My heart hurts when I think of him and I don't want to fall in love with someone else, what should I do?

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I had a hard time dealing with a constant sense of heartbreak until I was able to realize that it was a kind of death, and we should treat it that way. A part of you dies every time you put yourself out there and are rebuffed.

Our brains have billions of little neurons, way more of them are in one brain than there are persons on the entire planet. Each neuron has a small amount of agency. Every thought you have, every rut you get in, every part of you you consider to be part of your identity, has its cadre of neurons in the brain responsible for overriding your brain and driving that particular concept to the forefront of your conscious attention whenever necessary.

Something like love enlists a broad coalition of neurons, enough to override literally everything else you could possibly be focused on right now. When the love is unrequited, it’s like a rubber band that was pulled really tight, and then just let go all over your brain. It feels terrible, like a wound.

So, I had a big heartbreak last year. I’m a big meditator and so after the heartbreak I did a lot of meditative exercise and self-inquiry. What I realized was that it wasn’t just about love for me. I had an entire picture built up of how I wanted my life to go, and I had been working hard to put her into that picture. The main thing that triggered the heartbreak wasn’t so much that I couldn’t have her, but because I knew, deep down, that the entire picture I had of us just wasn’t workable.

Realizing that it was way bigger than just not having a person gave me the enlightening epiphany that made it easier to deal with. After a week or two I was able to let the whole thing drop and move on.