Why "You Need To Be Alone" After A Break Up Is Bad Advice
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If there is anything we have learned from the continuing pandemic, it’s that humans are wired to attach and that we need real human interaction, touch and intimacy to thrive and be happy, healthy —- and to be able to regulate our emotions.
When you take away the basic ability to be close to each other, secret parties and bars pop up. After seven hour school days with constant reminders to remain 6 feet apart, masked and stuck in one classroom for hours on end, kids draw together with unstoppable magnetic force and repel those boundaries at dismissal.
We are not meant to be apart.
When a significant attachment is severed, comfort is required. Sure, pets, even your kids can help. But nothing can really fill in that gap of the closeness required other than another human we are specially bonded to. This is why it is so hard to stay away from someone you love when you are hurting, why you want to go back to the person who broke your heart, and why trying to follow the advice of being alone after a break up seldom works. Your entire body is aching for limbic regulation and to get back to that person who helped to keep you feeling stable.
This is not to say that throwing yourself into a reckless fling, or even going back to an ex who was bad for you is a good salve on the wounds of your soul; it’s necessary to protect your heart. But you don’t need to be hard on yourself if you find it hard to stay away.
It’s as if the advice to “learn to be alone’ sometimes translates to keeping away from everyone, becoming a stoic shell of yourself, locked inside your house reading books, drinking wine, throwing on the chastity belt and foregoing all romantic or even semi-romantic interactions to make you somehow stronger. But it’s a fundamental, basic need for skin to skin contact, for eye gazes, for deep conversations, embraces and yes, even sex. We rely on each other for limbic - (emotional) regulation, even as adults.
Thomas Lewis, M.D., Fari Amini, M.D. and Richard Lannon, M.D. point this out in their book A General Theory of Love: “Adults remain social animals: they continue to require a source of stabilization outside themselves. That open-loop design means that in some important ways, people cannot be stable on their own—not in should or shouldn’t be, but can’t be….Stability means finding people who regulate you well and staying near them.”
Choosing to be alone doesn’t have to feel like a punishment and it doesn’t mean trying to go it all alone. Being mindfully alone can be a gift you give yourself. Instead of shutting down, you can open up to feeling and sitting in the power of your needs. You can learn to lean into the people you love and build stronger, deeper, and more trusting friendships.
Even if you are saying no to physical intimacy with another person, you can explore the sensuality of being with yourself, as a sensual, growing person (no matter your age), learning about what you want… what you don’t want…what you really need now, so when the time is right, coming together can be even sweeter and stronger.
