Jay's Must- Listens: Before You Text Your Ex… Listen to This! 5 Love Experts Share the SECRET to Let Go and Move On (Ft. Esther Perel, Mel Robbins, & Matthew Hussey)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey everyone, It's Jay Sheddy and I'm thrilled to announce
my podcast tour. For the first time ever, you can
experience on purpose in person. Join me in a city
near you for meaningful, insightful conversations with surprise guests. It
could be a celebrity, top wellness expert, or a CEO
or business leader. We'll dive into experiences designed to experience growth,

(00:25):
spark learning, and build real connections. I can't wait to
meet you. There are a limited number of VIP experiences
for a private Q and a intimate meditation and a
meet and greet with photos. Tickets are on sale now.
Head to Jsheddy dot me forward Slash Tour and get
yours today. A breakup can literally wreck your life. You

(00:49):
could be doing so well in your career and now
you show up to work in the worst mood. You
could have a great relationship with your family, but now
every holiday season all you can do is thing about
that person. You've got a great group of friends around you.
They love you, but they're all in relationships and you
feel like you're behind. You feel like you're not the
one who's getting proposed to, You're not the one who's

(01:11):
moving in you're the one who's starting all over again.
If you felt any of that, this episode is dedicated
to you, because I want your breakup to become a
moment you look back on as the greatest pivot that
ever happened in your life.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
The number one health and wellness podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Jay Set Jay shetyt. At one point in life, each
of us gets our heart broken. Maybe it was two
years ago, maybe it was two months ago, or maybe
it was two days ago, but each and every one
of us knows how painful a heartbreak can be because

(01:53):
you're not only losing that person, you're losing the perception
of the life you believed you were going to have.
You're losing the version of you you were with that person,
and you're losing the projection of this future that you
were building together. What we don't realize about breakups is

(02:16):
that we're actually living through grief. It's this slow aching
loss that doesn't have a funeral. You're mourning a future
that won't happen, trying to figure it out all the sadness,
the confusion, the anger, and often in the beginning, you
think I wish they would stay, I wish they'd be

(02:38):
here forever. And then sometimes you move into this phase
of what did I do wrong? What could I have
done differently? Could I have held on? Could I have
been better? And then at some point you go between
the two. At the same time, healing isn't linear, it's messy,
it's raw, it's deeply personal. And so as you listen
to this today, whichever stage you're at in your breakup journey,

(03:02):
I hope it helps you. In this clip, relationship expert
therapist and best selling author of Maybe You Should Talk
to Someone, and one of my favorite guests on the podcast,
talks about how we expect a sense of closure. We
want someone to give us this feeling and understanding of
why they left us, what was their reason, why did

(03:23):
they cheat on us? If that was the case, And
often we can spiral and go round and around in circles,
hoping and expecting this answer, but we all know that
answer rarely comes. That person's not around anymore, they don't
feel a responsibility to give it to us, and closure
is something we continue to chase. In this segment, she'll

(03:45):
talk a bit about how you can find that and
where it truly comes from. At the same time, she
talks about how we need to acknowledge the value of
what's lost. It's so important to really recognize how we've
lost things in the past and the future. And she
also tells us how to seek advice from our friends.
We all want love, we all want support, but she

(04:08):
gives a really clear insight to know which friends to
be around when you're going through a breakup. Take a listen.
I still find until this day that breakups seem to
be the hardest relationship transition that people tend to go through,
maybe apart from grief or maybe even similar, And I'd
love your thoughts on that, but because it is a

(04:29):
kind of loss, I think that people feel. There was
one person from the audience that we were connected with
that had a breakup, and they were together with this
person for two years. They really thought this to the
person that they were going to spend their life with.
They really thought this was going in their direction. They
felt that they actually had good compatibility, they were good

(04:51):
at talking about things. But then what felt like out
of the blue to this person. They just felt that
this person was like, I don't think this is going
in that direction anymore, and then things withered away quickly.
It's hard when you kind of you know, and this
is probably what you get all the time. People don't
feel a sense of closure. They don't really understand the
other person's not doing a good job explaining it doesn't

(05:14):
want to or doesn't have the time. What are some
of the steps that we need to take when we're
kind of lost in that no person's land of I
thought I had something, it doesn't exist anymore.

Speaker 3 (05:24):
Well, first of all, loss is exactly it's grief, and
people go through the stages of grief, and the stages
of grief are not sequential, so they're actually meant for
people who are experiencing terminal illness, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance,
but they're very apt, I think for any kind of loss.
And when you talk about a breakup, there can be

(05:45):
denial like oh, you don't really mean that we really
are compatible, and you try to talk the other person into.

Speaker 4 (05:52):
Maybe seeing the light that they can't see.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
You know.

Speaker 3 (05:56):
The anger is how could you have led me on
for this amount of time? You're such a terrible person.
You wasted all my time. You were lying to me
this whole time when the person wasn't They probably truly
you know, thought this was going somewhere.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
You know.

Speaker 3 (06:11):
The bargaining is, well, what if you know you know,
and the person tells you maybe why they're breaking up
with you, like I don't think that we're compatible in
this way, and then you try to become the thing,
you know, like what if I did this, or I
can be more of this, or we can do this,
and they're like, no, that's not really the way this
will get solved. You know, depression, which is just the whole.

(06:33):
I mean, it's so because I think what people don't
realize is it's not what you're losing just in the moment.
It's you're losing the future that you had imagined. So
you lose the past. You lose like all the whatever
amount of time you spent with that person. You built
a life with this person, and it's the dailiness. There's
an intimacy to that dailiness. There's a comfort, there's a

(06:55):
safety of this person knows all these little quirks about me.
You know, we have all these inside jokes, We have
a shorthand you know, this person asks how my day is.

Speaker 5 (07:06):
I know.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
It's the dailiness of being with someone.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
So you lose that.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
That's very lonely, but then you also lose the future.
You had built up a whole story about what your
lives were going to be like in a year, five years,
ten years, twenty years gone, and you have nothing to
replace it with right now because you don't know what
it's going to look like yet. So the grief is real,
and I think people try to downplay it. They're like,
why are you so sad about this? He was a

(07:32):
jerk or she was a jerk or whatever. It's like,
I'm sad because I lost something very important to me,
and your friends need to realize that instead of just
demonizing the other person, they need to realize, like, you
lost something really valuable in your daily life, in the present,
in the future, part of your past. All of that
is gone now, so that's really hard. I think the

(07:53):
other part of them dealing with the grief is letting
yourself feel it, because it's real. No matter what people
I tell you, it's real. And the other part is
the story that you're telling yourself about it is really important.
So you might be telling yourself a story of the
other person's terrible that might feel good in the moment.
It might be something like I'm bad you know, like

(08:14):
I'm not good enough. If I were only something else,
this person would love me more. I'm not lovable, or
I'll never find anyone right. Those are not helpful stories
because it's not true. It's you were not compatible with
this person for whatever reason, even though you thought you were.
If the other person doesn't feel you're the right person
for them, you're automatically incompatible, right. You can't make it

(08:36):
so that well, they just don't see it. So we
aren't compatible because the other person doesn't want to be
with me. So many times i'll hear you know someone
even without a breakup, Like someone will be dating someone
and the person isn't really invested in the relationship, maybe
in the way that they would like them too, and
the person sitting on my couch will state, but we're

(08:56):
so compatible, we're so perfect for each other. That person
just has intimacy issues and I could just change them.
Even if the breakup was about you think the person
had intimacy issues, it doesn't really matter. The point is
they aren't able to be with you, so you are
not compatible, and so that is I think very comforting
to know, like we are just not compatible, even though
it hurts a lot. We're not compatible, and I have

(09:18):
to sit with the pain of I need to know
that we were not compatible and that's not going to
jade me in other relationships, And I think that's the
important thing. So many times we get into a new
relationship after that and we punish the new person for
something the old person did right like the old the
old person wasn't truthful with me. So I'm going to

(09:40):
like check your phone all the time. No, don't, don't
like put someone in jail for a crime they didn't commit.
So you got to really like know what are the
wounds from this relationship? What am I learning from this?
What does this teach me about me about the other person?
And then how do I move into a new relationship
with hope and with caution and holding both hope and caution.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
Now, this next clip is from relationship expert and my
good friend Matthew Hussy. What I love about this that
I think's going to help so many of you is
so many of us turn a breakup into self blame.
We think about all the things we got wrong, all
the things we should have done better, all the things

(10:26):
we could have done better, all the things we wish
we did, and it becomes this almost self critical version
of a conversation. And because you've not got the other
person to talk to anymore, it's something you're going through
by yourself. Matthew talks about how you can shift in
this situation, how do we go from this happened to

(10:50):
me to how can I grow from this? Listen to
this clip. If you're struggling right now with blaming yourself
for the breakup you just went through. Talk a bit
about breakups, because I think the challenge is that everyone
in their life goes through at least one or two,
maybe more, really painful breakups, whether it's in fidelity, whether

(11:13):
it's out it feels out of the blue, someone just
goes Yep, not working out for me anymore, whether it's
different goals and different plans and priorities that emerge over time.
And I think everyone who goes through a breakup blames
it on themselves. Often thinks that this is the end,
there'll never be another person, and it feels like a

(11:35):
really dark, dark, dark empty road and a lonely road.
And I think it's really interesting because there's so many
piece of advice and everything about like how to get
over a breakup, and I've talked about that as well myself,
but I just find that it seems to be a
path that you have to walk and have to take
and there's no real acceleration or there's not, as you said,

(11:58):
there's not like I'm going to get over this breakup
in three right, there's no timeline or deadline that you
can set on here. But it's just uncomfortable and it's
almost like sitting in discomfort. What do we do when
we're sitting in that discomfort?

Speaker 4 (12:10):
Well, when you're in the depths of it, because there's
different phases, right, Like there's certainly a phase of any
heartbreak when it's genuine deep heartbreak where you are just
questioning your existence where you are like.

Speaker 6 (12:28):
This.

Speaker 4 (12:29):
You know, I remember having my own heart broken and
sitting on the door the doorstep of my house with
a friend of mine and just with tears in my
eyes saying to him, I just feel like I'm not
good enough. Like that was my deep sense, was that
I am not good enough, and if I was good enough,

(12:51):
I would have been able to make this work. And
that's it's a horrible place to be. And you know,
we have to have compassion for ourselves in those times
because it's brutally difficult. It's a time where we just
need love and we need to celebrate the fact that

(13:15):
we got through another day and that we got I
managed to get out of bed today, and you know,
it was an act of it was a heroic act
for me to just get out of bed. We then
have to you know, I always think that all of
these moments give us gears that we wouldn't have had otherwise.

(13:37):
And the worst pain of my life has given me
access to gears that I didn't know I had. And
as much as no one wants to hear it when
they're in it, those gears turn out to be really valuable.
They really do. I mean, we all choose suffering in
our lives, like we choose to go to the gym's

(14:00):
choosing suffering. We choose like to write a book, choosing
a form of suffering, we choose to make a podcast,
or we choose to climb a literal mountain, or like
we choose pain in our lives regularly because we know
that it gives us there are benefits to be had.

(14:20):
I have to argue that the benefit I have gotten
from the pain that I didn't choose has been no
less valuable than the benefit I've gotten from the pain
I did choose. In fact, actually, I think the most
valuable pain I've ever had is the pain I didn't choose.
And when you realize that, you can kind of almost
I think, look at some of the worst moments of

(14:42):
your life as like a menu of pain, and beside
the item on the menu is the very specific, unique
benefits that can only come from this kind of pain,
and you can kind of imagine yourself choosing retroactively choosing
that pain, which is a very valuable thing to do.

(15:04):
Because I was told by a psychologist about an experiment
on rats where one rat was on a wheel and
was just given, you know, like the free reign to
just run whenever it wanted to run. There was another rat,
this was Rat A. Rap B was connected to that wheel.

(15:26):
He was on another wheel that was connected to Rat
A's wheel, and any time Rat A chose to run,
Rap B had to run right, So both doing the
same amount of exercising. But at the end of the experiment,
rat A shows all the positive markers of exercise and

(15:46):
rap B shows all the negative markers of stress. Oh wow,
same amount of exercise was the difference. Well, rat A
chose to run, rap B didn't. And there's something profound
about that to me, because if we can take a
situation that we didn't choose, who would choose to be heartbroken?

Speaker 1 (16:07):
Right?

Speaker 4 (16:07):
It's the worst, it's a terrible pain. But what if
in that pain you did realize, like, there is something
here that I'm going to gain from this experience that
I couldn't have any other way. That if I look
on that menu of pain, this one has some really
good benefits, like this one has some really amazing stuff.

(16:30):
Who I'm going to have to become to get through this?
What I'm going to have to learn. The way I'm
going to have to get comfortable, even just to get
through a weekend right now on my own is it
is going to be this unbelievable feat and to get
comfortable in my own company and to sit in this pain,

(16:51):
and there are such profound benefits from that. What if
I did actually look at those benefits and say they're
so powerful that I'm going to choose this pain so
that I can experience those benefits. And so you turn
yourself from rat B to rat A, and all of
a sudden, you're not a victim of that pain anymore.

(17:12):
You're the beneficiary of these exquisite gifts that you could
only get this way, and that only there's one tool
I've used to get through some of the worst, worst
pain of my life. And then on a practice and
on a psychological level, with heartbreak, what I always remind

(17:34):
people is that if anyone who doesn't choose you cannot
be for you. They if they don't see you like
what is a relationship. It's someone sees you, they accept you,
and they want that. That's the most beautiful part of
a relationship. So if someone doesn't see you and accept

(17:55):
you and want what they see, then this relationship is
missing the most beautiful part of any relationship. It shouldn't
even be you know, it shouldn't be desirable at that
stage because it's not. It has failed the fundamental test
of what makes a relationship worth having. We're not talking
about a person who you know, in at least the

(18:16):
case I feel, we're talking about the person who was
taken from us by life. We're talking about a person
who's just walking around somewhere, still existing on the planet,
but choosing not to be with us. That should lose
its romance to us, you know, and to say, well,
if that's the other game we play is if it

(18:39):
was a different time in life, if they were a
bit older, they would have been ready to commit, If
they had been in a different phase where they weren't
so busy with their work, they might have had the
space to really give to this relationship. But they said
their work isn't allowing them to. If it's like, we
go through all these scenarios where it forces us into
this sad love song of right person, wrong time, and

(19:03):
that's a really like pernicious story. That's a very dangerous
story because it takes what belongs in the realm of
science fiction and brings it into our reality. When we're
thinking about an X from like five years ago and

(19:24):
we're like, I miss them. I don't know why. You know,
you don't even know who they are anymore. That was
five years ago. They're a different person now in many ways.
You're a different person now in anyway if you've got
together now, you'd be getting together as different people. You miss.
A ghost person doesn't exist anymore in the way that
you think they do, you know, And when you're saying, oh,
if only we met five years from now, it would

(19:46):
have worked in what parallel universe? It's this is science fiction, like,
it's not. It didn't happen in this universe. So it's
it's like it is wishing for a parallel universe where
everything all the Domino's unfolded in a different way. It's
not this universe. So we just we have to get

(20:10):
out of this mindset because it gets us bought into
a science fiction story that doesn't really exist. I don't
believe in the right person at the wrong time. It's
the right person is right in their personality, they're ready,
and their life is compatible with yours. If you're missing

(20:33):
one of those three things, then it's not the right person.
The right person has to be more than someone who
you have a great time with and you like who
they are and have great conversation and great intimacy. That
can't That's not the only criteria for someone who's right.
So we have to stop telling ourself the story that
someone who you know broke up with us, or it

(20:55):
was bad timing or whatever, is the right person for us.
That is a That is just a story. It is
not reality. The right person is the person. It happens
with I.

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(22:35):
you've thought about this before. We all have this feeling
did I meet the right person at the wrong time
or did I meet the wrong person at the right time,
And we can kind of get lost in that phase.
This next clip from Stefan Speaks is for you. If
you're one of those people who's wondering, Ah, did I
just lose the right person for me? Did I just

(22:56):
let go of the person who I was meant to
spend my life with. Did I just make a mistake
and lose the right person and meet them at the
wrong time. This clip is going to help you make
sense of that. What he's also going to talk about
is the impact it has on us when our partner

(23:17):
no longer wants to communicate with us. Maybe you're in
a relationship where your partner doesn't like to have difficult conversations.
Maybe they don't like to talk about emotions. Maybe they
don't have the capacity to go to that depth with you,
And if they're getting everything else right, maybe it's possible.
But if you're starting a field is weakening the relationship.

(23:40):
Stefan speaks really clearly on how to make a decision.
So if you're stuck in that point, this clip's really
going to help you as well. And if you're someone
who feels like you keep making the same mistakes, maybe
keep picking the same person, just someone that looks different.
Maybe you keep being too needy or too wanting or

(24:02):
too demanding, or maybe you always end up trying to
fix their problems and solve their life. If you found
a recurring pattern in your relationship and you want to
know how to interrupt it and break it, this clips
for you. Take a listen.

Speaker 5 (24:16):
Letting go doesn't always mean it can't work out later.
It's just that it cannot work out under these circumstances,
all right. Because some people say, well, I feel like
they're the one. Okay, maybe they are, but maybe the
time is not right, And it's letting go that will
allow you both to do what needs to be done
in your own personal lives, that will allow you to

(24:37):
come back together and have something way more amazing. So
that's number one thing to consider. But outside of that,
it's when one if that person is unwilling to put
in the work necessary, it's time to go. There's like
so many times I'll I'll have a video go up
about communication and someone will comment saying I've tried talking
to him and he doesn't want to talk to me.

Speaker 6 (24:59):
And in my and I'm like, but why are you
still with them? If he refuses to talk to you.
You've already tried. There's nothing else to do. But people
will let it linger on and continue why they can
why they consistently complain or unhappy about this specific issue.
It's not gonna magically get better. They're not gonna just
change it just because all of a sudden they see,

(25:20):
oh it needs to change. No, if they're fighting it now,
they have no reason to change it. And what people
have to understand, you know, especially with this whole trying
to fix people up, healing and facing your traumas is
one of the hardest things.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
For people to do.

Speaker 5 (25:34):
So if they already have you in their life, they're
essentially getting the incentive or the benefit of relationship without
having to do the deeper work. It's almost like if
I'm at a job and the job says you need
to have a master's degree to work here, but we're
gonna hire you anyway and give you time to get
that master's degree. If getting that degree is super hard
to you, you're gonna drag that out as long as possible.

(25:57):
You may never get the degree until they fire you.
When they fire you and you realize, oh my gosh,
if I don't do this, I'll never get this person back.

Speaker 2 (26:07):
I'll never get this opportunity back.

Speaker 5 (26:08):
Now, they might go and get it because it's very
tough to walk down the path of the healing process.
So if they're not willing to work on it, you
guys have already discussed it. And I think that's a
big thing because there's a lot of relationships that end
and the couples don't even know what the real issue was.
So the communication they'll say, well, we talked about no,

(26:29):
you guys argued, you guys lashed out. There wasn't a
clear communication as to what the problem was, what is expected,
How do we go about this? If you've done that,
and I believe one of the most effective ways to
do that is through a letter because I feel like
verbal communication of deep issues and concerns they typically don't
go well. You know, people get distracted, they forget what

(26:51):
they want to say. The other person gets defensive. They're
not they're listening to a rebuttal not to understand. But
when there's a letter involved, it gives you time to
get everything out. You can you can evaluate your tone,
leave no stone unturned, and now they have an opportunity
to process it on their time, to really take it in.

(27:11):
And then you guys can come together and discuss the letter,
and now it's so much easier to stay on point.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
And get everything covered.

Speaker 5 (27:20):
If we've done that and they're still unwilling or there's
still no progress, it's time to go.

Speaker 1 (27:26):
Yeah, that's great, that's great advice. And I for me,
that's the biggest one. It's like, you can't make something
lost if only one person's working on it. You can't
keep hoping and waiting and wishing. And and like you said,
that ending doesn't mean forever. And often I've found that

(27:47):
two people need to grow individually to be able to
grow collectively. And we're forcing growing together so hard, but
we need space to grow. And if you can't grow together.
Chances are you need to grow apart in order to
see whether you grow together again or grow for someone else,
And all of those options are okay, But we put

(28:10):
so much pressure on people to grow together that they
grow apart. And actually, if they chose to grow apart
and grow separately, they could come back together if they
learn the lessons. And I think that's a mistake too
that sometimes people think I'm gonna go learn this lesson
for this person I meet. A lot of people are like, Okay,
they broke up with me because I wasn't x y Z.

(28:32):
Now I'm gonna go become x y Z to win
them back. And I always find them just like, well, no,
you should go become XYZ if you think you were
missing x y Z, but not to win them back
because you don't know what they're gonna do. What's your
take on people trying to win people back?

Speaker 5 (28:49):
So I want not to present agree with you, Like,
if we're trying to learn or grow, it needs to
be for the benefit of who we are and just
whoever we deal with. So it's almost like if I
was a bad communicator in this relationship, I shouldn't learn
to better communicate for that person. I need to better
communicate for whoever I'm going to be with. If you
can't see it in that light, then maybe you're looking

(29:12):
at the wrong thing.

Speaker 2 (29:13):
My thing is this. I think it all depends on
what the.

Speaker 5 (29:15):
Details of the situation was, what led to the breakup,
What were you overlooking?

Speaker 2 (29:20):
What was missing?

Speaker 5 (29:21):
Are these fixable issues because a lot of people are
trying to win back someone where the issues are not resolved.
So it's like, what's the point of going back, We're
just going to go in the same cycle all over again.
They're letting this idea up. I missed them. I don't
want to be without them, blind them from the fact
that you two did not get along well, or you
two don't want the same things, or you two just

(29:43):
whatever it is. Maybe there's a lack of sexual satisfaction.
I don't know why I father need to mention that,
but it happens a lot of times. You have to
stay focused on what led to the end and can
this be corrected if it can cool But as you
men correcting, it does not guarantee you they're coming back.

(30:05):
And even if they will come back, you don't know
when they may need so you may have figured yourself
out in six months, they might need a year. And
I would argue, if you guys are truly meant for
each other and they need a year, you need a year.

Speaker 2 (30:20):
Two.

Speaker 5 (30:21):
You're just overlooking some things and you're rushing the process
because you want to get back to them.

Speaker 2 (30:25):
Yeah, it's I've never found.

Speaker 5 (30:26):
A situation where it was truly only one person who
had problems and the other person was squeaky clean.

Speaker 2 (30:33):
No no, no, no, you thought you were, but you
have some stuff too you need to correct.

Speaker 5 (30:39):
So I think we have to be honest with ourselves
and just keep striving to be better, and rather than
focus on winning them back, just become the best you
because if you do, and there's a true connection there,
the opportunity will present itself again and you two will
be able to make something of it.

Speaker 1 (30:56):
And the struggle is that when people finally make that
decision to break up or let go, the studies show
that the parts of your brain that are activated in
a breakup are the same as detoxing from cocaine. Right, Like,
you're literally trying to detox so you can have a
craving for someone that's bad for you, or also It

(31:20):
says that the areas of the brain that are activated
in a breakup are the areas that are the same
with physical pain. So if someone like punching the stomach.
The reason why we say like my heart feels broken
is because it literally feels like something's broken. So when
you're going through a breakup, when you're feeling the craving
to be with that person again, studies showed that eight

(31:41):
over eighty percent of people are looking at what their
exes are doing on social media right probably through a
Finster account or whatever. But you have to know what
are some of the healthiest tips that you've given to
people and the people that you've worked with that have
genuinely helped people moved through a breakup.

Speaker 5 (31:58):
The first thing is to ask yourself again, why was
I even there? Why am I holding on to this
individual again? I think sometimes we get so blinded by
just the experience or our desire to have this person
forever reason that we overlook what was really missing or
why this could not work anyway. What you'll also find is,

(32:19):
and I'm sure there's probably a study on it, where
if they broke up with you, you ever seen a
situation it happens on TV a lot where the person
can be like, Okay, I'm gonna break up with my partner.
They're planning on it, they've been practicing in their head, right.
It took them a couple of weeks to muster up
the strength they're about to do it, and then the
partner breaks up with them. Now it's, oh my gosh,
I gotta get them back. So it's like you just

(32:41):
forgot this whole time. That was your plan. It just
gave you the pass to do it. But now, because
we don't like to be the one being let go of,
now we're fighting hard to get it back. So we
have to really not fall into these little traps that
happened to us as human beings. Our brains just play
tricks on us or something where we confuse these emotions

(33:04):
for oh my gosh, I must really love them, or
even like you said, you go in through that detox
and because you miss I always tell people, no matter
how bad relationship was, there's always good moments. So if
you're trying to break free, you can't just let your
brain focus on the good moments. You have to remind
yourself why this doesn't work. But if you keep focusing

(33:24):
on the good, you start to make yourself think, oh,
because I miss this good moment, I must miss them.
And as this quote that says, sometimes you're not missing
the person, you're missing the feeling. So you've got to
be able to differentiate those two things. So getting back
to how we get over these breakups is recognizing why
were we really there to begin with? You know, could

(33:45):
this actually work? The next thing is, you know, I'm
a huge believer that a lot of times a breakup
is a blessing in disguise. Even if there is a
chance that you two can work together or this is
the one for you, you may have need this time
to reevaluate and get things in order. Something is obviously wrong,

(34:05):
even if you it may be something as deep as
because I've seen situations where everything was going amazingly well
on the surface and the person broke up with them.
Let's say the woman lets go of the man, so
to the man, that's really confusing. But what it was
is that that woman, she had not healed from her
past relationships, and this relationship being so good, was scaring her.

(34:27):
And what happens is the better you are, the scarier
it becomes for her. She's looking for something to be wrong.
She has to validate her fear somehow. When she can't
find it, she'll either sabotage the relationship or she'll run
from it. So to that man, it may seem like
this is so unfair, which, yeah, it sucks, But if
this woman didn't break up with you now, you were

(34:49):
in never be going to face this same ending but
at a worse time. All Right, this is still best
that it's happening now, at least if she can go
do what she needs to do. There's a chance for
this to come back around later, but it's hard for
us to see it in the moment. So I think,
just really, we also have to focus on our healing
whenever a breakup happens. The mistake we make is that

(35:12):
we think it's about healing from the breakup. No, it's
healing from everything you've been through. You've probably been sweeping
under the rug your childhood trauma for years, maybe the
last two three relationships, whatever it is, so and not
healing from those things is contributing to your struggle to
get past this breakup, and contributing to why you even chose.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
This person to begin with.

Speaker 5 (35:36):
I'm a huge believer that if you haven't healed, you
are ninety percent likely to choose the wrong person. It's
just too difficult to pick that person that you truly
love and can truly love you and accept that level
of vulnerability when you have still not resolved your past
traumas and past hurts. So to me, that's the next

(35:56):
big thing is just focus on your healing process because
in that process, says you will also be able to
see more clearly if this is really for you or not.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
Like walking around.

Speaker 5 (36:07):
Unhealed is like walking around with broken glasses. You can't
see straight no matter how hard you try. But healing
will clear up your vision really really fast. And now
it'd be like, oh, wait a minute, I didn't belong there.

Speaker 2 (36:19):
Yeah, you know, thank god the breakup happened. You know,
now I'm in a better place. I move forward.

Speaker 5 (36:25):
So to me, I think and I would say in
addition to those things, is just have an accountability partner,
whether that's friend, coach, therapist, someone that can help keep
you in check, help remind you what you need to do,
someone that you know you have to talk to and
update what's going on so that you feel like, Okay,
I don't want to come back to them saying I'm

(36:45):
doing the same thing over and over again. It doesn't
guarantee success, but it helps, It helps move the needles some.
So I would highly encourage that.

Speaker 1 (36:54):
That one mindset you spoke about that that changes everything.
And it hit me today. I was just thinking if
we were just able in a moment to recognize that
something painful now was going to be good for us
in five years time, that would change so many things

(37:14):
in our life. But we're so poor at dealing with
current pain, even if it means future joy, that we
just can't accept that I have to go through this
in everything, right, Like knowing that someone breaking up with
you just saved you ten years of a wasted life

(37:36):
is so much more than knowing you're going to have
to go through a few months of pain and ten
months of pain. Maybe it's a bit longer, maybe it's
two three years, but we just have to get our
head around that that sometimes the best things that happened
to you are protecting more of your life than the
pain that they're causing.

Speaker 2 (37:53):
You need the piece of knowing I did what I
needed to do.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
That's it.

Speaker 5 (37:57):
Because a time you feel like well maybe I could
have done this, but I could have done that leaves
the door open for doubts.

Speaker 2 (38:04):
Well exactly.

Speaker 5 (38:05):
So it's like, and that's why I'm such a big
believer in you know, there's people who say, well, once
they're done, they're done, they'll just move on. And I'm like, no, no, no,
express yourself, get everything off your chest because you don't
need anything to linger. And you questioning, well, what if
I did this different? No, make speak your full peace,
and now you can say, all right, I did what
I had to do.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
It is what it is.

Speaker 5 (38:26):
I move forward, and I mean it makes it easier.
It may not make it one hundred percent, you know,
not an issue whatsoever, but it's going to be easier.
And I'll say also for me, that's why, like my
relationship with God is so important because that's where I
find my peace in dealing with a situation that doesn't
work out the way I want to. I always tell myself, Okay,
if this isn't working out, God has something better for me.

(38:48):
You know, if this is happening right now, there's a
purpose because I know if I followed his guidance throughout
this process, then there's no need for me to question
why is this the current outcome. There's a reason for this,
and I've been through these things enough times to see.
As you mentioned, the reward is going to come. It
may come next week, it may come years from now.
It will come and I'll be able to see how

(39:08):
it all connected.

Speaker 1 (39:10):
Now, be honest with me, how many of you have
gone through a breakup and then just started craving your
ex where you're now looking at their social media profiles,
You're looking at old text messages, You're talking to your
friends who know that person and trying to find out
what they're up to. It can drive us crazy, because
breakups can actually make you crave your ex like an addiction.

(39:34):
That's what our next guest, New York Times best selling
author Est Parrel and relationship therapist for decades, talks about.
In this clip, we also learn about how a lot
of the challenges that we face in our relationship, a
lot of the conflicts actually come from our own fears.

(39:54):
If you find yourself always being insecure in a relationship,
if you're always second guessing that person's into if you're
always questioning whether they're truly emotionally available, or really care
for you, or really there for you.

Speaker 2 (40:07):
This clip is for you.

Speaker 1 (40:09):
I've seen research that shows how when someone breaks up
with you, or when you break up with someone, you
almost crave them like we crave an addiction that may
even be unhealthy for us at times. Why do you
use the word grief and can you walk us through
both of those losses of identity that you spoke about
on either end.

Speaker 7 (40:29):
So grief is because I think every choice comes with loss.
The consequence is the choice you didn't make. And even
though you think this is the right choice and this
is what I must do, the grief may be the
fact that you didn't you were not capable of making
this thing work, or that you had such high hopes
and it didn't materialize, or that you have wished that

(40:52):
you didn't make some mistakes that you made, or that
you wish you had left sooner. There's lots of thing
fruit waists, but there is no choice that doesn't have loss,
and therefore some grief attached to it. And that is
the nature of the beast. That does not mean that
you didn't make the right choice. In terms of heartbreak,
it's a different part. Yes, some people experience heartbreak with

(41:15):
such an ache, with such a sense of longing and
such a sense of fracturing on the inside, that they
are that their longing becomes obsessive, that they are trapped
in rumination, and that it experienced like a withdrawal. That
is not all breakups, but that is the extreme kind

(41:35):
of breakup which has been compared to an addiction because
of the intense sense of withdrawal and because it takes
place in the same centers in the brain.

Speaker 1 (41:44):
And you talked about there. How you know, trying to
change the other person isn't necessarily the focus, but for
so many of us, that seems to be the problem.
The problem seems to be the other person's behaviors, their attitude,
their approach to life, maybe their aspirations. I hear a
lot of people say things like they don't dream enough,

(42:06):
they don't dream, they dream too little, right, Like it's
much too much, right, that's it.

Speaker 2 (42:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:11):
I hear some people say they don't dream enough, they
dream too much. I hear people say, oh, they have
too many friends, they have no friends, right. I see
people at both ends of the spectrum. We always seem
to have issues with how our partners live. And what
I've learned, at least in my own personal reflection. And
I've found is that for a long time in my relationships,

(42:34):
I often projected the way I lived onto my partner.
And we so strongly believe that the way we live
is right, the way we were brought up is right,
that we want our partner to kind of follow suit.
And I always give this very small example from my
own home. But in my house, we used to eat,

(42:55):
hang out, and then at the end of the night,
we'd wash the dishes. In my wife's home, they used
to eat, wash the dishes, and then hang out. And
so when we got married and we started living together,
and when we were having friends over or whatever it
may be, in my mind, we're gonna eat, we're gonna
hang out, and then we're gonna wash the dishes. Now
my wife's sat mind, she's thinking, we're gonna eat. Now
we have to clean up, make sure everything's clean, and

(43:16):
then we can hang out. And something as little as
that can cause so much friction and bad communication and
feelings of oh, you don't care about me, and you
don't love me, and you don't appreciate me, or you
don't value the work. And there's so much that comes
from something and That's just a very small example. But
it's interesting to me that in that scenario, we both

(43:37):
had not created a new belief system for our relationship,
but we're operating based on two old belief systems that
we'd simply adopted. Walk us through whether you agree, whether
you disagree, whether you can edit that, reveal more to
us about I find so many of our challenges exist
because we project our operating system onto someone else rather

(44:01):
than creating one with them.

Speaker 7 (44:03):
I like the way you call it the operating system.
So I'm going to take a sentence that you highlighted
and start from there. You said, here, we were fighting
about what's the right moment to do the dishes, But
in fact, what we were talking about is you don't care,
you don't see me, you don't appreciate me, you want
it your way. And what you're highlighting here is something

(44:24):
that I've actually talked a lot about in a new
course that I'm doing on conflict, which is exactly that
how do you turn conflict into connection? And one of
the things I say is that it's not what you
fight about, it's what you fight for. You were fighting
for recognition, you were fighting for power and control. You
were fighting for respect, you were fighting for trust and closeness.

(44:49):
Underneath the fight, there are usually three sets of issues
that we are actually fighting for, and that is power, trust,
and value. So you don't value me. You know, I
worked on this dish, on this cooking, I've made this
nice meal I prepared. I try to be kind to
your friends, and you don't value me. Once you've understood that,

(45:11):
what is the hidden dimension that you are actually fighting for?
The fight, the dishes, the when to do them becomes
a lot more clear, a lot more clear, rather than
it's not just I'm imposing my belief on you and
I wanted to do my way because my way is
the right way. That's you may think this way. But

(45:32):
the question is what happens when you have to confront
yourself with someone who is different. I mean, everything about
relationships is about straddling sameness and difference, you know, And
when you are a couple's therapists, it's very typical that
people come to you and I a drop off center,
right They tell you, you know, here my relationship, here's
my partner. Let me tell you what's wrong with them,

(45:54):
and maybe you can fix them, and I'll help you
I'll be your right jumps on how to make my
partner understand why my family's way of doing things is
the best way of doing things. It's a very good way.
And so then the question is if you have to
change your mind, does that mean that it's a loss

(46:14):
of your identity or can you actually experience that as
an expansion, as something that you let in. How do
you let the other person influence you without being constantly
in the defense of your You know, this is my
flag and here are my values or my operation system.

Speaker 1 (46:31):
Yeah, I really really relate to what you're saying. And
I love how you've broken it down to what we're
fighting for versus what we're fighting about. I think that's brilliant.
And that's from your masterclass, right.

Speaker 7 (46:41):
No, this is from my own new course.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
Oh, this is from that.

Speaker 7 (46:44):
I am coming out with it very soon. And that's
really about letting people have a very different view and
set of skills for handling conflict like this one. You know,
at first it was a nice thing. You didn't fight about.
You just said we do it all, No, let's do
it now, and then slowly, because you couldn't come into

(47:04):
an unified agreement, it became a point of contention, and
then that point of contention became the go to every
time you need to talk about your backgrounds, your values,
your style, your priorities, your way of doing.

Speaker 1 (47:19):
I think we feel so robbed, or at least when
I speak to people about this, they feel so robbed,
as you said, of their identity, but also, as you said,
people feel robbed of their power that if I give
in to this other person, my partner may be the
more powerful one in the relationship. Or if I concede,

(47:40):
then in the future when we're making decisions, they're going
to think I'm going to concede. And often that is
the case that people get into relationships because they think
the other person is submissive or conceding to them or
agrees with them on everything they say, and then one
day that person goes, wait a minute, I didn't realize
I just gave up everything I care about for you.
And so how does one learn how to practice that

(48:03):
humility and giving up of power or is the solution
a unified agreement as you called it? Just there? What
are we trying to unravel? How do we do that?

Speaker 7 (48:14):
Because I think that but you just betrayed yourself in
the question okay, your whole question is framed in power terms. Concede, acquiesce,
give in loss of self, loss of power. Yes, some
people feel this way. That is one frame for some
people to enter into a relationship. But if I actually

(48:37):
change the word power, I could go like this. In
every relationship, you will find that there often is one
person who is more afraid of losing the other, and
one person who is more afraid of losing themselves. One
person more afraid of abandonment and rejection, therefore more likely

(48:58):
to acquiesce, to pacify, to placate, to say yes until
maybe one day not, and one person more afraid of suffocation,
and therefore they fight for their ideas, their ways of
doing it. The timing of the dishes, and that is
less about power. That is more about the nature of connection.

(49:19):
The majority of power struggles in a relationship are not
power struggles. Power is the defense.

Speaker 1 (49:26):
The control.

Speaker 7 (49:27):
Battle is the way people are defending, trying to get
something for something else that they are worried about. It's
the surface behavior. You know, some people, when they're afraid,
they fight, but the issue is not fighting. The issue
is that they're actually afraid and they're trying to deal
with their fear by gaining control. So don't just go
for what you see, because what you see isn't necessarily

(49:50):
just what it is. Go always looking at the level below,
Otherwise you're going to have a lot of this.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
Yeah. Now, the most painful thing that we all feel
when we go or a breakup is that we don't
even lose faith in that person. We start to lose
faith in love, and especially we start to feel not
only do they not love us, we start to question
whether we're worthy of love. We feel unlovable. We feel like,

(50:19):
will I ever meet someone? Maybe you're thinking of this
right now, will I ever meet someone who love me again?
First of all, they didn't even love you, But we think,
will someone ever love me again? We ask us off
the question. Maybe you're thinking of this right now, like
will I ever meet someone who will commit to me,
who will be loyal to me, who'll.

Speaker 2 (50:36):
Actually be with me?

Speaker 1 (50:38):
If you're asking some of those questions, this next clip
from mel Robins is going to really resonate with you
because she talks about how to go through a breakup
in a really practical way. Should you contact them, should
you try and make them jealous? All those emotions and
feelings we go through. If you listen to this next clip,

(50:58):
it's gonna help you make the right decisions.

Speaker 2 (51:02):
Take a look.

Speaker 8 (51:03):
When somebody leaves that you love, you think you're unlovable.
You actually think you're never gonna find it again. You
hate yourself. That's why most of the advice about this
is complete bullshit. Go love yourself. How am I going
to go love myself and the person I love more
than anything just left me. I hate myself, I despise myself.

(51:27):
I am terrified of the day that they're going to
meet somebody. I'm never gonna find that again. I'm never
going to have sex like that again. I'm not like
you hate yourself and so telling somebody to just go
on a revenge diet or leon love yourself it's horrible. Instead,
I want you to face reality they left, let them

(51:48):
and then let me grieve and follow my therapist and
Davin's advice. You have to do a thirty day detox,
and if you are somebody that's been holding on to
somebody that left a year ape go, I guarantee you
you have not gone thirty days without listening to a
voice memo or looking at a photo. You are keeping
them alive, which is keeping you trapped in something that's dead,

(52:12):
and your inability to let them go and let them leave,
and then let me accept reality and start moving forward,
and let me believe that the person that I am
meant to meet, they are in the future. They're not
in my past. And by the way, even if you

(52:32):
kind of hold out secretly hope it might be the
person from the past, it might be, but they're not
the version from back there, and neither are you, and
neither are you, and so you have to again come
back to where the power is. It's not in getting
them back, it's not in making them jealous, because if
you focus on making that person jealous, or where are

(52:53):
you putting your power then and something you can't control,
you have to put your power here. And the reason
why I love the thirty day rule in the eleven
week mark is because it's the truth.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
This is going to suck.

Speaker 8 (53:07):
The only way to get over someone and to go
through heartbreak is to go through it. There's no avoiding it,
there's only delaying it. And we delay it because we
don't want to accept people as they are. Yeah, when
somebody breaks up and leaves or cheats on you. They
have just revealed who they are for sure, and your
inability to accept it instead of explaining it away and

(53:32):
living in a fantasy up here. That's what's keeping you
from having and creating the love you actually deserve and
want in your life.

Speaker 1 (53:39):
I was talking to a friend recently, and everything you're
saying is just so true, and it's resonating so strongly
to me. I was doing to a friend recently and
she was saying to me, I wish my friend would
just be honest with me. I wish this person who's
just screwed me over, just let me down, would just
be honest with me rather than pretending to be my friend.

(54:02):
And I said to them, they are being honest with you.
Them lying is showing you their truth. That's how much
they value you. Them pretending to be your friend is
their truth. You don't want the truth. Actually, you want
them to lie to you, and you want them to
be someone else. You want them to become the honest person.
But they're showing you that they're not an honest person.

(54:23):
That is the truth.

Speaker 8 (54:24):
It's true. And here's the other thing. Why are you
pretending to be this person's friend and not bringing it up.
Why is it on them to tell you the truth?
Let them lie to you and then come to the
let me part. If aren't you pretending that you're their friend,
if you haven't brought this up, and you're actually holding
that in your head right, There are so many applications

(54:48):
of this, it's just incredible. And the thing that I'm
really really excited about is that, you know, the other
massive thing saying that I think this is going to
help people with is that one other way that you
make people a massive problem is that you see somebody

(55:08):
else's success or happiness or the things that they achieve
in their life is somehow robbing you of yours. And
the thing about life is that you're never playing against people.
You play with them. And somebody else's success, happiness, love,
like the things that they achieve, it's in limitless supply.

(55:30):
And when you wrap your brain around the fact that happiness, love, money,
like all of it limitless supply. So other people can't
block your way, they actually lead the way. And so
if you let them lead the way and you see
their wins not as your losses, but you see it
as an example to follow. You now, stop making other
people a problem, and you stop using them as an

(55:53):
excuse for why you can't do what you're capable of.
Other People don't block you, you block your life way.
Allow people to lead the way and the way that
you do that. You say, let them be successful, let
them get married, let them have the baby, let them
have the nice car, because they're showing me what's possible.
And the cool thing about really embracing let them in

(56:16):
that regard is that other people also show you the formula.

Speaker 1 (56:21):
Right, yeah, I've seen they show you.

Speaker 8 (56:22):
Exactly how to do something. But if you're so busy going,
oh well, Jane launched a podcast and there's too many
podcasts now, I can't launch a podcasts. Who's blocking you? Correct,
You're capable of learning to be a better player in
the game of life from other people, Yes, so stop
playing against them and let them show you the way.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
I speak to so many people every week who are
going through breakups, and I'm so glad that you found
this episode of the podcast because it's one of those
things where you take two steps forward and then you're
three steps back, and it often feels like this back
and forth feeling of have I healed? Have I recovered.

(57:08):
Oh no, I'm right back there now, and I want
you to know that on purpose, we're dedicated to trying
to help you through that healing journey. As long as
you're healing, you're moving in the right direction. Sometimes you're
going to feel like you're completely missing them again, and
sometimes you're going to feel like you're ready to move on.
And the goal is to surround yourself with the right insights,
the right wisdom to keep focusing on your own growth.

(57:31):
Because here's what I've realized. The pain doesn't go away.
It just gets easier to carry. It just gets easier
to deal with. As you build confidence, as you build strength,
you start to realize that what you went through actually
helped you find deeper, more meaningful love. And from the
people who have known that have gone through breakups and

(57:53):
found long term relationships that they're happy in, they all
look back and now feel grateful for that experience because
it helped them quickly decipher who was right for them
and who wasn't, who was around for a season but
not for the rest of their life. Thanks so much
for listening. If you love this episode, you'll love my

(58:16):
interview with Dr Gabor Matte on understanding your trauma and
how to heal emotional wounds to start moving on from
the past. Everything in nature grows only where it's vulnerable.

Speaker 2 (58:27):
So a tree doesn't go o where it's hard and thick,
does it. It goes where it's soft and green and
vulnerable

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Jay Shetty

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