A breakup, especially if it is unexpected or unwanted, is a destabilizing experience that can cause a significant emotional impact on the people who experience it.
When we suffer an experience of this magnitude, human beings we need to go through a grieving process, which will help us progressively adapt to our new reality, integrating and accepting the loss suffered. This adaptation period can extend over time, and is made up of different phases of varying emotional intensity.
Throughout this grieving process, it is not strange to see how many people resort to various strategies and inventions in the hope that they will help them make the transition. One of the most frequent is to make a more or less radical change in aesthetics..
Why do many people decide to change their appearance after a breakup?
What makes people tend to this transformation when we are grieving? It is usually an act that accompanies the adaptation to our new reality, helping us to develop and consolidate a new version of ourselves. Colloquially, we would say that Physical changes help us make a “clean slate”marking a before and after in our life journey.
Likewise, when changes occur in our environment that we have not chosen and that we feel are outside our control, we need to recover the perception of internal control. For it we focus on elements that are under our capacity for action, in order to feel that we regain control of our life. A haircut would be an example of this.
Finally, we must not forget that grief is an emotionally intense moment where there is frequently an abandonment of self-care. Many people, especially in the advanced stages of this period, decide to put aside this habit of abandonment and begin to dedicate time to their physical appearance, experiencing it as a gesture of self-care that will make them progressively recover their mood and personal well-being.
Can there be any risk in resorting to these practices to overcome grief?
In the grieving process, there are usually no actions or decisions that, by themselves, are good or bad.but it will depend on the function they fulfill for each person.
Taking the example of radically changing one’s look, making said change, understanding it as a help to mark a before and after in our history, is not the same as making that same change. seeking to escape from our reality and pretending that it resolves everything that happens in our present.
As you can see, the change itself is not positive or negative, but depends on the function it fulfills. In the first case, the person is taking a reflective attitude of acceptance and takes changing their hair as an act that accompanies their transition to their new reality.
However, in the second the person is adopting a passive coping attitude, avoiding connecting with what has happened and with the emotions that emanate.
When we feel a lot of discomfort, we usually try to escape from it, since we do not find it comfortable living with this emotion. For this reason, many people “deceive themselves” by telling themselves that a superficial change (such as a haircut) will solve the problem and prevent them from having to face said discomfort. In the short term this self-deception can be very comforting, but later it will take its toll on us for having left our grieving process in the “dead angle”, as it may become entrenched and last over time.
To end, It is crucial to find what elements help each of us in the integration and acceptance of the breakup.. There is no formula or generic recipe, but each person will have their own tools, which they must use, being aware that grief is a process that takes time and that, as its name indicates, it has to hurt before it ends. heal.
