Everyone seems to have their own bounce back timeline and their own methods for getting over a breakup. While some people seem to be able to flip a switch and be done with it, we all have a friend (or are the friend) who is still 90 weeks deep in their ex’s Instagram every night and sends way too many drunk texts. And if you are that person, I get it.

1. If you internalize rejection, it’s going to be harder.

Researcher Lauren Howe of Stanford worked with a team of researchers on a survey of over 800 people and found out something really interesting: those who internalize rejection have a harder time with breakups. These are people who look at rejection as a reflection on them — proof that they aren’t good enough or lovable — and they find it more difficult to move on than those people who think that rejection is just a natural party of life or even an opportunity for learning and growing.

2. Accept the empty feeling

That moment when you realize you’ve been dumped by the love of your life feels like death. The key is to allow yourself to embrace the grief if you ever want to move past it. Breaking up is very similar to a death because it is in fact the death of a relationship. For at least a couple of days, remember the good times and allow yourself to cry like mad.

3. Cut off all contact for real

In this case, absence does not make the heart grow fonder. Absence is exactly what you need to cool off, process your feelings and change your perspective at the end of a relationship. Give yourself a period of no contact. No texts, emails or social media messages because you need time and distance to get emotional clarity. When you just break up with someone, your emotions are all over the place — you will likely miss them desperately and overlook all the reasons why the breakup happened in the first place just to have them there with you again.

4. Look toward the future and don’t look back

After an especially bad breakup, it may seem impossible to think that you will ever love again — trust me, I know. This sense of loss can open the door to great possibility. When you find yourself at the end of a relationship, ask yourself this compelling question: “What else is possible now that wasn’t possible when we were together?”

Even in the midst of heartbreak, the end may be just the beginning. Move forward to create your life, and if the relationship can be created again with that person you desire to be with, it will be created from a greater, deeper place and not the same old place that made you break up in the first place. In my point of view, a breakup, especially stemming from an unhealthy relationship or perhaps just one that wasn’t meant to be, always leads to something greater.

5. So you need to form some new memories without your partner.

So you have to get your ex out of your autobiography, out of your view of yourself. How do you do that? Well, it’s why we see so many people taking up hobbies or going through big changes after a breakup. It’s really is good for you because you start to form new memories and rewrite your autobiography without your partner.

Breakups are always going to be hard — especially if it was a significant relationship — and there’s never going to be a magical cure all. But we can help ourselves get over them faster. The most important thing? Stop dwelling on the past and make a new future. So it’s time to get off of their Instagram account and go try something totally different — it’ll help.