One of the hardest things you will ever experience in life is a broken heart. You start a new relationship with so much hope and love. Yet, by the time it's over, that hope is on life support and you’re curled up into a ball and crying your eyes out.

Whether you initiated the breakup or were blindsided by your ex, the feelings of grief and loss can be overwhelming. But you need to know that when your heart breaks, it breaks open to hold more love.

Here are 5 ways to heal your weary, broken heart.

1. Take time to feel your feelings.

Instead of trying to muscle through and act tough, allow yourself to feel all the icky feelings that come up. Guilt, shame, rage — allow these feelings to move through you. Book yourself some time to mourn and if you don’t feel like it when the time comes, use music to inspire you to feel.

This is always temporary. Your feelings will not last. When you feel bad, you fear we’ll never ever feel better. However, when you feel bliss, you're never delusional enough to think that it will last.

There’s even nothing wrong with throwing yourself a pity party, as long as you remember to set an end time.

When you consciously choose to feel your feelings, instead of just wallowing in them, you bring attention to that part of you that's hurting. Give yourself a time limit and do nothing else while you're feeling and expressing.

Don’t try to eat your feelings with ice cream and donuts. Don’t try to rationalize or justify how you feel by going over in your mind what went wrong. Don’t allow yourself to numb out into a funk and prolong the experience.

Schedule time in your calendar to just feel your feelings. Scream, cry, pound your pillow. You can even buy yourself a set of dishes from a thrift store and find a dumpster to break them in.

Whatever allows you to feel and express, that’s what you want to do and do a lot of it.

2. Practice compassion for yourself.

When you're in the process of getting over someone you once loved, you can get stuck when you judge yourself and blame yourself for the breakup. The truth is you were doing the best you could with the resources you had. If you had the ability to approach the situation differently you would have.

Have compassion for that younger version of you who was unable to prevent it, fix it, or make it better. Whether you could or should have done things differently is irrelevant at this point.

Accessing compassion releases judgment and there is no reason to judge what you did or did not do. There is no reverse in life, so you cannot go back to make a new choice.

Compassion allows you to be kind to yourself.

Find a place you love to sit — whether out in nature or in your home — and place your right hand on your heart center and cover it with your left. Close your eyes and breathe into your heart. Picture the younger version of you who "screwed things up".

Let them know you love them. Say out loud, "I forgive myself for judging myself for …" and fill in the sentence with the mistakes that you made. Practice this as often as you like.

3. Find gratitude for all that you have.

Gratitude is probably the last thing you want to focus on when you're having a pity party, but shifting your mindset will give you the fuel to move on to better things. An attitude of gratitude allows you to receive more of what you want. When your heart is broken, it can be difficult to feel gratitude for anything in your life.

Start small. Look for things that are going well in your life and celebrate them.

If you’re healthy, start with that. If you have a pet, be grateful for their unconditional love. If you have friends who are willing to listen to you complain about your ex, put them at the top of your list.

How you think about things is one of the most important tools you have for shifting your energy and your emotion.

Start a Gratitude Journal and each night before bed write down five things you are grateful for. Then, read through the list in the morning before you get out of bed to start your day.

4. Discover the golden nugget.

Take this step when you're done grieving. If you're still feeling brokenhearted, go back to step one. Think of life as a giant game board and when you discover the golden nugget after a breakup, you move forward toward your beloved.

Here’s how you do it: Write a letter of gratitude to your ex (we know that sounds a little kooky but stick with us here).

You see, everyone who shows up in your life gives you an opportunity to learn and grow.

Your ex showed up to teach you something — maybe to help you become a better communicator — to learn how to speak up for yourself or to how to become better at selecting the right kind of man for you. Discovering the "why him?" will ensure you don’t lather, rinse, and repeat with the same kind of man who's not right for you again.

So take some time to write down what your ex showed up to teach you, even if you’re certain he wasn’t consciously doing that. It might start off just free writing whatever comes to your mind.

Eventually, form it into a letter of gratitude — one that you will never send. Write out all the things you learned and discovered by being in a relationship with him. Make it as specific as possible and include anything you can think of.

Why did it have to be this particular person that you were with? What did this person teach you about yourself? What do you need to become better at in your future relationships?

Once you’ve completed the letter set it aside for a few days. Then pull it out, read it aloud, and create a ritual by burning it.

When you do, say aloud, "I release this for the highest good of all." If you don’t have a fireplace or a safe place outside to burn it, a great spot is your kitchen sink.

5. Release what no longer serves you.

Now is the time to take an inventory of yourself and who you were in that relationship.

• Are there places you need to grow into in order to attract a better match for what you desire?
• Are there skills you need to learn to make sure you don’t fall into the old habits and behaviors that block you from the love you want?
• Are there signs you can recognize earlier to spot who is not a long-term match for you and move on quickly?

When you approach your relationships in this way, you learn new ways to date and to select a better partner. You're able to navigate conflict more confidently, express yourself more freely, and honor yourself by speaking up.

Learning how to heal a broken heart may be one of the toughest of growing pains that you’ll experience but you can use the time to create a new relationship with yourself.

As you grow as a person, you’ll attract a new kind of partner.

Rather than swearing off relationships for good (until you forgot you did that) and going out to find love by accident yet again, maybe it’s time you found a new approach altogether — one that creates love on purpose.

Long-lasting love is a skill that you can learn because you are in charge of the selection process.