In your old relationship many of your ways probably became fixed and you weren’t aware. Your vision of the future, your relationship to your past, your personality everything probably seemed like it made more sense.

Now that you are broken up, a lot of those ideas have been thrown into question. There are parts of your personality now fall into question. Your certainty about some choices you’ve made might waver. On top of all of that, your new future without your ex is uncertain.

Suddenly everything feels “off”. A big part of your reality has shifted and now the rest of it is adjusting to line up with it.

This will take some time. But how you handle readjusting is going to make all the difference.

The Old You Must Die

Any kind of big change is hard, and humans have a strong tendency to resist it in any way they can.

In your mind you have an image of yourself. Everything about you, what you like, dislike, what your goals are, what you believe in, who you hang out with.

Your tastes, where you fit in society, the roles you think you have with different people all make up this image of you.

This next part is a tough one so you might want to take seat for this one.

None of it is real. All of that is just a simulation you have running in your mind.

I know, I know. It may feel damn real to you, but it isn’t. It’s just what you are used to thinking of yourself.

When you were with your ex, many things were different. Everything from your ambitions to relationships with other people had a different feel to them because you were someone’s boyfriend or husband.

Now that is no longer the case you are going to be transitioning from the old role to a new one. One of a healthy, integrated, fun single guy.

So the discomfort you will be feeling has to do with you clinging to the “old you”.

In reality for you to move on to your new life, some parts of you must wither away. The old version of you is going to have to go away for the new ones to take hold.

The only way this can happen painlessly is for you start letting go of who you think you are.

Part of that process is becoming comfortable with being out of your comfort zone. You are going to be doing things and behaving in ways that you aren’t used to.

When you start doing this, two things will happen.

You will feel strange doing them. There will be a part of you that wants your old comfort back and it will resist doing them. Expect this. On the other hand there will be a certain exhilaration you will feel.

Other people will react different to you. People in general don’t like change, even if that change is just the people around them behaving different.

When your friends see you being different, when they have been so used to you being certain way it will jar them.

Time and time again when I talk to people about their relationships they say that it was the time when they were single that they did the most growing, evolving and self discovery.