Looking at pictures and feeling your heart break over and over again, you don’t want to be that person, but that was me. I couldn’t sleep that period. I could feel my heart shattering on the inside, the pain was becoming physical at some point.
Unfortunately, the person I was having these heartbreaking feelings over, was leaving his best life, oblivious to the pain of my heart.
It hurts to love someone who does not love you back. It hurts to love someone who is clearly not in a place to love you back, but it happens and it is devastating.
They say it is difficult to argue with your heart because the heart wants what it wants, but once love is not reciprocated, its only a matter of time before it dies off. The problem now is the speed at which you can get yourself back up.
These feelings are easier to deal with when you do not really know the person, but when it is someone you are friends with, it is an almost unbearable feeling. Because you know them and probably move in the same circles, it is harder to get over these feelings you have, but it is not impossible.
So how do you keep a healthy relationship with someone who you have had unrequited love for, How do you cope or stop your heart from aching anytime you see or hear from them?
Here are 6 ways to cope with unrequited love
1) Accept that you have been rejected
Its plain simple simple truth, you have been rejected, cry all you want. It is a loss, and any loss is painful.
Rejection in whatever form hurts but the pain of a romantic rejection hurts more. This is because it is a more personal form of rejection.
The faster you accept that this person does not share mutual love for you, the faster you are on the way to being healed.
2) Don’t keep on hoping
Don’t keep on hoping that they will come around, that they would finally see how amazing you are and return your love.
No, move on. It is your responsibility to heal and to heal fast. This does not mean you should jump on the next available person and use them for a rebound, you may end up hurting this other person.
But don’t stay whining, hoping and wishing. Don’t keep obsessing about them.
3) Create a Distance
Its definitely not going to help if the person you have unrequited love for, is in the same space with you. It is tough seeing the person regularly and knowing that he/she does not love you back. The best way to deal with this is to remove yourself from that space.
You may not necessarily have to stop hanging out with them altogether, or stop checking up on them from time to time, but it helps if you keep your distance. Out of sight is out of mind.
There is nothing healthy about relentlessly pursuing after someone who clearly is not into you. All the while hoping and wishing they would finally come around is not going to help you heal.
Creating a distance could mean reducing the amount of time you spend with them, it could also mean cutting yourself off completely from them for a few weeks or months until you are fully healed. And while you do that, involve yourself in other activities and focus on developing healthy relationship with other people.
You can still be friends with them, and friends should be nice to each other, but don’t be nice in the hopes that you could win them over. Pour that energy in something beneficial.
4) Allow your feelings to inspire you
I found that unrequited love served as a fuel to get me to do some of the things that I needed to do. It served as a source of inspiration for my creativity.
Feelings of unrequited love are very powerful emotions, strong enough to cause heart palpitations and days of sleepless nights, but what do you do with all those sleepless night? Instead of crying and whining all through, cry and channel the energy into creating something beautiful.
The ideas that flow after experiencing the pain of unrequited love can be world changing. For me, It helped me put a lot of things in other areas of my life into proper perspective, and work at achieving some of my goals that I had neglected.
A lot of great creative people we know about today, created magnificent things out of their pain.
5) Avoid isolating yourself
Go out and meet other people. It will be a lonely world for you, if you isolate yourself.
Going out on a date with other people may not sound like a good idea since you are not healed from the hurt of having your feeling not reciprocated, but staying at home is not a good option either.
It does not have to be a romantic date, but anything healthy to cause a distraction is welcome.
6) Don’t feel bad for loving
That someone did not love you back, should not make you feel bad about opening up your heart to love.
Love is a risk and it is a wonderful risk when you meet the right person. But you won’t be able to experience the wonders of love if you do not open yourself up to it.
Love yourself, respect yourself. You are cool, you are amazing and you would be a wonderful asset when you are finally with someone who reciprocates your love. That someone failed to see your worth does not make you unlovable.
Well written.
It’s hard to get over someone but not impossible.