#19 - How to Get Over a Break Up

Break ups are never easy, but it's how you get over your ex that really determines what type of person you are. It can be hard to deal with feelings of doubt and insecurity that come after a romantic relationship has ended, when your hopes and dreams are shattered into a million pieces.
Your mind is in a state of confusion, unable to understand why the person who was so dear to your heart left without telling you anything. You feel like dying because you don't know how to go on living without them, and it can feel impossible to shake off your exes and move on from what happened.

If you find yourself going through a similar phase right now, here's how to approach getting through a break up through grieving, self-compassion and mindset, as Chantelle discusses in this weeks episode.

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life coaching for singles, how to be okay on you're own, overcoming loneliness, how to stop feeling lonely, single women, d...

Transcript

(00:10) Hello, and welcome to The Single Girls Guide to Life. Your weekly guide to single life living in your twenties and thirties. I'm Chantelle the Coach a quarter-life and confidence, coach to women in their twenties and thirties that want to make the most of single life.

They want to go out there, have fun and do things on their own without feeling like they need to find a man. Even if that might be part of the process, that's not the be-all and end-all, and I've just got in from a Single Girls Club, meet up in  Essex which is our flagship meet up central. And we've just had a breakfast with some of the lovely members of the single girls club , where we've shared stories and insights into our life, quite a lot of new members this time compared to returning ones.

And it always changes. Sometimes you get people that have been there a couple of times, sometimes we get people that are brand new and it changes in the dynamics, always a little bit different.

There are online events for those that can't get to Essex. And there are a couple of events coming in different areas as well. So keep an eye out for that and join the Single
Girl's Club if you're not already part of it yet.

(01:12) Now on this week's episode of the Single Girls Guide to Life, I'm going to be talking about quite a hot topic for what keeps getting asked or suggested or inquired about and what best advice there is, is how to get over a breakup, because we often find ourselves in a single
situation because we've gone through a breakup. There are some of you I know that have expressed to me that. Not new to you being single is actually something that's been the case for a while. However, a lot of us find ourselves in a scenario because of ____?. And heartbreak
has a distinct difference when it's in divorce. Going through a divorce can actually take
a lot longer.

(01:56) The studies have found that heartbreak takes about 11 weeks, so three months to get over, but if it involves divorce, it can take a lot longer. So that's just a prerequisite to understand as part of this, but heartbreak is a form of grief or it's an experience that triggers the need to get. It's a process that takes time to move through.

And there's not really one right way to do it. We can start to understand it. Each of us, we can start to see what it's like and what we could do, but there's no one single way that's going to work for every single person, because this is such a personal experience.

We are all different people. We all deal with things differently. There are things that work for more people then there are also going to be those things that don't always work for everyone. And so love is exactly the same in that way. 

(02:51) The heartbreak overall for everyone doesn't last forever. 

It's important to remember that when we go through that experience of heartbreak, that feeling in your chest that it's just in fact is possibly sometimes in the stomach, that's sickening feeling, but there is that physical element that we feel that we get some of us when we go through that heartbreak, that devastating news that it can feel like, and that's not imaginary.

You are triggering the same points in your brain that are responsible for managing pain.

So therefore your body's reacting in the same way. It thinks that you're going through physical pain and it acts and responds in that way. And that's what we feel. It, that's what we
literally feel, those things. And it's horrible.

You can feel the gulp pit in your stomach and the idea that we're not really sure where
this is going to go, or what's going to happen. Why does it hurt so bad and was one of the
questions I think that underlies it because it can seem excruciating. It doesn't make sense. Nothing physically has happened to me or you, but it feels like it hurts so very, very much.

(04:10) And so in this episode today, I want to talk about some elements of heartbreak that want to bring to your attention in case you've never thought of it. And  if you've been lucky enough not to experience heartbreak in such a devastating way, then at least you'll know it for then, but I don't think anything can compare quite to going through that experience and to doing it, having your heart broken in some way.

And that happens because what we thought was going to be happening no longer. We are experiencing a loss and that is a loss of what we expected to happen versus what now will no longer be it's loss. And that's why grief should be associated with this. We often associate grief with just the element of losing someone to death. most of the time. But actually grief is when our identity is put into question. We don't know who we are because of those traumatic
events that have happened. And that event needs grieving. And you need to come out the
other side, looking at who you are and what you're going to do and want to do on the other
side of that.

(05:29) And so there's a few elements to begin with.

The process of grief in reflection of a heartbreak is very important. 

So firstly, it's denial. We don't believe that this is happening. Competence(??) is happening. Is this really happening? Is this real? Am I dreaming? Where has this come from? I don't believe you. Why didn't you say something? All of those questions. Because we don't want to believe it. We still want to be on the trajectory of staying with that person or the potential of that person still being a thing and it's not anymore. So we have denial to go through. 

We might even debate with that person about whether we could get back together,
 you know, can we do something different?

Can we try this, try that, to make it all better again, rather than accepting that this
is a choice that someone made. And when we don't get that response, we then get the anger stage because we're now frustrated that there's nothing we can do. It's completely and utterly out of our control. And we get angry, beat ourselves up about what we did are still part of the bargaining bit, but not wishing we could change it, just angry at what we did angry at the other person for not having told us early enough, not having said anything.

(06:49) And the ultimately. There's nothing you can do, but anger and we have the manage that it's not appropriate to be angry all the time, everyone around us because of this. And of course we should acknowledge that. We feel that way. We shouldn't deny that feeling,
 but managing it in an appropriate way is key there.

And then after that anger does pass because each of these are stages that you move through
and some can be brief and some can be longer. We then have the depression stage because
now we really know that we can't do anything about. The anger has gone. It's been reduced,
but there's that hopelessness of not really feeling like we know what we're going to do
next, what that means for us.

(07:33) What's the point? Why are we doing it? But what's good. Is that whilst the depression
section is not great, it's not an ideal thing to be going through. No one likes that. Not having that positivity, not having the energy kind of feeling a little bit lost and confused and unenthusiastic. It's the last stage before acceptance. When you now accept what has gone on, maybe you see it as that opportunity for growth, the chance to start something new, to find
who you are, that's where you get to. And there aren't those denial feelings, loss of
control, anger. And the order of the depression there you've moved past. It might not be in
the most positive space, but you're no longer in that low period that last one before acceptance of depression and you aren't in that really fired up stage of anger anymore.

You're past that. And so another element to understand in the next phase is from Option
B. There's a book by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam. and within the book that talks about a variety
of elements with regards to resilience. This is in the context of Sheryl's experience, losing her husband quite drastically, all of a sudden, um, she talks about the three P's.

(08:52) They talk about the three PS that must be overcome to move through grief and build resilience.

And those three PS are personalization, pervasiveness, and permanence. So personalization. almost links to the bargaining stage to a degree. Personalization is the belief that it's your
fault, that if you had done something different, this wouldn't have happened. That there's something wrong with you. And that's the reason they left and the reason they ended it. And there's no other factor, but it being to do with you. 

Pervasiveness is the belief that this is your life over the whole life. Every single part of you is
no longer around. There's no value in it that all the areas of your life are devastated because of this breakup. It affects everything. And that's almost a little bit like the depression stage because depression is when we don't know what we're doing next. And that's when it does start to potentially infiltrate the rest of our. But pervasion of is of the belief that it will affect every single aspect of our life when it doesn't have to, it only has to affect the areas that you let it affect. 

And whilst you can't always control every emotion all the time at every single moment of the day, you can be conscious of when you let yourself have that time to react. And if you need to
take time off of work, some people may not agree with me on that.

(10:24) But heartbreak is an emotional response to a trauma, a traumatic event. And this event is that someone is leaving your life. Now, this is someone that you've been dating for a couple of weeks a month, whilst it can still hurt and feel like it hurts as much. You do have to be careful and seek that understanding further that there may be more to.

If so quickly you feel that devastating loss., but if you've been seeing someone for a period
of time where there's a level of commitment and there's this breakup, that's when maybe
justifiably. So you do need that time. We would take time off to grieve the loss of a loved one. That's no longer with us.

So why aren't we at times as forgiving to ourselves to take that time off to process
and let our emotions out with. 

(11:13) And the third P that they mentioned in option B is permanent, that this will last forever. And I think this is the one that everybody thinks. Everybody thinks that their life is over the negative feeling probably towards the depression stage,

I think is probably where we mostly sit with this will not go away.

When am I ever going to be good enough something. Why can't I just do there? Will I ever find someone to love me? I think they're all questions that run through your head as potential elements that you worry about, because it seems really real, essentially. We need some hope beyond that to keep going. And Hope's difficult if you haven't.

If you haven't experienced heartbreak much, or this might even be the first time you really
experienced it, but you've gone through a few breakups before. Maybe it didn't matter too much. Maybe you were the person ending it. And I think that's a very different experience.
if you're the one being broken up with after what feels like a lot of investment, then
the idea of how you get back on track after this feels mad, particularly if it's after
a long time, like whilst I wasn't the one to have that hard.

(12:32) Put upon me, I suppose, in that sense, even starting over and trying to navigate a world in which I didn't really understand it. And by that, I mean dating because I hadn't dated
as an adult. All of my relationships had been as a teenager. And so I'd never dated as an
adult. Like I have got to start over again with that.

And when we go through. A breakup of a significance,  a relationship of significance in that
sense where your lives have started to intertwine in some way. And it's not strict to this, but if you've got those elements of, you know, your house or where you lived had started to be connected, or, you know, you had that routine every week.

In the end, the once a week element they talk about, you should build up to as long as you have your friendship sorted out around that with anybody else, making sure your friends
friendships are maintained and there maybe you've even started to make friends that are the same friends because of experiences you've had together a bit.

Yeah. If you've been on holiday, or if you went and did an experience together or even maybe even met, and that was how you met. And it was with a group of people that now all those things need to be separated. And I think that's the biggest bit that you have to start over in a number of areas of your life.

(14:01) And it's not just the breakup from that person. It's the breakup of their family too. And all the friends and everything that goes with. Depending on the length of time and how much
involvement you had this wasn't just one extra person in your life. This was potentially a whole family. There was also probably trips, events and things that you used to do, whether
together or with more people, it's a loss of all of that.

Maybe then level arrangements, maybe then what your day to day even looks like it's the shockwave in which it can affect many areas. But it doesn't have to affect absolutely everyone in most senses. It's not often going to affect work. There are going to be cases where that does happen. I appreciate that.

But in the majority of cases, other than if you are seeing a work colleague or they happen
to work for you sat with you in some way, or it's a small business you've set up, you will likely avoid work and work will be something that you can maintain your finances. Because of that, depending on the level of independence you had as well may not get affected.

In some cases you will, if you're on joint accounts, your spirituality, hopefully wouldn't get affected your religion in your belief. And hopefully if you listen to what I talk about enough, there will be an element of your friendships that have not changed, that you've still got those friends that were separate to your relationship. The weren't the same people. They didn't overlap and they are your friends and your friends only, and they are the ones that will be there for you. And so now understanding that those stages, the three PS, it's important to build resilience here sounds a little bit insensitive to say that this is a chance to build resilience.

(15:51) When resilience is bouncing back quite quickly, the quicker you bounce back from an event means that you're more resilient. That's what was at the end of this. I would never deny
you the opportunity to express your feelings, to get your emotions out. But I think heartbreak is one of those that we experienced so infrequently that it takes longer to get used to it and
to bounce back.

And sometimes we completely avoid heartbreak. We stay with the wrong person because we're afraid of being on our own and we wouldn't want to cut it off. And by goodness, we don't
want them to cut it off with us. And I think some people are in relationships like that.

I've stayed longer than I should have in relationships like that, because of those kinds of feelings, it doesn't make it right.

And actually doing difficult things is what makes us stronger people. And that's what resilience is when we go through any kind of adversity or difficult. We do it and manage it in as best a way we can, but we continue to push forward with looking forward, looking optimistic. 

(17:00) And so all of this contributes and builds up to the fact that every time you go through heartbreak of significance and any other tragic event, but we're talking about this from a 20, 30 year olds are single.

So it's probably going to be the highest one is that this is now a new chapter. This is a chapter that does not likely feature that person anymore, or if it features them at all, it's not half, as much as it featured in the last chapter. This is an opportunity for you to go out there and work out who you are again, and to work out every single aspect of your life and what it means, because if it does affect a number of areas, not all, but most or.

Then this is the time to go out there and evaluate each and every one and decide what
you want to do is exactly what I did after my divorce. So I wasn't going through specific
heartbreak. I was going through big life changes that affect that really did affect nearly
every area of our work. And I had lots of decisions to make.

Where did I want to live? Did I want a pet? We had a shared dog at the time. And I desperately wanted her, but beyond that and through time, do I really want a pet of my own, other than
the one we had, did I want any more? What did I want to be doing for my job? What kind
of social life did I want? How important was having money to me within the context of what
I needed to pay for and the things extra I wanted to do? How far was I prioritizing my spirituality and exploring growth and personal development. How important broad are those things to me. 

And so working through each of those is vital to the next chapter. And you're not going to know it instantly because you have to go out there and find something different.

What you did before might be working a bit, but you need to make sure now that whatever
you pursue is the right thing for you. You've got to try new things. You've got to mess up again as well. Might I add anything that you try next? You've got to be prepared for it to go wrong because you might not notice the right thing.

(19:24) And that's what coaching is great for. Coach is great for that period of time. Not processing what's happened. It's the bit after that, it's the bit where you've got to decide what you're doing. And so next year we'll be kicking off 2022 with your sort your life out program, as well as that there is the year of you, 2022 journal.

And that as a real basic has a task, an exercise in it that you can work through to look at
those different areas of your life. But the coaching is that one-to-one talk it through with a person and get guidance through guided questions on exploring what it really is that you want to do now. You can do it on your own, of course, doing it on your own feels very personal.

You can ask friends if you have those friends there, they're going to support you through it, go and do that, share it with someone at least. But if you don't have those people and you need that little bit of confidence and that's what coaching can be fantastic for. And it's the kind of thing that I love working with people on, because I know what it feels like to have to start all over to.

(20:27) If out you don't know what you're doing. And what you've got to go through each bit to work out what really works for you. And whilst heartbreak, wasn't associated with my divorce and not been void of heartbreak, I certainly didn't have these tools to deal with it for.

And I just think if I'd only I'd had that and only had that person to kind of talk it out with and just express that too, how much clearer that would have made my life in that sense.

I'm going through the process myself. And doing it cause sizes like this is what made the difference. That's what got me to the other side has got me in this point where I literally, if I want to date a date with intention and it is not the same as everybody else's date it. Isn't I do not date with the same intention maybe that everybody else does.

I have very interesting beliefs because I've sat there and I thought. Well, I want for each area I've sat and read books to decide what I think is right for my life and whatever relationships, friendships, work, and everything else that I do in my life looks like I know who I am and what I'm operating from.

I know what my principles are. I know what my core values are. And I use those to determine.

And yeah, you would ask to change your mind by the way, because the things that you try
out don't always work or you go, oh, I think this, and then you put it into practice. And now, and that's a guy that's part of the process.

(21:55) And that's why relationships I've, I've put that last in the sense of the order of sorting things, because that requires another person significantly. So it's not fair for me to be working out lots of things that I need to work. Whilst trying to let someone else work out their life and then trying to form something together.

I, at that time I don't have the time nor energy nor focus for them, or so I'm still sorting myself out of some sort in my life out. But once you get to that bit, then you can start dating with intention because you'v probably defined what you want. And I don't mean a don't mean tall dark had. I don't think that's what I'm hearing.

I mean, what do you expect from the qualities of the person and the actions? What do you
expect from each person? How do you play your part and how do they play their part? As opposed to hold? I've got a great job doing this, or they don't have kids. They do have kids.

They do want kids. They don't, all of those have a place, but actually going deeper than that to understand things. But that's when you're back on track. 'cause heartbreak is a traumatic event. It really has an impact on your life, but it isn't forever. It's something to be understood as a stages that you go through and that there were things that are going to hold you back from moving forward. 

(23:19) So those three P's personalization, pervasiveness, and permanence that you have to acknowledge and be aware of so that you can counteract that as you notice it, as you notice that self.

Oh, my God. I'm going to be this way forever you, um, because other people aren't, and they're the people that give you hope. You've got to find friends, family members, public figures that have gone through heart. I can come out the other side. If you haven't had your own experience, you remember your own experiences.

If you can go for that. Because you have got to the other side of that, and I know it can feel damning when you feel like you've put a load of time into someone like kind of kicking yourself. Moment is, oh, I should've just left earlier. What a waste of a year. You didn't know you were operating the best you could at the time you were forgiveness toward yourself and self care.

(24:18) Yeah. Self love. I think at that. You wouldn't berate your friend for making the wrong decision.
It's not a wrong decision, but for making a decision that meant they stay longer than they felt they should. So don't berate yourself for it. Find who you are and work at each and every category of your life, because this is a brand new chapter.

It cannot be seen as anything, but because it's the end of one, it's time for the next one. If you know the tick tock. I don't know what I'm going to do tomorrow. Isn't exciting. Yes. It's exciting. It feels scary, but it should also be seen as exciting when you can find the space to see it that way. And you'v moved through those stages, move past those peas and looked at what you really want in your life or have started to explore it.

(25:10) So I hope that's given you an idea of how to manage heartbreak and really understand heartbreak. I think we overlook. We know it happens to a lot of us. We know it's really
difficult, but it always seems like losing a person that physical loss of a person like
to death is acknowledged with that grief.

When in heartbreak is the saying, you're losing that person. They're now missing from your
life and you need to work out what you're going to do next without them two features of loss, whether that's loss through death or loss through. So take the time when you're going through heartbreak, whether that's now I'm fresh or in the future to come, or this
may be something from the past, you haven't fully unpicked yet.

That that could be what happened. I love going back and going, oh, I remember being really
angry at that point. That was that. That was that third step. So you must have been able
to like, write that story for yourself and go, I understand what I was doing now. I understand
why I was so annoyed at everybody for a week.

I was just angry about it. And it's part of heartbreak. I hope that's helped you is a big question and there's not these. Specific practical strategies because everyone's so different. Well, as they can, you can find some online, but you've got that element of raking each tasks down and say, it's in the journal or you can start registering so that you're on the email list for when the sort your single life out programs begin for 2022 and those slots that come available.

But other than that, I hope that you engage with that single girl's group, seeing girls club on Facebook. That's a place to share sometimes how we're feeding or to see that other people's experiences can turn out well.

And that we're all finding the times where we get the egg(??) or the times that we've been
questioned in our jobs for being women, or this week, we spoke about the change that we experienced in life and what could be more change impactful than heartbreak and that change that you go through. 

Then I hope you have a brilliant week and until next time, keep thriving!