6 Ways Buddhism Recommends You Get Over Your Ex

Heartbreak has a way of making time feel distorted. Days drag. Memories loop. You replay conversations that no longer exist and imagine futures that quietly disappeared. In modern culture, breakups are often treated as problems to be fixed quickly — date again, stay busy, move on.

Buddhism takes a very different approach.

Rather than bypassing pain, Buddhist psychology teaches us to understand suffering, sit with it, and loosen our attachment to what was. Not through suppression or spiritual bypassing — but through awareness, compassion, and clarity.

Buddhism doesn’t promise that heartbreak won’t hurt. It promises something more realistic and more powerful: that suffering can soften when we stop fighting reality.

Below are six Buddhist teachings and practices that help you get over an ex — not by erasing love, but by transforming your relationship to it.

1. Understand That Attachment — Not Love — Is What’s Hurting You

One of the core teachings of Buddhism is Dukkha — often translated as suffering or dissatisfaction.

According to Buddhist philosophy, suffering arises not from loving deeply, but from attachment: clinging to outcomes, identities, and impermanent things as if they were permanent.

When a relationship ends, what hurts most is often:

• The loss of certainty

• The shattering of imagined futures

• The identity you built around being chosen

The Buddha taught that all conditioned things are impermanent (Anicca). Relationships, feelings, and even versions of ourselves arise and pass.

Credible source: https://tricycle.org/beginners/buddhism/impermanence/

Buddhist reflection invites you to ask:

• What am I clinging to — the person, or the feeling they gave me?

• What story am I telling myself about what this breakup means about me?

Letting go doesn’t mean dismissing love. It means loosening the grip of expectation.

2. Practice Mindfulness Instead of Emotional Avoidance

Buddhism places mindfulness (Sati) at the centre of healing. Mindfulness is the practice of observing thoughts and emotions without judgment — not pushing them away, not indulging them.

After a breakup, many people oscillate between rumination and distraction. Buddhism suggests a third option: presence.

When grief arises, mindfulness teaches you to note:

• This is sadness

• This is longing

• This is anger

Without adding a story.

Research published in Clinical Psychology Review shows that mindfulness reduces rumination and emotional reactivity — two key factors that prolong heartbreak.

Credible source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/clinical-psychology-review

Instead of asking “How do I stop feeling this?”, Buddhism asks:

This shift alone can dramatically soften emotional suffering.

3. Release the Illusion That Closure Comes From Another Person

In Buddhist psychology, liberation comes from insight, not external validation.

Many people believe they need:

• An explanation

• An apology

• One last conversation

To move on.

Buddhism gently challenges this idea by teaching that waiting for others to resolve our pain keeps us bound to them.

According to Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield, true closure comes from understanding impermanence and accepting reality as it is — not as we wish it had been.

Credible source: https://jackkornfield.com/the-art-of-forgiveness-lovingkindness-and-peace/

Reflection practice:

• What am I hoping they will say that will finally free me?

• Can I offer myself the understanding I’m seeking externally?

When you stop outsourcing closure, healing accelerates.

4. Use Loving-Kindness (Metta) to Heal Without Reopening Wounds

One of Buddhism’s most powerful practices for heartbreak is Metta — loving-kindness meditation.

Metta does not mean reconciliation. It does not mean excusing harm. It means cultivating goodwill without attachment.

Traditional Metta practice moves through stages:

1. Offering kindness to yourself

2. Offering kindness to a loved one

3. Offering kindness to a neutral person

4. Offering kindness to a difficult person

Including an ex — when you are ready — helps dissolve resentment that keeps emotional bonds alive.

According to research from Stanford University, loving-kindness meditation increases emotional regulation and reduces negative affect.

Credible source: https://ccare.stanford.edu/uncategorized/what-is-loving-kindness/

Metta phrase example:

Freedom, in Buddhism, is the true end of love — not possession.

5. Rebuild Your Identity Beyond the Relationship

Buddhism teaches Anatta — non-self. This doesn’t mean you don’t exist. It means the self is fluid, not fixed.

Breakups hurt deeply because we often fuse identity with relationship:

• Partner

• Caretaker

• Chosen one

When the relationship ends, the identity collapses.

Buddhist practice encourages observing the self as something that arises and changes, rather than something lost forever.

Psychological research aligns with this. Studies in Personality and Social Psychology Review show that identity reconstruction is essential for post-breakup recovery.

Credible source: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/psr

Reflection questions:

• Who am I when no one is choosing me?

• What parts of me were dormant in this relationship?

You are not becoming someone new. You are remembering who you were before attachment narrowed you.

6. Accept That Healing Is Non-Linear — and That’s Not Failure

Buddhism rejects the idea of linear progress. Everything arises, fades, and returns in cycles.

Some days you will feel peaceful. Some days you will ache.

This is not regression. It is impermanence.

The Buddhist concept of equanimity teaches us to remain steady amid emotional waves — not demanding that pain disappear to validate healing.

According to the Greater Good Science Center, acceptance-based practices reduce emotional suffering more effectively than suppression.

Credible source: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_power_of_acceptance

Healing, from a Buddhist perspective, is not about never thinking of them again.

It’s about thinking of them without losing yourself.

Letting Go Is an Act of Compassion

Buddhism does not ask you to harden your heart after heartbreak.

It asks you to soften your grip.

When you understand impermanence, practice mindfulness, release attachment, and extend compassion — especially to yourself — the relationship no longer defines you.

Love becomes something that passed through you, not something that left you broken.

And in Buddhism, that is freedom.

— Rubie

Deepening the Buddhist Context: Why Heartbreak Feels So Overwhelming

Buddhism teaches that romantic heartbreak strikes so deeply because it threatens three core attachments at once: attachment to pleasure, attachment to identity, and attachment to certainty.

When a relationship ends, it is not just the person we lose. We lose routines, imagined futures, emotional regulation through another, and the illusion that something outside us could provide lasting security.

According to Buddhist psychology, this is why heartbreak can feel existential rather than merely emotional.

Modern psychology mirrors this insight. Research published in Emotion journal shows that romantic loss activates the same brain regions associated with physical pain and withdrawal.

Credible source: https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/05/broken-heart

Understanding this normalises your pain. You are not weak — you are experiencing a very human attachment response.

Love Arlyn xoxo