{"id":137748,"date":"2024-01-11T08:19:37","date_gmt":"2024-01-11T08:19:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2024\/01\/11\/how-i-healed-my-broken-heart-in-20-minutes-no-chocolate-required\/"},"modified":"2024-01-11T08:19:37","modified_gmt":"2024-01-11T08:19:37","slug":"how-i-healed-my-broken-heart-in-20-minutes-no-chocolate-required","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2024\/01\/11\/how-i-healed-my-broken-heart-in-20-minutes-no-chocolate-required\/","title":{"rendered":"How I healed my broken heart in 20 minutes, no chocolate required"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I got dumped in the most epic way. <\/p>\n

He called on a Tuesday at 3 PM to say he\u2019d met someone he was interested in pursuing (exact words), and before I could even register the sayonara, he tacked on: \u201cIf you have any questions, I\u2019d be happy to answer them.\u201d<\/p>\n

And just like that, the guy I\u2019d intimately spent the last five months with went from being \u201cmy guy\u201d to someone who sounded like he was selling me a desk off Craigslist.<\/p>\n

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Over the next couple of days, some of the pieces of the convoluted puzzle clicked in place, not that the picture made much sense. He\u2019d fallen in love, he\u2019d never felt this way before (present company included), he was moving to San Francisco.<\/p>\n

There was no \u201cit\u2019s not you, it\u2019s me,\u201d no face-to-face closure, not even the chance to run into him at our favorite coffee shop \u2014\u00a0just a\u00a0cold turkey split that left me stranded and sinking on a polar ice cap. I was\u00a0completely lost on how to heal a broken heart. One minute I was in a relationship, the next minute I wasn\u2019t, and it stung.<\/p>\n

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In past breakups,\u00a0I did my soul-searching in a vat of Ben & Jerry\u2019s or a bag of cookies and I\u2019d come up for air stuffed but numbed. But not this time. I may not have perfected the picking a mate part, but I was determined to get this heartbreak thing down.<\/p>\n

If I couldn\u2019t tame love, surely I could figure out how to escape its carnage. So I turned to the only all-knowing entity I knew: Google.<\/p>\n

I typed in my search words (\u201cHow to heal a broken heart\u201d) and after a number of clicks and detours, I stumbled on something that wouldn\u2019t only change my outlook\u00a0but my \u201cinlook,\u201d\u00a0and pretty much my entire life.<\/p>\n

The catalyst was\u00a0Bren\u00e9 Brown\u2019s TED Talk on vulnerability. For the entire talk \u2014\u00a0all 20 minutes and 12 seconds of it\u00a0\u2014\u00a0I listened with a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes as Brown\u00a0talked about, well\u2026 me. No, we\u2019d never met, but there she was, up on stage labeling and describing things about me I\u2019d never quite been able to put into words before.<\/p>\n

She knew me better than I knew me. And not only did she inadvertently define both the joys of my relationship and the anguish of my heartbreak\u00a0but my snow globe world instantly went from swirling in torment to calmly settling at the bottom.<\/p>\n

Now, I don\u2019t want to give the whole talk away, but for you to really get the nitty-gritty layers she peeled back, here\u2019s the Cliffs Notes version:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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  1. Connection is why we\u2019re here. It\u2019s what gives purpose and meaning to our lives.<\/em><\/li>\n
  2. In order for connection to happen, we have to allow ourselves to be seen\u00a0(AKA be vulnerable).<\/em><\/li>\n
  3. Vulnerability is the willingness to do something where there are no guarantees (e.g., the willingness to invest in a relationship that may or may not work out).<\/em><\/li>\n
  4. Vulnerability is also the birthplace of joy,\u00a0creativity, belonging, and love.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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