When Your Mind Is Ready But Your Heart Is Not

You’ll convince yourself a million times that you’re ready before you really are. You’ll finally go out with that guy that your friend has been trying to set you up with. Or you’ll download a dating app and message a few cute guys. Your mind is telling you that you’re okay. That you’re ready to fill that void again.

But another guy will never fill that void because you need to fill it yourself.

In the weeks and months after a breakup, everyone tells you that there’s someone else out there for you. That it didn’t work out with this guy because he wasn’t the right one. And so you try to convince yourself of this, that there’s no reason to be upset because it just wasn’t meant to be. But it doesn’t work like that. You can trick the mind into believing something like that but your heart isn’t so gullible.

Your heart knows there is healing to be done.

So when you’re getting ready for those first dates with guys you’ve never met, your body goes into autopilot mode. Your brain knows you’re supposed to dress up, smile and laugh at his jokes, even kiss at the end of the night but your heart goes and hides in a closet the whole time. You don’t truly open up, you lock up your real feelings.

Because you can physically go on these dates but it doesn’t mean your heart is available again.

And that night or the next morning you’ll send the most generic, “Had a great time, we should do it again!” text but you know that is a lie. You know you have no intention of seeing them ever again. You’ll tell yourself that it’s because they just weren’t the one. You’ll pick apart their most negligible flaws.

But you know that’s not the real reason. It’s not them, it’s you.

When it’s not the right time, it doesn’t matter who comes along. They could be everything you’ve ever dreamed for, the one your parents would love. But when your heart isn’t ready, you’ll make any excuse you can to say no. You’ll say they’re just too nice, or you don’t like his taste in music. Absolutely ridiculous excuses for why you don’t want to date them.

And to be honest, it’s not fair what you’re doing to these guys but you can’t make the heart do something it’s just not ready to do.

Unfortunately you can’t magically make your heart ready to fall in love again. You can’t wish for it to heal any faster. The hurt is has felt takes time. Even if you think it “should” be ready again, doesn’t mean it will be. There is no right way to let it heal. There is no expected timeline of how long it should take. So don’t listen to what people tell you, that you just have to get back out there, that you have to start giving some new people a chance.

Because no one else will truly know when you are ready.
Only your own heart will let you know.