Ritual as a Technology for re-wiring attention after Heartbreak
And What Two Small Steps Can You Take To Ease It?
I believe that heartbreak is a spiritual malady.
I would argue that heartbreak is the loneliest part of grief; it’s like a death, except everyone wants you to ‘get on with your life’ because nobody has died.
What I did to deal with the loneliness of heartbreak.
I stopped talking about my heartbreak openly to friends.
I found it draining, especially when my friends’ faces glazed over around month two. Even though they knew I had lost the love of my life, I could see their exasperation and helplessness reflected in their eyes.
You may think I have awful friends, but in reality, it’s human nature. People are mainly concerned with themselves, and that includes you, my friend. We’re all trying to survive our own problems.
Compared with illness, war or hunger, heartbreak—like mental illness—is an invisible suffering that the world expects us to promptly recover from.
I realised there comes a point where talking about heartbreak stops helping. You begin rehearsing the same thoughts, looping the same emotions, and spending today's energy reliving yesterday's pain.
I was trapped in a thought maze of my own making, but in my defence, I had no closure at the time. I was genuinely confused about what had happened, trying to make sense of it, and getting nowhere.
Protracted grief is an insidious waste of time. That sounds harsh, but it’s especially true when you get stuck in repeated thought cycles, like a hamster on a wheel, going over the same questions and arriving nowhere.
But we all do it.
The worst has happened. The relationship has ended, and no one can give you the answers because your friends and family weren’t there all the time.
They may have picked up on clues in the weeks and months leading up to the breakup and be able to give you some insight from their perspective, but it’s unlikely to be the whole truth because who wants to deliver bad news? We’ve all heard the saying, “Don’t shoot the messenger.”
If they tell you the truth, it’s likely to open up a whole box of horrors.
Equally, they may not have seen any signs at all.
So now you’re going round and round in circles, ruminating about what happened, replaying old conversations, and generally picking off the heartbreak scab some more just to let fresh blood flow and maybe fester a bit more.
Recovery Ritual no. 1—Journalling
Ever heard of a witches Grimoire?
Words have power, my friend.
Journalling is a technology because it takes information trapped inside your mind and externalises it into the physical world, where it can finally be examined.
It slows thinking down, allowing memories to be analysed instead of endlessly replayed. It exposes repeating patterns you never noticed while they were happening.
It gives painful emotions somewhere to go other than endlessly around your head, and gradually updates the story you tell yourself about your life.
You input experience, process it through language, debug faulty assumptions, and return with a cleaner, more accurate model of reality.
I wrote down how I was feeling every day.
How I really felt in the relationship beneath the surface.
I was brutally honest in my writing, and things emerged that I’d never admitted to myself.
I began to uncover the path of destruction. I began to ‘see’ what was really happening, not my illusion about the relationship. Those were powerful moments where I could track what I didn’t want repeated.
The “behind closed doors” moments, where I lost myself and my life became a circus, and I was the audience watching as the monkeys and clowns performed.
It’s so simple, but writing it down really does help to move the needle forward in your recovery from heartbreak, because problematic areas in the relationship begin to reveal themselves.
Break-ups don’t happen in a vacuum.
You’ll see it eventually.
I let all my rage and disappointment flow out into my diary—or journal, depending on where you’re from.
It helped me move forward, step by micro step, as a pattern emerged. I realised I’d become a paralysed spectator in my own life, and slowly I began to thaw out and regain the sense of humour and adventure I’d lost.
I started doing more and seeing friends again (but not talking about the heartbreak).
They’d ask politely,
“How are you doing?”
And I’d say,
“Small steps every day... anyway, it’s really great to see you.”
Then I’d change the subject.
Because, even though I was still utterly heartbroken, I didn’t want it to stagnate my friendships with an endless cycle of bewilderment and circular thinking.
I was boring myself too.
Talking to friends about it isn’t helpful after a point.
What could they do, really?
They’re not counsellors or therapists.
On the other hand, and as an aside, talking to a professional is a good idea, especially if you’re struggling with the ruminating stage. It can help you move through the initial anguish much more quickly, and I’d highly recommend it.
However...
I did have another secret weapon.
Recovery Ritual NO 2
This is simple but powerful
A friend of a friend was also going through a heartbreak of a similarly catastrophic nature, so we started meeting once a week.
We made a pact never to repeat what was said, and it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
She splurged.
Then I splurged.
We shared our tactics for heartbreak recovery.
I’m going to share one of my favourite ones with you now, which comes from my practice of Witchcraft.
It’s simple but effective.
We are lucky enough to live by the sea, so we’d go down to the beach.
We’d write hateful slogans on stones.
We’d hold them in the palms of our hands, pour all our anger and heartbreak into them and....let’s face it, it was pretty dark back then.
(I’ll probably be banned if I write what was actually written on those stones.)
Then we’d throw them into the sea with all our might.
The sea didn’t solve my heartbreak.
But there was something deeply satisfying about watching those stones disappear beneath the waves, carrying my pain with them.
It transformed my feelings into something I could hold, look at and finally let go of. Sometimes the mind needs the body to help it move on. Rituals like this are simply technologies for changing the way we think, feel and remember.
The sea became my reset button, and every stone was another reminder that I didn't have to carry the same story forever.
I also did this alone, and it really helped me acknowledge what I was going through, to name it, and let it go.
Over time, I found myself writing positive words on the stones instead.
I’d send love to my ex.
Wish him a speedy recovery.
Send him forgiveness and gratitude for the time we’d shared together.
And happiness for his future.
That was when I realised something had changed.
I also started thinking about my own future.
I finally had the mental space to work out what I wanted from life, the places I wanted to travel to, and the lifestyle I wanted and who I was now after years of being ‘we’.
I passed my driving test.
I bought a new car.
Little by little, my life stopped revolving around what I’d lost and started revolving around what I was building.
At the nine-month mark, I looked in the mirror and realised how well I looked and how content I felt.
That’s when I knew I was ready to move on with my life.
That was May 2025.
I’d been asked out a few times, but I’d always declined.
There was one lovely man in particular who messaged me on Facebook, but I told him I wasn’t ready to date, even though I felt lonely and desperately missed physical touch.
My relationship with my ex was a big, big love, and I wasn’t ready to give anything even remotely that intense to anybody else.
Looking back now, I’m so grateful I gave myself the time and space to heal and get to know myself again.
Loneliness after heartbreak isn’t a bad thing, although the feelings are horrible.
Every day is a healing day, no matter how painful it feels.
I hope that makes sense?
The Verdict
I found my edges again after my breakup.
And I found a new life,
And massive plot twist…..
A year later, in May 2026, I was married, and I couldn’t be happier.
The real plot twist is, dear reader, I married my ex.
He’d been on his own spiritual quest and had come back a new man.
If you’d like to write on stones and chuck them into the sea, here’s my Amazon link to some mighty fine pens that will give you a cathartic experience like no other.
(Cheeky, I know. But it’s so therapeutic and cheap!)
The Ruling
The evidence tells me that heartbreak hurts so much because it happens in the unseen realms.
Nobody can see the wound, so nobody knows how long it will take to heal.
We are expected to carry on because everyone else has.
But healing isn’t measured by the calendar.
It’s measured by the day you realise you’ve stopped mentally looping, started laughing again, and begun making plans for a life that no longer depends on someone else’s presence.
Case closed?
Not quite.
If you have any Heartbreak rituals you’d like to share, please drop them in the comments.
Until then, if anyone doesn't like where you are in your life journey... they can Lick My Evil.