By  Twyla Monti, Director of Media and Partnership for Travelous

The idea of hitting the road after enduring a recent breakup was the furthest thing from my mind.
I wanted to burrow under my sheets, cry myself to sleep with a steady supply of chocolate &
wine, contemplating my sure-to-be-single-for-life status. Interaction, especially in a foreign
country, seemed out of the question.

My parents, bless them, had a different perspective. Having recently relocated to Mexico, they’d been living the expat lifestyle in a colonial town in the center of the country. Working hard to adjust to the new culture and language, they stumbled along in their adopted hometown, taking on the adventure with the enthusiasm of backpacking college students. They suggested coming to join them for a short stint, likely well aware of the chocolate carnage quickly forming in my bed.

Reluctantly, I booked a flight and headed off to see what the world had in store for me. What I found was a new perspective on where I was at that moment, a shift in how I viewed myself, and thus I began the recovery process.

The Brain on Breakup
For many of us, the idea of facing solo-travel after a breakup sounds like too much to bear. “Alone?” we ask… “won’t that make me feel, well, more alone?” But it may be just what we need. According to Nina Watt?, a licensed online psychotherapist who specializes in anxiety, getting away from your home base can be critical: “A ‘geographic cure’ can be a very legitimate way to see oneself in a different perspective, to see one’s life in a different way, to either reinvent oneself, or to remember oneself, to gain inspiration and introspection, to develop
presence and to practice new behaviors in the safety of anonymity.”

Stepping outside your familiar environment may provide a lot of relief, partially because it’s hard to focus on sadness and grief while you’re trying to juggle asking for lunch, and the restroom, in a different language. Simply planning the trip; thinking about where you’d like to go and what you’d like to do can give an immediate distraction to the sadness. If you can, work with a travel planner to help juggle details and make the process easier for you.

Leigh Richardson, a psychologist with specialties in ?neurofeedback and biofeedback, ?describes
what happens to the brain?: “?When the brain is going through grief, it experiences increased
activity in the? ?regions? responsible for processing physical pain and emotions: the insula, anterior
cingulate cortex, amygdala, posterior cingulate cortex, and prefrontal cortex. In the case of
prolonged grief, pain actually accompanies the brain’s reward-process centers, meaning it
reinforces (in a sense) the yearning for the lost loved one, almost creating an “addiction.” This is
seen when grief persists and even disrupts everyday life.”

Learning what you need
Another benefit of traveling after a breakup: reflection. In relationships, we tend to focus less on our needs, instead usually allowing our relationship to dictate activities, social time, and even our own personal interests. Time alone, especially in a foreign country, can help you re-visit the core things that make you happy and fulfilled. Take note: This time to yourself will give you the opportunity to make a list of what you really want (and don’t want) in future relationships, without the added layer of looking around your room at things you feel you’ve lost.

Psychotherapist Watt also recommends taking time while away from home to compile a list of qualities you have that you wish to be aware of and adjust, moving into this new phase of life. Look at the patterns you’ve repeated in your relationships, such and push-and-pull power dynamics, needing to be ‘right’, or allowing others to dominate your own needs. In addition, what qualities you want in a partner, and how those have changed over time. See if you’ve lost things that are critical to your happiness and if you’ve repeated patterns that aren’t serving you or your relationships. This will help you identify core values that cannot be ignored in your next phase of life, and create clarity for when you re-enter the dating world. Take the time now, while you are immersing yourself in you, making daily choices that serve you. That time will help provide strong clarity to the things that bring you the most happiness and self-love, as well as spelling out expectations for a partner, so you can avoid choosing one that doesn’t suit and being disappointed when it feels wrong.”

Finally, independent travel will help with your self-esteem, as you’ll be accomplishing new things
on your own. Trying new foods, choosing activities for the day, planning transport and cultural
activities, all will give you a feeling of accomplishment and reward, because you really do have
this.

Wonderfully, travel provides us with the opportunity to focus inward, on our needs, and outward, to the world around us. All in all, I say go travel. Get out of your home base, expose yourself to a new culture that will challenge, inspire and guide you for your next phase in life. It will enable you to push through the haze of sadness, and likely introduce you to new friends and a new perspective on the future, one that really is better off than where you began. And hey, some spectacular pictures of you having an outrageously good time in a foreign country are so much better than the unwritten “I’m-so-over-you” message you’ve been aching to write.

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