Snap out of it! Advice from a real guy to real men and women on how to move on!
- Colby Brin, BettyConfidential.com
-Leon, to Larry, after the latter’s wife leaves him, on "Curb Your Enthusiasm"
Whenever I’m suffering through the lonely slings of a breakup, or the confidence-piercing arrows of a dating rut, I think of the quote above. Really, there are only two things that are scientifically proven to nurse a broken or floundering human heart back to peak performance: time, and straight Kentucky bourbon. But when you’re in pain, the watch hands seem to stop in their tracks, and unless you’re confident we’re going to be able to harvest fresh organs in test tubes in the near future, you probably don’t want to throw your liver under the bus just yet. So while you’re waiting out the clock, take up these arms against the sea of sorrow.
1. Change your look: Like Leon says, you’re not comfortable in your shell right now. I’m not implying that you have low self-esteem – though you might--or that you’re not good enough just as you are – though I’m not gonna sugarcoat it, you might not be. I’m saying if you keep your body and style status quo at a time like this, you’re not giving your eyes the visual cues they need to help you rebound. After all, seeing is believing:
a. Change your hair: If it’s long, cut it short. If it’s short, grow it out. If you’re balding, shave it off. If it’s dark, get some highlights, or even some bleach. If it’s light, dye it black. It’s your hair. It’s meant to be tinkered with. Free your hair, and I predict a trickle-down effect on your mind. Free your mind, and the rest will follow.
Read How To Get Over A Holiday Breakup
b. Change your face: If you’re a chick, buy some new makeup. If you’re a guy, grow some facial hair, shave some facial hair, or buy some new makeup.
c. Change your body: Go to the gym. If you’re already going to the gym, go running or biking outside, or to a yoga class, or at least a new kickboxing class. If you’re a runner or a biker, go to a gym; be a little more social for chrissakes. If you don’t work out at all, do something in the way of moving your ass. You’ll start to look better and feel better simultaneously. The mind body connection is no joke: one hand washes the other (so to speak).
I’m not saying you have to re-invent yourself in the way of rejecting who you are. I’m saying you can embrace – and become more comfortable with – change. If only for now, while you’re hurting, try a different shell on for size, play a different role, see how it feels. You can always go back to your trademark dipsy-do hair, and your soul patch, and your love handles, later.
2. Ratchet down: I can’t stress this enough. When people feel rejected or ignored by the opposite sex (or the same sex; you know what I mean), they ratchet up the intensity of their emotions. You cast yourself as the star of a tragic melodrama that only you can see;, you get to feeling like the sky is falling; you become despondent, because without the constant approbation of a lover, your life is as meaningless as that of a fly on the wall of a McDonald’s bathroom in China. Chill out! Ratchet down! Buddy, you’re no Marc Antony. Honey, you ain’t Anna Karenina. Hell, you’re not even Bella Swan.
This is all to say, of course, that you’ll live. There’s not just one person out there for each of us. We are blessed with abundance on this earth. There really are, like, so many fish in the sea, and you’ll come upon one of them soon enough. But, if you skulk around like the walking dead, you won’t get the next fish when the time comes, cause you’ll look like sh-t. You can’t change what’s happened, but you can control how you react to it. Ratchet down. Take it in stride.
3. Don’t put off happiness: A lot of the time, we put off going after things we want because we’re waiting for something else to fall into place first. Many of us do this with relationships. We say, ‘I want to take a cooking class,’ or ‘I want to learn to play guitar,’ or ‘I want to move to Micronesia to cultivate white truffles’ – ‘but first I have to find a boyfriend or a girlfriend. Because if I waste time on the other thing, I’ll be old and wrinkly when I’m done and no one will want me.’ But this line of reasoning ignores three crucial realities: for one thing, while you’re looking or waiting for something to materialize, it never does (especially love); two, no one wants you right now anyway, so you might as well pick up a skill or two; and three, there are no truffles in Micronesia, of any color!
Joseph Campbell said, ‘Follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.’ If you want to learn the guitar, learn the bloody guitar. Don’t put off your own happiness! And don’t wait for some long-haired lad or lass to come along to take music lessons with you, so you can morph into Jack and Meg White together. Become Jack on your own, and your Meg will find you. Ike and Tina didn’t become musicians together; they already were talented musicians when they met.
Wait – maybe strike that last example.
4. Hold a cabinet meeting: I’m the last person to rely on the advice of my friends; God love them, but they’re a gaggle of barely functioning freaks. Yet they do know me. And when I’m in a rut and can’t see the forest for the trees, they can be a big help. In fact, often times people who have trouble managing their own lives give the best advice, because they’re so exquisitely familiar with difficult situations. At the very least, it helps to have a set of ears on which you may unburden your sorrows.
If they’re doing their job, however, once you’ve expunged enough of your saline sorrows, they’ll tell you to Ratchet Down.
5. Tie one on: Ultimately alcohol is a depressant, but in the immediate future, it’s a freaking panacea. Unless you have serious problems with booze, don’t be ashamed to paint the town red and forget your troubles in a birdbath-sized watermelon cosmo or an oak cask of well-aged, premium Kentucky snake poison. Don’t make a habit of it, but if, for one night, you can summon the liquid courage to say, ‘To hell with [Him or Her], I only have one life, and I’m not gonna stop living it!’ then I say go for it.
Just make sure you work it off in the morning.
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