Overcoming Breakup

Objective:
To gently enter the group space, establish emotional safety, and begin acknowledging the breakup as a significant and layered loss.

• Group Orientation & Safety Agreements
– Co-creating a space rooted in mutual respect, confidentiality, non-judgment, and choice
– Emphasis on participants’ autonomy: sharing is always optional

• Psychoeducation: Why Breakups Hurt So Much
– Exploring breakup grief through an attachment lens
– Understanding how the loss of a partner can feel like the loss of emotional safety, identity, and future dreams
– Normalizing the intensity and duration of grief responses

• Guided Visualization & Reflective Writing: “What This Relationship Meant to Me”
– A brief, gentle visualization guiding participants to recall a defining or meaningful moment in their relationship
– Followed by individual reflective writing, honoring what the relationship represented emotionally, mentally, or symbolically

• Optional Sharing & Group Validation
– Space for those who feel comfortable to share reflections
– Validation of diverse responses to heartbreak: numbness, anger, confusion, longing, relief—all are welcome

• Closing Practice: Grounding & Resourcing
– A grounding visualization to help participants reconnect with an inner or external resource—something that brings ease, strength, or calm (a place, person, memory, or sensation)

• Takeaway Prompt (Journaling for the Week):
“What parts of my world fell apart with the breakup?”
– Explore the loss of identity, shared routines, emotional anchor, imagined future, or support system

Objective:
To explore and validate the emotional layers activated by the breakup, and begin tending to the different inner “parts” carrying the pain using a gentle, parts-based approach.

• Somatic Check-in & Breathwork
– A grounding arrival into the body with a brief somatic check-in (e.g., “What sensations are present today?”)
– Simple breathwork or regulation technique to support safety and presence

• Psychoeducation: Understanding Our Inner Emotional Parts
– Introducing the concept of inner “parts” (from an IFS-informed lens)
– Exploring common emotional parts that arise post-breakup:
– The Abandoned One (loneliness, grief)
– The Angry One (injustice, betrayal)
– The Hopeful One (longing, bargaining)
– The Ashamed One (self-blame, inadequacy)
– Emphasis on how each part holds a piece of the story and often functions to protect us

• Guided Reflection & Worksheet: Mapping My Inner Landscape
– Participants receive a gentle worksheet to explore and name the different emotional parts showing up since the breakup
– Reflection questions include:
– What is this part feeling?
– What is it protecting me from?
– What does it need from me right now?

• Group Sharing (Optional)
– Voluntary space to share insights from the worksheet
– Group emphasis on resonance, not rescue—simply holding space for each other's truths without trying to fix

• Closing Practice: Affirming the Part That’s Surviving
– A short visualization or affirmation practice acknowledging the resilient part that continues to show up through the pain
– Gentle reminder: "Even if you're hurting, you're here. And that matters."

Objective:
To reflect on how the relationship may have shaped, silenced, or stretched one’s sense of self—and begin reclaiming the parts that are ready to return. Participants will also explore how to gently rebuild boundaries that support emotional safety and self-respect.

• Check-in & Body Awareness Practice
– Gentle somatic arrival: noticing where and how the self is showing up in the body today
– A few moments of breath or mindful movement to ground in the present

• Psychoeducation: The Impact on Self & Boundaries
– Exploring how breakups can destabilize self-esteem, identity, and boundary clarity
– Discussion on:
– Enmeshment vs. connection
– Abandonment wounds and how they affect post-breakup coping
– Anxious and avoidant attachment tendencies and how they might show up in healing

• Reflective Timeline Exercise
“Who Was I?”
– Participants chart their evolving sense of self across three stages:
– Before the Relationship
– During the Relationship
– After the Breakup
– Focus on changes in self-expression, values, confidence, and boundaries
– Encourages noticing what was lost—and what might be ready to return

• Skill-Building: Emotional Boundaries vs. Emotional Walls
– Group exploration of the difference between healthy emotional boundaries and protective walls
– Practicing short internal boundary dialogues (e.g., “It’s okay to say no,” “I can care for others without abandoning myself”)

• Group Ritual: Letters to the Emerging Me
– A writing ritual where participants compose a compassionate letter from their wiser, grounded self to the hurting or younger part of them
– Prompts may include: “You didn’t deserve...,” “Here’s what I want for you now...,” “You’re allowed to...”
– Optional sharing in pairs or with the group

• Closing Visualization: Calling Back Silenced Parts
– A gentle guided visualization inviting participants to reconnect with aspects of themselves that were quieted, neglected, or given away during the relationship
– Imagery might include a “welcoming back” of younger, freer, or more authentic parts

• Takeaway Practice: Ritual Reclamation
Prompt:
Choose one small act this week that reconnects you to your individuality.
Suggestions:
– Listening to a favorite childhood song
– Preparing a comforting meal just for yourself
– Going for a solo walk without your phone
– Reengaging with a forgotten creative or playful impulse

Objective:
To reflect on inner shifts, find meaning in the heartbreak, and gently acknowledge the ongoing journey of healing with more clarity, compassion, and self-trust.

• Grounding Practice + Emotional Check-in
– A gentle arrival into the body with breath or sensory awareness
– Emotional check-in: “What’s alive in you as we begin our final circle together?”

• Psychoeducation: Breakups as Initiations
– Reframing breakups as potential initiations—a passage from rupture to rebirth
– Discussion on:
– Post-traumatic growth: how pain can deepen insight, empathy, and self-connection
– The nonlinear nature of healing: relapses, triggers, and grief waves are part of the process, not setbacks

• Guided Writing: Meaning-Making
– Prompts to explore personal wisdom gained through heartbreak:
– “What have I come to understand about love, loss, and myself?”
– “What inner strengths or truths am I carrying forward?”
– Invitation to reflect from a place of compassion rather than pressure to find closure

• Worksheet: What I’m Taking Forward
– Participants name:
– 3 key insights
– Inner resources they want to honour
– New or redefined boundaries
– Messages they want to carry into future connections

• Group Ritual: Letting-Go Practice
– A symbolic ritual to release what’s no longer needed
– Options may include: tearing up a letter, letting go of a small object, sharing affirmations aloud, or visualizing release
– Framed not as forgetting, but as making space for what’s next

• Closing Check-out
– Space for each participant to share (if they wish):
– Something they’re grateful for about the group or themselves
– What they’re taking with them into the next chapter
– Group grounding to anchor into inner and outer support

• Takeaway: Ongoing Support Resources
– A curated list of tools for continued healing:
– Books (e.g., Attached, Tiny Beautiful Things, The Body Keeps the Score)
– Podcasts (e.g., On Being, Therapy Chat, The Love Drive)
– Journaling prompts for integration and emotional clarity
– Grounding tools (breathwork, somatic resources, visualizations)
– Local/online therapy or support circles