If you stumbled upon this article, it’s a sign that you are ready to begin your healing journey. A toxic relationship can leave deep emotional scars that require time, effort, and self-care to heal. However, a toxic relationship in many cases may also be a symptom of unresolved personal trauma and dysfunction. Whether the relationship was emotionally, physically, or mentally abusive, taking steps to recover is crucial to your well-being. Here are ten essential tips to help you heal not just from a toxic relationship but also from the root of entering and engaging in a toxic relationship in the first place.

Toxic Relationships

1. Identify the toxic traits

The first step in healing from a toxic relationship is to identify the toxic traits that occurred. Reflect on the relationship and recognize the behaviors that caused pain and harm. This can include emotional manipulation, gaslighting, control, and isolation. Understanding these behaviors will help you recognize them in future relationships and avoid them. While this step may be very painful, it’s necessary in order to learn from the experience and ensure not going through it again.

Having a rational and clear understanding of the events that occurred inside the relationship is key to begin your healing journey. As you move through this fist step it’s important to be honest with yourself and be able to identify not only your ex partner’s patterns but also your own. This will reveal traits that you have been carrying throughout your life that no longer serve you. While they may have been essential for your survival as a child, as an adult, they are preventing you from discerning healthy from toxic, or even worse, identifying toxic and still choosing it.

2. Cut ties

It’s crucial to cut off all contact with the person you engaged with in a toxic relationship. This includes social media, phone calls, texts, and mutual friends. Blocking their phone number and removing them from social media is essential to help you move on and heal. At the beginning this may be extremely difficult since you are most likely still obsessed with this person, which is what usually occurs in a toxic relationship. Being adamant about the reality of the situation and labeling the relationship as a toxic relationship, therefore something that is not good for you may help when you have an urge to stalk or reach out to your ex. Reward yourself for reaching milestones and grieve through the urge. Give yourself permission to cry and find a new activity until the urge passes.

3. Seek professional help

Education is power. Seeking professional help is also essential in healing from a toxic relationship. A therapist can help you work through your emotions, identify patterns in your relationships, and develop healthy coping mechanisms. They can also provide you with tools and strategies to help you move forward in a healthy way. There are rooted misconceptions that are pushing you or attracting you to engage in a toxic relationship perhaps because you did not witness one growing up. A therapist will not only help you process your emotions but also empower you with knowledge that can help you determine higher relationship standards and bring awareness to the changes you need to make in order to desire and value healthy relationships. Consider an online resource for your convenience.

4. Practice self-care

Take care of your mental and emotional health by practicing self-care activities such as exercise, meditation, and journaling. Set aside time each day to do something that makes you happy and brings you peace. Treat yourself with kindness and compassion, and remind yourself that you deserve to be loved and respected. This step is important because it’s the one that’s going to help you restore the trust in yourself and your ability to choose right. It takes discipline at first until it becomes a habit but it will strengthen you. At the beginning you may not feel like it. Just do it anyways. Force your body to do what’s good for you and your mind and heart will eventually catch up. Check out this post for self-care tips.

5. Surround yourself with supportive people

Surround yourself with supportive people who love and care about you. Connect with friends and family who will provide you with emotional support and understanding. Consider joining a support group where you can share your experiences and receive support from others who have gone through similar situations. Determine who to share your emotions with and who to simply spend time with to distract yourself. Not everyone is fit to support you emotionally but it doesn’t mean that their presence won’t help you move through this phase. Some people may be there simply to create new memories, have different conversations and give you a different perspective in life and that alone can be healing.

6. Focus on personal growth

Use this opportunity to focus on personal growth. Take this time to pursue hobbies or interests that you may have neglected during the relationship. Set goals for yourself, and work towards achieving them. Use this time to learn more about yourself and what you want in life. Think about 5 years from now and how the decisions you make now will affect you then. The truth is that your toxic relationship may no longer matter then, but whatever you did during this time will determine your lifestyle then.

7. Forgive yourself

Forgive yourself for any mistakes or choices you made during the toxic relationship. It’s essential to let go of any self-blame or shame that you may be feeling. Remember that you are not to blame for the toxic behaviors of another person. This one is a tough one because most times you don’t even know that you are angry at yourself or that you need to forgive yourself if you feel like you were the victim in the relationship. At the same time, if the other person was abusive you may also feel like it was all your fault. Forgiving yourself comes with time but it also takes a deeper and insightful understanding of the reality of the events. Admitting the other person’s faults as well as your own is key. The other person may have been the abuser, but you may have been the person attracted to someone who mistreated you. The other person may have been the one who cheated but you may be the person who would be willing to stay no matter how many times he or she lied. You may have been the person who begged for the other person’s love and attention in the midst of neglection. This is why being honest with yourself is so important so you can get to the bottom of it. Once you have peace with the decisions you made or didn’t make you can begin to move on.

8. Forgive the other person

Forgiving the other person is an essential part of the healing process. Forgiveness does not mean forgetting what happened or excusing the other person’s behavior. Instead, it means releasing the anger and resentment that you may be holding onto. Forgiving the other person will help you let go of the past and move forward in a healthy way. If forgiving yourself is difficult this would top that. You’ll probably feel like forgiving them is letting them off the hook and they don’t deserve that. However, forgiving someone else may be easier as you own up to your own mistakes and recognize that the other person is probably more broken than you are. If they have no remorse is probably because they still have many lessons to go through and have not reached their turning point. They will most likely continue to make mistakes, hurt themselves and others until they hit rock bottom and that time will come. So accept what happened and place the focus back on you so you can get to a place where you can recognize when a person is broken and don’t allow yourself to get in the middle of their journey or they will break you again.

9. Learn from the experience

Use the experience as an opportunity to learn and grow. Identify patterns and behaviors to avoid in future relationships. Take time to reflect on the relationship and what you learned about yourself. Use this knowledge to make healthier choices in future relationships. Unfortunately, if you don’t learn from this experience you will go through it again. There’s no way around it. You have to learn the lesson. Feelings are deceiving. Do the work it takes. Take the time you need. It’s easy to fall into the temptation of jumping into a new relationship to try to avoid the hurtful feelings but the truth is that if you avoid the feelings, you will go through it again with the new person and end up in the same place or worse.

10. Take time for yourself

Healing takes time, and it’s essential to be patient with yourself. Take as much time as you need to focus on yourself and your well-being. Don’t rush the healing process or push yourself too hard. Be kind and gentle with yourself and take time to enjoy life’s simple pleasures. Fall in love with life. Get to a place where you can be happy on your own. Only then you can look for a partner for the right reasons, not to fill any wounds or to fix what others did in the past but for their beauty, their presence and what they have to offer.

Healing from a toxic relationship is a challenging journey that takes time and effort, but it’s worth it. Remember that you deserve to be treated with love and respect, and with these ten essential tips, you can learn how to heal from the past and move forward in a positive direction. Be patient and kind to yourself, seek support when needed, and focus on self-care and personal growth. You can heal from a toxic relationship and build a happy, healthy future. Though the healing journey may feel long, dark and lonely, trust the process. There’s light, so much light at the end of the tunnel. Be brave and walk through it. If you are having thoughts or are in danger of hurting yourself visit the lifeline.