21 Healthy Ways To Start Over

Is there a right way to start over? When we’re in a new place, or going through a painful breakup, the prospect of starting anew can start to appear irresistible. But while starting a new chapter in your life can feel wildly exciting, it can also be a challenge navigating it in a healthy, constructive way. We are excited to inform you that it is completely in your power to start things over in a way that both improves upon your old life in all the important ways and learns from your past rather than avoiding it. 

“Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”

L.M. Montgomery

What Is The Best Way To Start Over In Life? 

And how can you do it in a healthy way? When you’re starting off on your journey, it can be a challenge even knowing where you’re supposed to begin. This is your moment to rediscover the pieces of your life that are worth holding on to. As you begin your personal process of renewal, this is your opportunity to hold aloft the parts of life you cherish most. 

• Cope With Your Anxiety. When we don’t acknowledge our anxiety, we pay for it in the long run. Often the quickest and easiest way to change your life for the better is to learn how to cope with your anxiety. The best time to learn is right now. 
• Make Art Again. We all make art as children because it makes us happy. Why do we stop as adults? It is perfectly within your power to make time in your busy life for artistic expression, and you’ll probably thank yourself for it. 
• Set Intentions. Choosing the right affirmations is important for a few reasons. Firstly, our words are powerful, and the things we say have a profound effect on our behavior. Secondly, when we’re choosing our intentions, we’re choosing our desire for the future. That’s the great thing about the future, when we know what we want from it, we can figure out what we have to do to get it.  
• Pursue Your Hobby. Our hobbies are the things we’d do on a desert island if nobody were watching and we only had ourselves to entertain. These are the things that make us feel passionately, grow quickly, and come to know more thoroughly whenever we can. There is an immutable fact that we must accept as true in order to find happiness in this life: when you pursue your passion, it makes you happy. 
• Open Yourself Up To Love. It can be extremely painful when we try to rely on others for love and it doesn’t work out. After all, we need love on a primal, chemical level in the same way we need to eat and breathe. When we don’t have that love, it can be all too easy to grow resentful of others for the love you don’t have. But we only have ourselves to blame. As much as we try to avoid it, the way we open ourselves up to love from others is by loving ourselves first. 
• Be Serious About Taking Care Of Yourself. There’s no way to get around this. You have to eat enough food (at least three times a day, maybe more). You have to exercise and use your body in a mindful way. You have to do the things that make you happy in the short term like candy-eating, but also the things that make you happy in the long term like laundry-folding. This is non-negotiable. Your self-care is a necessity. 
• Break Through Denial. Whenever we’re going through a big change, there’s going to be a moment when it will feel easier to look away from the reality of the situation than do things in a new way. That doesn’t make you stupid, it just makes you human. 

How To Let Go And Start Afresh

In order to pave the way towards a better future, often we must sort through the complications of our past. Starting fresh can give you a new opportunity to learn from your mistakes, but only if you are able to acknowledge those mistakes and make efforts to correct them. 

• Heal Your Family Stories. The stories our families give us are fostered in childhood, but we retell them our whole lives. That story can be a tragic one, or a triumphant one depending on who’s telling it. But only you get to decide how it ends.  
• Change How You Speak To Yourself. We can be terribly unkind to ourselves and not even realize it. The words we say (to ourselves especially) have an enduring impact on our well-being. In speaking to ourselves kindly, we can soothe our pains and walk free of self-judgments that only cloud our ability to appreciate what we do have. 
• Recognize The Inner Critic. We are social creatures, and our thoughts are frequently occupied by things we’ve heard before. Sometimes these can be comforting thoughts, like an old lullabye or a cherished memory, but they can also echo the criticisms, mockery, or abuse you’ve endured in the past. Your inner critic is meant to help you, but if left unexamined, your inner critic can run amok and wind up doing more harm than good. 
• Be A Better Friend. I have good news and bad news. The bad news is: there is no formal training method for learning how to be a good friend. The good news is: that means you can informally start learning right now. Friendship is a skill, and it’s one that can take a lifetime to master, but you have everything to gain by being a supportive friend. 
• Learn How To Listen. It takes a strong individual to speak the truth, but it takes an even rarer strength to hear it. Your ego and circumstances will find every opportunity to stand in the way of truly listening (even to the people we love). But there is a method when it comes to actively listening, and you are capable of learning it.  
• Address Your Generational Trauma. Some of our family stories are older than others. Our families can carry and transmit trauma across generations just as easily as they could a story, value, or character flaw. By exploring your family history you can learn about the different circumstances that shaped you and your family into who you are. 
• Be Resilient. Resilience is the act of getting back up when you’ve been knocked on the ground. Failure is inevitable in this life, even more so when we’re trying something new. In order to endure the burden of growth, we must become well-versed in the subtle art of resilience. We cannot avoid the sting of failure, but we can learn how to get back up with hope still in our hearts. 

How To Start A Whole New Life

Starting over is hard. You have to put yourself in order, boldly study the mistakes of the past, and then after all that, you have to put it into practice. It’s one thing to realize that something has to change, and another to actually change it. If you want the reward, you have to be able to do the work, day in and day out. 

• Avoid Burnout Through Self-Care. Self-care goes beyond just making a promise to take care of yourself. It also means keeping that promise. If we don’t make the time to take care of ourselves, we will inevitably burn out. It’s worth expending a little bit of effort now for self-care if we get to avoid the intensive effort it takes to cope with true burnout. 
• Embrace Yourself. I cannot overstate the potential benefit of unconditionally loving and accepting yourself. I used to think I could live my whole life without a shred of self-love, just as long as I took care of others. Life without self-love is an adolescent fantasy. Either learn to love yourself, ignore yourself, or dread your own presence, but you will always have to tolerate the presence of your own company. Why not do it with joy and love in your heart? 
• Listen To Your Body. Our body sends us signals for a reason. When we feel bad, that’s our body telling us we need more care. When we ignore those feelings, our body will eventually send us more intense signals. The dull ache in our back becomes a sharp pain if left unattended. By listening to your body, you can learn exactly what it needs. 
• Embrace Uncertainty. In order to achieve anything, we have to battle with our uncertainty. There are no guarantees in this life, even more so when it comes to trying something new. One of the biggest obstacles you have to face is the fact that you won’t be able to know everything that lies ahead. Uncertainty can either be a source of dread or comfort to you, and only you can decide which is right for you. 
• Use Art To Cope With The Transition. Human beings are creatures of habit, and coping with the stresses of change can be a huge challenge at times. But although we can be incredibly sensitive to changes in our environment, human beings are also extremely adaptable and creative. You can use that to your advantage by processing the big changes in your life through art.  
• Make A Clean Break With Your Old Way Of Being. In order to move on, you’re going to have to start doing things differently. That’s easier said than done. Especially when it’s so easy and comfortable to keep doing things the way they’ve always been done. If you’re not willing to do it differently, then you’re not really starting fresh. 
• Explore Expansive Therapy. In the realm of starting over, DIY self-work is required no matter who you are, but sometimes a professional touch is not just preferred, but needed. Expansive therapies like art therapy, somatic therapy, and ketamine assisted psychotherapy have helped many patients access their brain in a completely new way.  

 If you feel stuck on your healing journey, working with a therapist can help. Based on your needs, our intake specialist will help you get matched up with your perfect therapist. Click here to schedule a consultation.

Sunny Ebsary is an educator, multi-modal artist, and writer specializing in the intersection of myth and mental health. Sunny’s writing walks the line between poetic and logical, giving readers a chance to interface with the mind and imagination. Sunny’s been putting pen to paper since he was a child, writing everything from albums, novels, and plays, to essays, interactive games, and of course, many articles! While studying both psychology and writing, he realized his real passion in life was helping others unlock their creative spark. Whether he’s leading a D&D game, directing a production, or diving deep into the brain, you can be sure Sunny will be ushering you toward finding meaning in your life.