Speaker 1: If you or your friend is going through a breakup
Speaker 1: right now, this episode is for you. I want you
Speaker 1: to hear this carefully. Nothing is wrong with you. You're
Speaker 1: not weak for missing them, you're not dramatic for feeling
Speaker 1: this deeply, and you're not failing at love because it hurts.
Speaker 1: What you're experiencing is grief. And most people don't realize this,
Speaker 1: but breakups don't just hurt emotionally. They activate the same
Speaker 1: neural pathways as physical pain and addiction withdrawal. Brain imaging
Speaker 1: studies from neuroscientist Helen Fisher showed that romantic rejection activates
Speaker 1: the brain's reward system in the same way substance withdrawal does.
Speaker 1: That's why your thoughts feel obsessive. That's why your body
Speaker 1: feels restless or exhausted. That's why logic doesn't seem to help.
Speaker 1: I'm sure so many of you right now, if you've
Speaker 1: been through a breakup, I'm wondering, why does my brain
Speaker 1: feel foggy? Why can't I just go back to work,
Speaker 1: Why can't I deal with the same conversations like I
Speaker 1: was before? And here's the truth. You're not just heartbroken.
Speaker 1: Your nervous system is grieving the loss of an attachment.
Speaker 1: So today I want to walk you through the stages
Speaker 1: of grief after a breakup, not as a straight line,
Speaker 1: not as something to rush, but as a map. One
Speaker 1: of the biggest challenges when you go through a problem,
Speaker 1: a challenge, a difficulty like this, is you don't know
Speaker 1: what the next step looks like. You don't know what
Speaker 1: the next month looks like. Maybe your friends are talking
Speaker 1: to you about dating again, Maybe some other friends are
Speaker 1: talking to you about never dating again. Maybe your ex
Speaker 1: keeps showing up in your life somehow, and it all
Speaker 1: just feels like a mess. I want you to know
Speaker 1: that there are certain phases, certain experience, certain emotions that
Speaker 1: you are going to go through, and because you know
Speaker 1: they're around the corner, because you know they're going to happen,
Speaker 1: you can feel comfortable in the uncertainty. You can take
Speaker 1: this discomfort and you can walk through with a bit
Speaker 1: more grace, a bit more ease, and a bit more support,
Speaker 1: mainly so that you can stop judging yourself and start
Speaker 1: healing without abandoning yourself. One of the biggest mistakes we
Speaker 1: make during a breakup is we talk down to ourself.
Speaker 1: We're critical of ourselves. We get into blaming, shaming and
Speaker 1: guilting ourselves. It's natural, but I want to help you
Speaker 1: move through it a little more gracefully. Here's the core
Speaker 1: reframe what grief actually is. The stages of grief were
Speaker 1: first identified by psychiatrist Elizabeth Koubler Ross while studying patients
Speaker 1: facing terminal illness, but decades of research since then, including
Speaker 1: work and attachment psychology, have shown that these stages also
Speaker 1: applied to any deep emotional loss, including breakups. Because as
Speaker 1: a breakup isn't just the loss of a person, it's
Speaker 1: the loss of a future you imagined. Let me say
Speaker 1: that again. It's the loss of a future you imagined.
Speaker 1: When you're dreaming up a future with someone, when you're
Speaker 1: thinking about your wedding day, when you're thinking about moving
Speaker 1: in together, when you're thinking about what that future looks like,
Speaker 1: you now create an attachment to a vision in your mind.
Speaker 1: I know that sounds kind of interesting, but it's true.
Speaker 1: You built up an identity of what you will look like,
Speaker 1: what they will look like, and what your life will
Speaker 1: look like. The future you that you imagine together, the
Speaker 1: future you imagined for yourself, is what's being taken away.
Speaker 1: You're also grieving daily emotional regulation. Maybe they message you
Speaker 1: every day when you woke up, Maybe you call them
Speaker 1: every night before you went to bed. Maybe you saw
Speaker 1: them for a day every Friday or Saturday or whatever
Speaker 1: it was. Maybe when you're stressed, they were the person
Speaker 1: you went to. There's a daily emotional regulation that now
Speaker 1: needs to be replaced, and in the beginning, it just
Speaker 1: feels like it's been snatched away. It feels like it's
Speaker 1: been taken away. It feels like the rug has been
Speaker 1: pulled from underneath your feet and you're just falling. That
Speaker 1: daily emotional regulation is something you're grieving because it's a
Speaker 1: loss you haven't yet discovered as substitute for see. At
Speaker 1: different stages in our life, different things emotionally regulate us.
Speaker 1: When we grow up, it's hopefully our caregivers could be
Speaker 1: our siblings, our friends, But when you're in a romantic relationship,
Speaker 1: there's almost an over reliance in the emotional regulation you
Speaker 1: experienced from that person. You're also grieving routines your nervous
Speaker 1: system depended on right. Those routines can be anything from
Speaker 1: well this was our favorite show we watched together. That
Speaker 1: was our favorite restaurant we went to. This was the
Speaker 1: place that we first connected. Right, whatever it means. We
Speaker 1: have these routines, and what happens is our body and
Speaker 1: our biology and our mind get used to these routines. Right.
Speaker 1: We get used to taking the same route to work
Speaker 1: every day. You get used to talking to the same
Speaker 1: person every day, the sound of their voice, their scent,
Speaker 1: their touch, being with them. You are grieving that you're
Speaker 1: going through the transition of that. What I want to
Speaker 1: tell you is that there will come a day when
Speaker 1: you won't feel that way. There will come a day
Speaker 1: when that person may even feel like a stranger. One
Speaker 1: day you're ex the person you were most intimate with
Speaker 1: who left you will actually feel like a stranger. I
Speaker 1: know right now. They feel like someone who knows you
Speaker 1: better than anyone, someone that you gave everything to. But
Speaker 1: you only gave them this version of you, and a
Speaker 1: new version of you will arise. What you're grieving is
Speaker 1: a version of yourself that existed with them. We think
Speaker 1: we've lost all of ourselves. We think we're completely confused,
Speaker 1: we think we've given ourselves away, But the reality is
Speaker 1: it was only this version. You have been so many
Speaker 1: versions of yourself up until this point in life. You've
Speaker 1: had friends at college that you're no longer connected to.
Speaker 1: You had friends in elementary school that you no longer see.
Speaker 1: There was a version of you that lived through all
Speaker 1: of that, and you transformed, You evolved, you changed. So
Speaker 1: here's the reframe. You're not getting over someone. I really
Speaker 1: don't like that language. When are you going to get
Speaker 1: over them? Why am I not over them yet? You're
Speaker 1: withdrawing from an emotional bond, and withdrawal is not a
Speaker 1: mindset problem. It's a biological process, right. I really want
Speaker 1: you to understand that. Sometimes we think, what's wrong with
Speaker 1: my head? What's wrong in my mind? Why can't I
Speaker 1: just move on from this? And it's biology, it's chemical.
Speaker 1: So let's walk through the stages honestly and carefully. If
Speaker 1: you're missing them most at night, it's not because they
Speaker 1: were perfect. It's because your nervous system got used to
Speaker 1: them being there. You're not lonely because they're gone. You
Speaker 1: feel lonely because they provided regulation and that can be
Speaker 1: rebuilt slowly without them. Remember this, you're not missing them,
Speaker 1: you're missing the future you thought you were building together.
Speaker 1: You're not missing them, you're missing the routine your nervous
Speaker 1: system got used to You're not missing them. You're missing
Speaker 1: the way they made the future feel safe. Remember you're
Speaker 1: not missing them. Let's talk about the stages of grief.
Speaker 1: The first is shock and denial. I'm pretty sure you
Speaker 1: all know what this feels like. You're probably experiencing it
Speaker 1: right now. There's a part of you that's shocked. How
Speaker 1: could you leave me? How could you break up with me?
Speaker 1: I gave so much to this relationship. Wait a minute,
Speaker 1: I should have been the one to give it up.
Speaker 1: I worked so hard. God, I put so much energy
Speaker 1: into this, and you walked away. Way, I'm shocked. I
Speaker 1: always thought that you loved me. I thought you told
Speaker 1: me that we had something special. I'm shocked. I thought
Speaker 1: that we were going to spend the rest of our
Speaker 1: lives together. Wait. I'm shocked because I thought if anyone
Speaker 1: was going to leave, it was going to be me. Way,
Speaker 1: I'm shocked because you treated me badly, but you're the
Speaker 1: one leaving me. I'm sure you've said some of these things,
Speaker 1: heard some of these things, felt some of these things.
Speaker 1: The first stage is shocked, often paired with denial. This
Speaker 1: can show up as numbness, calmness that feels strange, saying
Speaker 1: I'm okay and meaning it temporarily. What's interesting is that
Speaker 1: people think denial means pretending it didn't happen, But psychologically,
Speaker 1: denial is your nervous system saying this is too much
Speaker 1: all at once. Sometimes your nervous system won't allow you
Speaker 1: to feel the extent of the pain, to feel the
Speaker 1: extremities of the difficulty, because it would just be all
Speaker 1: too much. So you're somewhat allowing it to just be there.
Speaker 1: You're allowing it to just exist, and you're thinking, I'm okay, actually,
Speaker 1: But really it's your emotions just not allowing them to
Speaker 1: come to the surface because your body and brain and
Speaker 1: everything are trying to help you survive. Research shows emotional
Speaker 1: shock temporarily dampens pain to prevent overwhelmed. So if you
Speaker 1: feel disconnected or unreal, that's not avoidance, that's protection. Right.
Speaker 1: A lot of us feel, wait, I should be feeling
Speaker 1: more pain. I should be crying. I can't cry. I
Speaker 1: should be experiencing so much pain, but I'm not. There's
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with you. That's how your mind and body
Speaker 1: protects itself. It doesn't want you to be overexposed to
Speaker 1: all those emotions and feelings right now, there'll come a
Speaker 1: time when you can actually deal with them properly. Right
Speaker 1: It's almost like saying that if you saw fire, you
Speaker 1: would just run from that area. You wouldn't stay in
Speaker 1: that area and try and figure out why it happened,
Speaker 1: where it started, what's going wrong. You'd run away, and
Speaker 1: then when the fire cooled down, you'd come back to
Speaker 1: check on what happened. It's protection. So what helps in
Speaker 1: this stage? If you're in this stage right now, here
Speaker 1: are a few things I encourage you to do, no
Speaker 1: matter how hard they are. The first is basic routines.
Speaker 1: After a bit of withdrawal, it's good to get back
Speaker 1: to work. It's good to be able to go and
Speaker 1: attend the gym. It's good to be able to see
Speaker 1: friends regularly. The idea of creating routine is healthy because
Speaker 1: what it does is that allows you to forget and
Speaker 1: remove and distance yourself from the routine you had before.
Speaker 1: The next is eating regularly. It's just good biologically just
Speaker 1: eating regularly. Sleeping when you can. This one's so important.
Speaker 1: So many people, when they're in shock and denial, avoid sleep.
Speaker 1: They can't sleep allowing yourself to rest, giving yourself grace
Speaker 1: for what you've gone through is extremely important. Now, what
Speaker 1: hurts you is forcing emotional breakthroughs. You're like, I can't cry,
Speaker 1: I want to cry. I shouldn't be feeling pain. I
Speaker 1: shouldn't be mad, I shouldn't be angry. You shouldn't have
Speaker 1: to be anything. You can experience shock and denial, and
Speaker 1: what you'll find is when you allow yourself to experience it,
Speaker 1: your body and mind will tell you when have you
Speaker 1: noticed time when you have a wound, the first day
Speaker 1: you have to attend to it. You might put some
Speaker 1: ointment on it, you might put some essential oils, whatever
Speaker 1: you use, and your body learns to heal itself over time.
Speaker 1: You don't have to keep looking at it every day.
Speaker 1: You might put a plaster on it or a bandage
Speaker 1: on the first day, or the band aid, but after
Speaker 1: that you're not looking at it. You don't have to
Speaker 1: think about it all the time. You don't have to
Speaker 1: force healing. You don't have to force an emotional breakthrough.
Speaker 1: Your body and mind help you along the way. The
Speaker 1: other thing that hurts is making life altering decisions. When
Speaker 1: someone breaks up with us, we're thinking, wait, a minute.
Speaker 1: Maybe I need to move city. Maybe I need to
Speaker 1: move home. Maybe I need to quit my job and
Speaker 1: pursue my passion. Maybe I need to change my whole life. Like,
Speaker 1: we start thinking about these life altering decisions because in
Speaker 1: some way, it's again protection. It makes us feel better.
Speaker 1: We're dealing with something so much bigger. But the chances
Speaker 1: are in that raised emotional dichotomy, it's very hard to
Speaker 1: make good decisions. Your best decisions are not made when
Speaker 1: you're angry. Your best decisions are not made when you're
Speaker 1: sad and upset. Your best decisions are not made when
Speaker 1: you're not thinking clearly. They're made when you feel a
Speaker 1: little piece, when you feel a little centered and you
Speaker 1: feel a little distance from what caused you pain. Don't
Speaker 1: force yourself to make big decisions after a big challenge.
Speaker 1: Stage two is bargaining and obsession. This is the stage
Speaker 1: people confuse with overthinking or rumination or procrastination, but clinically
Speaker 1: this is bargaining. Your mind replays conversations, rereads messages, imagines
Speaker 1: alternate endings. Why, because the brain is trying to restore attachment.
Speaker 1: Bargaining is like, if I did this, we could have
Speaker 1: had this maybe if I didn't say this, I would
Speaker 1: have saved the relationship. Maybe if I acted this way,
Speaker 1: we'd still be together. Maybe if I wasn't so annoying
Speaker 1: and so needy, we'd still be with each other. That's
Speaker 1: what bargaining looks like. You're bargaining, negotiating with yourself, thinking
Speaker 1: about all the things you could have done. Studies show
Speaker 1: that after romantic loss, the brain increases rumination as an
Speaker 1: unconscious attempt to regain control and proximity. This is where
Speaker 1: your thoughts sound like, if I had said that differently,
Speaker 1: they'd still be here. Maybe we could still fix this.
Speaker 1: I just need closure, right, So we start bargaining. And
Speaker 1: the challenge with this phase is that it feels real.
Speaker 1: It really feels like if you did that one thing,
Speaker 1: they'd still be here, when you know that's not the case,
Speaker 1: but you can't access that. Your subconscious can't access that.
Speaker 1: Your subconscious is convincing you that you're absolutely right. If
Speaker 1: you did that one thing or didn't do that one thing,
Speaker 1: you'd still be with them. This is probably one of
Speaker 1: the toughest stages to get through, and I'm really glad
Speaker 1: that we're talking about it after the first stage because
Speaker 1: it's the stage that can feel the longest. It's the
Speaker 1: stage that can feel the hardest. You tell all your friends, look,
Speaker 1: I really feel I could have made it work. And
Speaker 1: they're looking at you like you're crazy, what's wrong with you? Right?
Speaker 1: Playing it over and over in your head for days,
Speaker 1: you're looking at pictures, you're looking at social media, and
Speaker 1: you're thinking, wait a minute, why they're with that person,
Speaker 1: Like I thought they liked me for those reasons. And
Speaker 1: maybe I was just too annoying. Maybe I asked for
Speaker 1: too much, Maybe I needed too much. Here's the truth.
Speaker 1: Closure doesn't come from answers. It comes from accepting the
Speaker 1: loss of the bond. Here's what helps here, writing thoughts
Speaker 1: down instead of replaying them. When you replay thoughts in
Speaker 1: your head, they all feel real. When you write down thoughts,
Speaker 1: you can actually question them. It's really hard to question
Speaker 1: a thought in your head if you're replaying on your head.
Speaker 1: If I did that, they'd still be here, and then
Speaker 1: this would happen. It all makes sense when you write
Speaker 1: it down and you read it out to yourself. You
Speaker 1: might even look at it and go, that's bizarre, that's
Speaker 1: absolutely crazy. I can't believe I thought that I want
Speaker 1: you to really ask yourself to write down what you're thinking,
Speaker 1: Write down your most repeated thoughts, read them out to yourself,
Speaker 1: and recognize the flaws that they hold. Another thing that
Speaker 1: can help is reducing contact and checking behaviors. A lot
Speaker 1: of the time we're reading old messages, delete them. A
Speaker 1: lot of the time we're looking at their social media profile.
Speaker 1: Block it. It helps to have distance at a time
Speaker 1: when you're thinking about all the things you could have,
Speaker 1: should have, would have done. It's good to have distance,
Speaker 1: and it's also healthy to recognize that this is a
Speaker 1: phase you're going to have to go through. You will negotiate,
Speaker 1: but know that your negotiation doesn't mean that it's valid.
Speaker 1: It's important to name what's happening. This is withdrawal, because
Speaker 1: here's what's really going on. You're not stuck. You're detoxing.
Speaker 1: If you keep remembering only the good moments. Remember this,
Speaker 1: Your brain edits memories during loss. It highlights comfort and
Speaker 1: hides pain. Healing big is when you remember the whole truth,
Speaker 1: not the highlight reel Again, to protect us, the brain
Speaker 1: just keeps thinking of all the good times, all the
Speaker 1: amazing moments, and so now when you're negotiating when you're ruminating,
Speaker 1: when you're overthinking, when you're bargaining, you're only bargaining based
Speaker 1: on the highlights. You're forgetting everything they did wrong. You're thinking, actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: they did show me flashes of greatness, beauty, attraction, romance,
Speaker 1: And you're forgetting the time they ignored you. You're forgetting
Speaker 1: the time that they weren't emotionally available. When someone breaks
Speaker 1: up with you, it's so easy to just remember the
Speaker 1: good times, but you forget the time that they ignored you.
Speaker 1: You forget the time that they weren't emotionally available, You
Speaker 1: forget the time that they put you down in front
Speaker 1: of your friends. Just because your mind only remembers the
Speaker 1: good things doesn't mean that relationship was meant to last.
Speaker 1: Don't get lost in the highlight reel and remember the truth.
Speaker 1: Stage three is anger and protest. Something shifts, anger appears,
Speaker 1: Aggression is back, sometimes explosive, sometimes quiet, sometimes delayed. Right,
Speaker 1: I think we think anger is just like this brute force.
Speaker 1: Sometimes anger can be boiling inside. You're quieter, you're scarier.
Speaker 1: Anger is not regression. I think a lot of us
Speaker 1: feel if I'm angry again, I've gone backwards, not realizing
Speaker 1: that if you go back to stage one. That's why
Speaker 1: these stages are important. When you go back to stage one,
Speaker 1: you never felt angry because you were protecting yourself. So
Speaker 1: that's why when we feel anger later, we go, oh no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm going worse. I'm going in the wrong direction. And
Speaker 1: that's the biggest mistake. We think we're not improving, we
Speaker 1: think we're not evolving, we think we're going backwards because
Speaker 1: we feel angry. But the reality is, your body was
Speaker 1: waiting for you to have space to feel this. Your
Speaker 1: body and mind were waiting to give you permission to
Speaker 1: feel anger in a safe way. Anger is not moving backwards.
Speaker 1: In grief research, anger is understood as self respect returning.
Speaker 1: Let me say that again. In grief research, anger is
Speaker 1: understood as self respect returning. It sounds like that wasn't okay.
Speaker 1: You're finally saying to yourself, Actually, yeah, the way I
Speaker 1: was treated wasn't okay. You're not bargaining anymore. You're actually
Speaker 1: realizing I deserve so much better. I don't want to settle.
Speaker 1: I can't believe I was going to settle for that.
Speaker 1: I can't believe I was accepting less than I deserve.
Speaker 1: You start technowledge I ignored things I shouldn't have, and
Speaker 1: sometimes you get mad at yourself for thinking, wait, why
Speaker 1: was I bargaining right? Why was I actually not mad earlier?
Speaker 1: I should have been mad before, And now the mistake
Speaker 1: is I should have been mad before. I'm actually going backwards,
Speaker 1: and I want to give them a peace of my mind.
Speaker 1: This is the point at which most of you want
Speaker 1: to text that person, or pick up the phone to them,
Speaker 1: or get your friend to phone them and have a
Speaker 1: go at them. Right. This is that moment, and you
Speaker 1: want to recognize you're fair to feel your anger, you're
Speaker 1: valid to feel your anger. But it's all happening in
Speaker 1: the right order. It's all happening at the right pace.
Speaker 1: It's happening for you. Anger scares people because they think
Speaker 1: it makes them bitter, but research shows healthy anger speeds
Speaker 1: recovery when it's expressed safely. Express safely means you'll share
Speaker 1: it with the therapist, you'll share it with the coach,
Speaker 1: you'll share it with a friend. You're not sharing it
Speaker 1: in a text to that person. I think the biggest
Speaker 1: challenge we have here is we're judging ourselves for being angry.
Speaker 1: We're either thinking I should have been angry earlier, I
Speaker 1: should have been angry at them, or I'm being angry
Speaker 1: now and it's too late. It's not too late. Everything
Speaker 1: is moving in the direction that it needs to. That's
Speaker 1: why I want you to really stay till the end
Speaker 1: of this episode, so that you can hear all the phases,
Speaker 1: so that you're not harsh on yourself when you're going
Speaker 1: through it. It's almost like if you're doing a triathlon.
Speaker 1: You know you're gonna have to run, you know you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to cycle, and you know you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to swim, and you will know the order. But if
Speaker 1: when you're swimming, you're wondering, wait, why am I swimming
Speaker 1: right now? I don't want to be swimming. I should
Speaker 1: be cycling, it doesn't work that way. What helps here
Speaker 1: is movement channeling that anger physically. The other is boundaries,
Speaker 1: setting boundaries as to how you want to communicate with
Speaker 1: that person and how you're gonna avoid communicate with them.
Speaker 1: To be honest, honesty really helps honesty with yourself, honesty
Speaker 1: with others, because up until now you've been bargaining with
Speaker 1: your own honesty. But here's what hurts. Shaming yourself for anger,
Speaker 1: that's what holds you back. Using anger to reattach through conflict.
Speaker 1: On now, I need to connect with them, to tell
Speaker 1: them how I feel. Let anger inform you, not define you.
Speaker 1: This is why I really want you to listen in
Speaker 1: the next phase, because this might be where you're at.
Speaker 1: Stage four is sadness and depression. This is the stage
Speaker 1: most people recognize, the heaviness, the emptiness, the tears that
Speaker 1: arrive without warning. I think a lot of us try
Speaker 1: and speed up to this point. We kind of skip
Speaker 1: the other stuff we're trying and ignore it, and that
Speaker 1: actually makes the stage harder. It's easier when you get
Speaker 1: to stage four having allowed yourself to go through the stages.
Speaker 1: Neuroscience explains why after breakups, levels of dopamine and oxytocin,
Speaker 1: the chemicals linked to pleasure and bonding, drop significantly. So
Speaker 1: this sadness isn't just emotional, it's chemical, and this is
Speaker 1: why motivation disappears. Right. You start to feel like, what's
Speaker 1: the meaning of my life? What's the point am I
Speaker 1: ever going to find love? Joy feels distant. You're thinking,
Speaker 1: I can't remember the last time I was happy. I
Speaker 1: can't remember the last time I loved. I can't remember
Speaker 1: the last time I smiled. Everything feels slower. You think, God,
Speaker 1: I can't believe it's only been a month. And here's
Speaker 1: what matters. Sadness means you're processing reality, not avoiding it,
Speaker 1: and this stage requires rest. It requires you to be
Speaker 1: the kindest, most graceful, most compassionate towards yourself. This is
Speaker 1: the phase that requires friendship. And we've got to avoid
Speaker 1: pushing our friends away in some of these stages because
Speaker 1: sometimes we can take it out on them. You can
Speaker 1: be angry at them for how they're dealing with it
Speaker 1: as opposed to just figuring out how you deal with it.
Speaker 1: And we all do that, it's natural, but friendship is
Speaker 1: so important at this stage when you're going through a breakup.
Speaker 1: Productivity isn't important, a timeline isn't important, Pressure isn't important.
Speaker 1: You don't move on, you move through. And if you're
Speaker 1: scared you'll never love like this again, I want to
Speaker 1: say something to you. You're right, you'll love differently. You
Speaker 1: don't want to fall in love like this again because
Speaker 1: then you'll fall out of love like this again again.
Speaker 1: You want to fall in love differently, with more wisdom,
Speaker 1: more boundaries, more self respect, and that kind of love
Speaker 1: that lasts. So many of us don't allow ourselves to
Speaker 1: move forward because we think what we had is the best,
Speaker 1: the epitome, the greatest version of it, not realizing that
Speaker 1: everyone who has come before us has found love that
Speaker 1: was better, different than an upgrade. Stage five is acceptance
Speaker 1: and meaning. Acceptance doesn't mean you approve of what happened.
Speaker 1: It means you stop fighting reality. This stage is called
Speaker 1: meaning making in modern grief psychology. This is where you
Speaker 1: begin asking what did this teach me? So it's so interesting,
Speaker 1: isn't it. When you go through a breakup. You might
Speaker 1: even have a friend who says to you, what did
Speaker 1: you learn from this? This is stage five, not stage one.
Speaker 1: When you're going through pain, you don't have to learn
Speaker 1: from it in in that moment. You learn from it
Speaker 1: when you're reflecting. Ray Darlia once said to me, pain
Speaker 1: plus reflection equals progress. But when you do that, reflection
Speaker 1: is so important, you'll get to it. At some point.
Speaker 1: You can be grateful for what was left after what
Speaker 1: happened to you. When you have some distance, you can
Speaker 1: start asking questions like what did this teach me what
Speaker 1: do I want to do differently moving forward? Who am
Speaker 1: I becoming now? Sometimes people say, just get busy in
Speaker 1: your hobbies and your passions and interests. You can't really
Speaker 1: think about that till stage five. Research shows people who
Speaker 1: integrate meaning after loss experience post traumatic growth, not just recovery.
Speaker 1: Notice the difference. You don't just want to recover, you
Speaker 1: want to grow. This is where your identity stabilizes. This
Speaker 1: is where self trust returns. This is where the past
Speaker 1: stops defining the present. Here's the reframe. Healing doesn't mean
Speaker 1: it didn't hurt. Healing means it didn't destroy you. Healing
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it didn't affect your self confidence. Healing means
Speaker 1: it helped you build self respect. Healing doesn't mean you
Speaker 1: didn't have boundaries. Healing means you'll have better ones next time.
Speaker 1: Here's what actually helps across all stages. Research consistently shows
Speaker 1: these things help. No contact or low contact speeds emotional recovery.
Speaker 1: Routine calms the nervous system, talking without rehearsing the story.
Speaker 1: That's processing versus just replaying and resisting idealization. Memory is
Speaker 1: always biased toward the good times, and this is crucial.
Speaker 1: You don't heal by erasing the love. You heal by
Speaker 1: releasing the attachment. You don't heal by blocking the other person.
Speaker 1: You heal by setting the right boundaries. You don't heal
Speaker 1: by pushing yourself through. You heal by processing each stage
Speaker 1: as it comes. If you're going through a breakup, it's
Speaker 1: proved you loved deeply. One day. This won't be the
Speaker 1: center of your life. It will be a chapter, a teacher,
Speaker 1: a turning point, and the way you treat yourself now
Speaker 1: will shape the love you experience next. Stay with yourself.
Speaker 1: This ending is not the end of you. Remember on
Speaker 1: forever in your corner. I'm always rooting for you. I
Speaker 1: hope you'll pass this on to someone else who's gone
Speaker 1: through a breakup or a difficult time, no matter what
Speaker 1: stays they're in or phase their in, and I hope
Speaker 1: this helps them through. Thank you for listening and watching.
Speaker 1: Make sure you subscribe to never miss an episode. I'll
Speaker 1: see you on the next one. If you love this episode,
Speaker 1: you're going to love my conversation with Matthew Hussey on
Speaker 1: how to get over your ex and find true love
Speaker 1: in your relationships. Make a list of the things that
Speaker 1: are truly important for you to find in a partner,
Speaker 1: and then be that list