Speaker 1: Hi, I do Part two and it's one of your
Speaker 1: celebrity mentors.
Speaker 2: Also is my chapter two. I'm Kathy Schwartz.
Speaker 1: Breakups are tough to navigate at any age. Today I'm
Speaker 1: talking with the author of Don't Do What I Did,
Speaker 1: break Up and Bounce Back. It's Kelsey Dara. Hi, hy Kelsey,
Speaker 1: how are you going? I'm excited to talk to you
Speaker 1: for many reasons. First of all, I'm old enough to
Speaker 1: be your mother, and what you've been through at your age.
Speaker 1: You don't know this, but I got married. In fact,
Speaker 1: today would be my fifty third wedding anniversary. My husband
Speaker 1: died by suicide six and a half years ago, and
Speaker 1: so now I'm in this horrible dating pool that you
Speaker 1: write about. But I feel like so much is different
Speaker 1: from when I was young and getting married and dating
Speaker 1: now I.
Speaker 3: Can't even imagine. And thank you for sharing that with me.
Speaker 3: I mean that you've been through amazing.
Speaker 1: I want your next book to be about dating. In
Speaker 1: my chapter two.
Speaker 2: Would I would?
Speaker 3: I would write that, read it, and I'd watch it
Speaker 3: too if anyone wants to turn it into it.
Speaker 2: I mean, okay.
Speaker 1: The other thing I want to say before we get
Speaker 1: started is I am a very honest person. And I've
Speaker 1: read as many parts of your book as I could,
Speaker 1: and I love your honesty.
Speaker 2: Oh thanks, Well, you are honest.
Speaker 1: Everything you say is heartfelt and mostly true.
Speaker 2: I have to say it's no filter.
Speaker 3: No, you know, my parents don't love it because they
Speaker 3: can't share everything I do. But I think it's really
Speaker 3: important and I appreciate you saying so. So yeah, nothing's
Speaker 3: off limits. I'll answer anything.
Speaker 2: Well. I love that. And we're going to get into
Speaker 2: a couple of things that have happened to you. You know,
Speaker 2: you're not a dating expert. You say that, but you've
Speaker 2: been dumped lots of times. You would the pain.
Speaker 1: My dating experiences have been quite different than what you explained,
Speaker 1: than what you discuss in your book, but mostly because
Speaker 1: you know, I'm looking for a guy who's upright and
Speaker 1: can walk from here to the corner store, and even
Speaker 1: that is hard to find.
Speaker 2: Calfren, same girl, We in the same boat, you know.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, okay, is this true? I mean, I believe
Speaker 1: it's true. You mentioned your book that you got broken
Speaker 1: up with right after giving a guy a blowjob.
Speaker 3: I mean really, So it's so embarrassing because there's even
Speaker 3: more to that story that it was the night before
Speaker 3: my birthday and I was fostering kittens at that time,
Speaker 3: because I foster a lot of animals, and one of
Speaker 3: the kittens had just died, So, like, you couldn't make
Speaker 3: this stuff up. I try, and in my head, I'm thinking,
Speaker 3: was the blow job that bad? Oh my god?
Speaker 2: So wait a minute, I just like, how man, he's
Speaker 2: just tell me what he said, like that is one
Speaker 2: hell of a way to get dumped. I want to know.
Speaker 3: I don't know if this helps his case or hurts it,
Speaker 3: but he was a male model, so I think he
Speaker 3: was used to just kind of doing whatever he wanted
Speaker 3: and saying the things he wanted. And I was just
Speaker 3: so enamored by his looks that I don't think I
Speaker 3: saw the reality of the situation was that he was
Speaker 3: just very much mister right now, not mister right just right.
Speaker 3: You were blinded by the light, blinded by the light,
Speaker 3: blinded by those abs, blinded by the baby blue eyes.
Speaker 3: And it was literally right after you know, the blowjob,
Speaker 3: that you're cuddling and thinking you're being so cute that
Speaker 3: he gives me the I don't think I can do
Speaker 3: this anymore, Like I'm not trying to be serious conversation.
Speaker 1: Which which is just shorthand for thanks for the blood job,
Speaker 1: but you're not gonna out.
Speaker 3: And to make it worse, he lived on the West Side,
Speaker 3: which in Los Angeles to be, so, you know, back
Speaker 3: in Hollywood versus Wes, that's like a forty five minute
Speaker 3: drive to an hour drive. And the worst part of
Speaker 3: that was then I had to drive all the way
Speaker 3: back and I just sat in silence, really having to
Speaker 3: think my life choices.
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, he didn't even put you in an uber.
Speaker 3: Oh we were in our twenties. We didn't have enough
Speaker 3: money for that.
Speaker 1: Okay, you and I are going to co author the
Speaker 1: next book. I've got some suggestions for you. Okay, but
Speaker 1: I want to know.
Speaker 2: Seriously, you've been dumped in a variety of ways.
Speaker 1: I love your book because it's very clear. It's very
Speaker 1: you know, I'm a writer by training, and so I
Speaker 1: love it so clear.
Speaker 2: The Mess.
Speaker 1: You have three sections, the Mess, Healing, the Change. So
Speaker 1: the Mess tell me how being dumb in so many
Speaker 1: incredible ways? How has that shaped your approach to relationships?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean, here's what I realized and the whole reason
Speaker 3: why I wanted to write the book is. I have
Speaker 3: been an Internet creator for fifteen plus years, and I
Speaker 3: was always known as the strong independent woman feminist, took
Speaker 3: no sex positive behind the screen, behind closed doors. Anytime
Speaker 3: a relationship would end, I would fall apart. I would
Speaker 3: either you know, completely cut off contact, go cold turkey,
Speaker 3: run away from the situation. Or I would think I
Speaker 3: was going crazy with the way I was acting, like
Speaker 3: the repeating texting, the crying, the why, and it was
Speaker 3: happening so often that it got to a point where
Speaker 3: even I recognized, like, this is not normal or healthy,
Speaker 3: that this keeps happening, that my life keeps falling apart
Speaker 3: only after relationships end. So the way that I have
Speaker 3: lived my life online and in my work is I
Speaker 3: like to be sort of the conduit of information. I
Speaker 3: was like, if I can go something horrible and talk
Speaker 3: about it honestly to my followers and like help one person,
Speaker 3: then I can sleep well at night. And I did
Speaker 3: that with my first book about mental health and anxiety
Speaker 3: and panic attacks. And I thought I was juggling with
Speaker 3: this idea of what my second book would be. And
Speaker 3: I decided, right after the worst breakup I had gone
Speaker 3: through that this was going to be the next book,
Speaker 3: and I was going to learn as much about the
Speaker 3: science of breakups. What's happened chemically in your body?
Speaker 2: How does what.
Speaker 3: You learn through you know, a childhood experience or through
Speaker 3: your parents, how does that affect the way you carry
Speaker 3: yourself in life? And so I just immersed myself completely.
Speaker 3: I went to a breakup boot camp. I was in
Speaker 3: therapy three days a week. I wanted to learn everything
Speaker 3: I could.
Speaker 2: I don't know how you found time to write the book.
Speaker 3: A lot of adderall probably, yeah, a lot of adderall
Speaker 3: and ADHD and hyperfixation. But I really wanted to solve
Speaker 3: this problem honestly, genuinely, like I it was a problem
Speaker 3: like I had overcome panic attacks, I had quit drinking
Speaker 3: and overcome you know, alcoholism and drug addiction. Like I
Speaker 3: had overcome these pretty huge things in my life. I
Speaker 3: could not figure out this breakup heartbreak thing, like I
Speaker 3: was genuinely interested in figuring it out.
Speaker 2: Okay, so here here's my thing. I mean, you are lovely,
Speaker 2: your beautiful lives, you're my children's age. So I love
Speaker 2: you already. You know what, You and I could be
Speaker 2: great friends.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing that I mean, I got married
Speaker 1: when I was twenty years old. Okay, so you know
Speaker 1: I got broken up with my first love in high
Speaker 1: school and that was you know, but I was whatever
Speaker 1: I was, who cares?
Speaker 2: Right? It was high school.
Speaker 1: But I have found since dating, since my husband passed away,
Speaker 1: and now dating, I mean, I gotta break the news
Speaker 1: to you. I don't think men really change. And here's
Speaker 1: you know, please, I would actually love to hear your
Speaker 1: thoughts on this. I think you know, you talk about
Speaker 1: breakup healing and I want to get into that. But
Speaker 1: before you start healing from the breakup, you fall for
Speaker 1: this guy or this woman or vice versa, whatever, whatever
Speaker 1: the situation is. And in my case, I am a
Speaker 1: very strong, independent woman. And I can't tell you how
Speaker 1: many times I've heard men say to me, you're beautiful,
Speaker 1: you're athletic, you're smart, you're independent. You're just the woman
Speaker 1: I'm looking for.
Speaker 2: But guess what not.
Speaker 1: Because they don't really want that. So given that men
Speaker 1: don't always say what they mean or mean what they say,
Speaker 1: nor do women.
Speaker 2: On like I say, on.
Speaker 1: Both sides, I don't care what the relationships female to female,
Speaker 1: I don't care whatever the situation is, what is the
Speaker 1: hardest part, because my hardest part is different. What do
Speaker 1: you think is the hardest part of the healing journey
Speaker 1: after the breakap what is the hardest part? Like some
Speaker 1: people lot together, they have to give up homes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because you're into it. Like the point of love
Speaker 3: in a relationship is intertwining your lives together. Like that's
Speaker 3: when you know it's succeeding. Right, it's you've shared the home,
Speaker 3: you've got the kids, you've got the assets. Untangling that
Speaker 3: talk about a mess, Like, that's the reason we actually
Speaker 3: stay too long. That's the reason why we believe in
Speaker 3: the sunken cost fallacy. That's often why we don't leave
Speaker 3: is because we have X Y Z and I hate
Speaker 3: to break into people. There's never a good time to
Speaker 3: break up. Like there's never the perfect Tuesday afternoon where
Speaker 3: nobody's busy and we can finally have the big conversation.
Speaker 3: It usually amounts in some big explosion and blow up. Right,
Speaker 3: that's just someone bends until they break. So for me,
Speaker 3: the mess is really the hardest, But it's also what
Speaker 3: my body is so good at. I'm so good at
Speaker 3: flailing and crying and in that crud of feeling like
Speaker 3: the world has ended. So for me, the hardest part
Speaker 3: is actually getting out of that is getting out of
Speaker 3: the need and desire to contact them. So going no
Speaker 3: contact was really hard for me. Figuring out a way
Speaker 3: to find my own identity back was really hard for me,
Speaker 3: Like getting out of the mess and the untangling. I
Speaker 3: was bending myself in all different kinds of ways to
Speaker 3: make something work.
Speaker 1: So wait a minute, are you saying after the breakup
Speaker 1: the hardest part for you was staying away?
Speaker 3: Yes, oh my god, it for me. I felt like
Speaker 3: a drug addict. And the X was the dealer. Like
Speaker 3: my imagine if your dealer just cut you off one
Speaker 3: day and was like, I'm never going to answer your
Speaker 3: phone call again, and you're like, no, I need a
Speaker 3: hit of my lover.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go. I'm gonna kelsey, I got.
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you that has not been a call
Speaker 1: that I've ever had to make. I'm just saying again,
Speaker 1: I will have to be your mother. So we're going
Speaker 1: to use another analogy. We're gonna go down a different
Speaker 1: road here. But that is very interesting because when I again,
Speaker 1: you know, I had three kids. My first child was
Speaker 1: born when I was twenty eight my last child at
Speaker 1: thirty four. And for the you know, I had a
Speaker 1: great marriage, not perfect, because anyone who tells you marriage
Speaker 1: their marriage is perfect, they are.
Speaker 2: Lying, dying, lying. But I can.
Speaker 1: I mean, my daughter has been through breakups, my son.
Speaker 1: There's nothing like a kid who doesn't listen to their mother.
Speaker 1: Let me, we could do a book.
Speaker 3: Would that would make things far too each for us?
Speaker 1: That would make their life way too easy? But I
Speaker 1: think that I've seen my daughter. She's married now with
Speaker 1: a with a baby, a three year old. But I
Speaker 1: have seen my daughter's friends. They go through these breakups.
Speaker 1: They can't they're either drunk texting or they're you know,
Speaker 1: they're looking at the photos, and they create these incredible
Speaker 1: situations that only exist in their mind.
Speaker 3: In the mind right in the well. It is science
Speaker 3: comes down to it, like our brains want to succeed.
Speaker 3: We don't want to live in the failure, so our
Speaker 3: brains will naturally reconsolidate to try and only remember the good,
Speaker 3: to equate the feelings of happiness to that person, rather
Speaker 3: than what the situation provided, which is usually stability and
Speaker 3: companionship and whatever else is good about the relationship. It's
Speaker 3: scientific that our brains don't want to suffer, so we
Speaker 3: will do. We will trick, we will we will spend
Speaker 3: and break to make it seem like it.
Speaker 2: Wasn't actually that bad.
Speaker 3: I could actually put up with it.
Speaker 1: But do you think breakups because let me just say,
Speaker 1: in the last six plus years, I'm really good. I've
Speaker 1: only been broken up with by one guy. I'm always
Speaker 1: the I'm a dump or not the dumpy.
Speaker 3: Which is not easy all the time either. You know,
Speaker 3: I still feel for those people that have to do
Speaker 3: the hard part.
Speaker 2: I don't struggle with it.
Speaker 3: You're like, kind of get it about My.
Speaker 2: Book is one paragraph law right, send them to the curb?
Speaker 1: How would you know? What would your advice be? How
Speaker 1: should someone be broken up with? What is the ideal breakup?
Speaker 3: My mantra has always because I've done it a couple times,
Speaker 3: even though I am really going to get broken up with,
Speaker 3: I've had to do it a couple of times. And
Speaker 3: to me, it's first of all, treating the person as human,
Speaker 3: because I think once we've gotten to the place where
Speaker 3: we're ready to break up with someone, our brain doesn't
Speaker 3: really see them as our partner anymore. Where like we
Speaker 3: someone just needs to tell them that I'm kind of
Speaker 3: over it, so I have to place myself back in
Speaker 3: that situation, being like, yes, they're human. And I always say,
Speaker 3: break up with someone the way you would want to
Speaker 3: be broken up with?
Speaker 2: Would you text someone? Would you break up through text?
Speaker 3: Okay, breaking up to me establishes you've been in a
Speaker 3: committed relationship if you're just like dating someone casually and
Speaker 3: it's not really working out, Like, would I want to
Speaker 3: be broken up with in a text? No, I would
Speaker 3: at least like a voice note or a FaceTime thank
Speaker 3: you very much.
Speaker 2: Text seems lazy, it's eaves lazy.
Speaker 3: But if the relationship has been lazy, if we've only
Speaker 3: been seeing each other a couple of times, I think
Speaker 3: that's a little bit more acceptable.
Speaker 2: So that's that's sort of my next question.
Speaker 1: How often do you think women at any age, you know,
Speaker 1: they have the first date with the guy, go out
Speaker 1: for dinner, have a drink, and the next date is
Speaker 1: at the altar or moving in or whatever. You know
Speaker 1: that there's a name for that, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Well, there's a difference between like limerens and love, right, Like,
Speaker 3: is that chemical high you feel you're in the honeymoon
Speaker 3: stage of a relationship.
Speaker 1: But I'm saying I think sometimes I'm curious what you think. Again,
Speaker 1: when I say women, it could be men whatever, whoever
Speaker 1: they're in this, they're they're thinking. I mean, let me
Speaker 1: put let me be personal. When I have broken up
Speaker 1: with a man that I've dated, you know, six months months,
Speaker 1: he thought what he thought, and I'm like, you miss
Speaker 1: something there, and and so I think that being you
Speaker 1: know that communications skill, the clarity, the clarity of what
Speaker 1: you think and what you want. Sometimes we miss the
Speaker 1: boat on that.
Speaker 2: I think you have to establish that so early on.
Speaker 3: Like when I sit down with someone on a first date,
Speaker 3: I am brutally honest. I'm like, here's what I'm looking for,
Speaker 3: Here's what I think I want right now.
Speaker 2: Do you scare them with that?
Speaker 3: I don't care if I scare them, They're not gonna
Speaker 3: be able to handle me. Like enough, I pick flavor
Speaker 3: for people. I think for my daughter, yeah, I think
Speaker 3: we might be related, like the hair, like I'm it's
Speaker 3: giving we know each other in a past life, but yeah,
Speaker 3: I think we're That's a really hard thing to do
Speaker 3: for a lot of people. Women too, is to stay
Speaker 3: upfront what they want because that we're willing to kind
Speaker 3: of accept the lowest bare bar of the.
Speaker 2: Back, or we're willing to morph into what we think they.
Speaker 3: Want, or if you're coming that me, I'm so good
Speaker 3: at that. It started in high school, from like pretending
Speaker 3: I liked the football team that the guy I had
Speaker 3: a crush on liked all the way to like the
Speaker 3: last relationship I was in where I pretended to like
Speaker 3: his poetry, like I've really bended to be like, no,
Speaker 3: I get it. We belong together. And again another scientific thing.
Speaker 3: We start to mirror the person because we believe that
Speaker 3: if we match in hobbies, we will match romantically. It
Speaker 3: just is something that we naturally try to do to
Speaker 3: get along with people. But I will say that, like,
Speaker 3: there is a slippery slope of that, because we can
Speaker 3: become codependent so quickly when we mesh and merge our
Speaker 3: lives too fast and in a sort of like false way.
Speaker 2: Do you think women do it more than men?
Speaker 3: And if so, why I would like to say no,
Speaker 3: because I'm a feminist. But if I'm looking at the reality,
Speaker 3: I think we are still living in a patriarchal society
Speaker 3: that tells little girls that the night will come and
Speaker 3: save us. And the ultimate dream is marriage and children
Speaker 3: and the white picket fence. And that's a sign of success,
Speaker 3: even though sixty percent of marriages and a divorce, and
Speaker 3: we call that the most successful version of a relationship.
Speaker 3: If any other product failed sty percent of the time,
Speaker 3: it would never see the light of day, it would
Speaker 3: never be on the market. But we're like, no, marry
Speaker 3: is the ultimate ending.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and I mean on my research sense, it's
Speaker 2: about fifty percent. But why quibble over decimal.
Speaker 3: Points if we're being honest too about the ones that
Speaker 3: stay without saying anything, you know, trib you. But again,
Speaker 3: I'm I'm also coming from a family where my parents
Speaker 3: got married after three months of knowing each other, went
Speaker 3: to White Little Chapel in Vegas and have been married
Speaker 3: forty years this year. So like, I've seen it, I've
Speaker 3: seen it happen. My parents are soulmates made for each other.
Speaker 3: But I also have to be real, you know, I
Speaker 3: also have to be real about what I see around me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think that's the exception, not the rule.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I have I want to know what your
Speaker 1: thought is, because you know, there's been a couple of
Speaker 1: times when I've thought about doing it and have done it,
Speaker 1: does anything good from come from going back with.
Speaker 3: The next we take out the trash for a reason.
Speaker 3: How did it end for you? I mean, did you
Speaker 3: stay with them a little bit long than the before?
Speaker 2: Yeah? But the thing is, I'm you know, I'm a
Speaker 2: smart girl like you are. And that voice Jimney Cricket
Speaker 2: on my shoulder, I know what.
Speaker 3: I know what you know, what you're doing.
Speaker 1: I know, but again at my age, So breakups at
Speaker 1: my age, I mean I'm not looking not all women,
Speaker 1: but women in their twenties and thirties, if they're looking
Speaker 1: to have children, that damn biological clock is ticking. And
Speaker 1: so that makes women, I think, do things that they
Speaker 1: might not do in their you know, in.
Speaker 2: Those days that chapter in my life, I'm in chapter two,
Speaker 2: but not that chapter. Yeah. No, I am not birthing
Speaker 2: another child. So for me, I don't.
Speaker 1: It's very different for me when I break up with
Speaker 1: someone or when he broke up with me. It's more
Speaker 1: about they don't think that we're compatible. That's what I get,
Speaker 1: and that's what I say to them a lot, and
Speaker 1: I try to be very kind about it. But I
Speaker 1: think I think think social media again. You know, when
Speaker 1: I got married in the dark ages, social media was
Speaker 1: not a thing. How much of this breakup scenario that
Speaker 1: we're talking about is due to, Oh, that girl's gorgeous,
Speaker 1: I'm dat hed. Oh wait a minute, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go down an Ais'll find in the grocery store
Speaker 1: because they've got some pretty cookies down there.
Speaker 3: There's a whole chapter in the book about social media
Speaker 3: and breakups because ten years ago, no, that chapter didn't exist.
Speaker 3: We didn't have the access to a so many choices
Speaker 3: to our compare and despair to look at everyone else's
Speaker 3: relationship and compare it to our own. And we also
Speaker 3: didn't have the unique pain that is having access to
Speaker 3: seeing our exes living their best lives via social media
Speaker 3: after us. I want to see them crying in a corner.
Speaker 1: Listen, Kelsey, You know that the Instagram, the social media TikTok,
Speaker 1: that's all the lives we want to see we're living.
Speaker 1: Most of them are crying in the corner at least
Speaker 1: two hours a day.
Speaker 3: But like, that's not what I'm seeing. And you better
Speaker 3: believe that the best pictures I've ever posted about myself
Speaker 3: were after a breakup like fully asked out in a bikini,
Speaker 3: like in Mexico. I'm like, then never heard of them, like,
Speaker 3: but I was devastated, Like I want to know that
Speaker 3: that person is also suffering.
Speaker 1: Okay, so speaking of that, what are the post breakup
Speaker 1: things that people should avoid doing?
Speaker 3: Tell me, Okay, no one likes to hear this. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna tell you nobody likes to hear this. I am
Speaker 3: a very big proponent of all contact, block, delete, hide photos,
Speaker 3: everything for at least thirty days. I think those post
Speaker 3: breakup thirty days are so you're disregulated, your routine is different. Like,
Speaker 3: you aren't yourself. You are not yourself chemically, you're not
Speaker 3: yourself physically. And I think the more you can get
Speaker 3: the desired object out of the picture and actually see
Speaker 3: life for what it is, the better. So I'm talking
Speaker 3: about go through your iPhone and get rid of every
Speaker 3: photo of them. That is not easy when you were
Speaker 3: together with someone.
Speaker 2: For eight years.
Speaker 3: Luckily we have little filter that the iPhone can identify
Speaker 3: their face and you can just throw it on a
Speaker 3: hard drive, give it to your best friend. My best
Speaker 3: friend still has a hard drive with all of my
Speaker 3: excess photos on it. And I'll get it back one day,
Speaker 3: but I don't need it right now.
Speaker 1: But well, okay, whoa, whoa, why would you want this?
Speaker 2: Why would you want it?
Speaker 3: I'm a very nostalgic, horder protect person, where when I
Speaker 3: need to like feel something like write about it, I
Speaker 3: need to like put the song on, I need to
Speaker 3: see the videos, I need to put myself back in
Speaker 3: the moment.
Speaker 2: Does it make you want to go back down that road?
Speaker 3: Never? Never? Never, never, because I've learned. Maybe me five
Speaker 3: ten years ago that would have been too dangerous, But
Speaker 3: I think now how hindsight is everything, right, Like, once
Speaker 3: you've gotten over somebody and you can just see it
Speaker 3: for what it was, which is like a point of
Speaker 3: growth someone that was meant to be a chapter, not
Speaker 3: the entire book, you can kind of go like, oh
Speaker 3: that was sun. I can go to live in that
Speaker 3: for a little while, but I don't need to stay there.
Speaker 1: So you know, I've had friends that throughout every gift.
Speaker 1: I actually have a friend who was with a guy
Speaker 1: I don't know, three or four years. She actually cheated
Speaker 1: on her husband with this guy. She and her husband
Speaker 1: subsequently got divorced dating this guy. When they broke up
Speaker 1: I mean, I hate using the term a narcissist because
Speaker 1: it's so overused, but I assure you I know what
Speaker 1: a narcissist is, and he is was whatever. But she
Speaker 1: went through and took He bought her such expensive gifts,
Speaker 1: because that's what it's about. He wasn't a good boy,
Speaker 1: you know, he was messing around. She got rid of
Speaker 1: every gift called her phone. But what she did do
Speaker 1: was jump into another litship very quickly.
Speaker 3: Guilty, guilty. That was the oness of writing this book
Speaker 3: because I did that and then it all crush and
Speaker 3: burned a year later. And I'm going to tell you why.
Speaker 3: This is what I discovered. When you are coming out
Speaker 3: of a relationship, there is a clear unmet need. There's
Speaker 3: a clear lack of something for them. It might have been,
Speaker 3: you know, like just intimacy or honesty, right, ye. So
Speaker 3: the first person that comes by and fills that lacking
Speaker 3: hole with something nice and fulfilling and stable, you are
Speaker 3: in trouble because you will fall for that person. I
Speaker 3: fell immediately for somebody after my longest, most intense relationship
Speaker 3: because they were obsessed with me and I was coming
Speaker 3: out of like a six to eight month period towards
Speaker 3: the end where my ex was like we were ending
Speaker 3: and it was a really long drawn out.
Speaker 1: Breakup, which I don't even understand that by the way,
Speaker 1: you got to explain that to me, like maybe, I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe you're.
Speaker 2: Not my daughter.
Speaker 1: Because when I literally meet a guy, yeah, and we'll
Speaker 1: go out, you know, for a couple of days. That's again,
Speaker 1: it's at my age this time, my chapter two is
Speaker 1: very different than people in their twenties, thirties, even in
Speaker 1: the forties, because.
Speaker 2: You know, I plan on living to one hundred and twenty.
Speaker 2: But I don't have time to mess with fools. And
Speaker 2: I think men, I think they I don't know, what
Speaker 2: do I know. I'm not one, but I.
Speaker 1: Think they process breakups differently. I think they rapidly move on,
Speaker 1: and they literally rapidly move on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hit them later.
Speaker 1: Women, I think I'm asking your opinion, actually take longer.
Speaker 1: I think sometimes men will out of the clear blue
Speaker 1: because you know, it's Tuesday and and it's raining, I
Speaker 1: think I'm going to break up. But women, and you agree,
Speaker 1: we think about it.
Speaker 3: Women tend to grieve the ending of the relationship while
Speaker 3: we're still in the relationship, so we are done for
Speaker 3: a long time before we actually get out. Men are
Speaker 3: quite the opposite. They'll break it off because it's inconvenient
Speaker 3: in the moment. It's like you said a Tuesday and
Speaker 3: it's raining and it seems like a good time to
Speaker 3: pack my stuff up. And then about three to four
Speaker 3: months later they start going, huh, that was the best
Speaker 3: thing I ever had. I really mess that up, didn't I.
Speaker 3: It's just what we've seen.
Speaker 1: So I asked you before about going back with an X,
Speaker 1: But what if the X that you really loved calls
Speaker 1: you back?
Speaker 2: And you know still know?
Speaker 3: It's called the dangle, And I swear men my good
Speaker 3: friend Amy Chan, who runs breakup boot Camp and wrote
Speaker 3: a book about breakups, call it the dangle. And I've
Speaker 3: seen it firsthand. It's like they can smell when you're healing.
Speaker 3: It's like your wound is closing, and they're like, how
Speaker 3: about one more cut? Like what if we just like
Speaker 3: you're on it, did one more thing and they can
Speaker 3: smell it. And I swear to you I've seen it
Speaker 3: time and time again. A friend will have a first
Speaker 3: date planned, like their first date back out there, and
Speaker 3: their ex will show up and all it is that
Speaker 3: you have to remind yourself it's the universe giving you
Speaker 3: a test. It's asking you like, are you really healed
Speaker 3: or do you still have another lesson to learn? Because
Speaker 3: I've gone back to exes and had the same cycle happen,
Speaker 3: and it's your brain trying to solve the problem it
Speaker 3: couldn't solve the first time, saying maybe if I try
Speaker 3: it with this kind of guy, or you know, if
Speaker 3: I repeat the same sort of type over and over again,
Speaker 3: I can figure out why that ended so poorly. But
Speaker 3: it's just the test, like you're going to go back.
Speaker 3: If you're going to go back, you better go back
Speaker 3: full force and learn your lesson.
Speaker 2: Bid boy, Sometimes you just have to be beat around
Speaker 2: the head with you know you really do you got
Speaker 2: a rock bottom, really rock bottom? And then dig a
Speaker 2: hole deeper.
Speaker 3: Yep, bury yourself with it.
Speaker 2: Well feeling what should women avoid? Then?
Speaker 1: I mean again, I've had friends who dye their hair blonde.
Speaker 3: Their things make it huge financial purchase.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they go out and buy themselves jewelry, they take
Speaker 2: an expensive trip they can't afford.
Speaker 3: I mean, now, I'm not opposed to that. This might
Speaker 3: not be popular opinion. I'm not opposed to the treat
Speaker 3: thyself within budgetary. You know you're not blowing your four
Speaker 3: to one k. Here's where I think women need to
Speaker 3: pay attention is that the healing needs to be about
Speaker 3: you not getting back out there. I think we rush
Speaker 3: to say I got to get under somebody, to get
Speaker 3: over somebody, or like, I'm just going to distract myself
Speaker 3: with the swiping, and I say that to that. The
Speaker 3: apps will always be there. They are designed to always
Speaker 3: be there. They are designed for you to download and
Speaker 3: make this the simplest thing for you to do, as
Speaker 3: easy as buying a cup of coffee every morning.
Speaker 2: I hate the apps.
Speaker 3: Hate the apps I have. They're fun when you want
Speaker 3: to have fun.
Speaker 2: Oh no, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: What is your idea of fun? Poking your eyes with
Speaker 1: a needle? What are you talking about?
Speaker 2: Fun? Absolutely not.
Speaker 3: You know, if you find someone that's looking for the
Speaker 3: same kind of whimsy is you, it can be a
Speaker 3: nice distraction and it's good practice. I think it's a
Speaker 3: good practice for dating. Like not every date needs to
Speaker 3: be because you're trying to find the one. For a
Speaker 3: lot of people that they are not trying to settle
Speaker 3: down right now, I think they're looking for the one
Speaker 3: right now. And I think dating can also be good
Speaker 3: social practice because okay's the worst thing that happens is
Speaker 3: you become you know, like a dating in arexic, which
Speaker 3: is you go completely the other way and you don't
Speaker 3: go out at all and you're too afraid to get
Speaker 3: back out there. You're not having sex anymore, you're not dating,
Speaker 3: and you become socially introverted.
Speaker 2: Okay, so what do you think a woman?
Speaker 1: And then you know you can tell what you think
Speaker 1: women in mind because women my age tend to go
Speaker 1: out with I guess you guys do two young people young?
Speaker 1: I play all young and go out with your girlfriends,
Speaker 1: your guy friends in groups.
Speaker 2: Yeah, women tend to do that as well. But what
Speaker 2: so we know what to avoid the don't call fall
Speaker 2: back into the same traps, which another question I have?
Speaker 1: Why do women go after the same guy time after
Speaker 1: time after Hold that thought and just tell me, like,
Speaker 1: what what do How can women or men go out
Speaker 1: and find a good relationship if they haven't been doing it?
Speaker 3: I think if there was like one easy answer, I
Speaker 3: would be a billionaire if I was like, there's a
Speaker 3: bar on, will sure and hanga that you won't believe
Speaker 3: this will we find the perfect relationship. But I have
Speaker 3: noticed that there needs to be some form of self
Speaker 3: actualization before feeling healthy enough to get back out there
Speaker 3: and find the one. Right, So, if we haven't gone
Speaker 3: back and analyzed our patterns of why that last one
Speaker 3: was so tumultuous and messed up, you're going to keep
Speaker 3: doing the same thing over and over again again. Like
Speaker 3: our brain wants to solve a problem, our brain wants
Speaker 3: to find the ending that we didn't find before. So
Speaker 3: that's why to answer your question of why we go
Speaker 3: for the same guy over and over again, our brain's going,
Speaker 3: maybe this one will be the one and that's different.
Speaker 3: Maybe okay, that one wasn't. Maybe this one will be
Speaker 3: the one that's dirt.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing that I'm asking.
Speaker 1: Yes, I know I agree with you, but I feel
Speaker 1: like women and young people that I you know, from
Speaker 1: being in bachelor Land, I know a lot of young people,
Speaker 1: and they seem to say to me the same thing,
Speaker 1: you know, Kathy, that he just reminds me of the
Speaker 1: guy broke up with her who broke a both to me,
Speaker 1: and I'll say, well, tell me about that, and.
Speaker 2: It's it's almost like I hate. I hate saying this,
Speaker 2: but it's almost like the devil they know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's way more comfortable than the one they don't, right.
Speaker 1: And yet do they I feel like they already know
Speaker 1: it's not going to work out, but it's it's we're
Speaker 1: going to spend another two or three months so we
Speaker 1: can affirm that fact to the or fourth time.
Speaker 3: That's where I go back to remembering that the relationships
Speaker 3: we actually have in our early days, like even friendships
Speaker 3: as a child, even as like our first crushes, even
Speaker 3: the way we let male influences in our life treat
Speaker 3: us or our first boyfriends, those patterns are so crucial
Speaker 3: because that's the time in our lives where we're making
Speaker 3: those neuropathways in our brain right. And to be able
Speaker 3: to shake up those pathways and recover them and pave
Speaker 3: new ones takes a lot of therapy or like a
Speaker 3: really good mushroom trip, like it could be therapy and
Speaker 3: psychedelics or repatterning your entire existence. So knowing where those
Speaker 3: patterns come from, and you hit the nail on the head,
Speaker 3: our nervous system will gravitate. If we grew up in chaos,
Speaker 3: if we found safety in chaos. If we found love
Speaker 3: in chaos as a child, like our brain one hundred
Speaker 3: percent is going to go find chaos because that's what
Speaker 3: we believe makes this level.
Speaker 1: Or if you didn't have stability, you're looking you're looking
Speaker 1: for them, looking for it stable relationship. You're looking for stability,
Speaker 1: but you seem to end up in unstable relationship because that's.
Speaker 2: What you knew as a child, exactly. So so what
Speaker 2: would you say to First of all, I want to
Speaker 2: say when we're thinking about your book, I loved the
Speaker 2: workbook pages. I love and I love what you said.
Speaker 1: Is you know, and some of it I'm making up now,
Speaker 1: Like those those pages don't fill themselves in.
Speaker 2: You have to commit the time and the effort.
Speaker 1: To doing those exercises. And I read that, I went, oh,
Speaker 1: she's so right.
Speaker 3: I'm so adhd that like a book we're sitting down
Speaker 3: and reading. Sometimes I'll find myself doodling. I'll fill my
Speaker 3: phone on my phone. So really that came out of
Speaker 3: a decision of how do I like to learn, how
Speaker 3: do I like to process my emotions? And you know,
Speaker 3: sometimes it's a game, sometimes it's a journal entry, sometimes
Speaker 3: it's a workbook circle and connect the dots, like I
Speaker 3: just wanted to have it so that you can open
Speaker 3: any page and find something for how you were feeling
Speaker 3: right now.
Speaker 1: I just do you think that women can I want
Speaker 1: it as a mom and now as a grandmother.
Speaker 2: I am also a feminist.
Speaker 1: I'm also I mean, I was a woman haead of
Speaker 1: my time, but I except that I got married at
Speaker 1: twenty years of age. But that's just the deep you
Speaker 1: overlooked up. But I feel like I want to empower women.
Speaker 1: I wish that women again, all these silly little adages,
Speaker 1: if women could understand that they want a partner who
Speaker 1: doesn't complete them.
Speaker 2: You have to be complete yourself. And so if you
Speaker 2: are looking for someone to complete you, you are never
Speaker 2: going to fund You're never going to.
Speaker 3: Be happy now because they are you. They literally can't
Speaker 3: be a piece of you.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean it's one thing to say, like, really,
Speaker 1: at my age, I'm looking for the man to walk
Speaker 1: with me hand in hand, not ahead of me, not
Speaker 1: behind me. But of course at my age, you have
Speaker 1: financial considerations. You know, where's your money going, where's your
Speaker 1: house in the Hampton's going?
Speaker 2: I want it?
Speaker 1: You know that kind of stuff. But I think that
Speaker 1: women when they're younger. I think there's so many issues
Speaker 1: propelled them that when this sudden breakup, when you think
Speaker 1: when one thinks that this is the guy, and you
Speaker 1: are hit like a sledgehammer. Because that's a lot of
Speaker 1: women I know that's what happens. Yeah, it's like out
Speaker 1: of the blue, and they're devastated, and so I want
Speaker 1: them to under you know, I don't have I'm not
Speaker 1: an I also I'm not a dating coach, but I
Speaker 1: just know in my heart what you're saying.
Speaker 3: You will be okay. It is survivable, Like it is
Speaker 3: one hundred percent survivable, and even though it doesn't look
Speaker 3: like it in this moment. I always say, like I
Speaker 3: used to believe that time heals all wounds, but I
Speaker 3: truly don't think your your wounds will be healed if
Speaker 3: you don't change the way you think or the way
Speaker 3: you feel. Like the thoughts inside your head control the emotions,
Speaker 3: and there's so much inner work that can make this
Speaker 3: turmoil less painful.
Speaker 1: In your book, I want to quote you. You mentioned
Speaker 1: your thoughts create your feelings, and feelings aren't facts. Can
Speaker 1: you break that down for people who've never heard that
Speaker 1: concept before, including wah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3: I mean, I struggle with not doing enough. I always
Speaker 3: think I'm not doing enough, I'm not trying hard enough.
Speaker 3: So I tell myself, You're not worthy of success, You're
Speaker 3: not doing enough. And these are just automatic thoughts that
Speaker 3: I'm having, right, So my brain is listening to me.
Speaker 3: My brain is hearing those thoughts, and that's going to
Speaker 3: create a really deep feeling of self consciousness, of self
Speaker 3: deprecation with jokes as distancing people rather than inviting in
Speaker 3: for collaboration, Like, your brain will listen to those thoughts
Speaker 3: that are cycling, and that creates a feeling. Right, So
Speaker 3: naturally I'm going to start acting like I'm not successful,
Speaker 3: that I don't do enough, that I'm lazy, that I'm worthless,
Speaker 3: that I'm unlovable if I just decide to change those thoughts,
Speaker 3: even if they're fake, even if I'm sitting going this
Speaker 3: stupid mantra writing is the dumbest exercise I've ever heard.
Speaker 3: But I'm going to write that I love and believe
Speaker 3: in myself one hundred times and stay in the mirror,
Speaker 3: do whatever. That's actually neuroscience that your brain is going
Speaker 3: to hear you and go, wait, we love ourselves. I
Speaker 3: have permission to love myself. I have all the need
Speaker 3: of the love and desires that I have is already
Speaker 3: within me. Like I can complete myself. I am worthy,
Speaker 3: I am desirable of love. I am successful ampony. Oh
Speaker 3: my god. We start to act that way.
Speaker 2: We stay and we start to believe it.
Speaker 1: And so what people the term I hear all the time,
Speaker 1: But I love the way you put it is, don't
Speaker 1: put that shut out in the universe, you know, don't
Speaker 1: put that negativity out leads And I think, what yours?
Speaker 2: But you put legs on it, You give meaning to it.
Speaker 1: And I hope that people who are going through these
Speaker 1: breakups instead, you know, after you're done crying in the
Speaker 1: corner and drink in the bottle of vodka and it
Speaker 1: and thinking about drunk texting your bof do not do that.
Speaker 2: Then. Don't do that. Not a good look. But once
Speaker 2: you have gotten through that, I think that gives.
Speaker 1: People hope because they begin to believe in themselves again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and again it's putting the focus on you. So
Speaker 3: much about a breakup is focusing on the other person.
Speaker 3: And that's honestly what I was sick of. I was like, golly,
Speaker 3: I cannot give any more brain space in time to
Speaker 3: mourning be men like, I'm so sick of it, and
Speaker 3: that anything that reverses that narrative and puts it back
Speaker 3: on yourself, I think is ultimately like where I'm trying
Speaker 3: to help people go.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that your book is exceptional. I think
Speaker 1: that the workbook is great. I think you give very sound.
Speaker 1: Some of it is like, if you don't know this,
Speaker 1: you're in trouble, but some of it is, you know
Speaker 1: what it's This is helpful to people going through breakups,
Speaker 1: So you know, I think that people need to read
Speaker 1: that book and do the workbook part of it.
Speaker 2: Just get it.
Speaker 3: It's under twenty bucks. We fought to make sure that
Speaker 3: we kept it accessible and affordable, and like, if you
Speaker 3: don't like it, and give it to a friend, because
Speaker 3: one thing that's never going to stop is relationships ending
Speaker 3: and people getting broken up with Unfortunately.
Speaker 1: That's right, and you know what, reading I think everyone
Speaker 1: I just want to be sure that they do pick
Speaker 1: up Kelsey's book. It's titled Don't Do What I Did,
Speaker 1: break Up and Bounce Back. It's out now. I'm going
Speaker 1: to pick one up and see what I'm doing wrong.
Speaker 1: But you are a delight. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: your sage advice. You're great commentary, and I hope that
Speaker 1: everyone going through a breakup now pays attention to what
Speaker 1: you're saying.
Speaker 2: Kathy, you're the tits. I love you. Oh thanks you
Speaker 2: great too. So long bye bye.
Speaker 1: Are you coming out of a breakup and ready to
Speaker 1: bounce back? But you need some guidance. We're here to help.
Speaker 1: Send this email or leave us a voicemail. All the
Speaker 1: info is in the show notes. Follow us on Socials,
Speaker 1: I Do Part two and iHeart Podcast, where falling in
Speaker 1: love is the main objective.