Part 2: How to properly handle, cope and deal with a breakup

Speaker 0 00:00:00 Welcome to the closeness podcast, your new sexual education. We take complex intimate issues and unravel them in a way that you can do something with and apply immediately. We offer sexual guidance, concrete advice, life coaching, and in no uncertain terms, teach you how to have better hotter sex, but that's not where we are today. Today, we're going to help you soothe and process your breakups so that in the not too distant future, you can feel centered, calm, and relaxed and begin to have that kind of fun yourself to learn about getting sexual guidance and real intimacy coaching one-on-one with me, please visit get closeness.com. Now, are you ready to feel better? Let's get started previously on how to handle a breakup part one. We spent a great deal of time discussing why we involve ourselves with the people that we do, why we put up with and tolerate things that don't work for us, whether or not we should stay with them and how to avoid having a bad breakup in the future. Speaker 0 00:00:53 This episode that you're listening to now is more of a survival guide, how to get through the breakup that you're going through right now. There's a light at the end of the tunnel. And if you're in pain now, you don't know who to turn to. Nothing is getting better and nothing is working. This episode is for you for all of these concepts to work. However, you're going to need to use them. And that's my strongest encouragement for this episode is not just to listen to it. Not just to feel soothed in hearing the words, but to actually pause and apply some of the things whenever possible. Now, one of the most dangerous and non result, yielding phrases I hear people use these days is I'm working on it. And if you ask someone what specifically they're doing in that moment to work on it, they usually come up empty. Speaker 0 00:01:37 I'm trying to think this way, or I'm trying not to think about it at all. Working on it falls into the category of should. I know I should, but you can shit all over yourself and nothing is ever going to change. Sometimes what's needed is allowing. Sometimes what's needed is massive action. Sometimes what's needed is a total shift in your perspective of the way you're thinking. But however you decide to address it first, just make sure you continue to practice it more than once. It's kind of like when someone says you should take a few deep breaths and you go and you go right back to shallow breathing or unconscious breathing, it takes more than once. It takes more than twice. It takes more than thrice for change to take effect, listening to an episode or watching 600 YouTube videos can only go so far to help you actually do the work. Speaker 0 00:02:22 Often we turn to our friends to talk things through or to quote unquote process. I find this to mostly be a distraction. And it's my belief that no amount of talking is going to accelerate the healing process for you. If there isn't self-love present, if you can't come back to yourself, appreciate yourself, love yourself, know yourself worth and move forward. So let's get started with our first concept. If you're deeply hurting about a breakup right now, chances are that you and your nervous system are in crisis mode. And that's a very, very different place than how most people are waking up in the morning or starting their day in what they would call normal when you're going through a breakup. Absolutely nothing feels normal. And so this first section is to give you a bit of empathy with what's going on to let you know this new normal for you is actually okay. Speaker 0 00:03:10 It's not healthy. It doesn't feel good, but it is an unfortunate part of the breaking of process. Right now you're a fight or flight response is wide awake. You're tender, you're vulnerable, you're raw. Your adrenals are probably shot. Maybe you haven't slept the very difficult to make a decision without feeling reactionary. Everything makes you want to cry. Everything reminds you of the person that you just lost. Every other part of your life could probably be going pretty well. Your family nature, your work life, or your relationship with others, your body, and the way you feel about it. But it's hard to notice any of that. And since you are in a constant state of crisis, all of your responses are likely going to be reactionary rather than responsive. So yeah, things are bad. And the number one piece of advice I have, if you recognize that you are in this level of crisis, and you think that you can take some form of action to help yourself feel better. Speaker 0 00:04:03 Because when it first happens, when you first lose someone, not much of anything is going to help your raw tender and you simply need to grieve and cry and hurt. And if you have someone there who can hold space with you while you do that, that's perhaps one of the best things possible. They don't need to say anything or do anything. They just need to be there for you or with you. If you're the kind of person who likes company like that. But when you've gotten through the initial shock, not that you've gotten over it, not that you've processed it and are ready to move on. Not that anything much has changed other than the fact that you can Speaker 1 00:04:40 Catch your breath, think straight, Speaker 0 00:04:44 Hold a thought for a minute, keep food down. Well, then my next recommendation is to shrink your concept of time. As far down, as you can into small chunks, into little increments to help you get through moment by moment, no longer are you planning for what's coming up next year, next month, even next week, or what you have to do tomorrow. This big thing that you have coming up, or you have to get done. All of your attention gets put Speaker 1 00:05:14 On the now you're just Speaker 0 00:05:16 Going to see yourself through the next few Speaker 1 00:05:20 Minutes, seconds or moments. Can you, Speaker 0 00:05:24 You wind yourself down to sleep. Can you get through this meal? Can you stomach a smoothie or a ginger ale? Every single time you catch yourself having a thought of something you need to do, or a worry about someone else or a concern about the future or how you might look in someone else's eyes or how bad you're feeling that someone else is having to hear you or take care of you. Speaker 1 00:05:48 She Speaker 0 00:05:50 Was just going to let all of that be and get through the next few moments. And we don't do this to exacerbate Speaker 1 00:05:58 Your breakup or to make it feel like it's never ending. Quite the contrary, going through a breakup often feels like a few things. Number one, it can often feel like a betrayal. Number two is a loss and number three is a severing. And we're going to talk more about that in just a moment. What is the betrayal? It's a breaking of trust Speaker 0 00:06:20 Or a breaking of an agreement that the two of you had to stay together to be with one another, which for many of us translates to forever and ever, and ever. And something has come between us, whether it's an actual betrayal, like someone has slept with someone else in your monogamous relationship or something about them, or you has changed. And the other person no longer wants to be with you, regardless of who does the breaking Speaker 1 00:06:43 Up still, you're losing Speaker 0 00:06:45 A part of yourself. If you've invested strongly and emotionally Speaker 1 00:06:48 Someone else on an emotional level, when we Speaker 0 00:06:51 Lose someone who he loved, especially when it happens quickly Speaker 1 00:06:54 Out of the blue, that terrible, horrible feeling is very akin to a severing. And this pain is very real. Speaker 0 00:07:03 You don't need a physical manifestation for you Speaker 1 00:07:05 To feel that level of hurt. Speaker 0 00:07:08 And sadly so often during our breakups, we quickly find a way to hate and abandon and leave our partner. We look for ways to resent them to be angry at them or the very least to never want to speak to them again, even though the very reason that we're hurting is because we're actually no longer together with them. And so many of us get angry, volatile, violent, enact in a very unpleasant way. We shut down, we get cold. We say we are protecting our hearts, the person who he wants adored and loved and ravished, even if it was an hour before, a minute before or a week before suddenly becomes seemingly irrelevant to us because we shut them out completely. And of course, all of this anger, Speaker 1 00:07:51 Simply a big coverup for our hurt. What anger does, however much like a big distraction is it allows you to temporarily not feel all Speaker 0 00:08:02 That hurt and pain that seeming underneath because anger feels Speaker 1 00:08:07 Better than sorrow, remorse, loss, despair, depression, Speaker 0 00:08:15 Anger is actually a better feeling emotion than those horrible feelings, because you feel more empowered. You feel more alive. You feel like you get some motion going and not only feels better, but it's often the path out of horrible pain, but often people get stuck vacillating between anger, despair, anger, despair, because societaly, it's not acceptable for us to get angry. Not only do we not allow anyone to Speaker 1 00:08:39 Express their anger before we get upset or leave or abandoned, Speaker 0 00:08:43 Quiet them down, but it's not condoned. We don't like it. We don't want to be around it. No one thinks that it's actually okay to be angry. However, being in a place of anger, hatred, and revenge is not a place that you want to hang out for very long. And even if you move past it, what actually needs to be addressed is the hurt underneath. If you don't want to set yourself up for future disasters, okay? The next concept may seem a little bit obvious, but it's the idea that no matter what, if we really care for someone, if we really loved someone, we are going to have to go through some form of grieving process. You can try to stuff it down or brush it off or pretend it's not there. You can delay it by distracting yourself with friends and drinking and drugs and laughter and going out. Speaker 0 00:09:32 But the fact of the matter is is that if you care for someone, you love them, you bond with them or you attach to them. It's almost certain that you're going to be struck with some form of grief. A breakup feels very similar to losing someone or something that is very close to you. Permanently. Having a broken heart is not just a figure of speech. In my opinion, it's actually a real trauma and just like trauma to your physical body. So to an emotional wound has to go through a healing process. So as much as many YouTubers would love to give you a magic pill or 10 steps to get over a heartbreak, just like that. There's always a little bit more involved. I'm a big believer, of course, in neuro-linguistic programming. I'm a big believer in authentic, positive thinking and putting your attention on what feels good and doing things to suit you and all of that. Speaker 0 00:10:20 But the big question to ask yourself is, are you distracting or are you nourishing? Are you distracting? Or are you healing? This is our next concept. Are you putting something off or are you taking care of you pretending that you just want to drop it, pretending that you just want to move on and let it go, pretending that you don't want to deal with it, or even really believing that you feel these things is almost always a form of repression or distraction, running away, making a choice to go out and party or drink with your friends or even going out and finding a new lover or having sex with someone new right away to temporarily make you feel better. All of these things can put a temporary bandaid on the situation. They can distract you for a few minutes or an hour or two. Maybe it's helped you get through the day, but I don't believe it's actually helped you heal or move on from something. Speaker 0 00:11:14 I think it's distracted you from the pain, which in some cases can be useful when the pain is so severe, you can't handle it. You just need to put your focus somewhere else. I do think it's healthy to shift your focus and be distracted by healthy things that serve you. But in terms of actually healing yourself, there's something to be said for some good quality time, all by yourself or with one person who understands and can be there with you. If you feel like you've done some of these, call them more toxic behaviors in the past, and it's helped you. Things like smoking, drinking, partying, checking out, going to sleep with other people. It's likely you are not all that involved or invested in your partner in the first place. Maybe you were the one who's doing the breaking up. Maybe you didn't love them. Anyway. Maybe you weren't in love with them. Maybe it was just a temporary feeling. Maybe it was a rebound. Maybe it was someone you were using. Maybe it was someone you were not invested in. Speaker 0 00:12:14 Let's talk for a moment about time, the age, old adage, everything heals in time or everything in good time or pain goes away with time. Two things here. It is unfortunately true that things do take time, but saying this to someone in their darkest hour or in their most painful state that give it time. You'll feel better. Just let some time go by and it'll be okay. Only minimizes the person's loss and makes them feel worse. Telling someone that time takes care of everything is not going to make someone feel better in the moment. And usually not for the next several months. But all of that being said, it really does take time. And just like we can't rush the healing process of our own bodies. So too, does it apply for matters of the heart? Losing someone romantically can also feel similar to the way it feels. Speaker 0 00:13:08 When someone passes away, there's going to be a process. Very few things go away within a day or a week or even a month at the same time. This doesn't mean that this hurt and this pain is going to be around forever. It doesn't mean it's going to be there for years. It doesn't have to stay with you. Long-term but it's my belief that if you want to accomplish that, if you'd like to heal quickly, or as quick as your emotions are able to, then you can't keep distracting yourself in unhealthy ways that push it down. Sometimes when the pain is super severe, you'll hear me say it again. And again, you do need to get out of the house. You need, your state changed. You really do need to be pulled away from something that hurts so bad. But when you find yourself going back to the same bad habits again, and again and again, that's when you know you have to do something different. Speaker 0 00:13:59 So earlier we were talking about not having such a wide expansive view of time said differently. It's about reducing everything, your thoughts, your actions, your desires, reducing all of that down to the present moment, rather than worrying, projecting, fearing, fantasizing. What's going to happen in the future. What has already happened in the past? You get real, real present to this now moment, right now, you're listening to this podcast. You're listening to me talk. If you're going through it right now, there's nothing more you have to do than to just be present with me. There's nothing to solve or do or fix. We're just getting through these next few minutes together. Sometimes you may get the feeling like how can I survive through these few minutes? And this is where self-soothing comes into play. We're not looking at thriving. We're not looking at how beautiful life is and how wonderful everything is. And we're certainly not pretending that you feel that way when you don't. So how does that translate into your day to day reality? Let's take eating as an example. Speaker 1 00:15:09 Do you choose slower? Do you reflect, Speaker 0 00:15:12 Choose slowly and just enjoy your food without watching YouTube videos or being on your phone or having 20 different things happening at the same time? What about at night? When it gets cold and you're ready for bed, what does your body need? Do you want an extra blanket tonight? Do you need a body pillow? Would you like to take a nourishing supplement like some vitamin C or B 12? Do you have a favorite tea that you love? What makes you feel good? What will help you get through now? The emotion you're trying to nurture what you're trying to feel. If you're trying to do anything, it's a sense of relief. What do you need to do in this moment to give yourself that sense of relief? That means helping yourself feel a little bit better, a little calmer, catching your breath, being able to relax, being able to sleep, soothing yourself as the best thing you can do. It's surprisingly not as easy as it may sound. It's not particularly glamorous. It's not an Instagram post and it's not about proclaiming to the world, how much you love your life or how amazing your life is. But when you feel so low that you don't know what to do with yourself, relief is a welcome friend. So when you get stuck in those bottom of the barrel emotions, Speaker 1 00:16:25 Spare despondency, depression, self hatred, Speaker 0 00:16:30 Self-soothing finding relief, taking care of yourself. Speaker 1 00:16:34 That's where it's at. Speaker 0 00:16:36 It might seem a little counterintuitive to live minute by minute, or to be in the moment you might be thinking to yourself, why would I want to drag time on or be so aware of each moment? But in fact, the opposite is true. Your presence is what's helping things heal your intentional shift of focus from past and future. From your mind, your ability to nourish and soothe yourself in the moment is what's helping you to get through it rather than where you have to go, where you need to be, what you should or should not be doing. What happened yesterday? What happened with your ex? Did you say something to your acts? Did you call texts, think about message them again. Should you try to analyze this thing with your ex, how it happened, replaying it over and over in your mind, living in the past and constantly regurgitating memories or painful ones is not being present. And that's part of the reason why it hurts so much. If you want to feel better, Speaker 1 00:17:32 You've got to get present good. Speaker 0 00:17:35 Moving into our next concept. This next piece is something that you actually want to avoid. And we spoke about it a little bit earlier, but it bears repeating here as well. And that would be avoiding unhealthy distractions that don't serve you. I want to talk about that little bit more. For some reason, much of our population today believes that all you need to do to get through something painful is keep busy, ignore the pain, shoved away and bury the hurt. I would even go so far as to say that most people's existence today deals heavily in distraction. Whether they're going through a breakup or not. Most of us spend most of our time engaging in one unhealthy distraction after another stimulating yourself with coffee or some other drug in the morning. When you wake up adding tons of sugar and cream to it, having your phone in your hand, most of your day, scrolling and checking your Instagram or notifications, endlessly haphazardly, compulsively, and every single time you get an alert checking who liked your photos, checking who posted what, seeing who texted you while you're spending time with someone else, keeping up with the news. Speaker 0 00:18:40 Absolutely endlessly scrolling through Tik TOK or Instagram or Facebook or Snapchat or all of the above over and over and over and over again, to see what someone else posted about their life. Creating story. After story, after story about silly or ridiculous memes or some silly little thing that someone just happened to type out. Now, you're sharing it on your page with a sparkly star background. Many of us are convinced that we need to stay informed and that the healthy thing to do is to watch horrible, terrible news stories about death, murder, and decay all over the world. Maybe you're craving some attention. So you send out five or 10 messages to different friends. Maybe you're on a dating app and you're distract yourself by swiping right and swiping left on beautiful faces. And you get a little kick every time someone likes you back or matches with you in an eight hour working day, or I guess 10 or 12 these days, how much actual work did you get done during that time? Speaker 0 00:19:35 Maybe three effective hours. If you decided to take a picture of yourself today for the 50th time in the week, likely you spent about 10 minutes getting the lighting, right? Your hair, right? The angle, right? Deleting it, editing it, Photoshopping it, adding filters. Most people after work like to go out for a drink or have a drink when they get home to do what to distract, to diffuse, to distress, to let go, then what do we do? Many of us want to turn on the TV, YouTube, CNN, or the news, or watch a movie or something on Netflix to do even more distracting and take ourselves out of this. Now reality that we call life. How many of you are still watching something on your phone, in the shower, or while you're getting ready for bed or while you're brushing your teeth or right before you go to bed or as you're about to fall asleep. Speaker 0 00:20:24 Think for a moment about how many activities you do on a daily basis that don't involve work. That can be defined as chilling or chilling out, or just relaxing. How many things per week or per day or per hour do you do to distract yourself and just chill when you're healthy, when you're happy, when you're not dealing with loss or a breakup, how much chilling do you need to do exactly. Again, some examples are smoking a cigarette, having coffee, getting drinks, going to any bar or nightclub where you're just going to be having drinks sitting down on the couch and watching TV, watching Netflix. I'm not suggesting that certain distractions don't have their place or that it's not important for us to socialize. We are social beings after all, but how much are you getting done? If anything at all, how fulfilling is it for you? Speaker 0 00:21:15 How meaningful is it for you to have yet another drink yet? Another sit down with your girlfriends to just chit chat. I know for some, this is stronger than others. I know many of you crave an enormous amount of attention, constant conversation, nonstop talking and being out and about with others. But if you take a moment to really think about it, are any of these fun, social, mindless events, moving your life forward in any way or doing anything to help you grow as a person nourish you or to really, really help you heal or expand anything positive. Other than the just basic little high that comes from socializing and talking and talking about other people and what other people are doing and gossiping about your friends and complaining about your problems. Do you get together with your friends to vent or just get it off your chest, or just talk about this one guy or dissect a text message that a guy sent you for 45 minutes, four times this week. Some of you might say, yeah, it doesn't matter that my life isn't going anywhere that I'm not growing or anything's being accomplished. I just need to chill out there for sure as a time and a place for that. But I always want to ask someone how much time do you really need Speaker 1 00:22:33 To chill out? Okay. So are you Speaker 0 00:22:37 Moving towards something that gives you the feeling of relief? Does it make you feel better? Are you growing, expanding, or are you stuck in the past on a memory? Are you letting something replay over and over and over again in your mind? Or are you distracting by just bouncing from one meaningless distraction to the next, for me growth expansion and helping others. These things actually move you into a different place emotionally and spiritually. They help you feel better and they actually help you heal. But when you're just sitting around chilling all the time, or just watching or talking about what someone else is doing with their life, or even watching something on YouTube, but it just kind of goes in one ear and out the other, you're just consuming media. There's no real growth happening. There's no expansion. And so you kind of stay in the stands. Speaker 0 00:23:29 Still time goes by, it feels like you've done things, but nothing really has happened. And more importantly, nothing has changed in your biracial countenance. Nothing's changed in your energy. Nothing has changed in your deliberate intending to fork off in a different and move your life into a better feeling place. That really is where the magic happens, where your attention and your focus goes, your life flows by the way, if you're not going through a breakup right now, but you're thinking about it, or you're listening to this just for fun. One of the best things you can do for yourself is to stop your distractions now to nip them in the bud, before you're in pain. Because if you can't do it now, while you're fine, while you're not hurting, when nothing is particularly wrong, please don't think for a moment that you're going to have the tools and the resources to do it when you're in crisis, when your mind is all over the place, when you're completely scattered, when you can't sit still, when you can't think straight, when you're a total mess, learn to wire, your brain at being practiced. Speaker 0 00:24:28 And well-rehearsed for being grounded, being present, spending quality time alone, and just with yourself and nourishing yourself with things that are good for your soul. So then what do you do in lieu of distracting yourself and how do you know if what you're doing is in fact distraction? Well, sometimes the very thing that could be helpful in small doses or quantities can also be very toxic and distracting. If you've got the urge to chit chat or gossip or talk about others or go on and on about what so-and-so is doing, it's likely distracting. If something tries to really amplify, like take you from feeling sad to everything is great. And everything's wonderful, like a pill or some form of drug watching porn, scrolling endlessly through Facebook, texting all your friends over and over. And while you can get away without causing yourself any harm in small amounts, all of these things can very much act like distractions. Speaker 0 00:25:25 So by now you're probably asking yourself, okay, what are some healthy things I can do to distract myself if the pain is too great? Well, I'm happy you asked. And here you go, sitting quietly doing absolutely nothing on the floor, on a chair or a bench with your eyes closed gazing at a candle for 10 or 20 or 30 minutes. And just breathing while looking at the candle, burn, sitting quietly in nature, going for a walk in nature, sitting or lying with your hand over your heart and breathing, getting out into nature by yourself, getting out and being barefoot in nature, going for a walk on the beach or by the river or by a Lake, getting your feet in the mud or in the sand, finding things that feel like relief or soothing on your own time, outdoors, calmly and methodically preparing a meal for yourself, sitting quietly to eat it and chew it slowly. Speaker 0 00:26:22 Sewing, reading, knitting crochet, doing a puzzle, slow movement, dancing ironing, caressing yourself slowly putting lotion on yourself. After a shower, enjoying a nice long shower or a warm bath connected household chores, just getting things done and making your bed and making the whole room look great. Again. Every time you put something in your mouth, being careful to taste it, chew it many, many times, swallow it with intent and without distraction, methodically taking care of your health, such as brushing your teeth, combing your hair, going into the jacuzzi or hot tub on your own, sitting in a sauna, going for a run or a jog or a brisk walk, taking a soothing and calm bike ride. While looking at an admiring nature around you, writing in your journal processing, petting your cat or dog or animal spending time with nature sitting next to, or being close to any animal sitting next to or spending time with any other type of living organism, touching yourself anywhere, caressing yourself, including your arms, Speaker 1 00:27:31 Face your scalp, your low back, your thighs, your knees, your calves, your feet Speaker 0 00:27:38 Dissipating in a nice yoga class where someone namely the instructor is not controlling every single one of your inhalations and exhalations, practicing yoga, nidra, practicing Speaker 1 00:27:49 Lunar therapeutics, or acrobatics, giving you Speaker 0 00:27:53 A nice belly massage, putting a coat of your favorite oil or lotion on, and just giving yourself a loving self massage or time massage quietly, complimenting yourself or loudly complimenting yourself. Speaking of all, the things that you appreciate, journaling, reflecting, creating morning pages, just putting real pen to paper and jotting down. Some thoughts, looking out into nature and identifying things that make you feel good while you breathe deeply. Adding, breathing deeply to anything that you do walking through fresh cut grass, getting barefoot, doing some outdoor chores or lifting heavy things overhead, or just in the air. Swimming in the ocean, swimming in a pool, swimming in a public pool, doing laps, swimming on your back, laying on the ground and moving your body in the way that it instinctively tells you to standing and doing the same thing. Screaming. If you need to beating a pillow, if you need to expressing hurt handwriting a letter and burning it, handwriting a letter and saving it, handwriting a letter and sending it to your mother Speaker 1 00:28:52 Or your father or your sister or brother, if they're still Speaker 0 00:28:55 Around making amends, clearing up old pains, tying up loose ends around the house, allowing yourself to cry. When you need to cry. All of these things, keep you out of unhealthy distraction while being focused on something that feels good. Now you might be thinking to yourself, a lot of this stuff sounds like another form of distraction. Well, we are creatures of movement and action, too much stillness, too much quiet makes us stagnant. Although most of us don't even know what it's like to be still or quiet for more than a moment. Most people couldn't name one person in the universe who can sit endlessly for hour after hour after hour and do nothing while being grounded and, and close to whatever they deem to be source energy. And even if you know someone who can, it doesn't mean their mind, isn't turbulent or racing with ideas, but these types of soothing exercises, these types of self-love practices or things that bring you present moment or things that put you in the flow or help relax. You are far, far better along your healing journey than some of the nastiness that we discussed earlier. Speaker 2 00:30:07 Um, Speaker 0 00:30:10 There are also a number of things that you don't have to do or shouldn't do or can leave out of your day to day. That can help you get over someone more, for instance telling each and every one of your friends, what you're going through, explaining your story, breaking it down over and over again in painstaking detail, gossiping about it, chatting about it. This can be absolutely exhausting and keep everything right in the same place it was before you told this person, many people believe that they need to vent, Speaker 2 00:30:38 Get it off their chest, talk or Speaker 0 00:30:41 Breasts it to feel better. And there are definitely some differences in the way men and women process. But I still nonetheless strongly believe that talking about something over and over and over and over and over again is just regurgitating the same hurt and keeping it locked in place with your thoughts, with your energy, with your friends. And so you create this atmosphere of pain in other episodes, I'd like to talk about an atmosphere of sexuality that you have with your partner. That's kind of always there and bubbling. You can do the same thing with negative emotion. The same thing applies for diving down rabbit holes of what if this and what if that, and should I say this, or should I not have said that? And what did he mean? Or what did she say and thinking about scenarios and replaying them over and over in your head while you're feeling sick and nauseous to your stomach and just beating yourself up, Speaker 2 00:31:35 Not good. And it keeps you stuck in one place. Speaker 0 00:31:38 What's worse. Many people think that being vengeful or acting out revenge or getting your ex back for the next one, five or 10 years is a good idea. This also is not going to help your healing process, nor is it going to make you feel better for more than a moment. And then there's simple things like avoiding toxic material, like crap or garbage TV, which basically encompasses almost any and all reality TV show, avoiding inauthentic people, watching movies and TV shows with enormous amounts or even any violence in them watching shows about breakups or romantic comedies. Why torture yourself and subject yourself to those images. You know, almost anything on TV for it to be considered. Good. Programming has to have violence, tragedy, Gore, things that you don't want to see, and that make you very uncomfortable when you watch it. You know, the other day I was watching Charlie Brown, not the newest ones, but the one from the sixties and seventies. Speaker 0 00:32:38 And I was by how slow, how slow the scenes mood. They spent time focusing on the characters. They just let them talk. It didn't need to bounce from one thing to another, every second, switching our attention this, then this, then this, when it was over, I enjoyed it so much. I wanted to see what other Snoopy or peanuts or Charlie Brown specials there were. And I noticed that Apple TV plus had created some modern versions of it. I think Snoopy and space. And if you're just coming off watching 1967, 1970s, Charlie Brown, and you watch this new updated version, you see how jarring and fast and loud and obnoxious, and even how fast the camera pans from one character to the next, keeping it moving, keeping it moving, keeping it moving because our attention spans have become so pathetic to me, this kind of started around SpongeBob Ren and Stimpy era, where you put these shows on and it's just shocking and gory and disgusting and repulsive and fast moving. Speaker 0 00:33:40 And it just keeps you and kids locked on to the screen. But the feeling, the feeling you get when you watch it is not good. You don't want, I watch shows like that and think, Oh, this is so relaxing. This is so nice. It's so comforting. We do it to stimulate ourselves or producers, do it to keep us glued to the TV set. It's very tense and uncomfortable and unpleasant to watch. It might be amusing or exciting or entertaining might be distracting, but it certainly isn't grounding, soothing, calming, and relax boxing, which is not the end all be all of life by any means. Although, although it certainly can go a long way towards your healing process or your well being when a part of you has gone missing. As you can imagine, if you've ever lost a loved one or lost a family member or lost someone close to you or lost someone who left the earth too soon, it sits with you. Speaker 0 00:34:39 It's with you. It doesn't go away. It requires a lot of care. And just like, there's no substitute for hard work. And there's no substitute for the real thing. Being with yourself off, caring for yourself, present and finding ways to soothe. This is clearly the reoccurring theme here and what makes the difference? I do think it is possible. However, to spend quality time with a friend who can really be there for you to nurture you and help a best friend, a confidant, someone who has your back, someone who, you know, won't betray you, someone who has the patience to just be there with you, hear you out and be present together. However, if I may not the kind of friends who speak about having your back dog, it's all good. You'll get through this. Everything happens for a reason. Time will heal. He or she, or it isn't suffering anymore. Speaker 0 00:35:35 You're better off without him or life goes on only the good die young. You weren't meant for him anyway. He doesn't deserve you. You don't deserve him. She doesn't deserve you. Chin up. Everything will be fine. Oh, you're just being hard on yourself. Oh, it'll pass. No big deal. If you thought this was a bad way to hear what happened to me, all guys look the same. Just go get another one. All pets look the same. Just go get another one. Stay away from all of that. If a friend of yours starts to use commentary that you've seen in comments on Facebook, like talk with memes and emojis and LOL, I would strongly recommend running, not walking away from that friend. Also stay away from someone who scolds you. Someone who tries to give you too much advice. Someone who lectures you, someone who tries to give you a silly college pep talk when you're hurting and grieving. Speaker 0 00:36:18 People need time to grieve. It's wise to stay away from people who try to medicate you or give you alcohol or drugs to feel better. Stay away from people who offer you pills or anti-anxiety anti-depressant anti-psychotic medication that you may or may not be able to handle. Probably should avoid spending time with people who say, Hey, it's been a week, a month or five months. Why are you the sad? You should be over it already. Try not to spend time with people who impose timelines on you for feeling better. Don't spend time with people who compare their pain with yours, who say, Oh, if you think you got a bad way, do I tell you about my ex people who compare, minimize your loss and force you to behave in a different way than you'd prefer? What you can do on the other hand is spend time with people who come over for a loving, connected visit. Speaker 0 00:37:04 People who give you hugs, check in, or maybe send flowers. It's nice to spend time with people who let you know they were thinking about you, or just wanted to see how you were doing. It's great to spend time with people who offer to help you with anything or repeatedly offered to be there for you. At a later time, it's wonderful to share space with someone who doesn't need anything in return and who doesn't require anything from you. It's nice to share space with someone who you can just be in a room with doing different things together. Maybe you could be writing in your journal while the other person is just taking it easy or taking a nap or petting your cat. If you're a friend and you want to help someone who's fresh out of a relationship or just lost someone or something, you can let them know that, you know, there's nothing you can say right now to help them feel better. Speaker 0 00:37:50 But you wish that you could, you could let them know that you're there for them. You can mean what you say. You can be authentic. If you're supporting someone else, you don't want to take their person's negative attitude or strange behavior. Personally, giving them a lot of space for reacting badly. Not expecting them to do things better. There's no right or wrong way to grieve. There's no need for apologies. Spend time with people who listen more than talk and who listened in a way that's not judgmental towards you. Silence is actually golden hugs, cuddles, squeezes, a touch on the back or shoulder, hand, or leg. A way to offer comfort to a friend is always through. If it's safe to do so loving and connected touch, be someone who allows your friend, the, to talk about your feelings and concerns before, during and after their loss. Let them tell you the story of their loss or their partner or their ex as many times as they Speaker 2 00:38:47 Need to. Speaker 0 00:38:50 You know, even the friends who want to support you by saying things like, Oh, you did nothing wrong. This is all their fault. You're so amazing. You deserve so much better. He didn't deserve you anyway. You don't need that guy. A person who can offer you quality healing does not need to exact revenge on your ex. They don't need to make them look horrible. They don't need to speak poorly about someone. They can just be there for you. Speaker 2 00:39:11 Yeah. Speaker 0 00:39:14 Next thing you can consider doing is one of my personal favorites. It's called getting your hands in the clay. You can begin to move things around in your space. Redecorate, watch a couple videos on rearranging your furniture or interior design or changing things up a bit in your house, enhance the functions way. So to speak of where you live, especially letting go of the things that are no longer needed. Things that have been holding you down and holding you back, finishing small projects around the house, feeling accomplished, getting it done, emptying out drawers that have held your junk for the last several years, letting go of clothes that don't fit you anymore. Letting go of clothes that you love so much, but you feel terrible. And then when you wear them and along those lines, also putting away or moving or purposely misplacing things that reminds you of your ex Speaker 2 00:40:04 Constantly, of course, Speaker 0 00:40:06 In the beginning, every single moment of every single day is going to be reminding you of them. Everything is going to be a trigger, but certain things more than others, songs, gifts, cards, photos, foods, restaurants, cities, parts of town. It's a strange thing that we want to make ourselves suffer by looking at these things. And we feel the hurt. And we look at them, we think, Oh my gosh, that's the only attachment to them. I've had. And I, myself am guilty of looking at photographs and videos that we just recently took together right before breaking up. And then how did we get there and how did this happen? But at a certain point, putting them away, you don't have to extinguish them or throw them out in the ocean or burn them by any means, but just letting them go, making a change in your life, in your physical appearance or style or a haircut, or redecorating your room a little bit, or bringing some new furniture in or letting go of some old furniture really makes a difference to create a new kind of environment for yourself. Speaker 2 00:41:04 As you're Speaker 0 00:41:05 Doing all of this as your grounding, as you're taking time to yourself, getting in nature, spending time with someone who really does understand that all they have to do is be with you to provide you some company. What are some things you can ask yourself and reflect on to help you along your healing path? Why are you going through this? What caused it to happen? What can you learn from this? What could you have looked out for? Could you have been more present? Could you have been less distracted? Could you have made different choices? Hindsight after all is always 2020, we always wish in retrospect that we would, uh, or should have, or could coulda, but to the best of your ability, rather than harping on why hasn't he called? Or why won't she answer my texts? Or why did this happen? Or why did this have to happen to me? Speaker 0 00:41:51 What do you really want now with what's true. Now, if you can't have your favorite person or favorite buddy back, what do you want now? Are you longing for this specific person to come back or the way they made you feel? Let me say that again. Are you really longing for this specific person back? Did you love how special they made you feel? How funny they are, how safe they made you feel, how loved and how adored they made you feel, or is it specifically this person? Do you really want them back in your life with everything that entailed all the ups and downs, all the fights, all the problems, all the tension, all the uncertainty, all the concern, all the fear, all the worry. Were you getting along more often than not? Did you have very few ugly battles where you always treated with love, care and respect? Speaker 0 00:42:44 What is it that you are sacrificing by wanting to stay together? Sometimes our partners open us up to being the type of person that we've always wanted to be or someone who he forgotten about long ago. What about calling your ex getting together with them, seeing them again, spending time as friends immediately trying to hash it out or trying to figure it out? Well, depending on how you handle yourself during and after your breakup, that may or may not be possible. But in most cases it's likely not going to be a good idea. Sometimes it comes to your attention that you're going to be breaking up soon and it's out of force someone's moving or leaving or takes a different job somewhere. And now just that, knowing that there's going to be a separation, unless you're going to do long distance, just that creates a problem, creates this severing. Speaker 0 00:43:44 So that even though you have another day or week or month together, it now feels like, like you're losing that person right between your fingers. You, you still have them here in front of you, but something has shifted. It becomes really hard to spend quality time together. So especially then when you're talking about spending time together after your breakup, particularly immediately after it really has a sad tendency to spin out of control. And I can personally attest to this one. I can't tell you how many times I've tried to calmly sweetly lovingly suggest that maybe we spend some time together or stay connected since she's hurting so bad. I've suggested spending a nice afternoon together, not even something sexual, but it could be time outside the house or in nature, or truly even just cuddled up holding each other because it's still raw or it's still hurting so bad quality time effectively. And what it winds up doing, especially for the person who's hurting more, is it just keeps that wound open or it makes them question. If we're cuddling like this, why can't it be this way forever? If we're fine now, why can't we just fix this or work on it or do something to keep it. Speaker 1 00:44:58 But particularly because things tend to be so raw or Speaker 0 00:45:04 You're reminded of what it was like if you were together or you're looking at the person who you were in love with and you're spending time with them, but your behavior towards one another is completely different. It just turns into chaos or better said. What usually happens is someone starts to feel very emotional, very hurt, and very turbulent. Speaker 1 00:45:24 Sometimes partners try to stay sexual, but not in a relationship. They Speaker 0 00:45:29 Break up, but they want to keep up their friends with benefits. So they pretend and operate under the delusion that that somehow is going to be possible. And it's not going to cause a reaction afterwards and it's not going to cause her to freak out or get confused or get sad or get hurt. Other times we try to transmute our relationship into something that's never been before, such as transforming a sexual relationship into a business partnership or a business partnership into a sexual relationship hoof. But I'll tell you no matter how good it starts, no matter how good your intent is, no matter how much positivity is there, the likelihood that you'll be able to pull off a transition like that successfully sustainably over time, no matter how good your intentions are, especially this idea of going from being in a committed, monogamous relationship to just being lovers. Speaker 0 00:46:17 Inevitably, someone's going to wind up feeling really hurt. In fact, may even dig the knife in deeper, depending on how recent your breakup is. For most of us, there has to be a very large amount of space in terms of days, weeks, or months that has to be put between you. Unfortunately, because believe me, I hate it just as much as you do. And if you're one of those people who is going through this right now, and you want to be with that other partners so badly, or you wish you could talk to them, or you wish it wouldn't be weird to message them, or you wish you wouldn't look needy by calling them yet. Again, I completely understand Speaker 1 00:46:52 A horrible pain to wish that you could yet. No, that you can't, you physically, Speaker 0 00:46:58 We could, you technically could do it. They are right there. They exist. They're alive for some of you. One minute ago, an hour ago, a day ago, a week, a month, or a few months ago, you were with this person they were inside of you or you were inside of them and you were sleeping together, an intimate and sexual sleeping with them, spending the night, telling them everything, sharing everything, exposing yourself to them. And now Speaker 1 00:47:24 Poof nothing. So when things are fragile, Speaker 0 00:47:30 When you're split open, when your heart is gushing and bleeding, it makes any time together really, really difficult because that severing has occurred. The relationship has transformed. It's not what it was. Someone wants something less than you do, or you just can't take it anymore. If they keep on acting a certain way. And the scorn, the hurt, the sadness, the resentment, the betrayal, the dishonesty, the deceit, the feeling abandoned, all of that is gaping wide open and raw. You know, there've been times where I've been able to support an ex emotionally to talk to her, to be in touch, to go back and forth, hear her out through her emotional healing process. Be there through her hurt, listened to her, feel her pain hold her in my arms while she's crying. Sometimes cry together, give explanations. As she's asking why this is happening or why this has to be this way, or why are we going through this? Speaker 0 00:48:27 I've often tried to be as loving as possible, but sometimes your best efforts to be the most loving are in fact, the most confusing for your partner, because you're still acting like you're dating each other. You're giving her care emotional support, eye contact, love. You're in touch. You're texting. You're showing that you're there. And this sucks because the alternative is no contact whatsoever. It's not like there's this really sweet in-between spot when things are raw and fresh. When you engage with your ex in a way that's soft and kind and tender and sweet, it also sends the message that makes them feel like, well, see, you can be this way now, why couldn't you do this in relationship? Or why can't we be this way together now? So I don't think that the aloneness or the solitude or cutting someone off completely is the best solution either. Speaker 0 00:49:16 I know that that can be extremely difficult for many people, including myself cause it's happened. But the number one thing to think about here is the long term. Sometimes you want a quick fix. You just want to feel better. You want to hug them one more time. Long-term doesn't mean six months from now or years from now. Long-term means when you get that hug or you get that sex or you get that kiss or that look or you get to spend time with that person one more time or two more times or three more times, what then what happens when you go home that night or you go home the next morning and you're still broken up, you don't work it out. Are you even more mad, more hurt, more uncomfortable? Do you need to put space between you right away? Or are you actually the kind of person who's capable of working things out? Speaker 0 00:50:03 Almost anyone can be amazing when things are going, right. We get triggered. Someone else gets triggered or our real personality comes out. When someone destroys us emotionally or abandons us, or makes us feel like we're being abandoned or maybe they're really rude and considerate, or they publicly humiliate us. When someone does something that brings out our worst. These are the times that we can get particularly nasty. And suddenly we begin to treat our loved one worse than a perfect stranger. When a breakup rares, its ugly head, all of a sudden the light switch flips that everybody else seems to have the rule book for when something goes wrong and someone shuts down often for reasons, unbeknownst to their partner, they have no idea what they did or what they said or why the other person is upset. When someone pulls back suddenly and unexpectedly and for seemingly no apparent reason, things get really nasty. And you're likely to experience some of the following. We no longer use any terms of endearment, such as baby love, honey sugar, angel doll Bay, boop, bebop, all of that miraculously and magically just vanishes. In fact, women are so good at doing it. That if you then go to call her baby or honey or love, it feels completely awkward because she's somehow deleted. Speaker 1 00:51:17 We did it from her vocabulary. There are Speaker 0 00:51:21 Great reasons to break up. There are fantastic reasons for you not to be together with someone. Sometimes a breakup is necessary, healthy and good, but how we treat our partners during and after a breakup can not only make or break our future relationship with this person, but it can also dictate how our relationship will look with them. Speaker 1 00:51:41 For the rest of our lives said differently. Speaker 0 00:51:44 You'll want to pay as close attention to how someone treats you during and after your breakup, as you ever did during the time that you were together, because this will fundamentally be for many of you, the way this person will treat you from now on the way they'll interact with you for the next six months or year two or three of they haven't blocked. You already said differently. The way someone treats you during the breakup is a true aspect of themselves who they really are. Not that they're not the loving, wonderful kind, generous person who, you know, but this is another side to them that you need to know exists. It's a part of who they are. It's not just how they're behaving in the moment. So to rephrase it yet again, when you're in the middle of a breakup with someone in your dying on the inside and you think to yourself, Oh my God, I miss this person so much. Speaker 0 00:52:31 I want to be with them. One extremely useful tip and recommendation is to consider how are they behaving right now? How are they treating you as you're going through this breakup? Are they cold, sharp, distant, rude, inconsiderate, mean, do you feel powerless? How do they shut down? How do they react? How long are they staying angry or hurt for how long they stay vengeful? Do you know? There are people out there who are still exacting revenge on their ex-husband or ex-wife years and years and years after a breakup, still taking, still trying to get more money, still taking them back to court. Can you imagine doing this to someone who hurts you five or 10 or 15 years ago? Speaker 1 00:53:11 It's disgusting. If you can take a step back from how Speaker 0 00:53:16 Your ex used to make you feel and take a good hard look at how they're showing up now, how they're behaving during this breakup, you'll have very different understanding of that person and likely not see them in as favorable of a light. So you can navigate your breakup a lot better. Often we're seeking the feeling that they once provided us, but now they're behaving very differently. So for example, if they're slamming doors blocking you, playing games, going out, making you feel very suspicious, acting strange and peculiar, running away and constantly purposely ignoring your calls. This too is an aspect of your partner. So seeing someone for who they really are, not just who they were in the golden era that may have been a week or a month or a few months back before you broke up, seeing them for who they are completely. Yes, they were that person to you then. And this is also who they're capable of being now. And it's important to take all of that into consideration when you're weighing in on whether you want to be with this person again or not. Speaker 1 00:54:20 So what's difficult about conversations like this. Speaker 0 00:54:24 We never really want to talk about this stuff when things are going really well in the relationship, we never want to reveal someone's shadow side or say, Oh gosh, I'm having such a beautiful beach day with you. Let's rehash or bring up that horrible fight that we couldn't resolve last night. We don't want to deal with it. We don't want to think about it. And we don't want to talk about it when we're not hurting about it. Think about the last several fights or arguments you've had with a partner or any previous partner. And if they ever really were resolved or you guys just agreed to disagree, or someone had to drop it, or someone said, fine, go ahead. Do it or keep it or own it or whatever. Most people don't actually want to communicate effectively when things aren't going well. Another frustrating quality as you're nearing a breakup is when someone will pick a fight for no apparent reason or behave in a very irritable way. Speaker 0 00:55:12 When nothing seems to be wrong or start drama about something that has absolutely nothing to do with what they're hurting about. Because deep down they're still hurt or feeling frustrated, vengeful or angry about something their partner said, and the partner doesn't even know what they said or dead, or they didn't realize they were hurting about it. And so it comes up again and again and again, and it never gets squashed. And so if this is you consider, what would it take for you to put this subject to bed? What would it take to finally be done with this thing or this piece of resentment that you're holding on to do you need an apology? Do you need space, Speaker 1 00:55:52 Love, sex, something else. Is there some Speaker 0 00:55:55 Of ceremony that you need? Is it a dinner that can be made? Is there something that can help make you feel better? Every time I reflect back on previous disagreements, I simply see that they're often left in the same place that they were the time before, which is one feels one way and the other fields and other way, and there's nowhere in between. So the next time it crops up, it feels the exact same way, time and time. Again, we have to learn how to break that cycle. So if we're never talking about solving our problems, when things are actually fine and nothing is wrong, if we're not talking about how the relationship is going, are we happy in it? Do we want to continue is a breakup on the horizon. When specifically everything feels fine and you're not lost in a fight or super tense, then we're never going to deal with our breakup or our personal issues until we are at our absolute worst, which is the worst time to deal with them. Speaker 1 00:56:53 When we're triggered ill, Speaker 0 00:56:55 Run down, stressed out, we can't handle it anymore. We think we're going to break. We think we're going to cry. And when everything is crumbling around us, these are the moments we choose to make our most important decisions in. Speaker 1 00:57:06 Come on. Do you want Speaker 0 00:57:08 To make important choices when you're at your worst? When you're experiencing the most fear, pain and negative emotion, do you want to make important decisions when you can't even see straight and don't know which way is up? This is when you really want to decide who you should be with what's best for you and who you want to spend the rest of your life with. Speaker 1 00:57:25 Of course not. It is interesting though. Some of the most important Speaker 0 00:57:30 And growth that we can sometimes do as humans is often experienced after we've gone through what we perceive as a lot of emotional pain, or we realize in hindsight what we were supposed to go through. And so often a lot of times people welcome this type of pain. I don't advocate that and I don't think it has to be that way. In fact, I'll go so far as to say, Speaker 1 00:57:51 I don't believe at all that you have to experience the lowest of lows Speaker 0 00:57:55 To experience the highest of highs. You do not have to have suffered to experience an orgasm. You do not have to do crack or be addicted to heroin, to know what it feels like to take a deep breath, to breathe fresh air, to appreciate life, to appreciate nature, to love animals, to go skydiving or bungee jumping, or do something you love, or to have any kind of wonderful high impact, emotionally charged, positive experience. You don't have to fall down, scrape your knee and bleed to recognize how good it feels to not have that happen. And that doesn't have to happen to recognize how good it feels to have your mother comfort you or hold you or love you. When you're a little boy or a little girl. So often people say, well, you have to have the bad with the good or else. You wouldn't know what the good is, or you have to experience this much pain, have that much pleasure. And I just say, that's not true. The contrast helps. The contrast is necessary. You do need to feel the differences, but they don't have to be so extreme and devastating. So anyhow, this concept is about the idea that we never talk about. What's most important to us. We don't process our feelings. We don't deal with those painful emotions that are still always trapped right in the place where we left them during our last breakup and the breakup before that. And the one before that. Speaker 1 00:59:15 Now Speaker 0 00:59:15 What happens when you like someone more than they like you, we did an entire episode on just this question alone. Almost every relationship has a power imbalance. If you know that you're the person with less power, the breakup is likely going to be much, much harder on you. It's going to feel more difficult. It's going to feel like nothing else in your life matters except for this. And oftentimes it's going to be met with a great deal of confusion. If someone is breaking up with you on the flip side, because they are hurting too much, Speaker 1 00:59:49 Which, and they love you more or like you more or are more attracted to you or they, Speaker 0 00:59:57 I feel more of a connection or they're more accommodating or they give away more of their power. If you will, then you've got a big responsibility here to take a good, hard, look at yourself and see what you're doing to them. What you co-created, what you're causing in them. Because in many cases, it's the person who cares less, who likes the person less, who doesn't respect the person as much, or doesn't honor their boundaries as much. It's always the person who has more power in the relationship who makes the other person suffer more and unnecessarily because the person who cares less, can't be bothered. Speaker 1 01:00:35 Can't be accountable. Speaker 0 01:00:37 Can't put themselves in their partner's shoes for one minute and see how it might feel to be them. In fact, and this is our next concept as well. Often the person who loves the other partner, less winds up becoming more accusatory. They're more likely to attack. They'll have a tendency to be bitchier, needier, fussier, arrogant Speaker 1 01:00:58 More over it than you are. They're more likely Speaker 0 01:01:00 To Gaslight. Ill are more likely to get offended that your upset or hurt. And they're more likely to take on the role of the victim, even though they know damn well, that they're not feeling nearly as much pain as you are. And it's real simple to see this in action, you're breaking up or things are on the verge of breaking up and you're trying to have a conversation and we'll call person a, the one who doesn't care as much in person be the one who does and person B says, Hey, I really want to talk to you. I'm hurting so badly right now. I don't know what's going on. Can we talk? And person a says, I'm busy. I want to, but I can't. Speaker 1 01:01:32 Now I'm running into work. Can it wait? Speaker 0 01:01:35 I'm just running into Pilates right now. I can't talk to you right now. Oh, this is so annoying. You always do this right before I have my coffee. Why is this such a big deal to you? Why are you so emotional? Let's just talk later. Just relax. Take it easy. And shockingly, even though this is the person who you've been with, who you likely just had sex with recently, and who claims to love you, even though this person may have told you that they want to take care of you through sickness and health and want to be with you forever. All of a sudden the person who cared less or who has less invested, Speaker 1 01:02:06 I can't be bothered suddenly. They don't have the time. The space, the care, the energy, the empathy Speaker 0 01:02:13 Is the person who doesn't care as much feeling. Hmm. They are so stuck in their universe of not wanting to feel any discomfort or any pain at all. They want to put distance between you. They want to have space. They want to go out with their girlfriends and have something to drink and not be accountable for what time they come home or what they're doing or where they're going or what after party happens. Next. Many of you know, the story. In other words, the person who doesn't care as much becomes extremely selfish. And self-oriented, this is like the beginning of that severing, that pulling apart, that desire for autonomy. If you're the one going through a breakup, I'm sharing this with you so that you can realize it's not just you, someone's not trying to torture you. Someone's not trying to make your life miserable. Speaker 0 01:02:55 This is just kind of how people are. If you're the person doing the breaking up, when you begin to discard your partner or put them aside, when you begin to get rid of that emotional bond, you're going down a path towards something that you can't recover from. If the way you're behaving towards your partner, who has less power than you continues to be selfish, self-serving arrogant. Or if you lack empathy and ask questions, like, what do you want me to do? What do you want for me? Maybe you say things like, nothing I do is ever enough. I don't know why you're behaving this way. All I'm trying to do is just get my work done, go to class, get some sleep. Why are you blowing me up? Why are you bothering me? I don't want to deal with this right now. If you've got that type of accusational attitude where you are assuming that your partner, the one who's hurting more is trying to bother you by sharing their love with you or letting you know how they feel emotionally or telling you how much they need you in that moment. Speaker 0 01:03:57 That exact moment that if you took vows, you swore you'd be there for them in this kind of moment. You're going to put your partner through a world of hurt. You're not going to be very liked, trusted, or respected when this is all over. And what's worse is you're going to create an unintentional addiction in your partner that actually backfires on you. Let me explain this a little bit more. As you begin to pull back as a partner, as you begin to withdraw and they don't understand why, or they don't know why you're doing it, and you have some sort of established agreement that you're in a relationship you're together, or of course you're married. Especially if you talk every day or you text every day, or you have some sort of unspoken agreement where you're in communication all the time, and then suddenly you withdraw disappear, pull back, get resentful, stopping connected, stop giving morning kisses or cuddles or hugs. Speaker 0 01:04:53 Stop using the regular terms of endearment. When you start behaving differently and really pull back or pull the rug out from underneath someone, you create an addiction and you make them Xoom towards you. You make them gravitate towards you uncontrollably. They don't even realize what's going on because it feels like suddenly they're losing you suddenly you're leaving. Why would their response be to then also pull back further than you are and run away. If you really care about somebody, isn't the natural inclination to talk to them, see what's wrong. Maybe try to fix it or see what you can do to make it right. When someone sees another pull back, they move forward. So if you're someone who thinks it's just peachy to live your entire life, turning off like a light switch and being done. When you decide to be done, leaving a path of destruction in your wake, not caring about how anyone else might feel, because after all you're done or you're over it, when you check out vanish or disappear, not only are you causing worlds of hurt within your partner, you're pulling them toward you and closer to you in a way that's unhealthy for both people. Speaker 0 01:06:03 And you're going to leave your partner in a sad, emotional state. That's likely going to plague them for future relationships. And this carries us right into our next concept, rather nicely, which is we, as people are often terrible sometimes nice, but we are self serving. We have our own best interest in mind. We can't think of anything other than ourselves. We are selfish, arrogant. We are single pointed in our desire to self serve, but this is especially so in a time of crisis or pain. And of course, during a breakup, if someone in the relationship feels chided, pissed, miffed hurt, abandoned, disrespected, or mistreated, all of the care, love, respect, and honoring the had been going on. Sometimes even moments before the partner felt this way. It seems like all the care and sense of personal accountability goes right out the window. Accountability means taking responsibility for your own words, actions, behavior, understanding when something is your fault. Speaker 0 01:07:06 And isn't being able to take ownership of your role for some of the things that went wrong. The interesting thing about people who are stubborn or who doubled down, or who becomes selfish when they get upset or who don't take personal accountability for their actions and choices is it's very easy for them to point the finger or victimize themselves or judge you without ever looking inward. So whether you want to believe that it's your astrological sign that makes you do it, your genetic makeup, or the fact that you were born as a certain ethnicity, people love to offload the sense of responsibility somewhere else, outside of themselves, what do they do? Well, they blame it on their zip code, their area code, their skin, color, their geographical location, their nature. You knew this about me. You know, I'm Irish. Of course, I've got to drink a lot. Speaker 0 01:07:56 Of course. That's why I drink every day. Everyone in my family has got an addictive personality. What do you want me to do? I'm Italian. Of course, I've got a wandering eye. You should have known this going in. Every Italian has an extra lover or a piece on the side. You know, all Brazilian men cheat. This is a known fact. It's in our nature. It's in our blood. Everybody knows this. I'm just doing my job. And my job requires me to expose my chest and my ass on Instagram. So I don't know why you're so upset. This is what I do. It's not me. Who's choosing to do this. I have to do this for my job. Okay. Our next concept is a strong one. It doesn't sound very good to listen to, but it's very true. And it bears repeating when you need something from your partner. Speaker 0 01:08:36 The most, this is the exact time when you are likely to not get what you need when you're the most needy, when you wish you had the most. But don't when you're in the biggest state of lack when you're hurting and you're sad and you just wish they would call you. And you know that they're thinking about you or you're thinking about them, my friends, I'm sorry to say, this is likely when it's not going to happen. Even if it's so easy for your partner to give it to you, even though it just takes a text or a single call. And so what that means is yes, in your darkest hour, when you're hurting the most, all they have to do is call you a simple text back. They could just let you know they're okay. They could just check in on you. It'd be so simple. Speaker 0 01:09:19 They just don't call. They don't call or text in the moments that you need it most during a breakup. And then if that wasn't bad enough, if you call or you continuously call or text, then you put yourself in a world of hurt because now they're defensive, upset, irritated, or perhaps felt like they needed some space. You know, I think what it comes down to is our partners don't realize how needy they almost make us become when they pull back like that. So it creates this neediness that you wouldn't normally have in your relationship. And then when you start behaving in a way that the person perceives as being needy with the questions what's going on, I'd love to see you. Let me drop everything in a moment. I'll be right there. I'm coming. I'm so excited to hear from you. There you are. Why haven't I heard from you? Speaker 0 01:10:11 This pushes your partner away even further. Does that making sense? So even though you might not be a needy person, even though you might pride yourself on giving someone space, they will activate that neediness inside of you by pulling away so quickly or so harshly, or by changing their behavior suddenly, or by not responding to your texts for five or six hours. And in doing that, it's going to draw you closer to them. Hey, everything. Okay? Why didn't I hear back from you? What's going on? When are you going to call me? Why haven't you answer my texts? Why haven't you answered my messages? And now, even though things might've been hot and fiery with you guys a little bit ago, now you sound to them like a problem or like something that's bothering them or they can't quite respond to. And especially if you're a guy behaving like this, women can't stand neediness mostly because they can't stand seeing it in themselves. Speaker 0 01:11:04 Or they recognize that that's how they are. And they don't want a man. Who's that way. No, I'm not saying all women are needy, but you know that it's a quality. It's very easy to be that way. When you really like somebody, they can tolerate it in their girlfriends, but they can't stand seeing it in a man. So it pushes them farther away from you. Suddenly you're acting different than you normally have. And many people think that this is you magically showing your true colors. Even if you've been the strong rock for five years, if you're breaking down now, it's like, Oh, I can't be with that. And the hard thing about this, especially if you're breaking up is it's very easy. If someone isn't emotionally hurt or as hurt as you are to go find someone else to be with, whether it's a friendship or something, sexual or something intimate, it's easy to make that jump because there's no resistance. Speaker 0 01:11:51 There's no static. There's no pressure. And people who aren't very good at relationships who were, who aren't very good at communicating often will simply flee to somewhere where there's less drama issues, tension, or just even mild discomfort. So I know that's really hard to hear when you need your partner's love, care and attention. When you just want to get a follow-up text, when you just want them to listen to you for a few minutes, when you love to just hear their voice, when you need them to not treat you like a pestilence or an annoying irritant, when you need someone to care for you and to hear you out, when you need someone to be there for your heart, when you wish you could talk to them one more time, when you've called several times and they have an answer to they, don't call you back when you don't know where they are in the middle of the night. Speaker 0 01:12:35 Yeah. That's when you don't hear back from the person who you think that you love and who you think loves you. And I know it's horrible and it's ridiculous that it works this way, but it often is going to be your truth. It is shocking how in those times your partner will be nowhere to be found or they won't have the capacity to help you love you or be there for you. Or, and this one is particularly sad. Sometimes your need and desire to talk to them or be with them or hear their voice has somehow become irritating to them. Frustrating agitating. It makes things worse. If they've said, give me some space or leave me alone, or please don't call me right now, or let's just take some time apart. And you're waiting minutes, hours, days, weeks, and you still haven't heard from them and you want to call, but you know, you think it's going to make it worse. Speaker 0 01:13:27 And it probably would. These are the times friends. These are the moments when we have to use the tools from this podcast or anything else that helps you get through it, to work through it on your own, or with someone else who you love and trust. Now, just to argue the other side for a moment, I'm not someone who sits on my laurels and just waits and waits and waits for my partner to hopefully one day come, I don't mind giving a partner some space or let a day or two go by for things to cool off or to revisit something again. But at a certain point, I personally will make the call and I'll say, look, what's going on. I love you. Or I like you, or I'm really into you, or I care about what we have going on here. But vanishing like this, it's just not cool. Speaker 0 01:14:09 Do you want to talk? Do you want to FaceTime? Let's figure it out. So I think knowing how these things work, understanding the likely response that a partner's going to give you, and it's going to hurt you just by having the foresight and the knowledge that it can happen. It's critical to your recovery process or to not feeling as much pain to begin with. Now, do I want you to have a partner? Who's always got your best interest in mind. They're super patient with you. They don't pull any silly behavior like this, of course, but from my experience as a coach and personally time after time break up after breakup, this is how it goes. Sometimes in the early phases of a breakup or in the very beginning, you can enjoy an occasional visit or a call or spending some quality time together. But as you begin to part ways, and you're no longer getting what you need when you need it from that person, the most, it seems like it never comes. Speaker 0 01:15:02 And sometimes all you need is closure. Sometimes it's just being held again or touched one more time or looked at, or admired or appreciated by your lover. Other times it's being made love to or ravished. And sometimes it's sitting on the couch together doing nothing of great importance, but you do anything to have those moments. Again, sometimes you need honesty where they cheating on you. Did they ever really love you? Are they still digging in their heels and not being honest about what the real reason is for your breakup? Does it not make sense? Is there another person involved that they're not telling you about? What's really happening here during these sensitive hard times, most of us are going to shut down. We'll become more avoidant, more distant, will close herself off. We'll often run away, retract, pull back. And at the time when sensitivity and communication are needed, most these moments are usually the times when our partners or our ex partners become completely unavailable. Speaker 0 01:16:05 So the one who is less invested, the one who's able to move on quicker, the one who's leaving the state, the country or town because of a new job, the one who needs to get away to find themselves the one who's a free spirit, the one who just can't be held down. These are the personality types who will likely at some point become completely unavailable to you. And I share this with you so that you can be ready for it so that you can know it's a thing so that, you know, it exists not to make you feel bad or make you feel worse, but so that, you know, what has a high probability of happening, and you can prepare yourself for it. Everybody somewhat intuitively knows how to be sweet kind or loving. Everybody kind of knows how to have sex, generally speaking. But the people who actually know how to get through conflict resolution, to hear their partner, to be with them while they're expressing something and really take it in to share their own side and share their feelings, to communicate with nonviolent communication or even remain calm under tension. Speaker 0 01:17:03 I almost never come across someone who's capable of doing this so gently moving on from all that news, we've got a little more bad news during your breakup. And sometimes even before and after your relationship is over, you've got to know that most partners, maybe even including you lie incessantly, they lie flat out. They lie to your face. They lie to protect you. They lie because they're embarrassed. They lie because they don't want to get hurt. They lie because they think you don't want to get hurt. They lie to protect their family. They lie to protect their friends. They lie because they don't want their friends to know what they're doing and lie because they don't want their family to know what they're doing. They lie because it suits them. They lie because it's habit. They lie because they need to cover another lie. They do it because it makes them feel uncomfortable to talk about it. Speaker 0 01:17:46 They lie because they have deep or hot or richer sexual needs that they don't want to talk about with you. And to top it all off, often, people don't even know when they're lying or exaggerating or minimizing or not disclosing or holding back certain details or deciding what's important and not important for you to know or thinking a lie is perfectly acceptable because you change the pronunciation of the word omit to omit. It's just an omit. Sometimes partners will lie so strongly and so firmly and dig their heels in so strongly about what they feel righteous about. They won't even realize that they're lying because they're so wrapped up in believing the lie that they told themselves. Or sometimes there's the wonderful excuse that they tell themselves that they value your feelings and don't want to hurt you. They feel bad. They say they don't want the truth to hurt you. Speaker 0 01:18:35 I don't want to hurt my husband's feelings. So I can't tell him about the other guy that I'm sleeping with. It doesn't matter what the actual truth is. But if you have something that you think will crush your partner, you've decided that you know, what's best. And so you're going to withhold it and often you'll fight tooth and nail for it. You know, I can't tell you how many conversations I've been in with women over the years, where they hold the truth back. They keep holding it back. And then finally, sometimes years later and after so many lies, they finally come around and say, okay, yes, I did it. I lied to you. I really did sleep with this person. Or wasn't honest about where I was or who I had been with, Speaker 1 01:19:15 Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It's so, so hard Speaker 0 01:19:19 For people to come clean. So people lie incessantly about the real reason they're breaking up with you about why they haven't called you about how busy they've been about who they are or not having sex with about who they would or would not have sex with. And I personally have watched with my own eyes, women, having someone in their bed multiple times while talking to someone else who they're sleeping with, dating or Speaker 1 01:19:43 Together with declaring, they're Speaker 0 01:19:45 All alone. There's somewhere else. It's not what they think. I've watched. People say that they're just out for drinks. When in fact it's much more, I've watched endless amounts of quote, unquote girls nights out, turned into an attention fast, which eventually turned into making out at a bar or having an indiscretion in the car. I think the one that gets me the most, however, is when they assume, or that they know what's best for you, or they say they don't want to hurt you, but really they just want the security of this relationship while they have another, or they don't want to share their secret. Or they know that if they share it with you, they won't be able to be with you anymore. Or they don't want to rock the boat or they don't have the gall to say it themselves. Let's say they're sleeping with someone else. Speaker 0 01:20:30 They couldn't possibly tell you because that would hurt you too much, but they're not going to stop or change their behavior. They've already made plans to move in with another guy, but you're still being strung along. They're in love with someone else. They like someone else. They wish you were someone else. You are their second pick or a second choice. Most people will then use the relatively phony excuse that they don't want to hurt you. I submit that for many people on this planet, that's not true at all. They don't care about not hurting you. They care about their own pleasure and their own selfish needs. They care about having their own fun, having their own thing, Speaker 1 01:21:09 Being free, living their life. And it's an inconvenience that they have to keep it secret from you. Now it's true. Some of us would never do this. And it's also true that some of us are in very, very difficult Speaker 0 01:21:22 Predicaments and situations where it literally just doesn't make sense to say anything. Even though you know, that people would consider what you're doing is wrong. But when it comes down to it, most people are dishonest because they themselves don't want to deal with the pain or shame or the, Speaker 1 01:21:38 Of how they would feel when they see that their partner is crushed by their actions. Speaker 0 01:21:46 That's not fun. They don't want to feel negative emotion. They don't want to feel bad about having caused it. Women are especially Speaker 1 01:21:53 This way. With this subject, women hate it Speaker 0 01:21:55 Feeling bad. They just don't want to feel any negative emotion. So they just don't say anything and they stay quiet. Whereas men often stay quiet because they don't want their partner Speaker 1 01:22:04 To freak out. So in Speaker 0 01:22:06 Taking away the choice in saying, I don't want to tell them because I feel bad or it feels bad, or it feels funny, or I don't want to hurt them. We wind up doing so much more damage than good. Speaker 0 01:22:18 All right. Our next concept follows the previous one. So in lying to our partners in not telling them what's true for us, we will lead them on by using words and phrases. Like, I don't know. I don't know how I'm feeling. I don't know how to answer that. I don't know what I think about that. I don't know what I want. I just need time. I just need space. I just need to think it through. I just need some time to process. Can we spend a few months processing? Oh, it's been three months. No, no, no. I'm not ready to talk about it still. I'm still working through it. I'm still figuring things out. I'm still processing. I can't give you an answer right now because I don't know how to answer hypothetical questions. I couldn't possibly imagine how I would feel in that situation, unless it actually happened to me. Speaker 0 01:22:59 I can't use my imagination. I, I can't, I can't answer direct questions. I don't know what I want right now. It's not you it's me. I'm trying to get to know myself. I'm trying to figure out what I want right now. You know, I'm working on it. That's the thing where I say I'm working on it regularly every week and every month, but nothing really changes. You know, I think I need to travel. I think I need to take a trip. I'm going to meet my best guy friend in Jersey for a week and no, you're not invited. And he and I have never hooked up before. So we're probably not going to hook up now. You know, I need to take some time for me with all of this. I don't know nonsense that you've been touting around for months to several years of your life without ever coming to a conclusion. What winds up happening is you're probably already monkey swinging off to a new relationship or having one on the back burner. But your partner is still holding out for you. And they get left with hope because you don't Speaker 1 01:23:56 Affirmed boundary. You don't say we're Speaker 0 01:24:00 Done. I am not attracted to you anymore. I don't want this. I can't be in this anymore. This is over and I can't do it anymore. And I'm so sorry. And here are the reasons why, but I don't feel like there's a chance of us getting back together now or in the future. It's really, really complete for me. Speaker 1 01:24:19 Who have you ever heard speak like that before? Speaker 0 01:24:22 And what did it take? Five seconds, maybe 10 seconds to utter a simple, truthful statement that can then actually unfold into a conversation. Your partner reacts or explodes. Are you serious? Are you kidding? And then you say, I hate to say it, but yes, yes I am. I'm done. I'm finished. I can't do this anymore. And there it is. Speaker 1 01:24:48 There is some truth. Speaker 0 01:24:50 We've got to get off the incessant merry-go-round of, I don't know. You've got to get off this. I need to think about it. Process this. I don't know what to say. I don't know. I don't know what to do. I've gotta, gotta, gotta enough. Stop it. When you say things like, I don't know. I need some time. I need some space to figure everything out or you say, I do love you. I do want these things, but your actions show something completely different. Like how late you stay out, how often you go out, how available you are, how you respond to people, how you flirt with others, or how many people you're texting and DM-ing or writing to on Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook, and how many compliments you get from other men on a daily basis. And you're just very sweet and nice to keeping all those options open. Speaker 0 01:25:34 Just in case something goes wrong. You have a branch to grab on to, you're leading your partner on. You're confusing them and you're hurting them and you're making the entire dating world suffer for it. Okay. So if you feel certain that a breakup is right around the corner from you, or you feel done, or you don't see this going anywhere, or you can't handle it anymore. If you're not curious about getting back together now or ever, I really just can't recommend ever using statements. Like, I don't know, I just need some space. I got to figure it out. You know how you feel deep down, you know, that you're likely not going to do it this week, this month or next month. And frankly, that lacks backbone, that lacks integrity, that lacks authenticity to not be able to speak your truth. It's the most empowering and relieving thing you can do for both people is to communicate how you actually feel and not be so flacid and indecisive with your partner's heart. You and your partner are worth much more than that. Speaker 2 01:26:38 No. Speaker 0 01:26:38 Now our final concept began here on this episode and was so long and so involved. I decided to give it its own episode. And that's what does it mean? How to handle it when and what to do when your partner tells you that they need space and a quick little hint for the hour long episode that's coming up is that you should probably run for the Hills. You heard that, right? If you're with someone who's asking you for space, not for the afternoon or for a few minutes, or just to clear their head in the other room, but real, real space, a little bit of time to keep to themselves, but they tell you not to contact them for a while while they take space to think about things for as much time as they need. Oh, but you're not supposed to contact them until they're ready to contact you. Well, you learn all about how I feel about that in the next Speaker 2 01:27:26 Episode, but Speaker 0 01:27:28 If you're going through a breakup right now, I hope this episode has helped you tremendously. I hope it's helped you understand yourself better. And at the very least understand your partner better. And I hope that it's brought you clarity in deciding whether you actually want to get back together with them Speaker 2 01:27:43 Or not. Speaker 0 01:27:45 Breakups truly are one of the worst experiences of life. And I hope that this episode has helped you feel a little calmer, a little more relaxed, a little more soothed in your process, and that you're able to get through it on your own time and at your own pace. But as quickly as time will allow, feel free to relisten to it, bookmark it, write down different parts of it that resonate with you. And please share it with friends who are also going through tough times. If you do find yourself constantly reaching out to your friends for support, who can only offer so much, if you notice that you're constantly trying to get more attention or someone to listen to you or someone to talk to you, it's actually a really good sign that you could use some alone time, time for reflection, time to heal, time to get to know yourself. Speaker 0 01:28:29 And then finally remember how important it is to get out into the sunshine. If you've got that going on in your season right now, get out and get some fresh air, even walk in the rain, remembering that there's a whole universe out there waiting for you. Once you cheer up a little bit, once you feel a little bit better, there are a billion fun things for you to do out there. Once you allow your cork to float back up to the surface. Thank you all so much for listening and I'll see you in the next episode. Speaker 2 01:28:56 Thank you for choosing the closeness podcast. Speaker 0 01:28:58 If you haven't already please consider subscribing us on Pandora, YouTube, Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else. Podcasts can be found if you're moved by this and you'd like to get some help with your breakup, or you'd like to receive some one-on-one or two on one coaching, please visit the website www dot, get closest.com forward slash intake to get started with closest coaching or visit, get closest.com to learn more. Thank you and have a wonderful day.