Still Just "Giving it Time?" | 10

Are you still telling yourself “just give it time” after your breakup or divorce… while secretly feeling stuck, heavy, and emotionally drained months later?

In this episode, I explain why “giving it time” alone is one of the biggest myths in men’s recovery — and why so many guys stay stuck in resentment, anger, regret, and fog for far longer than they need to.

You’ll discover a practical, step-by-step method to let go of heavy negative emotions so you can finally gain clarity, reduce emotional weight, and start feeling better — faster.

This isn’t about forcing positivity or pretending you’re okay.
It’s about learning how to process and release the pain without letting it control your life, your confidence, or your future.

You’ll walk away with:

• Why time by itself rarely heals deep heartbreak
• The exact process to release resentment, guilt, anger, and emotional baggage
• How to create mental clarity 
• A simple daily practice that accelerates your emotional recovery

If you’re tired of feeling heavy, stuck in your head, or waiting for the pain to magically disappear, this episode gives you the tools to take control of your healing instead of waiting for it to happen.

Your comeback doesn’t require more time.
It requires the right method.

Let’s lighten the load and move forward. 

#BreakupRecovery #DivorceRecovery #LettingGo #EmotionalHealing #MensMentalHealth #HealingAfterBreakup #PostBreakupHealing #ReleaseResentment #MasculineRecovery #PodcastForMen

Hosted by Chris Ryan - Professional Life Coach | B.A. Psychology

Breakup and divorce recovery coaching for men

For coaching inquiries and general questions, email: coachchrisryan@gmail.com

*The BCP is 100% self-funded and does not run ads.

Keywords: breakup recovery for men, divorce recovery for men, rebuilding identity after breakup, masculine qualities after divorce, feeling incomplete after breakup, reclaiming masculinity post-breakup, life after divorce for men, men's self-improvement after breakup, healing from heartbreak men, post-breakup identity crisis men, divorced men recovery, broken up men healing, men's mental health after relationship ends.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Alright, boys, welcome back. Today's episode is for those of you still deep in the fog of a recent breakup or divorce where everything you do feels way harder than it should. You're being weighed down by negative, heavy emotions, and your motivation, confidence, and strength are at an all-time low. By the end of today's episode, you will have a much better understanding of what it's going to take to speed up this healing process. You're also going to have a better grasp on what things you actually can control, things that most people think you can't. We will be unlearning things and probably exposing some bad feelings, which might be painful, but in order to properly disinfect these wounds, we must push through the initial sting of this healing process. Because our goal is to feel better faster. Real quick before we begin, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone listening. It's been awesome to see this podcast download numbers finally start to lift off. So thank you guys. I can't tell you how stoked I am knowing that you guys are walking down this path with me. All right, let's kick off today's episode. First, I want to address the societal understanding of what, quote, giving it time means. What most people do when they're hit with some terrible life-changing thing is they think, oh boy, well, this is gonna suck for a long time. And then they just wait for time to pass and to feel better. And yeah, there are some things that help, like socializing, new hobbies, exercising. Those are all great. And if you're already doing those healthy things to actively improve your energy, I encourage you to stay on that path. But we still carry around all of that heaviness while we're doing those healthy, productive things and wait for time to allow those bad feelings to slowly fade. And when heavy emotions are in the way, they cloud our energy while we are doing them. It becomes difficult to wake up in the morning, difficult to go to work, performing our best, difficult to concentrate, difficult to have fun. And even though we may be doing fun things, and whatever it is may be kind of pushing that thing out of our mind for a bit, we come home and those bad feelings come rushing back, and we're basically back to where we started. And when it comes to us guys, the societal understanding of this is that showing emotions and talking about them is like icky and not manly. And I still don't like sharing or showing my negative emotions. And I think that's okay. As badasses, we must strive to be the rock, not only for our family, but for everyone around us. The rock provides stability in times of peace and in times of war. And no, nothing in today's episode requires you showing or sharing anything. This is a 100% solo exercise to be done when you have some quiet time with yourself. In fact, if you're not currently in a quiet space, I highly recommend replaying this episode next time you are. The expectation that we are supposed to quote, man up and just deal with it is dumb. Two things I see with guys I work with are one, either they can admit they feel like shit, but they don't know how to get rid of it. Or two, they're just lying to themselves, telling themselves they're fine, because frankly, they're too afraid to come to terms with the fact that they're not well. This is where negative emotions get suppressed. Guys who let these feels hang around suffer in silence. They may take it out on people and things outside of themselves, or attempt to numb that pain with alcohol or other substances. I'm guilty of doing both of those things in the first 29 years of my life, either letting my feelings just sit there or lie to myself and tell myself I was okay when I wasn't. When we're stuck in this paradigm, we internalize it or we let them hang out as long as, quote, time will allow. And as a result, it does nothing but put stress on our bodies. And I'm talking about physical stress, higher cortisol levels, higher blood pressure, higher risk of developing all kinds of long-term illnesses and things like cancer and heart disease. Interestingly enough, emotional suppression also lowers testosterone.

unknown 4:48

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

So, in an effort to retain our manliness by just dealing with it, it actually makes us less manly. Yeah. Now you know why I call this outdated mindset dumb. The reality is holding this shit in is just not good. We put so much energy, time, and money into all of the other correct things, eating healthy, exercising, socializing, all that, but it's just being canceled out by carrying this shit around and not letting it go. So, what am I trying to sell here? Well, there is a tried and tested way to get rid of those heavy emotions. What we're doing today is deprogramming from that outdated deal with it and give it time BS and moving towards the solution, which is to get rid of them on our own instead of being beholden to whatever amount of time it will take. The first concept we must understand is that yes, while we are not in control of bad things that happen or our initial reaction to that thing, we all have the ability to develop the skill of controlling how long those bad emotions hang around and weigh us down. This is a simple method, but it requires your dedication to making it work. And as simple as it is gonna sound, it can be super uncomfortable for most guys. At first, it certainly was for me, but just remember anything worth having is difficult to attain, right? So let's dive in. I want you to imagine a square. And I know some of you are grabbing a piece of paper and a pen right now, showing that dedication. I guarantee you guys are gonna start feeling better real fucking quick, I can already tell. In fact, everyone grab a piece of paper. This is the badass comeback, not the half-ass attempt. Go ahead and pause me here if you need time to grab it. Alright, on that piece of paper, make a medium-sized square.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

On one outside corner of that square, write angry. Pick another corner and write sad. On another, write hurt, and the last corner, write afraid. I'll give you a few seconds to complete this step.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

Again, it's angry, sad, hurt, and afraid on opposite ends of the square.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

Feel free to pause me again.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Okay, take a look at that square and your words. These are the four baseline negative emotions. Anything and everything negative that you will ever feel can fit into one or more of these emotions. Here's what each means. Write these down as well.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Angry is displeasure, disgust, or hostility, sad, is sorrow, despair, or grief. Hurt, is distress, rejection, or pain.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

Is it afraid? Is anxiety, apprehension, worry, or fear? This next step involves you writing down whatever is plaguing you right now. Go ahead and write this underneath that square. For example, you can write going through divorce, bad breakup, I miss my ex, how often will I be able to see my kids? How will I move on? Will I want to date again? Write down the heaviest things going through your mind. This may take some time, and don't worry if you're not able to write everything down. More things will come up as you get used to this exercise. Feel free to pause again to finish writing. Next. Circle or put a star next to the heaviest one. We're gonna focus on this one first, since it's weighing you down the most. Write down the corresponding emotions from that square that fit into it. Angry, sad, hurt, or afraid. And it is entirely possible to be feeling more than one emotion, so don't box yourself in. And of course, be honest with yourself. Now we break it down further. We're gonna formulate calibration sentences based on whatever this thing is in correspondence to the proper emotion that fits into it. Or emotions. And I know some of you are gonna recognize this from episode one.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

Write down this formula before you start that though. Here it is. Right now I'm feeling blank. Because I blank.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

Again, that's right now I'm feeling blank because I blank. Now copy that formula with the emotions inserted into it and write the reason. For example, if you're calibrating the fact that you were dumped, you can write something down like, right now I'm feeling hurt because I just had my heart smashed. Use the formula again for any other emotions corresponding with that thing that you circled or starred. Adding on to that, you can also say, right now I am also feeling sad because I'm no longer with the woman I still love. Right now I am also feeling afraid because I don't know what my life will look like from here. Right now I'm also feeling angry because I wanted to make things work, but she said no. Now, the reason we follow the emotion with because I is to keep the focus on ourselves. Remember, we are recalibrating our own emotional state, not someone else's. So take your time, write down those sentences, identify the emotions. If it's not all four, don't be afraid. But if you know it's more than one, keep digging and find the sentence. All right, so when you have those sentences down, read them over a few times. This might be painful, uncomfortable, or icky or whatever, but understand that what you're doing is getting to the bottom of this problem that is weighing you down. The problem is the bad feeling. The solution is literally what you're doing right now, which is categorizing it into understanding exactly what is weighing you down, accepting that this is indeed what is going on inside of you, and letting it go. But wait, what's the letting go part? It's this very part of the exercise that you've already done. Before this, you were hanging on to it, whether you realized it or not. But now you have identified what it is, pulled it out of you, and placed it on that piece of paper. It's the same concept with trying to figure out any other problem. For example, if you're trying to figure out why your car is making a weird noise, you carry around the worry of that until you finally discover the root of the noise. Once you figure it out and you find that thing and you let go of that worry or fear and have this overwhelming, uplifting feeling of, ah, this is where the noise is coming from. Or if you lose something, you'll have that, oh yeah, this is where I left that thing. This part is decoding what the heaviness is. Right now, you're going from this super vague, dark, heavy energy weighing you down to, ah, this is what was weighing me down. And what you write down may surprise you. If this happens and you realize, oh shit, I never thought of it that way, you'll know it's working. You will also know it's working when you have a change in emotional state, when you're looking at your sentences. Here's what may or may not happen. You may get mad, you may get upset, you may cry, you may even feel lighter. But you should have that same realization of, aha, this is why I was feeling like shit, or at least a big part of the reason. This is just the beginning of letting go. We took it out of our body, we put it on a piece of paper. We can now allow it to exist outside of ourselves. But here's the thing: when you're first starting out, it may not have the effect that you want. That is okay. The key here is repetition. By now, you've recalibrated that circled or starred thing that you wrote down above. Just move on to the next thing and to the next thing. The more you calibrate what you wrote down, this exercise will start to work better and it will start to work faster. Above all else, regardless if it's bringing up some change in you or not, realize that you've given yourself permission to feel whatever it is. It's okay to be sad. It's okay to be angry, hurt, and afraid. It's just part of the human experience. So go ahead and calibrate those additional things all you want. And pause here if needed. When you've done all that you want to do for today, do it again tomorrow on a new piece of paper. If you're still carrying around the same things, which is entirely possible, write them down again and calibrate again, even if it's basically the exact same sentence. The more you do this with consistency, the more effective it will be. Like anything you've ever practiced in the past, whether it be sports or learning a new job, you will become more and more proficient with it, and it will be easier to let those things go and get them the fuck off of your back. So let me give some real life examples. As I mentioned in episode one, this calibration is a modified version of an exercise I learned in a 52-week anger management course. The guys in that program, myself included, were way worse off than 99% of you listening. We had zero control of not only our anger, but our emotions in general. Our problem was that if we were feeling sad, afraid, or hurt, it would turn into explosive anger and bad things would happen. For us, we had to actually calibrate this in two separate parts. And that was way harder than anything I'm teaching you guys today. The difference from week one and week 52 for the guys who actually put effort into the program was night and day. We went from a ball of stress, the shittiest of energy, to feeling weightless, calm, peaceful, and finally happy. The calibration tool was taught to us to not only control our anger, but also to control our stress. And the best part is most of us realize that, yeah, it can be applied to anything negative that happens in life. Since then, I've used this calibration after getting dumped on several occasions, being cheated on, losing friendships, grieving the loss of a family member, stress at work, arguments with people, threats of violence against me, financial stress, my own mistakes, you name it. Anything bad that's happened, regardless of whose fault it was, I calibrate and most of the heaviness just goes away. You'll soon be able to start to do it on the fly in your head. Something is going to happen that's going to spike a bad feeling. You'll be able to recognize that. Usually comes as a subtle change in how you're feeling. For example, if you're cruising home on a Friday after a long week, you might be all excited to go home, and then someone cuts you off on the freeway. Most likely you'll be hit with some adrenaline and it can turn into anger quickly. That is an example of the change in state that I'm talking about. Instead of saying, oh, look at this fucking idiot. Don't let that person get your attention and solidify their action, making you feel angry. Just calibrate and think to yourself, whoa, I'm feeling angry because I was cut off by a fucking idiot. Soon you will be able to notice that spike of negative emotion start to melt away quickly before it has time to embed itself in you with whatever it is. If someone says something to you, if one of your kids is acting up, if anything fucks with your energy in any way whatsoever, you can calibrate and let it go before it digs its claws in. Now, for bigger life things like a divorce, loss of life, or something major like that, when you get good at calibrating, I'm not guaranteeing that you'll just forget about it just as quickly as you forgot about that dude who cut you off. I can, however, guarantee that you won't be weighed down by it any longer. In essence, you'll have this feeling of, yeah, this happened. It does suck. But you won't have that weight on your back or in your heart nearly as much. Some big things may take multiple calibrations over days or even a few weeks. Each time you calibrate that specific thing, though, you will start to feel better and better. An example I can give is losing my dad to brain cancer a few months ago. He fought tooth and nail for four whole years. But watching him literally deteriorate right in front of my eyes was one of the heaviest experiences of my life. Along the way, I had all kinds of sad, angry, afraid, and hurt. Some days were easier than others, but all I had to do was recalibrate whenever I wanted to get rid of some of those heavy feelings. It became easier to accept the fact that my dad was going to die each time I did. The rest of my family members, however, were not taking it well, especially my mom. But I knew I had a duty to be the rock for the family. My calibrations kept me as stable as I could be. Because of this clarity, I was able to take some of the stress off of her back. I wound up helping her make some really tough decisions. Sometimes I had to drive my dad to his appointments, rescue him a couple of times from doing something dangerous due to short-term memory loss, and most importantly, to be the most solid support I could be for him while he was dealing with the inevitable. I've also calibrated after escaping abusive relationships. And I know that there are some of you listening who have also escaped abusive relationships, either physical abuse or mental and emotional abuse from a toxic personality disorder. Holy fuck, that shit can be tough to unscramble and get yourself right afterwards. Calibrating after months or years of confusion caused by a toxic personality is essential to figuring out exactly the type of person you were dealing with and to re-establish your identity. When I recalibrated after being used, manipulated, and discarded, I realized that a lot of what I was feeling was actually programmed into me and thus was influencing how I saw myself. Those X's made me feel like a total loser. They made me feel unworthy of anyone's love. They made me feel like I was worthless. Calibrating afterwards allowed me to not only let go of those artificial feelings that were injected into me, but also the clarity to realize that I am worthy. I am strong and confident, and no one gets to take that away from me. Speaking of clarity, boys, calibrating helps to get rid of the heaviness, which in turn makes room for clarity when it comes time to make your next move. If you are stuck, it is damn near impossible to figure out what your next step should be, and even harder to initiate that first step. Having clarity in these times is the secret sauce to not only moving forward, but moving up. In fact, think of how you can take care of the Important things in your life with that clarity.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

What in your life right now needs your clarity? Is it cleaning up and reorganizing your house? Is it your job? What about your kids?

SPEAKER_01 22:17

What would that clarity help you accomplish with them? Let me know in the comments. You can even send me an email or a DM. In fact, if any of you listening are struggling with this exercise or have any questions at all regarding your calibrations, reach out to me and I will 100% help you get back on the right foot. The reality is this is the worst, grueling part of a breakup. The heaviness of it all. It is 10 times harder to move on if you don't know how to calibrate. And yeah, it takes 10 times as long. But this is also one of those things where you won't see the benefits unless you give it 100% of your dedication and yes, your honesty and trust in yourself. Honestly, guys, men are expected to take on crazy levels of stress and still be level-headed, productive, provide, and defend. Women are expected to go through different kinds of stress too, of course. But one of the most backwards thing in our society is that I see guys who work incredibly dangerous jobs. I see men who risk their own lives defending other people. And I see men do stupid shit to themselves that brings them pain and suffering. This calibration tool is still nothing in comparison. But for some reason, society doesn't think it's necessary or they just don't even know what it would look like to actually figure this shit out. In the end, boys, this calibration tool is the skeleton key to unlocking the life you want. I guarantee the life you know you want is going to be hard to attain. There will be setbacks. Oh well, calibrate. There's going to be stress. Oh well, calibrate. There will be mistakes made. Calibrate. You may lose people along the way. Who cares? Calibrate. I think you get my point. If you don't calibrate through those things, the heaviness that comes with it will keep you weighed down and stuck until, quote, enough time has passed. Guys, we are badass. We don't have to wait for time to pass. Practice this calibration as much as you can. You have no idea what is waiting for you. More peace, happiness, acceptance of shitty things happening, and the clarity that everyone around you will be able to feel emanating from you, your friends, family, your kids, and holy shit, for those of you who would take your ex back, if she ever decides to come back, she will be able to feel that clarity. It's going to be night and day to her. But of course, don't do this for her or your friends or even your kids. Do it for you. If you want to become an even better man or an even better rock solid dad and a better boyfriend for your next girl, this calibration will lead you there. All right, guys, wrapping up here. There are so many backwards as things society expects of us men. To hell with all that. If it's not serving you, it's time to find solutions. Take your time with this calibration exercise. Hopefully, you'll be able to surpass me. Some calibrations take me 10 seconds and the pain starts to melt away way before it gets embedded. Practice and see for yourself. And do me a favor, come back to this episode and comment or write me an email when you start to see results. Everybody loves a success story. As they come in, I'm going to compile them and mention them in a future episode. And if you want to come on this podcast for an interview and talk about how this calibration helped you move on and move up, email me and we will set it up. There are so many guys out there who need help moving on. And who knows, maybe something you say will resonate with hundreds or even thousands of guys out there who are looking for answers. This is what this podcast is all about coming together, sharing our experiences, sharing the solutions, giving guys the helping hand they need. Substance abuse, suicide, and illness that comes from the heaviness of a heartbreak is not something we should be ignoring. On a latter note, guys, the future looks bright for each one of you guys, doing the tough work of solving your problems and eventually bringing others up with you. I have faith in each one of you guys listening. I know this exercise works. I've seen it work amongst the worst of us. I'm going to go ahead and leave it there. Once again, thank you guys for walking this path with me. Keep marching forward, and I will see you next week. Thank you for joining me in another badass episode, brother. If you want to accelerate into this new chapter in your life and get a boost into your badass journey, sign up for a free 45-minute consultation for post-breakup or divorce coaching. All the info is in the episode description. Also, please remember to like and comment. And if you know anyone who could use this info in their badass journey, please share this episode with them. None of this will be possible without you guys, so thank you again, and I will see you in the next episode.