Whether you have experienced a mild or chronic case of depression, being a bit blue at times.. It will help you to get outside and let the sunshine in your life—literally. While it may be difficult to take the steps and open the door, there is mounting evidence that spending time in the sunshine of the great outdoors will help alleviate your depression.

Open Your Eyes

By opening your eyes to the sunlight, your optic nerve signals to your brain to produce serotonin, which releases good feelings and combats feelings of stress. The many prescription medications that boost serotonin levels may take weeks to make changes in the body and may cause a host of unwanted side effects. Yet, simply opening your eyes to the bright sunlight can help boost your serotonin levels in a shorter amount of time.

Get Moving

It’s common knowledge that exercise is a powerful tool in the fight against depression and anxiety. It releases endorphins and contributes to an increase in confidence. But if you’re still feeling a bit blue after an hour in the gym, try moving your workout to outdoors. Go for a walk or run on an outdoor path or do circuits using playground equipment at the neighborhood park and double the benefits of using exercise as a way to fight depression.

The Sunshine Vitamin

Is a vitamin D deficiency making it harder for you to overcome your depression? There is growing research that a lack of vitamin D may cause, or worsen, depression. Luckily, boosting your vitamin D can be as simple as spending 30 minutes outside in the sunshine. Just be sure to be careful in your approach and not spend it in the middle of the day when the sun is at its peak. You have to balance out the need for vitamin D with the risk of skin cancer from sun exposure.

Key Tips for Letting the Sunshine In

You must go outdoors, simply sitting by a sunny window won’t let your body absorb the full benefits of the sunshine.

Skip the sunscreen—sometimes. The UVB protection offered by a broad spectrum sunscreen will prevent your body from absorbing all the benefits of the sunshine. This fact means that you should wear a hat, avoid going out during the peak of the day and save sunscreen for extended exposure to the sun.

Invest in artificial light if you live in a dark and cold climate or can’t get outside due to mobility issues. Sitting under a bright light will give you many of the same benefits as the sunshine without having to depend on the weather forecast.

You only have to spend five minutes outside to reap the mood-lifting advantages of the sun. Simply take a walk around your block, drink your morning cup of coffee or read a book on your front stoop and enjoy the healing warmth of the sun for a short bit.

One of the truly beautiful aspects of getting outside and letting the sun help lift your depression is that it is a truly complementary healing practice. You don’t have to stop medications or stop therapy given for you to find healing in the sun.

 Just like a fairy tale, It sometimes happens that your eyes meet with a special someone and the next thing you know you have fallen head over heels. Starting a relationship with someone new can be a thrilling time in your life and there is something inspiring about the beginning of a new relationship but what happens next? Should you give a second chance to a failing romance?

Usually, New relationship can produce exciting feelings are often accompanied by anxiety and doubt as you open yourself up to a new person. As time passes, you decide whether or not the relationship is working and whether it’s time to move on with your life.

In the wake of your breakup, you find different ways to cope with the loss. Some people get a daring new haircut, binge watch tear-filled dramas with cake and other fill the void by meeting new partners. While some people find the prospect of dating new people exciting, others find it scary and intimidating.

No matter where you exist on the spectrum of coping mechanisms, it’s likely that there will come a time when you, or your former flame, ask for a second chance. This moment can be quite the conundrum. Should you give up new possibilities to reclaim the stability and comfort that came from your relationship?

Before you ask for a second chance or give your ex-lover another opportunity to do right by you, you need to ask yourself the following questions.

Was it a healthy relationship?

Think back to the course of your relationship. Was there a give and take or was it abusive? If you were ever in an abusive relationship, you need to stay out of it. However, if it was a healthy relationship that met with typical bumps in the road, it might be worth a second try.

How have you grown and changed?

What have you learned about love and romance since the relationship ended? Remember, every relationship has two people contributing to the energy of the partnership. If you are unable to see the role that you played in the relationship, especially the unflattering habits you may have, you are at high-risk for making the same mistakes again.

How has your partner grown and changed?

What was at the root of your relationship woes? Were the two of you brought down by core values and characteristics that are unlikely to change or was it circumstances that you can overcome? Find the right balance between accepting that someone can grow and recognizing that certain aspects of a person are unlikely to change.

What do you have to gain/lose?

In different phases of your life, you will find that you have more to gain or lose by entering into a relationship. Do you risk breaking the hearts of your children by rekindling this relationship that didn’t work out once or will it provide a secure and stable home environment for them? If you only have to worry about yourself think to what you stand to gain or lose from an emotional standpoint. Don’t compromise on respect.

As the song so famously states “breaking up is hard to do” and that is why many couples reconnect many times before the breakup sticks. While you shouldn’t be afraid to give an old love a new chance, you should remind yourself of the difficult times and ask yourself this one final question: “if this is the best it gets, is it good enough?”

  When you’ve deeply invested in your partner and that love dissolves all of a sudden… It can jolt you out of reality into a cloudy, confused state where you feel low, lost and alone. And, if you’ve ever suffered from self-esteem issues before, a breakup can make you particularly vulnerable to feeling unworthy of love from anyone.

But, however tempting it may be to cut yourself off from society, spend your days crying at yourself in the mirror and relentlessly running through everything your ex said to you in a vain attempt to find a ‘solution’ that you think will make you worthy of love again…. That’s not the answer.

Here are 6 steps to finding self-love after heartbreak:

1. Stop replaying negative relationship dialogue.  

If you had a messy breakup or a toxic relationship, your ex might have said some things to you that really stuck with you – perhaps they berated your personality, or maybe they told you that your body was unloveable. These painful phrases tend to stick when part of us believes them to be true, and having someone that we love recite our insecurities to us so perfectly gives us the evidence that our negative thoughts tell us that we need to finally prove that our fears are valid and based in reality.

And even if your relationship was perfectly lovely and died a peaceful death, it can be a jolt to our self-love to feel like someone that once thought the world of us now doesn’t agree with that anymore.

What did we do wrong? How can we fix ourselves so that it doesn’t happen again? What if others think the same of us, too?

No amount of obsessing over awful comments that your ex made will help you. Instead of internalising that dialogue, take a step back and try and view yourself as a whole, separate person from whatever transpired in your relationship. Understand that the visualisation that you have of yourself that arises from painful words and actions is not accurate – it’s simply the way that your mind is framing your sense of self right now. And luckily, your sense of self can adapt and change.

Neuroplasticity gives us the power to literally change our minds through undertaking positive change – so, by adopting positive self-care habits, practicing compassion and making a habit of routinely taking a step back out of your head and assessing why you’re currently feeling the way that you do about yourself, you’re able to move your self-worth to a more positive place.

2. Cultivate self-kindness.

Now, it’s time to look at the other messages that you’re telling yourself about your relationship and breakup. Are they angry, or resentful, or sad? Far too many of us try and ‘force’ ourselves out of a post-breakup echo chamber of sadness as quickly as possible by putting on our sexiest outfit, or trying to distract ourselves. And while those tactics can certainly be part of the later stages of the healing process, it’s crucial to ensure that we’re not refusing to acknowledge our own feelings as we try to move on.

It’s okay to be angry or sad or resentful. It’s not nice to feel those things – but after a breakup, they’re perfectly natural. There’s a huge difference between acknowledging your feelings and hanging onto them (and ironically if you don’t acknowledge them, you will end up holding onto them).

By refusing to give yourself permission to feel deeply, you’re also not allowing yourself to heal deeply. Practice self-kindness by asking yourself what you feel, allowing yourself to have those feelings. It’s up to you the timeframe that you take to heal from this, and you don’t have to follow any ‘rules’ – feel what you need to feel, when you need to feel and how you need to feel it. There’s no right/wrong way to experience your own emotions.

3. Forgive yourself and your ex for whatever has happened.

Maybe you screwed up. Maybe they did. Maybe no one screwed up, but you came to resent each other from unspoken toxic undercurrents that flowed throughout the relationship… whatever the reason that triggered the demise of your relationship, accepting it and forgiving yourself (and your ex) is critical to you rebuilding yourself as an individual.

Because you’re human, and so are they. You’re allowed to make mistakes and learn and grow from them. Beating yourself up isn’t the solution here, and will only reinforce negative feelings that you deserve isolation and low self-esteem as some sort of punishment (you don’t). And even if your relationship was entirely wrong from you, you can still choose what to take from it.

Choose to take the lessons – what you want out of future relationships (and what you don’t want), the sort of people you want to attract and the themes that you want to run dominantly in your life. Without this forgiveness, it will be extraordinarily difficult to pick up the pieces of your self-esteem and move forward with love.

4. Create a space for body positivity and self-love, and define this for YOURSELF.

Defining self-love for yourself is important.

Why? Because although friends are great, and it can be wonderful to surround yourself with the people that you love after a breakup, most friend groups will provide you with very surface level pseudo-advice to help you ‘heal’. Don’t get me wrong, this advice is well-intentioned, and usually, your friends will mean no harm, but the usual friendship tropes of “Let’s go get revenge bodies!” or “You should get SUPER hot then show up at his/her work and make him SOOOOO jealous!” can unfortunately reinforce some themes of negative body image if you’re already prone to feelings of insecurity about one or more parts of your body (and even more so if your ex reinforced those ideas, too).

Now is a perfect time to look holistically at your self-love and body positive strategies and whether they’re working for you (and if you aren’t already doing anything, now is a great time to start).

This is a beautiful time to be exactly who you are  – unapologetically and freely! Affirmations and mantras are a great way to kick start this process, and visualisation can greatly help, too. It’s important to note though, that these tactics won’t work if you’re still holding tightly onto fear or not being totally honest with yourself about the pain and insecurity that you’re experiencing.

Rather than trying to self-medicate your emotions with food, drinking, partying or endless distractions, dig deep and listen to what your mind and body are craving from you at this time, and act accordingly.

5. Set healthy boundaries.

You get to decide who and what occupies space in your lives.

Old toxic friends, reminders of the baggage of your past relationship, mementos that keep you trapped in the past and thoughts that keep you feeling small are all examples of things that you can let go of.

This doesn’t have to mean actively repressing memories or texting people and telling them never to contact you again, but simply creating a space within your life where you feel comfortable and confident in setting your own boundaries – saying “no” when required, not using painful possessions as a security blanket and finding ways to see your own worth as part of the present moment, rather than as part of the past.

6. Seek the beauty in others around you.

Pay compliments to others often, notice their positive attributes and admire qualities that you find wonderful.Putting yourself in the headspace to be able to appreciate positive qualities in others can be a wonderful springboard to seeing these attributes in yourself, as well.

It’s simple, but it works.

Remember, no matter how long you’ve been with a partner, no matter how much love you shared and no matter how seamlessly your lives intertwined into one, you are a unique person.

An individual. You always have been, and always will be.

The solution to post-breakup low self-esteem is not to try and win back your ex, nor is it to try and prove to anyone else (hot, sexy singles at the club, for instance) that you’re attractive and loveable and worthy. External validation will not fill the void, and you must dig deep within to reconnect with your own individual identity.

You must be your own validation.

No matter how great you are… It’s going to happen to all of us such as getting dumped, being cheated on or probably being betrayed by a best friend.  If you are taking the risk of being in a relationship, it’s going to suck sometimes.

My friend, Marcie, broke up with her boyfriend that she’d been seeing since high school. They survived going to separate colleges, four years of long distance, and when they finally were together in the same city, he bailed. Turns out he had another girlfriend the whole time—and she’s the one he chose.

“I can’t believe he didn’t just tell me four years ago,” Marcie sniffed over her flat white. The noise of Starbucks swirled around us. She was totally oblivious to the world around her, stuck in her pain. Hey—I totally got it. But then, three months later, we had basically the same conversation. It was like the movie Groundhog Day. Like she hadn’t moved on at all. I had brought my Tarot cards and offered to pull one for her. I drew the Six of Coins. She took a look at the card and pushed it away. The image of the wealthy man giving alms to the poor, with a magnificent castle in the background, didn’t resonate with her at all. But it did with me.

What Marcie needed was to find a way to give to others, to feel her own worth again rather than replaying the horrible betrayal of her first true love. Okay, I know the idea of giving to others in order to heal yourself might sound—what?—goody-good. But being of service—whether that means joining a volunteering program or just taking occasional time to focus on the concerns of family and friends—is a recommended psychic resolution to help you heal from heartbreak and create the life you want for yourself.

Moving On From the Pain

Marcie and I talked about the card. She was a little pissed at first; she didn’t want to admit she was stuck in her victim story. I knew it would take a while to heal, but I told her, “Girl, there’s gotta be something else. What do you care about?”

Eventually, her tears dried, and she said she had become friends with a woman, Dolores, at work. She had found out that this woman’s husband was abusive. She didn’t know what to do, but was really worried for her friend.

“Look, you might not be able to help Dolores directly, but what if you found out how to support her or help other women in her situation?”

Marcie agreed to think about it. I took a picture of the Tarot card and sent it to her as an inspiration.

Giving Can Heal You

Marcie and I talked a few weeks later at a party. Her eyes were brighter, and as we settled into a corner with our drinks, she asked me how I was. This was a great sign because the last few times, it had been all about her. Then she told me that she had started volunteering at a women’s shelter.

“God—these women’s situations,” she said. “The worst. I had this intense training and now I’m on the hotline. We had to get a woman to the safe house last week—it’s crazy. But I feel great that she’s safe.”

And then I asked her—because it still had to matter—about her heartache over Brian.

“I mean, I still cry over it every week. And I should buy stock in Ben & Jerry’s! But I just realized that I wasn’t the only one with pain in my life and that I still had something to give someone else. I was really stuck in that pain. Sometimes my heart aches about him, but when I get to really help someone else, it’s like my heart aches—in a good way.”

True that.

I think my most important takeaway from Marcie’s situation was the reinforcement of the amazing power of service. And it isn’t just for when you are feeling bad—having a commitment to giving back as a regular part of life is a gift to yourself. It was a psychic that first made me think about this, in a reading I had a few years ago. It was all about strengthening my heart chakra, and she said it would help with my feelings of loneliness. She was right, and now that I’ve helped Marcie, it feels like coming full circle.

Heartbreak is part of life, and healing takes the time it takes. If you are heartbroken, talk to someone. Get a reading or have a friend help you get perspective. For Marcie, it was just one card drawn in a Starbucks! Our hearts are limitless. Using your heart for love even when it hurts is an amazing tool to help the healing move along.