When you are stuck in the grip of pain and emotional triggers, knowing how to move on from heartbreak can seem impossible.

Acceptance goes hand in hand with knowing how to move on after heartbreak. I have tried everything to facilitate acceptance and moving on, and I mean everything. If someone told me that I could reach acceptance and moving on by baptizing myself with cat pee and giving myself a televised enema of sand while reciting the alphabet in Chinese, I probably would have done it in a heartbeat.

I was so desperate to feel indifferent to everyone and everything that caused me pain. I wanted, more than anything, to get to the point where I could just accept what was and start moving on but I was stuck.

It was like my legs were trapped in cement while everyone and everything around me was moving all around. And I just stood there – frozen in my pain, drowning in regret, and unable to control the obsessive thoughts.

Nothing worked. Why? Because just like with forgiveness, when it comes to knowing how to move on after heartbreak, it’s not something that you can just decide to do, do it, and it’s done.

It’s not that straightforward.

Here’s how to move on from heartbreak with your dignity in tow…

For me, I can’t just say “I forgive him/her” and then, BAM! I feel at peace and all is magically forgiven while I go skip through the fields and recite positive affirmations.

It has to be real.

While you weren’t wired with a “must accept now switch,” you were wired with the awareness and the tools to move on for good.

Yesterday, I met a girlfriend of mine for tea and she was having a really hard time accepting that the guy she’s been involved with for over a year has revealed himself to be an emotionally unavailable user that lied to her, made excuses, broke his promises and broke her heart. As I was listening to her, I could tell that she was in an intense argument with reality because reality translated that this was a situation where anyone with healthy levels of self-esteem would connect the dots and be done. This relationship had drained her of the relationship she had with herself.

It’s scary to let go.

It’s scary to accept that a person you thought you knew is beyond resuscitation.

But there comes a point where you need to have some limits, implement boundaries, and acknowledge reality and truth as the allies that they are. Reality and truth are the only direct, one-way tickets to getting to the land of acceptance and indifference.

My girlfriend was disabling her ability to accept by choosing to prosecute and question everything that she had already witnessed with her own two eyes.

And that’s the thing… if you’re hitting a wall when trying to move on from heartbreak, it’s because you are arguing with reality, with what is. There’s no need to get out a power tool and try to break through a brick wall. 

You need to view the closure you never got, as all the closure you need. Have some compassion for yourself.

You need to look at people’s patterns because their patterns always tell the truth and the truth is ALWAYS in accordance with reality.

And you can’t evolve or attract the kind of relationships you deserve without subscribing to reality.

This is how you build a life that you’re proud of, how you start to call your own relational shots, and how to create your OWN relational luck.

Written by: Natasha Adamo