When most guys think meditation, they think monks clad in dark red robes, perched crosslegged in a mountainous pagoda. 

The benefits of a meditative mind and staying in the moment don’t have to be relegated to those seeking enlightenment. Meditating for as little as 5 minutes a day can have a profound impact on your life.

Particularly, if you’re coming off of a breakup, it pays to keep a clear, focused, and present mind. After my divorce, there were a plethora of thoughts rapidly flowing through my head at any given time.

When getting over your ex, any small trigger the reminds you of them can send you down a path of extreme sadness or anger. Before you can start fresh on your new path, you must first wipe the slate clean, purging any existing of your relationship.

From here, it’s all about rediscovering yourself and detaching any identification you had as a couple. Who you were together can no longer define you.

So here are 4 key elements to doing a complete detox from your ex girlfriend or wife to start moving on with your life:

I’ve never been a regular drinker throughout the week. Most weekday nights, I imbibe purely on water, but come the weekend I typically go pretty big.

When you’re a newly single guy, getting over your ex and meeting new people, it almost seems like a prerequisite to have a cocktail in hand. Scotch on the rocks at happy hour on Friday. Bacon-infused brunch blood mary’s. Pitchers of beer at the sports bar on Sundays.

When you’re having a good time, why stop with just a few beverages? Without a significant other to come home to, there’s little holding you back from seeing if that night is going to be an epic one.

One way to get over your ex is to stick to a schedule. Routines are a powerful beast. You don’t even realize the effect that it has on your life until they are disrupted and even destroyed.

Take your routine with a significant other. Waking up in the morning before work, taking the dogs for a walk, going to the park on Saturdays, a glass of wine while catching up with the latest installments from HBO on Sundays.

When that all comes crashing down after a break up or divorce, it completely shocks your system in more ways than one, but in particular it breaks a routine that you have found comfort in.

After a breakup, you feel like you may never find another person to “complete you” in the Jerry McGuire sense of the phrase. You yearn for the next companion to lay by your side.

You fear being that single guy at the group dinner. The third, fifth, or even 7th wheel. Not having someone to come back home to at the end of the day. 

But, what if you didn’t feel compelled to seek that companionship right away? Life as a single person has some pretty awesome benefits that are often overlooked.

As you start renewing your own unique identity independent of your ex, it’s critical to spend some time single, rediscovering yourself and having some fun with your newly found liberty.

A quick Google search for “getting back with your ex” reveals a plethora of articles designed to mend the fences with your former significant other. “How to get back with your ex,” “Indicators you’ll get back your ex,” “The Reasons you should get back together with your ex.” 

Google and the respective content sources are remarkably biased towards a fairytale ending aiding you along the path towards winning back the girl and living happily ever after.