WEBVTT - Still Thinking About Your Ex? (Use This 2-Step Reset to Stop the Spiral for Good!) 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:02.480 I know what you've been doing. You've been going back 0:00:02.520 --> 0:00:05.720 through the photos, not all of them, just the good ones, 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:09.240 the one from that trip, the one where they're laughing 0:00:09.280 --> 0:00:12.039 at something and the light is hitting them exactly right. 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:14.320 You've looked at it more times than you would ever 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:17.119 admit to anyone. You've been listening to songs that you 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:20.280 have no business listening to. Right now you know which ones, 0:00:20.680 --> 0:00:23.040 the ones that you basically turned into a soundtrack for 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:26.319 a movie about the two of you, your relationship, a 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:29.920 movie that's much better than the relationship actually was. You've 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:32.800 been checking their Instagram. Maybe not their main feed, you're 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:36.080 smarter than that, but their stories for sure at one 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:38.920 am trying to figure out who that person in the 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:42.320 background of the photo is. You've been having conversations with 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:47.520 them in your head, long, articular, emotionally devastating conversations where 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:50.800 you finally say everything you should have said, and they 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:54.840 finally understand and something resolves, and then you come back 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:59.200 to reality and they haven't texted, and somehow that hurts 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:04.160 more the imaginary conversation. You've been doing, the math how 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:07.399 many days since you last spoke, whether they're thinking about you, 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:10.800 what they're doing, right now, whether the thing you said 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:14.040 in that argument three months before the end was the 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:17.840 thing that actually ended it. And in your most honest moments, 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:21.280 the three am ones or the Tuesday afternoon ones when 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:25.000 you're supposed to be working, you've been telling yourself a story. 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:29.240 Story goes something like this. It was so good. I've 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:31.920 never felt that way before. I don't know if I'll 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:35.120 ever feel that way ever again. Maybe we gave up 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:38.440 too soon. Maybe they were the one. I'm going to 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:40.800 need you to sit with me for thirty minutes today 0:01:41.280 --> 0:01:43.440 because I need to tell you something about that story, 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:47.800 about your brain, about what's actually happening when you romanticize 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:52.120 your ex, when you romanticize someone you've lost, and about 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:55.040 what's waiting for you on the other side of this spiral, 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:58.160 if you're willing to walk through it rather than loop 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:01.760 it around forever. It's not a You'll be fine peptal. 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:05.760 This is not toxic positivity wearing a therapy speak costume. 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:09.480 This is the real thing, the neuroscience, the psychology, the 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:13.280 ancient wisdom, and the practical tools. Because you deserve the 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:18.640 actual truth more than you deserve to feel temporarily soothed. Ready, 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:23.040 let's go. This is the harsh truth your brain is 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:24.800 lying to you, and I want to share with you 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:29.120 the neuroscience of why they seem perfect now that they're gone. 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:33.880 Let's start with the most important thing. The person you 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:40.959 are missing does not exist, doesn't exist anymore, not exists, 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:43.919 but is different now, not exists, but is with someone else. 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:47.960 The specific person you're currently grieving, the one who appears 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:50.399 in the photos you keep returning to, the one who 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:53.200 stars in the mental highlight reel. You keep playing the 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:56.640 one who felt irreplaceable and perfect and like coming home. 0:02:57.320 --> 0:03:00.960 That person is a construction, a story brain is telling you, 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:04.960 and your brain right now is a profoundly unreliable narrator. 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:08.919 Here's why. When we experience loss, the brain does something 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:13.480 that is genuinely astonishing from a neuroscience perspective and genuinely 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:17.600 cruel from a human one. It edits memory is not 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:21.280 a recording. We have known this in psychology for decades, 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:25.559 but it runs counter to how memory feels. We experience 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:30.480 our memories as faithful replications of what happened. They'renot. Every 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:33.240 time you retrieve a memory, you're not playing it back, 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:38.120 You're reconstructing it. And every reconstruction is influenced by your 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:42.040 current emotional state, your current needs, and your current narrative 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:45.120 about who you are and what your life means. This 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:50.320 was established definitively by the cognitive psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, one 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:53.760 of the most important and most underappreciated scientists of the 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:58.600 twentieth century. Her research on memory distortion showed that human 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:03.800 memory is extraordinarily malleable. We had details that weren't there, 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:08.400 We removed details that were there. We unconsciously rewrite what 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:11.880 happened to fit what we believe, what we feel, and 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:14.800 what we need to be true. Now apply that to 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:17.400 a relationship you've just lost. Your brain is in a 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:19.640 state of loss, and in a state of loss, the 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:23.600 brain is a very specific and predictable bias. It amplifies 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:26.800 the positive and suppresses the negative in memories of what 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:30.240 was lost. This is not a quirk, This is not weakness. 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:36.320 This is a documented neurological phenomenon. The moments of warmth, connection, laughter, 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:41.159 and intimacy get vivid. The chronic pattern of dismissal, the 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:43.600 way they made you feel small in front of their friends, 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:46.080 the way they went cold when you needed the most, 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:50.160 The Sunday arguments that always circled the same drain, those 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:54.919 get fuzzy, dimmed, explain away. You end up remembering a 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:58.240 relationship that was approximately forty percent better than the one 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:00.760 you actually had. And here's the other thing happening in 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:04.160 your brain. Simultaneously. When you were in the relationship, your 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:08.320 brain's reward system, the dopamine circuits, adapted to the presence 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:12.840 of your partner. They became a predicted reward, something your 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:15.880 brain had learned to anticipate and plan around. When the 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:20.880 relationship ends, that reward prediction is suddenly violently disrupted. And 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:25.680 the disruption of a predicted reward is neurologically identical to withdrawal. 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:30.360 This is not metaphor. Researchers at Rutgers University Helen Fisher 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:33.400 and her colleagues put people who had recently been rejected 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:38.000 in romantic relationships into an fMRI scanner and showed them 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:42.159 photos of their ex This will shock you. The brain 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:46.120 regions that activated were the same ones that activate in 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:51.920 cocaine addiction. The ventral tegmental area, the obsessive thinking, the 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:55.960 physical ache, the craving, the compulsive checking behavior. These are 0:05:55.960 --> 0:05:58.760 not signs of how deep your love was. They are 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:03.240 signs of withdrawal. You're not pining for a person, you're 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:06.960 detoxing from a neurochemical And here's where it gets even 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:11.080 more interesting and more uncomfortable. The brain doesn't just romanticize 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:15.440 by boosting the positive memories. It also uses a mechanism 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:22.039 called deprivation amplification. Things we cannot have become more desirable, 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:27.520 not despite their unavailability, but because of it. The psychological 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:31.880 literature calls this reactance. When something is taken away, we 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:36.320 instinctively want it more, independent of how much we actually 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:39.880 wanted it before. Think about that for a second. You 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:44.479 might be partially in love with the unavailability itself. You 0:06:44.600 --> 0:06:48.920 might be confusing the ache of deprivation, the biological screaming 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:52.200 of a reward system that's been cut off, with evidence 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:57.440 of exceptional, irreplaceable love. Not because you're foolish, but because 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:00.800 you're human. There's a line I think about all the 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:07.159 time from Victor Frankel between stimulus and response. There is space. 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:11.320 In that space is our power to choose our response. 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:15.920 Understanding what's happening in your brain right now is that space. 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:20.080 It is the difference between being controlled by that neurological 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:23.000 process and being able to look at it, name it, 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:25.800 and make a different choice. So let's look at the 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:28.880 other thing your brain is doing. Let's look at the story. 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:34.360 The story you're telling is fiction. There's a difference between 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:38.080 your highlight reel and the full picture. There's a concept 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:43.240 in cognitive behavioral therapy called selective abstraction, the tendency to 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:46.360 focus on one element of a situation while ignoring the 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:49.640 broader context. To take a fragment and let it represent 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:52.120 the whole. We do this all the time, right you 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:55.840 judge someone based on your first interaction in plain language, 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:59.520 you're watching the trailer for your relationship, not the film. 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:04.560 The trailer trailers, as you know, are masterpieces of selective editing. 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:07.400 Have you ever been to the theaters and you watch 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:09.440 a trailer before the movie that you're going for, and 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:11.520 then you think, well, I can't wait to watch that movie. 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:13.840 Then you watch that movie and every joke was in 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:16.400 the trailer, every action moment was in the trailer, every 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:18.920 beautiful romantic moment was in the trailer, and the movie 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:22.440 was average. Every great line, every beautiful image, every moment 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:25.960 of connection and tenderness and electricity cut together to make 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:28.600 you want to see the movie. The trailer for a 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:32.360 mediocre film can make it look like the most important 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:36.280 cinematic experience of your lifetime. If you've just gone through 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:39.320 a breakup, this is what your brain is doing. It 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:43.320 has cut a three minute trailer for a two year relationship, 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:46.320 and you have watched that trailer so many times that 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:50.440 you've started to believe the trailer is the relationship. So 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:52.440 I want to do something with you that's going to 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:55.080 be uncomfortable, and I want you to do it honestly. 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:58.680 I want you to watch the full film, not to 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:02.040 be cruel, not to demonize them or to erase what 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:05.640 was really good, but because you cannot make clear eye 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:09.920 decisions about your own recovery, about whether you should reach out, 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:13.520 about whether this deserves to be mourned or released, about 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:17.160 what you actually want. If you're working from a distorted source, 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:22.000 think about the thing that ended it, Not the surface event, 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:26.880 the argument, the moment, the conversation, the actual underlying pattern, 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:31.360 the pattern that kept reasserting itself, that you kept hoping 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:35.719 would change that never quite did. What was it was 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:38.520 it that they made you feel like an afterthought, that 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:42.440 your needs were inconvenient that they were emotionally unavailable in 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:45.640 a way that made you work constantly for reassurance. You 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:48.520 should have just been given that there was always something 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:51.360 more important than you, the job, the friends, the general 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:54.640 principle of their independence, or was it something in you, 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:58.360 a pattern of your own that this relationship was surfacing 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:01.840 and anxious attachment style that turned you into someone you 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:05.079 didn't like, a habit of losing yourself in someone else 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:07.880 until you couldn't find the edges of where you ended 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:11.199 and they began. Whatever the pat was, it was real, 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:14.720 It was consistent, and it did not go away, and 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:18.200 if you got back together tomorrow, it would still be there, 0:10:18.520 --> 0:10:22.000 still consistent, still real, with the added weight of everything 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:26.440 that's happened since. One of my favorite Buddhist teachings is this, 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:31.680 you cannot step in the same river twice. The river 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:35.880 changes and you change as well. What you're trying to 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:40.160 return to doesn't exist anymore. The relationship of the highlight 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:42.600 reel is not a place you can go back to. 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:46.120 It was barely even a place you were actually at. 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:50.559 Psychologist John Gottman, who has spent forty years studying couples, 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:59.040 identified what he calls the full horsemen of relationship failure, contempt, criticism, defensiveness, 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:02.960 and Stonewall and his research found that by the time 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:07.440 relationships end, these patterns have usually been present and consistent 0:11:07.760 --> 0:11:11.760 for an average of six years before the breakup. Six years, 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:16.480 which means you probably have evidence, memories, feelings, moments that 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:19.760 the relationships had these patterns for a long time, but 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:24.560 those memories are now fuzzy, explained away, rewritten as misunderstandings 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:29.240 or your fault, or understandable given their circumstances, because your 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:32.960 editing brain has decided the relationship was better than it was. 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:35.040 I'm not saying it wasn't real. I'm not saying it 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:38.160 didn't matter. I'm not saying there wasn't love or beauty 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:41.760 or genuine connection. There probably was. And that's what makes 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:44.760 it harder, not easier, because you're not mourning a lie. 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:49.679 You're mourning something that had real value and real limitations simultaneously, 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:54.200 and the human brain finds that complexity almost impossible to hold. 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:57.760 Here's the questions I want you to ask yourself after 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:01.600 a breakup. Who were you when you were in that relationship? 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:05.040 Were you more yourself or less yourself? Were you growing 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:09.319 toward who you want to be or were you just tolerating, accommodating, 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:13.440 shrinking or performing. Were you genuinely seen or were you 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:17.040 constantly trying to be seen and often failing. Because your 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:20.240 answer to that question tells you something far more important 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:23.640 than whether they were wonderful. It tells you whether the 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:27.640 relationship was actually good for you. Now here's what you're 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:32.600 actually grieving, and surprisingly, it's not them, it's something much older. 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:35.240 This is the part of the episode where I need 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:37.280 you to stay with me, because this is the hardest 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:40.560 part and also the most important. When someone comes to 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:43.360 me or a trusted friend and says, I can't stop 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:45.959 thinking about my ex. I think I made a mistake. 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:48.959 I think they were the one. There is almost always 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:53.240 something underneath the grief about the specific person that doesn't 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:57.240 get examined, because grief is not simple, and romantic grief 0:12:57.320 --> 0:13:00.000 is almost never just about the person in front of you. 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:03.959 The psychologist and attachment researcher Sue Johnson has spent her 0:13:04.000 --> 0:13:07.680 career studying what happens in the nervous system when intimate 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:11.439 connection is threatened or lost, and what she found is 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:16.280 that adult romantic attachment doesn't operate in isolation. It operates 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:19.960 on the top of the entire architecture of attachment you've 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:23.800 been building since you were an infant. When your earliest 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:28.880 caregivers were consistent and responsive, you developed what's called a 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:32.280 secure attachment style. You learned at the level of the 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:37.120 nervous system, programming before language even existed, that people are safe, 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:40.600 that you're worthy of love, and that separation is temporary. 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:43.120 That you can let people go and they will come back, 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:46.160 or if they don't, you will survive and find connection again. 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:50.880 When your earliest caregivers were inconsistent or absent, or overwhelming 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:55.520 or emotionally unavailable, you developed a different program. You might 0:13:55.559 --> 0:14:00.000 have anxious attachment, the constant background hum that love is precarious, 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:02.560 that you have to work to maintain it, that the 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:06.640 other person's withdrawal is evidence that you've done something wrong. 0:14:07.240 --> 0:14:11.599 Or avoidant attachment, the learned belief that needing people is dangerous, 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:15.000 that you're better off not needing, that closeness is a trap. 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:18.000 Most people reading this, most people doing the three A 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:21.680 M spiral, are not just grieving a relationship. They are 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:25.520 re experiencing a very old wound. The grief about this 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:29.200 person is a portal into a grief that has been 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:33.040 sitting in the body for much longer. The anxious attached 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:37.240 person isn't just missing their ex. They are re experiencing 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:42.239 every moment in childhood when love felt conditional, when approval 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:46.120 could be earned, and then suddenly withdrawn, when they tried 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:50.400 their very hardest and it still wasn't enough. The avoidant 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:53.320 person who is pretending to be fine and yet finds 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:58.640 themselves inexplicably devastated isn't just managing a breakup. They are 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:01.400 brushing against the thing They have spent their whole life, 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:06.040 running from, the terrifying evidence that they needed someone and 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:09.040 then lost them. I'm not saying this to psycho analyze you, 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:13.440 but to offer something critical compassion for the scale of 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:18.760 what you're actually carrying. Stop hating yourself for not getting 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:21.920 over your ex. You're not weak because this is so hard. 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:25.560 You're not pathetic because you can't stop thinking about them. 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:29.000 You're a person who formed a deep attachment that is 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:33.400 connected to something much larger and older and more foundational 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:37.160 than this one relationship, and when that attachment is disrupted, 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:41.040 the pain reaches all the way down into that original wound. 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:44.320 A shocking is this sounds this is actually good news 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:47.560 because it means the healing you do right now, if 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:50.000 you can do it properly, if you do it honestly, 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:53.440 is not just about getting over this person. It is 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:56.960 about attending to something that is needed attention for a 0:15:57.120 --> 0:16:00.840 very long time. This breakup, as terrible as it feels, 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:05.320 is also an invitation. The zen teacher Pay My Children 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:10.800 writes about something she calls groundlessness, the terrifying experience of 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:14.560 having the floor fall away from under you, of being 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:17.800 in free fall with nothing solid to grab, and she 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:23.880 argues counterintuitively provocatively that groundlessness is not a problem to 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:28.600 be solved. It is the most spiritual condition available to 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:32.720 a human being, because when the ground falls away, you 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:36.240 discover whether you are standing on solid ground at all, 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:40.080 or whether you are standing on the illusion of someone 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:44.000 else holding you up. The spiral of romanticizing your ex 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:47.080 is at its core, the desperate attempt to find the 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:50.040 floor again, to go back to the thing that felt 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:53.000 like solid ground. But the floor was never solid. It 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:55.800 was a person, which means it was always going to move. 0:16:56.600 --> 0:17:02.400 Stop romanticizing your ex. Missing them, You're missing the version 0:17:02.480 --> 0:17:06.160 they showed you before you saw the full picture. You're 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:09.560 not missing them, You're missing the future you're already planned 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:13.880 in your head. You're not missing them, you're missing feeling chosen. 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:18.040 You're not missing them. You're just not ready to let 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:21.360 go of the story yet. But you will be. If 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:26.080 you've gone through a breakup. The work, the real work, 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:30.960 is not to find new ground to stand on. It's 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:36.280 to find yourself standing without anything to lean on in 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:39.320 the groundlessness for long enough to realize you were always 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:43.639 capable of standing alone. There's a Japanese concept called mono 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:48.800 no aware, often translated as the pathos of things, the 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:53.960 bitter sweetness of impermanence, the particular beauty and sadness that 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:58.120 comes from knowing that nothing lasts. The Japanese don't treat 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:01.440 impermanence as a problem. They treat it as the very 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:05.720 thing that gives experience its beauty. Cherry blossoms are the 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:09.800 most revered symbol in Japanese culture, not despite the fact 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:13.480 that they fall in a week, because of it. What 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:15.720 you had was real, what you had could have been 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:19.120 beautiful in parts, and it is gone. And all three 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:23.040 of those things are true simultaneously, and sitting with that truth, 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:26.919 all of it without rewriting the ending, without fantasy editing 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:30.000 it into something it wasn't, without bargaining with the past 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:34.160 or that person. Is not resignation, is not giving up. 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:37.159 It is the most courageous thing you can do, the 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:41.760 willingness to feel the full beauty of something that is over. Now, 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:44.320 let me tell you how to actually do that, How 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:47.040 to interrupt the spiral, how to work with your brain 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:50.360 instead of being controlled by it. Because knowing the science 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:53.479 doesn't make it stop hurting, but it does change what 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:56.399 you do with the hurt. Let me be really honest 0:18:56.440 --> 0:19:00.000 with you about breakups. There is no version of getting 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:04.560 over someone that doesn't involve feeling it. There's no cognitive 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:08.600 hack that bypasses grief. There is no framework that makes 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:12.360 this painless. There are two types of pain. The first 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:16.560 is the pain that moves you, that transforms you, that 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:21.320 carries you somewhere new. And then there's the pain that loops, 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:25.200 the pain that keeps you exactly where you are, circling 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:29.040 the same drain for months or years, pretending to be 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:32.840 the depth of feeling when it's actually just a broken record. 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:56.679 Here's how you get to the pain that moves you. 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:00.920 Tool number one, the no contact rule, and I want 0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:04.040 to talk to you about why it's actually biology. You've 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:06.520 heard about no contact, but you may not know the 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:09.320 real reason it works. And the real reason is not 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:12.439 about playing games or winning the breakup or making them 0:20:12.480 --> 0:20:16.080 miss you. The real reason is neurological. Every time you 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:19.520 check their social media, you are feeding the addiction. You 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:23.600 are reactivating the dopamine circuit. You're telling your neural pathways 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:26.920 this is still relevant. Keep tracking it. Your brain cannot 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:30.040 begin to withdraw, cannot begin to heal while you keep 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:34.360 administering microdoses of the drug. No contact is not punishment. 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:37.720 No contact is detox. And it includes the things you're 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:41.719 pretending don't count. The casual social media check that you 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:45.159 tell yourself is harmless, the friendly text you're composing in 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:48.680 your head, the driving past where they live. Every one 0:20:48.720 --> 0:20:51.680 of these is a hit. Every one of these restarts 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:55.040 the clock on withdrawal. You're not cutting them off because 0:20:55.040 --> 0:20:58.320 you're cold. You're cutting off the supply because you're trying 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:03.320 to heal. Those are complete different things. Stop checking their feed. 0:21:04.000 --> 0:21:07.600 They're not coming back because you watch their story. They're 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:11.000 not coming back because you like something from forty seven 0:21:11.040 --> 0:21:14.200 weeks ago at two am. They're not coming back because 0:21:14.240 --> 0:21:16.679 you figured out who that person in their photo is. 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:21.200 They're not coming back because you've refreshed their profile eleven 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:26.119 times today. They're not coming back, but your pieces the 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:30.560 second you stop looking. Tune number two, the full picture exercise. 0:21:31.040 --> 0:21:33.880 I want you to do something tonight, if you're brave enough. 0:21:34.240 --> 0:21:36.760 Take a piece of paper, Draw a line down the middle. 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:39.440 On the left side, write down the things you genuinely miss, 0:21:39.720 --> 0:21:43.399 the real things, not the imagined, perfect version, the actual 0:21:43.440 --> 0:21:46.000 things that were good and real and valuable. On the 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:49.000 right side, write down the things you've been selectively forgetting, 0:21:49.520 --> 0:21:52.359 The pattern that kept repeating, the way you felt bad 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:55.200 on days which were more frequent than your highlight reel 0:21:55.200 --> 0:21:58.960 admits the specific moments where you felt unseen or dismissed, 0:21:59.280 --> 0:22:03.080 or too much not enough, the days you cried. Write 0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:05.800 down who you were on your worst days in that relationship, 0:22:06.160 --> 0:22:09.720 right down the cost personally, professionally, to your family. This 0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:15.959 isn't bitterness, it's not revenge. It's accuracy. You're correcting your memories, editing. 0:22:16.400 --> 0:22:19.280 You're forcing your brain to hold the full picture rather 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:24.040 than just the trailer. Two Number three interrupt the spiral, literally, 0:22:24.560 --> 0:22:28.400 the romanticizing spiral, is a thought pattern, and thought patterns 0:22:28.440 --> 0:22:33.240 are neurological pathways, neural circuits that have been strengthened through repetition. 0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:36.800 Every time you indulge the spiral, you strengthen the pathway. 0:22:37.160 --> 0:22:39.960 Every time you interrupt it, you begin to weaken it. 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:44.600 It's not suppression forcing yourself to not think about something. Actually, 0:22:45.000 --> 0:22:48.359 this increases the frequency of the thought. It's that don't 0:22:48.400 --> 0:22:51.160 think about a pink elephant problem. The harder you try 0:22:51.200 --> 0:22:53.000 not to think about the pink elephant, you think about 0:22:53.040 --> 0:22:57.400 the pink elephant. What works instead is what neuroscientists call 0:22:57.600 --> 0:23:02.320 pattern interruption, a brief but genuine redirect of neural attention 0:23:02.800 --> 0:23:07.080 to something that requires full cognitive engagement. When the spiral starts, 0:23:07.200 --> 0:23:09.880 when you catch your hand moving toward their instagram, when 0:23:09.880 --> 0:23:13.119 the imaginary conversation begins, when the maybe we gave up 0:23:13.119 --> 0:23:16.360 too soon story starts playing, you do something that requires 0:23:16.400 --> 0:23:21.040 your genuine attention immediately. Something physical works best, a short, 0:23:21.119 --> 0:23:24.919 vigorous walk, cold water on your face, five pushups, something 0:23:24.920 --> 0:23:28.080 that activates your body and breaks the cognitive loop. Then, 0:23:28.200 --> 0:23:30.880 and this is key, you do not fight the feeling 0:23:31.440 --> 0:23:35.400 you name it. I am experiencing a craving for this person. 0:23:36.040 --> 0:23:39.840 Just that The simple act of naming an emotion, when 0:23:39.840 --> 0:23:44.919 neuroscientists call affect labeling, activates the prefront or cortex and 0:23:45.000 --> 0:23:49.560 measurably reduces activity in the amygdala. You move the feeling 0:23:49.640 --> 0:23:53.119 from the reactive part of your brain to the observing part. 0:23:53.359 --> 0:23:56.639 You become the person watching the spiral rather than the 0:23:56.680 --> 0:24:02.239 person inside it. Pol Number four red build identity, not 0:24:02.480 --> 0:24:07.000 find yourself. I know find yourself is tired. Advice. Bear 0:24:07.080 --> 0:24:09.600 with me because this is different, I promise. One of 0:24:09.640 --> 0:24:13.639 the most underappreciated effects of a significant relationship ending is 0:24:13.680 --> 0:24:18.520 what psychologists call self concept contraction. In a long or 0:24:18.600 --> 0:24:22.080 deep relationship, your identity expands. You become someone who is 0:24:22.400 --> 0:24:25.840 part of a wei. You have shared friends, shared routine, 0:24:25.920 --> 0:24:30.280 shared references, shared futures. When the relationship ends, that whole 0:24:30.320 --> 0:24:33.960 dimension of identity collapses. You don't just lose the person, 0:24:34.480 --> 0:24:37.439 you lose the version of yourself that existed in relation 0:24:37.560 --> 0:24:40.760 to them. The antidote is not to immediately seek a 0:24:40.800 --> 0:24:44.400 new relationship to fill the gap, but to actively rebuild 0:24:44.440 --> 0:24:49.640 your own independent self concept to recover your own narrative. 0:24:50.160 --> 0:24:52.239 This means what did you stop doing when you were 0:24:52.280 --> 0:24:56.560 in that relationship? What did you let atrophy? What parts 0:24:56.560 --> 0:24:58.720 of yourself did you set aside to make room for 0:24:58.800 --> 0:25:02.639 the wei friend? You let drift interest, You abandoned ambitions. 0:25:02.640 --> 0:25:05.639 You quietly shelved the parts of you that existed before 0:25:05.680 --> 0:25:09.119 them and are still there waiting go find them. Not 0:25:09.200 --> 0:25:13.520 as therapy, not as distraction, as recovery of self. Every 0:25:13.520 --> 0:25:17.480 time you do something that is purely authentically yours, something 0:25:17.480 --> 0:25:21.560 that reflects who you are, independent of any relationship, you 0:25:21.640 --> 0:25:25.040 are rebuilding the self concept that the relationship and the 0:25:25.080 --> 0:25:28.960 breakup have eroded. You are answering the question who am 0:25:29.000 --> 0:25:34.360 I without them, and discovering that the answer is more 0:25:34.400 --> 0:25:39.520