Why It’s Healthy to Reflect on Your Past Relationships

Whenever we experience a fall-out or a break up with someone, we often have a natural tendency to reflect on that relationship.

Often it can be a painful process. We ruminate constantly about someone – staying up all night thinking about the mistakes we made, the negative signs we missed, and all the things we could’ve done differently to make it work.

As it turns out, this desire to reflect on our past relationships may not be such a bad thing after all.

According to one recent study, individuals who gave themselves time to reflect on their past relationships, and talk about them, had an easier time recovering than those who didn’t reflect.

While some people may like to jump from one relationship to another without a second thought, maybe it’s actually better to take a step back every now and then and evaluate what it is we really want going forward.

Your past relationships can be a tremendous resource of insight and information into the mistakes you made in the past, and how you can improve yourself in the future.

But it’s only by giving ourselves permission to reflect on these past relationships that we can learn from them.

While excessive rumination on our past is said to be a contributor to depression and poor mental health, some research shows that not all rumination is bad or counter-productive.

One study discovered that ruminators have a more “sticky mindset,” and one advantage to this is they can better focus their minds on a single goal. And another study discovered that depressed individuals were better at analyzing different options and making better choices than non-depressed individuals.

Some argue that this is an evolutionary advantage to rumination and sadness, because they can often evoke a cognitive mechanism that guides us to better solve our personal problems, through self-reflection.

This research also fits with another study that looked at “co-rumination” amongst teenagers. Co-rumination is when you extensively discuss and revisit personal problems with a friend or family member.

Results showed that those who did more co-rumination and self-disclosure to others also reported higher quality relationships, as well as better emotional adjustment to their personal issues.

All of these are compelling reasons why it’s so important to reflect on our past relationships. Here are practical tips to help improve your own self-reflection.

How to Reflect on Past Relationships in a Healthy Way

• Accept your feelings. – Just recognize your feelings as they are, without trying to change them. Remember that all emotions (positive or negative) serve an important function in our lives.
• Give yourself time and space. – We all need to give ourselves time and space to digest our experiences, especially big life-changing events. Don’t hesitate to schedule some alone time for yourself – take a walk, go to the beach, sit outside and look at the stars.
• Be honest about your mistakes. – You’ll never be able to learn from your mistakes of the past if you aren’t honest about them. No one’s perfect, but it’s those who take responsibility for their mistakes who continue to learn and grow.
• Don’t feel bad for feeling bad. – It’s healthy to feel bad sometimes. It means you’re a functioning human being. How else would you expect to feel after a fall-out or break up with someone? Give yourself permission to feel bad.
• Talk to someone. – Try not to spend all your time ruminating alone. Find a trustworthy friend or family member to speak to about your personal problems. Often sharing your issues with others can give you a new perspective on a relationship. Or at the very least, some social support and reassurance.
• Ask yourself, “What went right?” – The relationship may have not worked out, but that doesn’t mean it was all bad. Chances are there were plenty of things that went right too. Try to think of the strengths of your past relationships, and keep them in mind for the future.
• Ask yourself, “What went wrong?” – Now’s the tough part, it’s time to think about all the weaknesses in the relationship. What are the main reasons it didn’t work out? Pay particular attention to “negatives” that are a common theme throughout multiple relationships – those are often the things you really need to change.
• Ask yourself, “How can I do better in the future?” – Keeping in mind all the information you learned from the above questions, ask yourself, “What can I do differently in the future? What should I keep doing the same? What should I change?” Use the answers to these questions to guide your future relationships.
• Forgive yourself. – While reflecting on your past relationships, it’s important that you also find the opportunity to completely forgive yourself. If you continue to cling to your past mistakes, and beat yourself up over them constantly, you’ll never be able to fully move on.
• Move forward. – You’ll never be able to completely “move on” through reflection. At the end of the day, you need to start taking action to move forward too. Go out to new places. Start socializing with new people. Begin a new hobby. You have a future to live, what better time to start than now.

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