The Gold Standard: Advice Column #1

Welcome to The Gold Standard - Here at the blog team, we’re here to answer your questions, work through your problems, and give you a place to spill your tea. 

How to get over an ex?

Ooo, an age old question. When it comes to breakups, the first thing I always tell anyone is if you haven’t yet, let yourself be sad about the breakup for a second. Whether it was a committed relationship, situationship, or just a quick fling, the “girl boss” in you may be telling you to immediately get on with your life, even if you don’t feel like it. This doesn’t do anything but prolong the recovery process since those feelings are still buried deep down inside of you. My rule (adjust as you see fit) is to let yourself be sad for a day, or maybe even two, and then surround yourself with all the people who love you and the things that make you the most happy. Time heals all and while distracting yourself isn’t necessarily the best coping mechanism, it can help time go a lot faster. So go out with your friends, read the book you’ve been dying to read, or join the club that you’ve wanted to forever but didn’t think you had time for. While it’s really hard, focusing less on what you lost and more on what you can gain can be such a game changer in slowly thinking about your ex less and less. It’s also important to remember that there are (probably) legitimate reasons as to why you guys broke up. It’s hard to lose the person that you at one point confided everything in and who was always there for you, but a good reminder is that if it was so good with someone who you couldn’t make things work with, just imagine how amazing a relationship will be with someone who fits just right. 

How do I stop relying on male attention for a gauge of self worth 🤦‍♀️? 

Ugh, this is such a great question because it’s one that I feel like a lot of people either don’t realize that they are doing and/or don’t know how to stop. The best way to stop relying on outside attention (either from males, friends or even strangers) to gauge your self-worth is to really define who you are to yourself and what you value most. While it’s so easy to just say that, I understand that it’s not that simple to do, so let’s break it down. A lot of the time, we want validation from others because we need the reassurance that we are enough. But in reality, validation from others is supposed to support our conceptions of ourselves. Getting attention from guys (or anyone in general) feels good, but constantly reminding yourself that you don’t need it, but instead appreciate it, can shift your perspective and hopefully change the way that you view validation. It’s also important to note that being in college, the mindset of some guys (not all men) should not be something that you rely on since their prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain that processes emotion and cognition, isn’t actually fully developed until age 25. So until then, I say take male opinions with a grain of salt. It’s their undeveloped brain talking, anyways. 

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Xoxo, 

The Gold Standard