Hello and welcome to Speak Honest. I am your host and certified relationship coach, Jennifer Noble. It has been my passion for over a decade to help women like you heal. What's been holding you back from having the relationships you deserve? Are you struggling with a relationship where you can't seem to voice your emotions, needs, and boundaries without having it blow up in your face?

Then you have found the right podcast, my friend. Get ready for practical tips, empowering truths, and honest conversations. Now let's dive in. 

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Speak Honest. On today's episode, we are going to be jumping into a listener's question. If you're interested in having your question asked here on the podcast and you don't want to come on the episode and talk for yourself, I absolutely understand that.

You can send me in a question at any time, or you can use the Facebook page in order to ask your question on there as well. You can get the information for where the Facebook page is in the show notes. I find that way easier than trying to explain what it's called. It is a safe and amazing Facebook page.

Actually, it's a group where, um, like minded women like ourselves all get together and we chat and we support one another, ask questions. You can ask me anything in there that you would like. 

So for right now, let me go ahead and read out this question.  So anonymous asks, how do I know if I'm still in love with my ex or if I'm just ruminating? We haven't spoken for more than eight months and I don't even check his social media or anything. I still think about him every day, especially if I'm a little bit sad.

I talk to him in my head about random things. Sometimes I imagine cuddling with him again and it feels like I'm acting as if we're going to get back together again one day.  Sometimes, I can ignore those thoughts as they don't necessarily mean anything, but I think that I just have an emotional gap in my life and I'm filling it with thoughts about him until I meet someone again.

And some other times, I wonder if I should talk to him again, just so he returns to being just another human instead of romanticizing him in my head so much.  I've always been too quick to move on. I can't believe it's been eight months and I'm still hung up on someone. The relationships itself lasted a lot less than eight months. 

Okay, so what we see here is we have someone who is ruminating. Ruminating basically means you're consistently thinking about the same things over and over again. A lot of people will ruminate about their exes, but even more so in this situation, you want to get really clear on what you're ruminating about, not just Hi, I'm constantly thinking about my ex.

What are the exact Memories that you are thinking about with your ex.  Okay, and why is this so important? Because the memories that we are thinking about are the needs in which our subconscious mind is trying to yell out to you. Hey, I need this met. I want this met. So, for example, if you constantly think about your ex, And the thing that you're thinking about is I loved it when he took me out on romantic dinners.

And what your mind is trying to tell you is the needs that were met when you were out on those romantic dinners with your ex are what your body wants right now. It's what your subconscious mind wants. So what is going out? For dinner, give you romance, uh, emotional connection, social connection, maybe some vanity because you got to get dressed up, validation, love, probably some touch because you would hold hands, maybe a little bit of significance because you would feel so cared for and special being out.

Those are the needs that your mind is telling you they want to be met. So let's take a look here. When I asked this person what it was that they were specifically ruminating about, they told me this.  She says that she imagines cuddling him, right? So that's where we can see in the question itself. She says, sometimes I imagine cuddling with him again, and it feels like I'm acting as if we're going to get back together.

So they acting as if they're going to get back together. That's her mind's way of saying. He cuddled you in a specific way that met these needs for me. So I'm going to remind you what it felt like to cuddle him because I want those needs met. So if I had her in front of me right now, I would ask her, what did it mean to you to be cuddled by him?

What did it give you? Now I'm going to take a wild guess here and I'm going to say it met safety. And certainty and love and connection and romance and touch and intimacy and  validation and respect. Right? So listen to all of these needs that are getting met right now by one cuddle, especially when she's sad, right?

Because she says in her question, it's when I'm feeling sad. I remember cuddling him. So she must have this need when she's sad to be supported, to be cuddled, to be loved. And that's so important to know about ourselves. She's not ruminating about her ex. She doesn't want to get back together with him.

She's remembering what she had with him. And so when we are in our reality and we realize, and we accept that we will not be back together with our ex, I know that's a hard thing to hear. But this is the part where we have to accept our reality. And then we have to start breaking it down in order to understand what it is that our bodies need.

So I like to think about it like this. When we find ourselves ruminating about something or someone that we don't want to be, right? So this rumination is bothering you. It's getting in your way of your daily life. Then we have to follow the thoughts all the way out to see what is that rumination meeting?

Like what needs are that meeting? We'll most likely ruminate about the times in our lives when multiple needs were all met at one time, since our minds are a needs meeting machine, it's incredibly efficient. Our minds are. They're so efficient. And it's brilliant when you think about it. I mean, if you could get all of your meals cooked in one minute.

Yeah. All in one easy cooked meal that gave you all of your vitamins and nutrients for you in one day. Right? So we don't have to worry about breakfast. We don't have to worry about lunch. We don't have to worry about dinner and all the snacks in between. And it gave you everything. And it was cooked in one minute.

Would you not want that for the rest of your life?  Exactly. But now imagine  all in one meal is gone. That one minute meal that fills you up for the entire day. It is gone. Maybe you can't afford it. Maybe they're sold out. Maybe something happened. Does it suck that it's gone? Absolutely! Uh, would you prefer the all in one?

Yeah! Is it easier? Of course!  But also, the reality is, it's not here right now. So we could sit in the pain and the frustration of it not being there, and we could be ruminating about how much we used to love that meal, and how easy it was, and all of the amazingness that came with it, right? But the hungrier you get,  the more you're going to ruminate about that.

Do you get where I'm going with this? So the more you want the meal, the sadder you get, the more you ruminate about it, the hungrier you get because you're not eating, you're not figuring out how to go meet this on your own. You forget how to cook, basically. And so you are just waiting for that meal to come, but it doesn't come.

And the next day it doesn't come and the next day it doesn't. So what are you going to do? Because one day what's going to happen is you're going to be so hungry, so deprived of nutrients and vitamins and your stomach is, I don't know if you've ever truly experienced hunger that way, but you imagine somebody shows up at your door and they have taken a piece of pizza out of the trash.

It is covered in hair and lint and maybe even has little bugs on there, right? I mean, we're going gross and they offer it to you. What are you going to do? You're absolutely going to eat that trash pizza, okay? And that is what it's like in relationships. If we don't learn how to feed ourselves, we will accept trash from anyone, okay? 

Or, what we can do  is, when the all in one meal isn't there, we can remember what it's like To feed ourselves. So we go to the store. Is going to the store harder? Absolutely. But we do it. Is making a grocery list hard? Yes, but we do it. Is chopping up the vegetables and learning how to get every single macronutrient or vitamin that we need?

Measuring out the ingredients, putting in the right spices. Is that hard?  Of course it is. It's more difficult, but it's also what has to happen. We have to get to a place where we can cook for ourselves, and it goes the same with relationships. We have to get to a place where we're meeting those needs on our own, okay?

And we can sit there, and we can have a tantrum about it, and we can say we want someone else to fill those needs for us. But the problem is, is when we're so deeply ingrained with waiting for someone to come in and fix this for us, then we will accept trash pizza. Do you want to eat trash pizza with lint and ants on it?

I know I don't, but I can tell you right now, I've absolutely had relationships that were like trash pizza. Relationships that probably had cockroaches on them. Let's be real, okay? But we're no longer doing that, right, ladies? No, we are going to learn how to cut our own vegetables. We are going to learn how to measure out our own chicken and put in our own seasoning, right? 

So, practically, what does this look like for a relationship? That means you want to figure out the thought that you're ruminating about. You need to break it down into what personality needs are these thoughts meeting for you. Like what is it showing you that you want? So let's say this cuddle, it's showing her that she wants support, that she wants touch, that she wants to be validated and that she wants to be comforted and maybe loved and respected.

That's it. So each one of those different ingredients, we're going to break that down and figure out different ways to get those met, okay? We're not going to try to go out and find someone to get all of those met at one.  We are going to figure out how to cut our own vegetables, how to meet our own needs.

So let's look at touch. How can we get our touch need met? Well, I really like a bath. I like a heavy blanket. I like being cuddled up. I like pets. I like going to kitty cat cafes. I like getting a massage or a facial or getting a pedicure, right? And now I know you're sitting there and you're like, a pedicure is not the same thing as having someone love you and cuddle you.

I know! That's what I'm saying. It's not the same. You're absolutely right.  A chicken noodle soup that has every single ingredient in it that is handed to you so you can eat it at the perfect temperature is not the same as having to go and cut your own celery. Heck, if we went all the way back, let's say you're going to go grow your own celery.

Okay, that's what I'm talking about here. We are getting back to basics because that means you're going to be able to wait. That means when somebody shows up at your house. With a lint filled cockroach pizza, you're gonna say, you know what? No, thank you. That's not for me. I can cook for myself. I'm gonna wait.

And then, that all in one ready meal, it is gonna come, and I promise you, they are out there. I know it feels like those types of partners are not out there, but they are out there. And you, they are going to come to your door one day and you're going to be ready for them. You're going to be ready to accept the meals that they offer you because you have taken the time to cook for yourself.

And that means when those meals go away again, you also know that you are safe. You know that you're fine. You know that you can ask for a different meal because if they say no and they leave, you're not scared that you're going to starve to death. You know how to cook now. That's where we're at right now.

So let's look at a couple other needs just for some more practical and tangible tips before we finish up here today. Let's look at support. How can we get support? We can meet support on our own. We can support ourselves. We can talk to ourselves about what are the issues that we're dealing with, and then we can validate love and support ourselves.

I like to journal. I like to use the notes app on my phone, or it's absolutely okay. To go and get these needs met from other people. Do you have a friend in your life? Do you have someone that you can talk to? Do you have a Facebook group? Maybe a Reddit page? Just anywhere where you can get validating support.

It is okay to get these needs met from other people. What's not okay is to expect one person to meet all of your needs. That's when it's not okay. So when we try to say you need to get these needs met on your own, what we also mean is you just need to learn how to get these needs met elsewhere. And if you are sitting there right now and you're thinking, I don't have a friend that I can turn to, I don't have anyone that can support me, no one will support me, then I'm going to tell you right now, friend, you're in a hard place.

And I know that place and I know how hard it is, especially when we're healing. Sometimes we lose the friendships that we had in the past because we're starting to realize how toxic they are for ourselves. So I know right now you're in a hard place. Those types of people right now, if you're out there listening and you are just like, I have no one.

I mean, I really hate to break this to you. That means you right now are in the place where you're learning how to grow your own food. We're talking seedlings right now, okay? You can't go to the grocery store and go pick up a pack of celery to put in your chicken noodle soup. You need to sprinkle those seeds out on a lawn somewhere, in a gardening bed, and you need to start growing that celery.

And that means before you can even eat, before you can even get to that celery, before you can even make that chicken noodle soup, we have to wait for this stuff to grow. And I know that's tiring to hear, and I know it's overwhelming. And once you're ready and you're at a place of acceptance for that, I am here for you.

But I just want to tell you that you absolutely can do this. You can regrow your friendships. You can start a new life. Once we know what we're doing, once we know what we want to be healthy, it does come with time. We just have to be patient and we have to slow down. But I truly believe that each and every one of us not only will get what it is that we need and want and desire in our lives, but that we deserve it.

And that's what we're here for. 

So finishing up now, let's take a look and see what we talked about. So we had a client who's ruminating over her ex. And what we realized was it's not her ex that she's actually missing or wanting. It's the needs that he brought into her life and the way that she can stop ruminating about him. Well, one, she could just accept she's ruminating.

It's absolutely okay. Don't shame. Don't judge the ruminations. Just follow them. She's going to see that she really wants cuddles and she wants support and she wants love. She's going to break this down and really see, okay, what do I need? Then she's going to take each one of those needs and learn how to meet them individually and separate ways.

Some on her own, some with other people. And some of these are going to be easier and some are going to be harder and that's okay. And in those needs, if she's finding that she cannot get those needs met, then we need to start coming up with strategies and goals for how to start getting those needs met.

If one of the things you really want to support and you have no friends to support you, then we need to start at ground zero and find you some friends. Let's go to meetup groups. Let's go on Facebook. Let's start getting out there more. Let's go to the park. Let's join a volleyball team.  So many options that we can be looking for.

But that's the goal that I want to take away from today. Is that ruminating doesn't mean that you love or miss your partner. It doesn't mean that you're never going to get over your ex. It's just your subconscious mind saying, Hey, look at me. I really, really want this thing. Can you please go figure this out?

And I know that through this, we're going to be able to figure this out together. 

If you're listening to this and you want to jump on a call with me to explore what your personality needs might be, I'm offering free 20 minute coaching calls right now, where we jump on together. You tell me your situation and I see what we can figure out in 20 minutes. It's a great opportunity to get a free coaching call.

We get to know each other a little bit, and I just love really giving back to my community as much as I can. Also, please go and join our Facebook group. Again, the information is in the show notes. You can also check out my website at speak honest. com to find out how you can work with me and anything else that might interest you should be on there.

But if you have any questions, reach out to me at info at speak honest. com or reach out to me on Facebook at any time. Or on Instagram. I'm speak underscore on Instagram. Please follow me there. And as always, I just really look forward to hearing from you. Let me know if you want to be on an upcoming podcast or if you would like to get your question answered on the podcast like this.

Anything works for me. I just really love trying to help people whenever I can. I hope you have a great day. 

As we wrap up today's conversation. Always remember that healing is a journey, not a destination, and it is an honor to be a part of your healing journey. If you want to dig deeper into the topics we covered today, be sure to head over to our show notes where you can find all of the valuable information mentioned in today's episode right there.

And please remember to rate, review, and subscribe if you enjoyed today's podcast. Your feedback means the world to us and helps others discover our podcast. Until next time, remember to speak up. And speak honest.