How to heal a broken heart – essential advice when you’ve just been dumped

Being dumped is never fun.

There’s plenty of advice out there dealing with how to heal the wounds of a break up including learning to forgive, taking care of yourself emotionally and staying sober.

I’m not convinced.

The feeling of utter helplessness and sorrow will pass but, in the meantime, I’d like to suggest the following as constructive ways to move on from your ex.

Visualisation

Forgiveness is widely considered to be an essential part of the healing process.

And while I understand that, in the long-term anger is a self-destructive emotion, short-term, the slagging off of your ex-boyfriend should be one of your top priorities.

Allowing yourself a few moments everyday to reminisce, both privately and to 43 colleagues during after-work drinks, about his irritating habits and night-time flatulence will prove to be amazingly cathartic.

Make it a daily ritual in the first week of heartbreak to visualise that time he shaved off all his pubic hair in an attempt to look sexy – see the penis before you… got it?

Now fade out the colour, see it reduce in size, smaller, smaller … gone.

Distractions

Once you have mastered the technique of reducing the memory/penis of your ex-boyfriend to a blip on the subconscious horizon you might want to consider some meaningless sex with total strangers.

Casual sex will not necessarily encourage new relationships or make you feel fantastic about yourself in the morning.

However, it will distract you from the pain you are in and remind you that you are still an object of desire, albeit to a 22-year-old barman from South Africa.

Impulsive purchases

Talking of South Africa, now is the time to book a holiday.

Nothing clears the head and cleanses the soul like two weeks in the sun with good friends, half a bottle of gin and six sambucas…

Half a bottle of gin and six sambucas

Green tea and aromatherapy baths are all well and good but, when it comes to deadening the pain, nothing quite works like hard spirits.

Unlike well-intentioned friends, gin won’t tell you that there are plenty more fish in the sea and to keep your chin up but it will act as a temporary release.

This is not to suggest that you plan the foreseeable future around what time your local pub opens, just that in the midst of rejection you’ll be forgiven for having a blow out – and sometimes it’s exactly what you need.

De-friend your ex from Facebook

Un-follow him on Twitter, sober up, find your knickers and move on.

Gin might not say it but I will – there are plenty more fish in the sea, now go and buy your rod.