32 Guardians Explain How They Heal Themselves After A Heartbreak
Each of the Guardian personality types processes breakups a little differently – but there are undeniable similarities in the ways that ESTJs, ISTJs, ESFJs and ISFJs all grieve when they’re brokenhearted. Below, 32 guardian personality types explain what they do to move on from a broken heart.
ESTJ
1. “After a breakup I get very involved in a lot of things to distract myself.”
2. “I move through the stages quickly and can come back. Immediately following heartbreak, I NEED people. I need to feel validated and know that I am good enough, even though I’m crying and saying the exact opposite. I typically go to a friend’s house to force myself out of an environment where I’m surrounded by my own thoughts and/or their memory. I go from sad to angry quickly and then experience sadness again. I typically take to drinking and not eating which is not advice I’d like to pass on to others but info you can use in research. My advice for other ESTJers is to surround yourself with people that can remind you how worthy you are and how much better off you are without them!”
3. “I have to be still and quiet with no one talking to me, no one around me. I have to wait for the void to make sense, to wait until I can analyse and understand it all. I need to be alone with my thoughts and let them roll in whatever direction they go. Once I have done that then I can let others in again, once the pain has become manageable and smaller, then I’ll know I can cope and that I will come out the other side. I know it will end.”
ISTJ
1. “I analyze everything that happened over and over until I come to logical conclusions as to why it happened and how it will affect me from here on out. I stay busy (especially with the work) as a distraction, putting all of my effort into other things I care about. Occasionally I will do things to treat myself, but not in an emotional binge kind of way. Eventually I stop thinking about the heartbreak and move on.”
2. “To heal: I sleep, do what I love – gardening, drawing, hope tomorrow will be a better day. I just move on, but I don’t forget easily. Time will heal the heartbroken Advice: always move on.”
3. “I do all the traditional stuff – allow myself to grieve, try to focus on myself, both eat a lot and exercise – but I largely try to rationalize why it was better and realize that if he was “the one” then he would still be in my life. Just know there are so many people in this world – there is someone for everyone and in a few months or years, you will see this was a necessary step in the journey because you and the love of your life will be eating pancakes on a Sunday morning not even remembering this pain you currently feel.”
4. “I tell people I’m fine and then get home and go straight to my room and sob. Then I take a hot shower.”
5. “My advice to heartbroken ISTJs is: Feel for a while. Allow time to heal. Three days, a week, whatever – it’s your choice. But when that time is over, then you pick yourself up and move on.”
6. “I literally work it out of my system. Cleaning, data entry, workout, physical labor, office work. Then later I’ll try and process it emotionally with a close friend who is more emotionally based than me and can help me make sense of the ‘nonsense’. I would tell others that it’s okay for everything to not make sense because eventually it will. And it’s okay to process things the way you do, but don’t neglect to find that friend who will help make it all better again!”
7. “I had to be told that it wasn’t my fault because I was so sure I was the problem; I wanted to make it work. Once I realized that, it was a matter of facing reality, not kicking myself for having emotions, and accepting the fact that life goes on. I intended to be with my former partner indefinitely, but you can’t plan everything.”
8. “Usually, I give myself a day to be completely consumed and occupied by the thoughts. Then, I plunge myself into work as a distraction. I’m not a cryer and feel embarrassed that I have invested that much emotion into a love interest/significant other. For closure sake, I also explain to myself why it wasn’t meant to be. Then I refocus my attention on goals and plans for improvement. I have learned, however, that the sooner I admit to myself my true feelings and give myself permission to feel disappointment, the better I am and the sooner I’ll move on.”
9. “I make a clean break – no contact with the ex. I actually like to talk about it with people, which I guess is not really an introverted thing to do? It’s just comforting to hear other people’s stories and realize everyone’s been through it. I think it also helps to throw yourself into other activities.”
ESFJ
1. “I stay busy by pouring my self out to others. I try to run from my heart break. Nights are always the hardest for me.”
2. “When I experience heartbreak, I am consumed with its pain at first. I like to spend some time alone to begin the healing process. When I am heartbroken, I feel completely let down by the other person, and I am reluctant to ask for help from others. I naturally seek approval of from others, but when I experience deep disappointment and hurt because of someone else, I tend to seek out my own validation. I find the strength within myself to heal, and I’m always surprised at how strong I really am. My advice to others: spend quality time alone in reflection and meditation. Put yourself first and be unapologetic about it. You can only be that incredible friend or family member when you allow yourself the time to heal and come back even stronger than before.”
3. “When I’m heartbroken I stay in bed and cry.”
4. “Heartbreak involves me having to tell myself to stop feeling so much for my other half, because even if I was hurt too much, it’s hard not to still put myself in her shoes. I start to actually take out more time for myself, doing what I love, surrounding myself with people who listen to my heartbreak woes and build me up afterwards. It is an ongoing process because you wouldn’t know when you have actually moved on until you see the person and realise that you no longer feel that soul-shattering pain and can love the person as she is. Moving on has to involve the step for us to actually start to live for ourselves instead of being so attuned to our exes and how they are coping with the heartbreaks. I mean, it sounds like we are being jerks for doing so, but when you care too much for people, this is what we have to learn to do in order to become stronger, to love the next person who comes along that is great for us.”
5. “I stay inside. I tell myself they were just a person and that there’s Plenty of people in the sea. I talk to people. I surround myself with friends. I get out and about to feel the fresh air on my face and remind myself that I am whole, without anybody else and I don’t need anybody else to feel whole.”
6. “I eat ice cream and sulk for a few days. Then I get over it.”
7. “I surround myself with people I love. I keep myself busy and do everything with a purpose, to remind myself that life goes on and that I am important as an individual. I find different ways to spread all the love I have to spare.”
8. “When I’m heartbroken, I tend to try and distract myself with anything to forget the pain. I just keep doing that until the pain isn’t there too much anymore. Also, I always remember that helping someone else will always make your day brighter!”
ISFJ
1. “When I’m heartbroken I surround myself with people who love me and who I love. I try to focus on the things that make me happy, get out of the house, exercise, stop ruminating in sadness. Get rid of things that reminded me of the old person because otherwise I’ll never move on. Also think of the bigger picture and that there are so many other people out there.”
2. “I need to remember myself how much I worth as a person. After that I make plans to improve in other areas of my life and make efforts to become a better version of myself.”
3. “I try to remember that time heals everything.”
4. “Right after it happens I surround myself with friends and family so I don’t have to be alone with my thoughts. I plan my weeks out so I know exactly when I’m going to have to be alone and when I’m going to have people surrounding me. Binge watch a favorite show to distract you or go to your favorite place often (I go to the beach a lot after a heart break). As time passes and you can breath again let yourself really think about everything and feel all the pain. Write lists of what you want different in a next relationship and what you want to work on in yourself so that you are looking positively in the future and it gives you an outlet to already be investing in your future relationship. Don’t be friends with your ex, I know I invest and love my partners 100% and to break that bond goes against your nature, but you have to let go and sometimes be firm to them and/or yourself that it’s completely over because anything less than 100% commitment and love isn’t worth it, but that firmness is something that doesn’t always come naturally and is always hard for me. Take it a day at a time and look to the future you want, the future where you love yourself and your future partner 100% and they return that love.”
5. “I don’t get over heartbreak, not really. I’m a true-blue lover. I cannot stop loving someone once I’ve decided to love them. Only time and space helps to lessen the emotion, but it never really goes away.”
6. “When I’m heartbroken I either play xbox or listen to music. I would advise other ISFJs to talk to someone about your heartbrokenness, or maybe do an activity you enjoy to make yourself feel better.”
7. “What I do/have done in the past is not what I’d recommend. But I imagine other ISFJs can empathize. I dwell on the breakup and memories of the relationship almost constantly. I find songs with breakup lyrics applicable to our relationship and play them on repeat in a playlist. Subconsciously, I immediately start trying to look for opportunities that could lead to a new long-relationship to fill the hole in my heart and life (not a temporary fix or one-night-stand… but the next potential suitor who would ideally lead to marriage).
I also distract myself as much as possible with Netflix/movies, but also have plenty of sobbing fests during when alone behind closed doors. Crying and dwelling on the pain is awful, but ignoring it and not spending plenty of time feeling the loss deeply would be far worse. That’s more or less what I do/have done. It’s been a few years since my last breakup.
What I’d actually recommend, and how I wish I would have handled things in the past, would be to spend time grieving the relationship without obsessing over it or being consumed by it. Being that emotionally dependent on a guy is unhealthy. Don’t immediately start looking for another man; be content with where you are as best you can. No guy can satisfy your needs 100% or complete you anyway… only God is able to satisfy your heart that deeply. So grieve the loss, pray, and schedule time to spend with friends instead of moping alone in your room or in the shower for hours on end.”
8. “Surround myself with family. Reassure myself that everything will be fine and just move on.”
9. “I surround myself with friends and relatives and keep busy. I’m the type of person who just pretends everything is okay until it is, or I have a complete mental breakdown. One of the two. Kidding, but only kind of. My advice: think about it, learn from it and move on. ISFJs spend way too much time analyzing the situation, going back and going over it and over it, trying to figure out what went wrong. Just stop dwelling, and you’ll come out just fine.”
10. “As an ISFJ, I DWELL on specific moments of the past and the feelings that came with them. This goes on for weeks and it is brutal. So I started writing everything down. When I thought of a moment or a date or a kiss that I didn’t want to forget, I wrote it all out. This helped me to let go of those memories and the associated feelings that punched me in the gut every time I thought of them. I spent a lot of time praying too. Knowing that those thoughts are all kept in a journal if I ever want to revisit them allows me to push them aside and be in the present.”
11. “It took me years to get through my heartbreak and to be honest, it still haunts me at times. It ebbs and flows, still. What works best for me is staying busy: going out and laughing with friends, reminding myself why I’m happier without him, keeping my mind occupied on other things, avoiding situations where I would see him or any trigger that would make the longing rush back.”
12. “I’ll own it as my choice to move on. I’ll find my identity in something else and my place to belong somewhere else. I’ll see all the different ways why it would never have worked and keep note of what I am looking for. Advice to others of my type: know yourself and know what you want. And make a decision in advance that you won’t let it destroy you if things go south. Learn from everything.”