[12] The Breakup Bible: Your Guide to Healing and Transformation

This one is juicy!!!

In this episode of Give Yourself Grace, Grace opens up about her own experiences with heartbreak, from childhood obsessions to life-changing breakups, sharing how her breakups became a catalyst for self-discovery and growth. 

She takes listeners through the steps of her Breakup Bible, offering practical advice, personal stories, and empowering insights to help you move through heartbreak with grace and resilience.

This episode is your permission slip to feel, process, and transform. Whether you're grieving the end of a relationship, a friendship, or a business relationship, this is the guide you’ll want to return to whenever heartbreak strikes.

Here are some key takeaways:

• You are the prize. Every breakup, no matter how painful, is a reminder of your worth. You are the main character of your life, not a supporting role.
• No contact is non-negotiable. Protect your peace by blocking, muting, and unfollowing. This boundary allows you to truly heal without reopening old wounds.
• Clear the energy. Return their things, pack away sentimental items, and remove the physical reminders that keep you tied to the past.
• Host a living funeral. Grieve the relationship by writing a eulogy, crying it out, and symbolically marking the end—because closure starts with you.
• Write to your future self. Reflect on the lessons learned, express gratitude for the experience, and set intentions for the next chapter of your life.
• Create new rituals. From solo coffee dates to dance classes, commit to self-care practices that nurture your heart and remind you of your own magic.
• Timing is everything. Healing isn’t linear. Give yourself grace and allow time to work its magic as you rediscover who you are without them.
• Embrace the transformation. Breakups aren’t just about loss—they’re about becoming. This is your chance to step into the most empowered version of yourself.

Give Yourself Grace is hosted by Grace Perry, a content creator and coach, and is designed to empower you to embrace your journey through every phase of life. The podcast offers entertainment, guidance, and practical tools for your personal transformation.

Connect with Grace
Instagram: @giveyourselfgracepod , @gperryproductions
Website: graceperryproductions.com

Transcript

Today's a juicy one. We're not just diving into breakups, not just the romantic kind, but friendships, family fallouts, even business breakups, because let's be honest, breakups don't just happen in love, they happen in life. And so I realized that no one teaches us how to deal with breakups. And so this episode has been on my heart for quite some time and I wanted to share it with you.

But first I want to set the scene because really the reason why I named this episode, the breakup Bible is because I realized that back when I was a bartender, before I started my business, I worked as a bartender at Matty's Sail Off and when it feels like lifetimes ago, but my shift was typically on Sundays. And my regulars used to call it the church of grace.

And so we started calling it the Church of Grace, which were my Sunday shifts. And it had the vibe where people were just like coming in for drinks. They were coming in for connection, to vent, to find community, to get advice. And while I'm not super religious, I think it is so fitting to call this episode the breakup Bible. So get ready. This one is going to be a good one. It's going to be filled with advice.

and just my lived experience. And I'm gonna get a little vulnerable with you guys today. So this episode is a place that you can come back to whenever you need it. Whether you're grieving the end of a relationship or letting go of a toxic friendship or calling it quits with a business partnership that no longer serves you, this is going to be your guide. So you can apply any of the steps that I talk about on the Breakup Bible today to a current breakup, right?

It does not have to be just love, it can be in business as well. And I do find that within our business partnerships and clients and just the lived entrepreneur experience, this sort of trauma around breakups tends to rear its ugly little head. So when it comes to your triggers and your own experience with breakups and rejection and past loves,

I really want you to hone into what you've learned because this episode is really going to be your permission slip to feel, to process, and to move through whatever you are going through. And so I want you to apply this advice not only to any breakup that you experience. And of course, if you're in the middle of a heartache or you're still healing from a breakup, just please know this, you're not alone and you will get through this.

Okay, let's dive in. So I have had my fair share of breakups. And you know, I've had my fair share of broken hearts. And I also have broken quite a few hearts myself. Those are some that I'm not proud of. And let me tell you, it is never easy to go through a breakup. In fact, the heartbreak like

cracks you open in ways that you don't expect. There's a level of depth to that pain and to that loss that you experience. Like I have been cracked wide open where I'm just like picking up the pieces of myself and like who I used to be. And like I didn't recognize who I was when I would look in the mirror because of the pain and loss of my heartbreak and my relationships.

And so the thing with breakups is they're not just about loss. I believe that breakups are about transformation. And so every breakup, no matter how painful, is an opportunity to rediscover yourself. And that's why I wanted to talk about this so badly today, because breakups don't just happen in love, they happen in business too.

And so as an entrepreneur, I've learned that maybe not every client is meant to stay or not every partnership is built to last. Not every project aligns with my growth or not every single person is supposed to come to my events. I am not for everyone. And knowing when to walk away, whether that's a person or a professional situation, it can be one of the hardest and most powerful things that you can do.

We have to start, I think, in love, right? Looking at breakups through a love lens. And so what the heck do you do when a breakup happens? How do you survive the heartbreak, the confusion, the loneliness? And let me start by telling you why I am the perfect person to give you this advice. You see, some of my earliest relationships

in love happened when I was a child. And I want to tell you about a relationship that really transformed me. And it really started when I was like 11 years old, when I was, you know, up until sixth grade, I fell in love for the first time. Yes, I'm going to talk to you guys today about my first love. And so when I say love,

I honestly mean borderline obsession. Like I used to walk to school with my pink iPod Nano, okay, just to really set the scene for you, blasting the saddest of love songs. Like I was the star of my own like coming of age movie. Like I had pictured this boy holding my hand and kissing me for the first time. Like all those cringy cliche things that you see in teen dramas. And...

You know what, I swear this was like my first manifestation in real life. Like I manifested him and was so delusional in my obsession and love that in my crush, that I swear the universe was just like tired of hearing about it and was like, you know, fine, grace, here you go, like experience it. And so I'd raise my, like just to really further expand on this, like I would raise my hand in class just to go to the water fountain and time it perfectly to catch a glimpse of him like leaving the bathroom.

Like the bathroom, okay? And like, forget math class. Like I was so busy daydreaming and like romanticizing this young boy that like, I did not pay attention in class. And I honestly blame this first love for why I still suck at math to this day. And it's because I skipped right past the basics because my dumb ass was too busy like romanticizing life and not paying attention. And so,

That's really who I was as a kid. I romanticized everything. And maybe you can relate to this, right? I was the girl convincing my friends to go and dance in the rain and dragging pillows and blankets onto my roof to stargaze, pretending my life was a movie. And looking back on it, I realized that it wasn't just because I loved love and romanticized my life. It was because.

I didn't want to sit with the hard emotions of what I went through as a child and the feelings of abandonment, feeling like I wasn't enough or the loneliness that I didn't know how to process. So a boy's love was a really great way to distract myself, right? And subconsciously distract myself because as young kids, like we're literal children.

And our brains are not fully developed. as children, we're supposed to go through these things so we can learn the lessons on the other side and as adults look back and process everything. And so I not only was obsessed with this boy, I was obsessed with being this good girl, the one who was well-behaved, who lived her life to the fullest, who looked for the escape.

who really wanted to please everyone, right? Like putting my needs on the back burner and making sure that everyone else felt seen, felt loved, felt appreciated. And maybe you can relate to that, right? And my confidence, I realize now as a kid was not built on self-love, it was built on attention, on being desired.

on feeling chosen, on being beautiful in the eyes of a boy. And once I got that attention and once that boy actually liked me back, game over, I chased that high like a goddamn addict, okay? And I ended up loving this boy for 10 plus years, five of which we actually dated. And those five years,

rewired my brain chemistry and taught me more about love than any experience I had had. And to me, like we weren't just kids, we lived like adults. And I mean, I was literally 13, like hosting this boy at my house and see, you know, just living that experience and living a very mature relationship as a child. And I always joke, like, if I ever have kids, they're not dating until they're at least like 16 because...

It's like giving a child addictive drugs and saying, have fun, be safe. Like you're high on it. You're high on them. You're high and drunk on love, consumed. And when it's gone, the withdrawal is so brutal. And so my entire world revolved around this boy. 13, I mean, I was 11, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, like 16.

all the way till I was like 19, even 20, I had built my life around this person. So much so that he was the main character and I was just like a supporting role. And my plans, my dreams, my sense of self were all tied back to this relationship. And then life happened, growth happened, grace happened, like college came and lessons were learned. And eventually the breakup

happened. And after the breakup, I was just a shell of myself. Depression hit me so hard. It felt like a moving train that I was just holding on for dear life. And I was so good at hiding my depression that most people didn't know unless you were close to me. And that's the thing about heartbreak. It doesn't just break your heart. It breaks you. And I couldn't listen to certain things without crying. Forget country music.

was so triggered by country music. Like I literally had to turn it off. I couldn't drive down certain streets without like my chest tightening. And my hometown that was once filled with so many precious childhood memories just suddenly felt haunted and filled with this crippling anxiety. And like 4.5 square miles, which is really not that big, the potential of running, running into him felt like it was inevitable so much so that it was really just not

possible for me to even live at my house. And so I moved to different cities just to escape the ghost of us. I literally moved and did internships in New York and Los Angeles and like poured my pain into creativity. I ended up making a short film my senior year of college about this breakup that ended up winning awards.

And it's funny because I look at those projects, like they just look like art to the outside world, but for me, it was survival. And a breakup feels almost like you're taking the red pill in the matrix, right? You wake up and suddenly the world that you once knew or the world that you built together is gone. And you're faced with like the reality of what remains and you're standing there just like raw, exposed and wondering like, what the fuck?

do I do now without this person? Right? There's a song by the script, it's called Break Even. And the lyrics go something like this says, they say bad things happen for a reason. But no wise words are going to stop the bleeding. Because she's moved on while I'm still grieving. And when a heart breaks, no, it doesn't break even. And that's the cruel reality of breakups. They're never even.

They're always one person who saw it coming, who had time to prepare, who maybe compartmentalized and moved on. Well, you're there drowning, right? Drowning in the past. And it's not fair. It's never fair, but that's life. And the worst part is that no one teaches us how to deal with this shit, right? There's no like heartbreak 101 class. So we're just like left.

fumbling through this pain and really understanding like wondering how to love ourselves When the person that gave all of our love to us is gone and so the questions that I asked myself Through this breakup and you know the lessons I learned along the way were really just survival, right? So it's like how do you survive a breakup? How do you move forward when everything feels so broken inside, right and

There's so many answers to this question and it's going to look differently for you. But I wanted to share a little bit of this journey with you so that you can take, take what you need from my experience, right? Or borrow my belief. And so when my friends go through breakups, I all, or even family, oftentimes I will give this same advice to my sisters or my cousins, right? It's like, I always start by telling them how sad I am, not just for them in this breakup, but for the

person who just lost them. Because that's the first lesson in the Breakup Bible is you are the prize, right? And I don't want you to ever forget it. Like you are the prize that can be lost or can be won. Like you are someone who makes ripples. It doesn't just make ripples, they make waves, right? Like you are extraordinary. And you know, so is that

maybe that person that you broke up with too is amazing. But the reality is you as a person, you have transformed their life to some capacity and they have transformed yours. And so I just want to remind you that even if that person is no longer a part of your life and you've broken up with them, like you are the prize, whether they've won it or lost it. And I don't want you to forget that.

It's interesting because when we think about every fairy tale that we were fed as kids, right, there's the prince who rides in on a magical white horse to save the princess. There's Barbie who comes in to meet her perfect Ken, right? Like from the start, we're taught that our worth is tied to being chosen by someone. That success looks like finding love and getting married and building a family. And the thing is, like, we are rewriting that narrative.

Women today are building careers. Women and men are chasing their dreams and living life on their own terms. And as we step into our power and the love stories, they just naturally change too. We're no longer waiting for our prince or our princess. We're riding our own damn horses and we're building our own empires. And I just never want you to forget

that you are a prize to be won. You have so much value, you matter, like you are epic. And so when it comes to the breakup Bible, I just really want you to remember that. And so step one, now if we go back into our steps and like the how to guide of like, how do we deal with breakups?

I really want to give you just the number one piece of advice and that is no contact. None, zip, zero, block the numbers, unfollow their social media accounts. Like I don't even care if it's their dog's account, like please for the love of God, no contact, like all of it, like block, mute, unfollow. Like you need to start looking at your breakup

has a battle ground. like in order to win, you need to protect your peace. Like in order to move through it, to get to the other side of victory, you need to protect your peace. And you're not going to protect your peace by following that person. Breakups aren't called respond against, right? Like they're called breakups for a reason. Something broke, you're no longer together. And even if you're not ready to accept that,

You cannot keep blending your heart into a smoothie of pain and sadness every time that you see them on social media or you answer their texts or pick up the phone. No, you have to create that boundary. And while you're at it, please block the accomplices. And by accomplices, I mean friends, family, acquaintances that you would see this person through. So I don't want you to make the mistake of playing FBI agent.

and purposefully hurting yourself by lurking through their social media or their friends' or family's social media to overanalyze their life without you. It's just not healthy. And I think deep down you know that. It's just really hard to not do in this digital age. so block them, unfollow them, protect that piece, and create that boundary for yourself. This is a huge part of the process.

when it comes to giving yourself grace, okay? And you can relate that to just business as well. Now, what about the physical reminders, right? Like the photos, the clothes, the gifts that you might've gotten from this person. I firmly believe that the items, the physicality of that relationship that exists is holding energy. And so what I want you to do for step two of the Breakup Bible is to return what needs to be returned.

preferably by mail. Okay, remember step one where we're not contacting this person and we're, you know, protecting our peace, like send it by mail, the USPS still exists. And I don't want you to like lean into this like dramatic meetup or romanticizing the giving back. Like no, ship it, no one last coffee. Like pack up those sentimental items that you're not ready to part with and put them in a box, seal it, label it.

do not open and shove it in the back of your closet and ship it to him. So two different boxes, right? Maybe one box that you're not ready to part with and the memories that you do wanna keep but just like cannot keep them around. Like we don't need that energetic exchange around. So you keep one box of the stuff that you wanna keep. The other box is of their items, right? Things that actually belong to them that you need to return. So two different boxes, ship one, keep another, but keep the one that you keep.

shove it in a closet or a place that you can't see it out of sight, out of mind. And when you're ready to review those items, maybe even just years from now, you'll be ready and it won't be this really painful process. You'll have progressed and you'll have grown and you will have allowed time to heal yourself. And maybe you'll even thank me because you want those items, but you're just, it's too much energy that you're giving on onto them right now.

Okay, step three of the Breakup Bible, which is kind of fun. It's not really fun, I'm lying to you. But we're trying to make this positive, but not as toxic positivity, but I want you to host a living funeral. Yes, you heard me right, an actual funeral for the relationship. So this might look differently for you. for example, dress in all black, light a candle, play your saddest.

playlist, right? Cry every ugly yet beautiful tear that you have. And I want you to write down a eulogy. Every last thing that you wish you could say, the good, the bad, the ugly. And after you're done writing, after you're done pouring your heart and soul into this, I want you to burn it. Yes, burn it, shred it, flush it down the toilet if you have to, but mark the ending. Create a point, a pin in this story.

because every relationship, whether you want to admit it or not, is grief. When you are grieving, you can grieve a living person. So I would encourage you to have a funeral where you can truly just let the grief flow and where you can feel and process and just let it exist.

versus pretending that it doesn't exist because it's so hard to hear, but that relationship has died and a part of you may have died with it. So you have to go through that process and the best way to do it is to host a mini funeral and to give yourself that time and that space to feel it all really. Now step four of the breakup Bible.

is now after you've had your funeral, your existing, I want you to write a letter to your future self. Pour your heart out and talk about how you want to feel. Now, what have you learned from this relationship? I even go as far if you're ready to thank your ex or the person that you're breaking up with, right?

Thank them for what you've learned or what you'll take away from this relationship because I do believe that every relationship is a lesson. They're either a part of your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime, right? But really start to reflect on what that relationship and that person meant to you. And then I want you to...

Like really get excited about your next chapter and what you want to call in for your next chapter. So is that abundance? Is that like a sexy, you know, brunette on a moped? I don't know. Like is this an Italian man who delivers you pizza in the middle of the night? What do you want from your next chapter? Right. Or is it a hot model from, you know, I don't even know, New York, you know, whatever it looks like for you, claim it and just really sit in that excitement and that hope.

because oftentimes when it comes to breakups, all that is left is this hope.

Hope can kind of be a secret devil because in the back of our minds, I truly believe that once the dust settles and there's nothing but time, this hope kind of exists in the back of our mind. And it really blinds us to the reality of where we are at when it comes to the breakup with that person. And we'll talk a little bit about Stockholm syndrome as well, but like,

Allow yourself to be hopeful, not for that relationship to come back. Sometimes I hate when people are like, well, if it's meant to be, it'll be. No, it was broken. It's done. It's dead. I literally just hosted a funeral. Now, where am I going to direct my hope? I'm going to redirect the hope away from hoping that this person will be my knight in shining armor to

I'm going to hope for a badass life and an extraordinary one at that. And I'm going to hope to go after my dreams, like re channel all that hope to like create action around my life. And so I want you to just redirect that hope into something really positive. So when you're writing this letter, hoping for the future, but hoping for a future that is for you, not for that person as well, right? Cause again, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but

the relationship is dead and it's time to step into that next chapter. And so another thing that I want you to do, step five, baby, and five is one of my favorite numbers. So step five, I want you to create a new ritual, okay? So we've had our funeral, we've written our self-care letter, our love letter to our future self.

Now I want you to create a new ritual that you're going to implement on a daily or even weekly basis. And this is going to be your distraction, but it's also going to be a little bit deeper than that. So I want you to think like self-care, but it's not just bubble masks and face masks though, don't get me wrong. I love a good spa night, but it's really about committing to something that puts you first, right? Like your heart first.

or journaling, meditating, taking a dance class, like going on a solo coffee date, like whatever feels really good for you. And one of my most healing experiences was when I traveled solo and I went on a four month backpacking trip through Southeast Asia. Like I learned so much about myself in that process that I really want that for you. And I don't, you don't need to go on a solo backpacking trip, but like what is that ritual that you're gonna commit to or that new experience that

sometimes does feel like distraction. Because I found that even in my breakup, like I just kept repeating and hearing and like thinking about this person so much so that it drove me crazy. And I just don't want that for you. I want you to feel like you have other rituals. Instead of you know, thinking about this person that you did for so long, right? Like you need to create new rituals now for yourself.

And so that's gonna look different for you, but really finding maybe new hobbies or new activities that'll really distract you and get you to open up. And one of these other things was creativity. That was my lifeline. Creativity was my lifeline. So my darkest times have always been my most creative. And the short film, I actually made a short film about my breakup.

It didn't just win awards, which was pretty damn cool, but it helped me win myself back. And I want you to at least your new ritual be the ritual where you give yourself grace, right? You allow yourself to feel, you allow yourself to let go and just to become that next version of you that you were meant to be.

And so that brings me to step six of the Breakup Bible. I want you to set time aside to distract, but also time to process. And I swear, we love the feeling of Stockholm syndrome as human beings. Now, Stockholm syndrome is obviously very dramatic. Like that is a very scary thing, but Stockholm syndrome is a psychological response that occurs when a person that is being held captive or abused develops an emotional

bond with their captor or abuser. It's actually a survival mechanism where the victim starts to empathize, trust, or even defend the person that's causing them harm. And I think there are different levels of Stockholm syndrome, but there is this syndrome that creeps in post breakup. And I'm telling you, it's like when you create the distance, when you start to get distracted, it's like,

your mind allows you to forget all the pain and the trauma that you experienced in this relationship. And so I really want you to set aside time to not only distract yourself, but then really set aside the time to process all that you have gone through. You know, this is going to look different, but for you, but for me, like distracting was the really easy step, right? But like,

think when it comes to processing, it's really hard for us to sit in the emotion and the grief and that we, instead of processing, we just find someone else to kind of replace that person. And it's a lot more common than you think. And so I just, don't want you to be like me and make the mistake of trying to replace versus like just focusing on you.

Like focusing on daily activities or ways that you can like romanticize your life, like channeling that inner child, right? Like, but completely alone. Like process your relationship by focusing on healing and getting yourself out into the world to learn new things, but to also grieve the relationship that once was. Like in my grief, that is where the most self development and growth has transpired.

And that's what leads me to step number seven, which in the Breakup Bible is to lean into your transformation. Once we lean in and surrender to the emotions of it all, I swear you feel so much better. It's like you're allowing yourself to be free and let yourself be like angry and feel the things, right? Like if you need to cry, you cry and like allow that energy to just be like released and

feel and just like in feeling you begin to let go. And so I just really want to stress that importance. Like when you feel, that's when you begin to let go.

I, if I was talking to my younger self today, I think she would be shocked to see the woman I am today. And she comes up, I do believe that all of the versions of ourself exist and kind of pop up when you least expect it. you know, I just, I hope that for you, it's when we celebrate, when we reflect on these breakups that like even in the darkest of times, like,

just know that you're going through an epic transformation and you will feel different. You'll feel better on the other side, right? Like you might be going through the thick of it right now and just wondering like, how can I make it through? Like it does get better and it's all a part of the process. And not to be like super toxic positive, but it does. It truly does get better. And I really mean that.

And I wish that I had someone say that to me. Like, it just gets better with time and with the work and, you know, the healing and all of the journeys of life. But the breakups are really a catalyst for that transformation. And so what brings me to step number eight, which is remember that timing is everything.

Someone once told me that it takes more than half the amount of time that you were together to get over that person. And I believe that can be true, but often it depends on the relationship. And essentially that just means you need to allow yourself to surrender to time, right? Allow that time to heal you and recognize that this is not a quick and easy fix. Like there's no magical pill. There's no rewind button. Like you are here in the now.

And it's time to celebrate that and celebrate that transformation in this timing as well. And so step nine, be alone. Be alone for as long as humanly possible. Don't be a serial relationshipist. And I've been there and trust me, it's a huge red flag. And I firmly believe it like halts your growth when you don't just like choose to be alone, like, and you just,

keep going into these new relationships. Like I see it with some of my closest friends. It's like, in order to be open to like love again, and a relationship that's healthy and that will last, like you need that time to like truly be alone. Like not six guys texting you to hang out, right? Like I'm talking alone alone, which is super fucking difficult and really scary, especially when you have childhood trauma and like that.

feeling of being unworthy or abandoned or loneliness, like loneliness, what if we swapped the negativity around feeling lonely? Like what if we looked at loneliness through a different lens? Loneliness provides clarity, okay? And it's time to be like when we sit in that clarity, I want you to look at loneliness as just time to really fucking love yourself, like alone.

Right? Being alone and just loving it and like doing things alone and celebrating that. I just think that is the most important thing to remember is like loneliness is really just time to remember who you are, what you deserve, and just to really fucking love yourself because you're amazing. Okay?

Now, if you're in the thick of heartbreak right now, please hear me when I say you will be okay. And even if it doesn't feel like it now, that healing is possible. It may be working in the background and it's messy, it's slow, but it's real. And of course, your reminder to just give yourself grace during this time, cry if you need to, scream if you need to, dance it out in your kitchen or go dance in the rain.

Also like get back up, reclaim this narrative of the breakup and turn it into a transformation. Like if people ask you like, oh, like are you still with that person? Be like, no, like I'm in a transformation. I'm not in a relationship. I'm in a fucking transformation, which is 10 times better sometimes, right? I want you to reclaim that narrative because every ending is just the beginning of a new chapter. And you, my love,

are the author of your own story, your own fucking beautiful epic story. You are the main character. You are not a supportive character. You are the main character. And I just want you to remember how much of a prize you are and how truly amazing you are.