Breakup Affirmations for Self-Love: Rebuilding Your Relationship with Yourself

Going through a breakup is an emotionally challenging experience that often leaves you feeling lonely and disconnected. Although you’ve lost a relationship with your ex, you still have the most important one of all—your relationship with yourself. When it comes to finding ways to love yourself after ending a relationship, breakup affirmations are a powerful tool.

Many people are quick to write off affirmations as silly sayings you’d write in the margins of your daily planner or journal. In reality, though, using affirmations after a breakup positively impacts your brain in many ways. From reducing stress to improving your ability to regulate your emotions, affirmations are a great ally on the road to healing.

What are Breakup Affirmations?

An affirmation is a positive statement you make about yourself with a specific goal in mind. Often, this goal is to increase your confidence or self-esteem by training your brain to think more positively. You can use sayings that focus on confidence, problem-solving, refocusing negative thinking, and much more.

It’s important to know that affirmations aren’t just for breakups. There’s no limit to what affirmations can be. They are a useful strategy for improving your mental health and self-confidence at any time. After a breakup, though, affirmations can be particularly impactful.

When you split from a partner, the world can start to feel like it’s falling down around you. Affirmations are a great way to build yourself up and remember the many things and people you care about and the reasons you have to be happy. Since affirmations impact your brain with long-term change, they are perfect for helping heal your broken heart.

The Science Behind Using Affirmations After a Breakup

At first glance, the science of affirmations might seem a bit strange. How is saying something about yourself going to make you feel better, especially when you’re going through the loss of a significant other? It turns out that when you engage in self-affirmation, your brain experiences real, observable changes.

Affirmations work by replacing negative thoughts in your mind with healthier, loving ones. With enough practice and repetition, your brain’s default thought processes start to gravitate towards the positives. When this happens, you’ll feel empowered and ready to take on challenging situations. But how exactly do breakup affirmations work?

1. Changing Your Brain

Looking for positivity after a breakup is important. A flood of negative emotions can weigh you down if you don’t balance them out with happier feelings. While there are many ways to find joy, few are easier than using breakup affirmations.

Notably, studies show that routinely using self-affirmations can actually change the way your brain interacts with the world. This happens thanks to a phenomenon called neuroplasticity, which lets your brain adapt to changing situations.  

Think of saying affirmations like carving a path through the jungle. The more you do it, the easier it is to walk the path. Your brain craves easy tasks that conserve energy. So, when affirmations make positive thoughts the easiest route, your brain automatically starts using those pathways in daily life.

2. Stress Reduction

When your mind is filled with negative thoughts, your body reacts with stress. Increased heart rate, higher cortisol (stress hormone) levels, and high blood pressure are all signs of stress you’re more likely to experience after a breakup.

Fortunately, research has shown that individuals who regularly practice self-affirmations experience less stress than those who don’t. This happens because affirmations trigger neural circuits in the brain that play a role in stress reduction and the release of “feel-good” hormones like dopamine.

3. Better Emotional Regulation

We’ve all experienced a barrage of negative emotions that feels too strong to tame. Although negative thoughts are natural, it’s important to process them correctly. After a breakup, you’re likely to deal with more negative self-talk than usual, whether you’re blaming yourself for the split or questioning your self-worth.

Affirmations are a strong tool for improving your ability to regulate negative emotions. When you practice using self-affirming statements, key areas of the brain involved in emotional regulation are activated. Over time, you become more likely to replace negative thoughts with positive ones. For instance, instead of dwelling on the piece of yourself that feels threatened by a breakup, you’ll remind yourself of your worth.

Best Affirmations for Breakups

There’s no right or wrong way to get started with using affirmations after a breakup. The most important point to remember is to use your affirmations of choice consistently, regardless of what they are.

The best breakup affirmations are the ones you resonate with. Don’t feel like you have to choose a certain phrase just because it’s on a list or in a magazine. Find an affirmation (or a few) you like, then use it regularly.

To help jumpstart your healing, here are a few breakup affirmations you can use right away:

1. I have power over my own life.
2. I am loved and lovable.
3. I matter.
4. I am learning to love myself.
5. It will get better.
6. This will pass.
7. I have a lot to offer.
8. I am strong.
9. I am growing.
10. I allow myself to feel these emotions.
11. I am keeping my heart open.
12. I have worth and value.
13. I am worthy of being loved.
14. I am not defined by my past relationships.
15. I am resilient, and my spirit is unbreakable.
16. I trust my heart to guide me towards healing.
17. I am proud of the effort I’m giving.
18. I deserve to love myself.
19. I choose to focus on self-care.
20. I deserve healthy, loving relationships.
21. I am strong and confident.
22. I am grateful for the relationship I had.
23. I am free from the burden of my ex.
24. I choose to enjoy life today.
25. I trust that something better is coming.

Why Don’t I Believe My Breakup Affirmations?

What happens if you’ve started using affirmations after a breakup and don’t believe the words you’re saying? That’s perfectly normal! Going through a breakup can be devastating and seriously impacts the way you think and feel about the world. That includes how you view yourself.

So, if telling yourself, “I am worthy of love,” doesn’t feel true in the immediate aftermath of a breakup, know that this is normal. The process of rewiring your brain with positive affirmations is a marathon, not a sprint. When you first start using affirmations, they might sound silly or forced. The key is to stick with it.

Over time, the positive phrases you keep telling yourself will start to become a natural part of your thought process. Eventually, when your self-worth comes into question, your brain will go on autopilot to combat those thoughts and remind you that you are worthy.

Conclusion

Going through a breakup is never easy. Using affirmations can help you start to heal and love yourself just as you deserve to. If you want to go beyond affirmations and try more exercises designed to make your thoughts more positive, the Breakup Buddy app can help. Breakup Buddy is a specialized tool for helping you process difficult emotions after a breakup so you can heal faster with a 24/7 safe space.