Cristina Galafate

Updated Tuesday, March 26, 2024-15:30

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Silvia Congost

(Girona, September 2, 1977), graduated in Psychology, has specialized in relationship conflicts, helping

more than 100,000 people to love well

. Her latest book,

Diary of a Breakup

(Ed. Aguilar), is perhaps the speaker's most personal, as it deals with the grief of a breakup in a fictional way and not as the typical self-help genre that provides morals. The protagonist is abandoned a few days before going on a trip to a very beautiful and romantic place and she goes through all the phases of separation. With a moral that can make anyone who reads it identify: the sad end of a relationship can be a wonderful new beginning.

Because her life mission, after living a personal story of emotional dependence herself, is to help anyone going through the same thing. "With this book I would like to convey that sometimes

we experience a breakup as a situation that leaves us devastated

, as if nothing made sense. But we have to live that ending as an opportunity to get to know other people and ourselves, reinforcing our self-esteem, and to be able to discover all the good that is around us.

Where is the line that separates sadness that must necessarily be navigated after a breakup and stagnation in grief over the end of the relationship? First, we must

normalize sadness

and understand that it is natural for the end of a relationship to make us sad. stave. But if you see that time is passing and

instead of improving you get worse

, perhaps it is time to ask for help. There are phases of grief that you have to go through. If you notice that there is no change in your mood and emotional state, get worried. Is there a stipulated time for grieving? I am usually asked this in consultations. "When will I be okay?" "At what point will I be over it?"

It depends on the story

you have lived, on your emotional resources, on each specific case... The important thing is to feel that you are moving forward. But is it true that time heals everything? Yes, if time is used constructively and

we do our part

, take responsibility and make an effort to be better, we will notice it. I totally agree with that statement. Is (dis)love the greatest cause of suffering? Without a doubt, there are two major problems in question. The

lack of self-esteem

, which has to do with self-love, that is, looking at yourself with affection and connecting with your worth. And then, as social beings that we are, the relationships we create with others are what determine whether our life is worth living. If they are toxic, in which we do not receive what we give or we do not obtain what we expect, we suffer. And since we do not have the tools and we lack resources, because unfortunately we are not educated about these issues despite how important they are, we have every chance of having a bad time. Now we have a setback to overcome breakups: social networks. Everyone can be 'gossiping' whether you are the one who leaves or the one left, telling you: "Look how good he is or how quickly the new partner emerges, if he didn't already have one." Is that healthy? The best way to recover from a breakup that you didn't want is zero contact: the less you know about your ex, the healthier the recovery will be. This involves doing something on your part, such as removing the person from your sight.

Blocking on social networks is not a bad thing

, but a sign of empowerment for you. It makes you aware of how pending you are, how you expect a message, how you need to know... and so you remind yourself not to access it there. It also implies that you talk to those around you, with friends and family, and ask them not to inform you about your ex even if you drag your feet or they find out something new. Not even if I ask. It's like the gambler who signs in the game room that, please, don't let him enter. Many times common friendships develop, or feelings are felt towards the family. How can the bonds of union be better managed by avoiding coincidences? When it is an unwanted breakup that hurts us, zero contact is very important to recover sooner.

It will not help us to be in contact with ordinary people

. Even if you don't want to cut off contact with her mother or her sister, if you hang out with her, what is she going to ask you? How are you or the topic is going to come up again, putting your finger on the sore spot. That's not going to be good for you, so it's better to take a break until you're okay. If you explain it to other people, they understand it, asking them that unless it is something serious, you need space. Over time, you will get in touch. It is a way to protect yourself and recover much sooner. And if there are mutual friends, try not to meet in those spaces, asking if the other person is going. There is a lot of talk about toxic positivity and how they force us to be happy, generating more frustration in us if we don't achieve it. Are we canceling out negative emotions? There is a movement today that makes us

rethink and question this misunderstood positivity

. When you have an unwanted breakup you have to allow yourself to feel all those emotions: sadness, rage, anger... and understand what they are showing you and giving you. If you understand that, you flow with them. Of course, getting stuck in that sadness makes you unable to move forward. It has to be a mix between allowing yourself to be sad and accepting the new reality, which frees us. Understanding that your life is now without that person is obviously painful. Is the advice that is usually given about making plans or trying to socialize positive, or is it also necessary to cry in bed without wanting to go out?

Activity and distractions help a lot

while we grieve. But if your partner leaves you overnight and you understood that everything was fantastically good, and suddenly he or she is full of plans and tells you that everything is going great, there may be something strange there. Perhaps you are deceiving yourself and postponing the grieving process that you will have to do sooner or later. You have to cry and kick if necessary at first, but over time it is good to stay active. It often happens that we don't do the things we should because the pain and sorrow get the better of us. In those cases, we have to try to make an effort and do our part. Are there people who don't know how to be alone? Yes, it is very harmful.

Liana relationships, in which you jump from one partner to another

, predispose us to fail again. They do not allow us to have a learning process in which you understand what happened, where I failed, why it happened to me or what I want. If you don't do this learning process, it will be very difficult for you to advance, improve and grow. It is important to spend time being single after a breakup, even if it is difficult and costs us horrors. What is grief like if there is

ghosting

and the relationship had no labels? How do you say goodbye to a relationship that does not exist but that was important to one of the people? I am very drastic about this: unless the person has died,

if they radically cut contact it is because that person does not care. you matter at all

. You have to undertake a process in which you understand that that person was not what you thought. Such ruthless behavior and lack of compassion shows that he has values ​​that have nothing to do with you. Because a person can realize that they don't want to continue getting to know you, that they don't fit in with you or that they are looking for something else, but if they are minimally empathetic or compassionate, they are going to tell you something and are not going to leave you with that question. Ghosting

or a 'casialgo' can leave us stuck and cause a lot of pain

.

Our brain needs to understand what has happened so that they stop talking to us, but we should celebrate someone who acts like this when they are gone, rather than feel overwhelmed. What tools would you give to assume that the cause of the separation is due to a third person? We would have to stay with what has happened in our relationship and what our ex-partner shows us with the decision they have made. We must not lose sight of the fact that what she is telling us is that she does not want to continue with us.

It is a very strong blow to self-esteem.

, because you go into a tailspin with what the other person is like, if she is prettier, more intelligent... That sinks you further and makes you lose focus on the fact that they no longer love you. We take it for granted that feelings never change but it can happen, because we mature and grow and it can happen that their way of being stops arousing admiration in you and their graces do not please you. Breakups are part of relationships just as losses are part of life and we are prepared to accept them. When someone leaves, they are usually the bad guy in the movie. What differences do you find between leaving and being left? Both are situations that cause pain. Unless you are a narcissistic profile that does not empathize with other people's pain,

leaving someone makes you feel guilty if you know that person has feelings for you.

And that is very hard. Empathic and compassionate profiles suffer from leaving, although at a social level the victim is the one they leave. Few people try to understand a position that is not easy. Because even leaving for a third person, you may not have calculated that this would happen to you and it just happens to you like that and you realize that you were not as well as you thought. Even so, it is not easy to take that step and few people understand this. His book is a lesson in how a breakup can become an opportunity. What advice would you give to see it that way, like a door that closes but another window opens? There are people who come through our lives to teach us something or contribute to us and their function ends. We have to learn to let go and let it flow.

The more we cling to people, the more we will suffer if one day life takes them away from us

. Nobody and nothing belongs to us, it is not like that. We have to learn to let go, understanding that there is an opportunity to discover new people.

Diary of a Breakup, by Silvia Congost, is edited by Aguilar and you can buy it here