Making Peace With Yourself Post Breakup

Hey everyone, another guest post from my sister, Adriana!

I don’t know about you, but my transition into college wasn’t as smooth as I had expected. I had recently broke up with my boyfriend of 2.5 years, left my hometown in New Hampshire and my best friends, and moved to Boston to start a new life (Cue the song Boston by Augustana!). I thought this new adventure would be pretty easy. I have an outgoing personality, so I figured I would make a huge friend group within weeks that resembled my crazy friends from back home. Well, I did make a bunch of new friends with all different perspectives and personalities but not necessarily the group of partygoers and heart-to-heart seekers as I pride myself to be. However, these people, thankfully, were my sanity during a rough period of my life at 18-years-old during a sort-of quarter-life-crisis.

To hide my semi-depressive emotions and newly found anxieties, I jumped right into psychology classes, a program to teach underprivileged preschoolers, and a student group that my sister was involved with. These activities kept me incredibly busy, so my mind didn’t have time to process or care about my unhappiness in Boston. On the weekends, I would avoid my pain by getting so drunk and trying to find cute guys to get my mind off of my ex. This usually would result in shitty pizza (Go BHOP!) and vomiting the next morning. Casual, casual times.

After two years of venting sessions, tears, drunken calls, and an on-again/off-again relationship, I finally realized that my high school relationship was just that: a high school relationship that should stay in high school. It was April of my sophomore year of college and the bad vibes and stress of my previous relationship were finally in the fucking past. But, something was still lingering in my mind. Anxiety and occasional bits of depression. It’s strange…when you’re going through a break-up, all of your behaviors are directed to your happiness and recovery. I would go to the gym all the time, download new music, read intriguing books, and make time for friends. However, once you’re over the relationship, those self-loving behaviors go out the window. That’s exactly what happened the spring of my sophomore year. I wasn’t proactive about my happiness anymore. I was dormant. Additionally, my unhappiness translated in to my social life. I didn’t want to meet new people or go to parties. I was content with spending time with the same old people and doing the same old things. To make it worse, I went home to New Hampshire all the time to hide the fact that I hated my social life in Boston.

After spending a significant amount of time with my best friends from New Hampshire, I learned some critical lessons. Be who you are. Be crazy. Be weird. Be smart. Be philosophical. Be fucking you. If people can’t hang with your fantastic qualities, fucking PEACE! It’s strange, I know my personality is sometimes larger than life…and I always felt like I had to underplay it. I was worried I was too much to handle. But whooooo cares?! Here are some quotes that I re-blogged on my tumblr page that have really reflected my consciousness recently:

"There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” - Nelson Mandela 

"There are times when you don’t know yourself. There are times when you don’t want to know yourself. There are times when you want to be what you have never allowed yourself to be before." - Aidan Chambers

"Stop being tormented by everyone else’s reaction to you." - Joyce Meyer

"Self belief does not necessarily ensure success, but self disbelief assuredly spawns failure." -Albert Bandura

"There is no beauty without some strangeness." - Edgar Allan Poe 

"One of the greatest journeys in life is overcoming insecurity and learning to truly not give a shit." - J.A. Konrath

“If you cannot find a group whose consciousness matches your own, be the source of one. Others of like consciousness will be drawn to you.”  -Neale Donald Walsch

In this last quote from Neale Donald Walsch, I have taken his advice. I have become a person who is true to myself. Eventually, I will find a group of people that reflect my consciousness. Luckily, I already have some fantastic friends who do! In 2011, I embarked unknowingly in to a philosophical journey that led my soul back to they way it felt when I was 12. I’m that crazy kid again, just trying to generate some laughs and save the world through psychology. Who knew it would take a heartbreak, a change of scenery, and some philosophical lessons to get my soul back to its comfort zone. Thank God.

Peace & Love,

Adriana