Wasn’t it Neil Sedaka that sang: Breaking up is hard to do, all those decades ago?  Breaking up is a lot harder on the dumpee, who, until they got kicked in the teeth, though the sun shone and set on their partners.  “Jaiye and I were together for four years, on and off when he broke up with me”, recalled Kate, now 28, and into a new relationship after battling the symptoms of a broken heart.

“My misery took over my life”. She continues, “I couldn’t bear to be in my flat where Jaiye and I had spent so much time together. Whenever I did, some of his things seemed to be popping up to re-open wounds I thought were healing. I was a snivelling wreck, totally changed from the confident stockbroker I’d always been.  I made so many mistakes in my job that I nearly got sacked. Luckily, my boss was quite aware of my worth and knew what I was going through.

“It went on for close to a year. I couldn’t believe what I was going through. Jaiye still called from time to time. But he’d made it clear we were just friends. He didn’t love me any more and that wasn’t going to change.  He was into another relationship and was quite happy with the way things wee. Most of the time, I walk the streets believing I was being pointed to and laughed at.

“After one year of being dumped, I met Ben, another man who was just a friend. Because he had no emotional ties with me, he was able to tell me what a food I’d been.  Why should I suffer emotional trauma when the bloke who dumped me was having the time of his life and was probably feeling elated I hadn’t been able to replace him?  Ben let me see how selfish Jaiye was for still getting in touch with me when he knew nothing would come of it. He more or less re-organised my thoughts towards my broken romance and was there whenever I needed a man to go out with.

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“Within weeks, I began to see the results of this God sent counselling. Friends said I was more chatty, and at work, I felt in control for the first time in more than a year. When Jaiye rang, I was on my way out and heard his voice on the answer-phone. Usually I would have raced back to catch him. But I just listened to the message calmly, picked up my bag and walked out of the door. It was a major break-through as I realised I didn’t feel one way or the other about him.  Now I can function normally. I’m sleeping better and looking after myself. On top of which I have a new man who makes life worth living again …”

According to a celebrated hypnotist, Paul Mchenna, such harrowing times as Kate described could soon be a thing of the past. Snapping out of your broken heart will be something every spurned lover can do. Instead of months, even years, spent thinking about what might have been we’ll be able to move on within days. It comes down to the power of the mind, he says. And he’s so confident that he is including this method in the self-help website he’s launched that offers the techniques to everyone – free.

He said he’s used it himself.  “I look back at a particular girl now and I wonder why I felt so strongly about er. We are never thought how to deal with our emotions. We don’t get lessons in that sort of thing at school. Emotionally, we’re out of control and all the soppy, sad songs we hear just reinforce those feelings”.

But control is exactly what Paul is offering.  “No matter how horrible an ex may have been, we keep focusing on the good stuff”, he says.  “We remember the one compliment and not the scores of insults. The trick is not to stop thinking about the ex, but to change the way that we think about them – to turn up the negative and turn down the positive.

“Love isn’t a strange cloud that descends for mystical reasons. He’s a neuro-chemical event”, he went on. What he does is rewire the brain and swaps good memories, thoughts and feelings about the ex for bad ones – effectively reversing or rebalancing the way we feel about them.  “Regularly thinking about what you love about your partner will reinforce the neural pathways in your brain that create feelings in your mind and body”, he says. “However, regularly thinking about your partner’s irritating little habits, or times, when you have felt unloved, can result in falling out of love. The way we regularly think of the people closest to us has a profound impact on whether we are `in’ or `out’ of love.

At Paul’s website www.positivity.com where his voice takes you step-by-step through a visualization exercise, he gives these pointers to get back on the way to recovery – Think of five negative experiences with your ex-partner where you felt annoyed and unattracted by them. Now take the least appealing memory of the five and fully return to that moment. Make the memory as bright, clear and strong as you can.  Now notice where that feeling begins in your body and where it moves to. Does it move up or down, inside or out to the surface of the skin?

Now go through each of the other four memories, following the three steps. Each time, keep seeing what you saw, hearing what you heard and feeling those feelings all over again. Remember each detail as you surround yourself in your special colour. Make your ex look as unappealing as you can in your imagination. The exercise is simple but the effects are profound if you do it every day for at least a week, Paul assures.