Healing from Heartbreak

Ben Oofana offers some insights and suggestions for those who are struggling with romantic breakups.

This podcast episode is being aired in the month of February, 2024, and is the start of the month where I focus on love and relationships.

More show notes to come! In the meantime, take care and check Ben out on his website at www.benoofana.com

Healing From Heartbreak - Interview with Ben Oofana

Today, our guest is Ben Oofana who, after a succession of destructive relationships in his mid-twenties, realized that he was reenacting the traumas of his childhood and adolescence. He had been living among the Kiowa and Kiowa-Apache Indians had been chosen to be an apprentice for Horace Daukei, the last surviving traditional Kiowa Medicine Man. After the breakups, Ben developed a series of intensive meditation practices to help people heal from deep emotional wounding, which is the work he continues to do today. Join us as Ben tells his story and tells us how we can heal from the heartbreak of a breakup or loss.

Key points:

Timestamp 5:54: Ben says “To scrape bottom is the only way to understand the suffering of the people you’re working with.” And “I discovered ways to heal devastating wounds, including romantic relationships.

Tracy: Who we are, and who we present ourselves in the world….that’s who we attract. And a spiritual connection can help when you go through a breakup

Timestamp 8:28 Ben says “Emotions are the doorway to access this deeper core being and a higher power. Most people dissociate, self-medicate and distract from the pain.

Timestamp 9:15: Ben says, “You can’t heal it if you don’t feel it.”

Timestamp 12:08: Ben’s theory about why we get into these relationships in the first place: When we have deeply wounded experiences as kids with no resources to cope, we develop coping that turns us away from emotions and numbs our senses and waking awareness. On the conscious level, we have a waking awareness, but the deeper subconscious level doesn’t come up until we’re triggered. Then, we carry the wounds and draw people similar to who have wounded us in the past.

Timestamp 25:00 “Nobody is broken, it’s just that sometimes your antennae is damaged or corroded.”

“Healing the deeply wounded parts of ourselves will make it possible for us to choose more wise partners and friends in the future."

Tips and Tools for Healing Heartbreak

Tip #1: Timestamp 9:20: You are the only one you will never lose or leave.” When a relationship doesn’t work, we can truly be present and feel authentic emotional responses, breathe, digest and use various therapeutic interventions to help.

Tip #2: Pay attention to yellow flags in relationships: notice numbing, desensitization, dissociation. This is happening because we can’t deal with our emotions.

Tip #3: When you are triggered emotionally, drop down into your body and breathe into your feelings and bodily sensations.

Tip #4: Develop your senses so that you can feel the person in your body….both the connection and the incompatibility

Tip #5: Timestamp 30:00 Do things to protect yourself from negative / toxic people (i.e. walking meditation and healing the deeply wounded parts of yourself). This will make you less vulnerable and will transform you and in turn help you attract healthier companions.

Resources:

Ben’s website is https://benoofana.com/

Ben Oofana’s recently posted article about strategies for bouncing back and healing after breakups

https://benoofana.com/breaking-up-and-bouncing-back-unconventional-strategies-for-rapid-healing/

Ben’s free E-Book: "The Essentials of Getting Over Your Breakup and Moving On"...