Everyone who has ever lived and loved has felt this feeling. Most of the battle is just reminding ourselves, “this is so normal. It is this lie that keeps us isolated, that keeps us feeling like something must be wrong with us, that keeps us stuck in a pit of shame, rather acceptance and love. We’re the only ones who cry in our beds at night eating a pint of chocolate peanut butter ice cream. We assume we’re the only ones with toxic thoughts, with messed up beliefs, with bad days. We walk around the world most days, looking at all the people so perfectly dressed and perfectly put together, and assume we are the only ones struggling. Sometimes half the challenge of heartbreak is just reminding ourselves we aren’t crazy. Here’s how you keep moving forward when you are heartbroken. In case it helps, I thought I’d pass it on to you, too. What I told her on our call that day was really what I was telling myself. We talked for maybe 20 minutes, but 20 minutes was all it took. It’s amazing how one minute you can think you’re doing fine and then the next minute you see something you didn’t mean to see online, or the person who was supposed to call doesn’t call, or the pieces of the puzzle of your life don’t fall exactly as you planned-and suddenly you realize how fragile you’ve been all along. Her question came at an interesting time for me, since I had just spent most of my night spinning and swirling exactly the way she was talking about. I got a text from a friend recently that said: “When you are heartbroken, how can you stop the swirling, spinning thoughts that seem to derail you? How can you keep moving forward?”