The
dark, gloomy weather of the winter months, combined with the realization that
your parents will be the only people buying you flowers and chocolates this Valentine’s
Day, is enough to have anyone feeling a little bit down about a recently-failed
relationship. The Student Success Workshop series at Capilano has devoted a
workshop entitled “Breaking Up and Letting Go” to help students cope with their
relationship woes.
At
any age, dealing with a break up can be emotionally devastating, but dealing
with a break up whilst trying to juggle studies, a part-time job, and a social
life can prove to be even more difficult. However, those dealing with
heartbreak can take comfort that brain research on emotional pain shows that,
despite the intensity of pain in the immediate aftermath of a breakup, people are
resilient, and that in virtually all breakups (though it may take months) they
are eventually able to move on and put it behind them.
To
this end, the goal of the workshop is to give students the tools to deal with
their emotions and show them how this split can actually result in becoming a
stronger, better person. According to the organizers, participants will walk
away with the strategies they need to focus attention on their studies and
other goals, and according to the organizers, “have the ability to keep moving
on.” This workshop is being run by Maggie Feist, a counsellor who works in the Counselling
Services department at both the North Vancouver and Squamish campuses of Capilano
University.
Feist
describes the workshop as “a one-hour workshop focusing on letting go and
dealing with breakups. We will look at feelings that we commonly have after
break-ups which include having doubts about who we are, how we feel, and
reconciliation.” Feist explains that there will be a significant amount of
focus on learning how to accept the situation and talk about your feelings openly,
as opposed to submerging them and rushing through them without truly
understanding why you feel a certain way.
The
workshop will be set up in a way that educates individuals about key concepts
in the healing journey as opposed to being a step by step workshop. Feist
explains some key concepts being learned as “awareness, common issues, how
people can personalize the information being given, and explaining why common
emotions occur after breakups, and how everybody is different and will
ultimately have a slightly different way of responding to break-ups than other
people.”
Much
of the research on emotional pain and break-ups shows that it is a normal and
essential part of the human experience. “Our brains appear to process
relationship break-ups similarly to physical pain,” says Dr. Melanie Greenberg
on the website Psychology Today.
She
cites research in which participants who had recently broken up with their
partners had the same brain areas light up on an MRI scan, both when they were
shown pictures of their former lover and when a hot probe was applied on the
arm. “There may be an evolutionary reason for this. In the animal kingdom,
one's chances of avoiding predators are much higher as part of a group than
alone; therefore, social rejection may have been an actual threat to physical survival
for our early ancestors. If this is the case, it might partially explain how
difficult it is for many people to let go of the ex-partner and move on.”
Those
who have gone through a breakup may also be familiar with the obsessive
thoughts and “cravings” about their former partner that come with a traumatic
separation. There may be physiological reasons for why these cravings occur, says
Dr. Greenberg. According to one study that used similar methodology, viewing
photos of the former lover prompted intense activity in the area of the brain
that deals with reward/motivation and the release of dopamine, similar to the
activity that is seen in drug addiction. “People may experience cravings for
their ex-partner similarly to the way addicts crave a drug they are withdrawing from,” says Dr. Greenberg. “This
can lead to intense distress and physiological as well as psychological
discomfort.”
Those
who have found that they’ve loved and lost often find themselves on a pendulum
of sadness, jealousy, anger, and many other feelings that they cannot figure
out on their own. According to Feist, despite the pain a student may be
experiencing, one of things she wants to convey is that “many of the feelings
you experience post break up are perfectly normal and are supposed to have a
serious impact on you.”
The
workshop is being held on Friday, Feb. 3 from 11:30am-12:30pm in the Library
Building, room 119.
//Lidsay
Howe, writer
//Graphics
by Jason Jeon
|
