ourselves and be selfish without guilt for awhile.
5. You know now that sometimes things don't work out so that better things can happen to us.
It seems to be the favorite saying from friends and family when comforting us, “One door closes so that another door can open.” We hate to admit it, but it’s true. There is no way we can ever find someone worthy of our unconditional love unless we weed out the ones who aren’t worthy. It’s our right to be picky the next time we fall in love because now we know better what we want from a future partner. Some people come into our lives just to help us experience new things and not all of them are meant to stay. But, we can take solace in knowing that we will not be alone forever, someone new will come along and open new doors and someday, hopefully, that door will never close again.
