Official Breakup Guide with Dorothy Johnson

Let's be honest, most breakup advice sucks. That's until you hear from today's guest, breakup coach Dorothy Johnson, on healing heartbreak FOR REAL. No more stalking your ex on IG (or every social touchpoint imagineable), no more comparison, no more "what if" conversations with yourself. On today's episode we're getting into all things healing from heartbreak, challenging our beliefs, and creating a life BETTER than we could have imagined. Whether you're in the midst of heartache or looking to heal and move forward from a previous relationship, this guide will help you navigate the path to a happier, healthier, and abundant AF future!!

On this episode we cover:

• 4 steps to overcoming an ex
• data driven healing!!!
• rewiring neural pathways
• detaching from the past
• hosting a metaphorical funeral
• getting an ex out of your head
• navigating attachment
• manifesting the future
• FREEDOM & ABUNDANCE 

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💘 Let's be internet friends!!

•  @thebedside 
• www.thebedside.co

Connect with Dorothy:

• dorothyabjohnson.com
• @breakupcoachdorothy

Be sure to rate, review, and share this episode with a friend! LOVE YOU!

Transcript

0:00

Music. Hello everybody and welcome back to the Bedside Podcast. I'm your host Tatiana. I'm so excited to have you here today. I also am particularly excited because it is October and in my humble opinion it is the best month of the year because it. Is my birth month. I am a Libra. This is what I live for. It is my bread and butter. Spooky season is where I thrive and I'm just so excited to be in this month and just be basking in it. I feel like I've spoken about this before on the show, but I really view fall as kind of my new year, as my reset. For me, it just is very significant of changing and that like in-between, between summer, between winter, and just kind of like reorienting. I really view like September and I think it's because in schooling systems too, you start your new year in the fall, you go back to your classes and your entire routine, so I think I've always also just associated that with such newness. So anyways, I hope that we are just enjoying this time. I've got really cool episodes coming up for you in October specifically around different like spooky topics so stay tuned it's kind of fun. It's a little bit different for the show but also not like it's so in tandem so I'll just like sprinkle in there that we might have a little bit of witchy content coming for you. Anyways so today I'm extra excited about my guest her name is Dorothy Johnson and she is a heartbreak slash breakup coach and this This episode basically is your guide to a broken heart. It is Heartbreak 101. It is how to heal from heartbreak. And before you stop listening because you're just like, I might not be going through heartbreak. I beg to differ. This episode was so helpful. Truly, of course, if you're in the throes of healing from heartbreak, this is for you. But if you have ever gone through heartbreak, this episode is so healing. Even I was looking back on past relationships and I was like, oh my gosh, I don't have to feel salty about this. I can move on, I can unattach from this. And I think too, even aside from the romantic part of breakups, I feel like this advice that Dorothy shares is so applicable to friendships, friend breakups, all of the kind of like normal relational transitions that can happen with growth and change and changing of minds and just relationship statuses. So this is really, truly jam-packed. On today's episode, we are covering a lot of how to rewire your neural pathways to truly change thought behaviors, reframe a lot of the breakup and healing process. Dorothy also goes into so many tips around just where we can begin with her own healing protocol and how she really thinks some of the ways that the internet shares how we heal from heartbreak have done us wrong and the ways that she actually believes that we can begin to actually navigate and change and reframe and grow from these opportunities into truly expanding into our best lives, living our best lives, thriving, and not feeling like we have to keep looking back to the past. So really, if anything, this episode shares a lot of truth and just tangible how-tos around how to detach, how to move on, and do so with grace and with ease, and really not out of that resentment. There's so much there that Dorothy touches on, so I won't even steal her thunder, because there is just so much in this episode that I feel like you can take away. And the last hint that I will drop is Dorothy talks about throwing a funeral for your ex, and I basically hollered when she said this because I was like, that is the coolest and best thing I've ever heard somebody say around heartbreak, and I firmly believe now that we should all be holding funerals for exes in our lives. So anyways, with that said, I am really, really excited to jump into this episode. So please welcome Dorothy Johnson to the Bedside Podcast. Music. Welcome, Dorothy, to The Bedside Podcast. I am so stoked to have you on. I was just saying off air a second ago that I found your work, I think on Instagram, and then I just was like, I need to have you on because bedside listeners just have to have all of your knowledge and your insights. So anyways, a very warm welcome to Bedside. Thank you. I'm excited to be here. I watched a couple of your reels and they were super funny and fun. So I'm excited. I love that. Also, thank you. It's so funny. I feel like I just brought on a person who's helping me like kind of overhaul social So I'm like, ah, like are the real is good, but I'm like, no, it's good. We're only getting better from here. Yeah, right It's amazing. I like them. I love that. Thank you for the compliment. I'm receiving it. But anyways, okay So I'm excited to really chat with you today about your expertise around heartbreak. A lot of listeners write in and I think in general people don't really know where to begin when it comes to this concept of heartbreak and I'm sure like you have your whole story around it which I'm really curious about but I think the first thing I think of when I think of heartbreak is it feels. Like a very lonely process and it feels like something that society kind of doesn't know how to handle or you know even friends and family don't know where to support around this. So I think a lot of people just feel stuck and they don't know where to go or who to turn to. So yeah, I'm just excited to kind of like break that down for listeners today. And I guess my first question for you is how did you get started in this field of work? Did you go through your own heartbreak experience that kind of led you to wanting to help other people out? Yes. Girl, yes, I did. Yeah. So 2016, I went through the end of a seven-year relationship. It was very devastating for me. Very kind of like rock bottom moment. I was dating this guy for seven years. I truly thought that we were getting married, all of the things. So he had just finished dental school. I had just finished grad school and had like my big girl job. And I was so excited. I was like, finally, we're done with school. We get to start our lives. We moved back to Florida. We got a house together. And I was flying to and from Chicago for work. So I had gone on a, like a five-day trip to Chicago for work. And while I was on that trip, he broke up with me on the phone. And to me, it was very seemingly out of the blue. And I was very upset. I was devastated. I'm also a tourist, so extremely stubborn. So I got a condo slash apartment in Chicago while I was there on that five-day work trip and moved in with my suitcase and an air mattress and was like, I'm not coming back until you're like gone from our home. So I went back to the house about a month later to pick up my things. And he had piled all of my stuff into the front room. And there was another woman staying there ever since I had left. So yeah, not only was I just extremely like devastated and grieving the loss of my best friend and the person I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with. I had that compounded with a lot of anger and resentment about this new woman who just seemingly. Came in and replaced me and took over all of my hard work that I just had put in for seven years. I was so angry and so resentful. And in that moment, I was obviously completely devastated, just distraught beside myself. I left all of my shit in the front room. I took my clothes, And then I drove all of that stuff up to Chicago. And in that moment, it was one of those moments where I was like, I cannot go backwards from here. I refuse. This partner at the time had really opened my eyes to a new way of life and a new lifestyle. He had an amazing family. He had just a network. He opened me up to a lifestyle I never thought I could afford, even monetarily. It just really opened my eyes. I call it kind of like the portal of possibility. Like my ex really opened this portal of possibility for me, where I just very much wanted that. And I wanted to be able to create it on my own so that no one would ever take it away from me again. And so I was very committed and very determined to figuring out like, how do I make my life even better than the one that I had with my ex. So I got on Google, like every millennial does. And I started Googling, How do you get over your ex? How do you forgive and let go? How do you move on quickly when your ex moved on quicker? How do we do these things? And I did them all, I swear to you. I traveled around the world. I got in the best shape of my life. I meditated. I journaled. I did everything. And a year and a half later, I found myself in a new relationship, yet still just seething with with anger and resentment, and I was making decisions. To try to get his attention. And I was still comparing my ex to this new partner that I have and accusing my new partner who had never done anything of shit that my ex did. And it was just, it was so clear that I was not over my ex. And I was like, why? From the outside, everyone's like, you're doing great. This is amazing. And in the inside, I was just a dumpster fire waiting to explode. It was just horrible. The inside of me did not match the outside of me. And I didn't understand why. So at that point, people are already, I was like, kind of documenting this and sharing. I'm a very vocal person. I was vocally sharing things on Instagram or YouTube, things like that of just like my process and what I've been doing. And so people were already reaching out to me for help, but I, I was like, I'm not healed. So you're just seeing this external thing, but I don't feel like I'm in a place to help anyone. So I never even thought about helping anyone at that point, which was like 2017. 2018, I run into something called Life Coaching, a podcast called The Life Coach School with Brooke Castillo. And she said something that forever changed my life. And she told me that thoughts create feelings. So in that moment, I mean, I'm a psychology major. I have my master's in industrial organizational psychology, like my dad's a psychologist, I've been surrounded by psychology my whole life, and no one just said to me one day, like, thoughts create feelings. So when she did that, my whole world changed, and I realized. We're missing it. The world is missing the point of heartbreak. The world is trying to heal heartbreak symptoms, like going no contact, waiting for time to heal. We're, we're adjusting symptoms. We're trying to avoid triggers. We're trying to manipulate the world around us to feel better. When in reality, the root cause to all of the suffering within a heartbreak is what you're making the breakup mean about you and the thoughts that you're making this all mean about you. You. Right? So I was like, this is mind blowing. This is earth shattering. This is like, this, is going to change the world. I'm like seeing you like ditching all of your like old processes. You're like, screw it. I'm like all of this stuff, like great things. I don't even want to bash on them. There's no shade to all of those things, but those were all tools that were addressing breakup symptoms, not the root cause of your breakup suffering. There There is the non-optional pain of heartbreak, the grieving, the sadness, the loss, but there's so much compound suffering on breakups because we've got a collective idea that breakups are sufferable. Like, they're just like terrible and painful and they take a long time to get over. And we have a lot of preconceived ideas and thought patterns and beliefs around breakups that aren't necessarily true. And so there's this compound suffering part that is completely optional that so many of us take on and we, number one, don't even realize it. Or two, if we do realize it, we don't know what to do with it. So that is when I realized like the main core belief that I was holding on to is like, he never loved me. I wasn't worth fighting for. You know, he didn't choose me, all of these beliefs in which were optional. I didn't realize they were creating so much suffering. And so I learned how to adapt those different belief patterns and really just ditch those ideas completely. And then that's when I felt so much relief. My life completely changed and it kind of just escalated from there. So when people came to me that at that point, I was like, I know exactly what to tell you and I know exactly what the problem is. And I could easily speak to them within like a five minute conversation and completely change the directory of their breakup. And that's when I knew this is what I'm meant to do. This is literally what I'm supposed to do in my lifetime. I never really had like a calling or a purpose or anything until that moment in which I was like, I'm supposed to create a movement. This is supposed to be revolutionary information and we're going to apply it specifically to heartbreak and breakups. And those are the people I want to help because. No one needs to take a year and a fucking half to get over someone. I don't care how long the relationship was. I don't care how long it's been since your relationship. You can get over your ex in a moment and you don't need to suffer the whole way. It doesn't have to be kind of like lonely, like what you're talking about. It doesn't have to be painstakingly long. Those are just all optional. And there's a new way of doing this. And it really not only fast forwards the healing process, but it also goes deeper and ends these patterns that you find yourself in with the same guy over and over and over again. Oh my god. So good and there's so much to go off of from there, but it reminded me, have you heard of this concept called the second arrow effect? No. Or like second arrowing. I'm totally going to botch the origins of where it's from. I believe it's like a Buddhist saying, but it's the concept of like, life is always gonna shoot arrows at you. Like, you will be fired at with arrows. But the second arrow effect is like, you don't need to be the person following up the like, firing, right? And that is kind of what made me think of your process and the way that you're reframing it, right? It's like, the pain of the heartbreak is the first arrow, but then the second arrow or that like, twisting of the knife, if you will, is your perception of it, your meaning making of it, your personalization of it all that is like that thing that keeps you in that like year and a half, oh my God, I'm still spiraling out. Yes. Right? 110%. Crazy. Okay. So I want to like know a little bit more from you about kind of what people mostly come to you. I know we've touched on it, but like I think like it would be really helpful to kind of walk through a bit of your process here of like, okay, I'm coming to you with heartbreak. What are some of the most common challenges people admit to or that they like are just struggling with that you are predominantly helping to reframe and like kind of be like, wait, stop there. Actually, instead of going this way, I want to redirect you here. So I would say that a lot of times people come to me. I mean, it's all over the board. The one that's really hitting home for me right now that I want to talk about is that I think that when we're getting over someone, when we're going through a breakup, oftentimes it can feel like an addiction. And I help a lot of the people who were broken up with and feel like someone else made a decision that severely impacts their life and they have no control in it. So they're already feeling out of control. And then what they find themselves doing, the most successful, powerful, amazing, like badass women find themselves participating in very compulsive behaviors that they're extremely ashamed of. And they find themselves like acting. In ways that they're like, I would have never guessed that I would be doing this in a million years. Can you give some examples? Yeah, I mean, like calling their ex 20 times in a row, like out of an urgent panicked emotion or docking them or looking at their Instagram stories like every five seconds to see if their ex has looked at it or is reacting to it stalking the ex's new girlfriend like just these behaviors that feel very out of like not in alignment with themselves right right and those compulsive behaviors are happening because you you technically kind of are addicted to your ex addiction happens in the brain. And there's a lot of different theories about addiction. I don't need to get into that right now. But I have a very simple solution to it. And it all comes down to desire. I work with my clients in a way where we really strategically look at this with data and measure your progress because getting over your ex might look different from person to person and really identifying like what that means to you. But The baseline measurement that we're going to look at is desire and attachment. Because again, when we're looking at the root cause of your breakup, if you don't have desire for your ex and you don't feel attached to your ex, you're not participating in these compulsive behaviors. You're not concerned about running into your ex on the street. You don't have to go no contact because you don't have any desire or attachment. It's almost like. Someone who might binge eat. There's a binge eater who's like, I can't have any of those binge foods in my house because I can't be triggered. Like that's one way to address it. Or if you learn how to reduce your desire for binge eating, you can have the food at a party. You can have the food in your house and you just don't have the desire to binge, right? So like, that's what we're learning how to do. And so one of the very first things that my clients do is they complete their first check in form, which is looking at where is my desire? Where is my attachment? What are my most common like feeling experience week to week? And then what are my two goals like getting over my ex? Does it mean that I no longer want to be constantly thinking about this person? Do I want to, you know, stop stalking the social media? Does it mean I trust myself again and like figuring out how to measure those. And then within a 12 week process, what we're really doing is learning how to reduce that desire to zero, reduce the attachment to your X to zero, which is again, the root cause. And then all the other breakup symptoms don't become problems. And we do that through shifting neural pathways, right? So again, a very simplified. Example of this is ice cream. If anyone ever listens to my podcast, you're going to know that that I love ice cream. So I've got all the analogies. So when you think about ice cream, and I tell you, girl. Ice cream is my favorite food. I love it. The chocolate chunks, the peanut butter cups, the caramel that just melts in my mouth. Notice how desirable it is, right? You're, you're kind of even like, I kind of want a cup of ice cream, right? Yeah. I'm in. Notice people talk like that about their exes to the point where you're like, I kind of want to be with your ex now, you know, like they have strong desire. But when I talk about ice cream in the way of it's actually just sugar and milk. It's equally as true as the statements before. But it's extremely less desirable. When I think about sugar being mixed with milk, like, ew, I'm kind of like disgusted. I mean, that's gross, right? And so we can do the same thing with the thoughts that you have about your ex in a very strategic way. And by the end of this 12 week process, you have a whole new belief system around what was really going on with your ex looking at the bigger picture. Like he was my world. Well, he was my world at a time, but not my entire world. Or he was so handsome. And it's like, actually, when I first met him, I didn't even think he was handsome. Like it wasn't until I got to know him that I thought he was handsome, which means I could probably find other people handsome. Right? So we learn how to strategically change your thought patterns to then reduce the desire and also reduce attachment. Does that make sense? Yes, completely. And I feel like that's so helpful because I think like you're right, like you get hooked on these narratives that you tell yourself and you get so like tunnel vision about something. And so I really like kind of the ice cream analogy is so good because the second you said sugar and milk, I was like, that sounds disgusting. I'm no longer in, I'm out. Right? It's like, ew. And it's equally as true. Just two different ways of looking at it, right? Yeah, exactly. Oh my god, that's so funny. Okay, so what is your take on people who are trying to Click. Potentially maintain relationships still with an ex? Like being like, oh, can I still be friends with an ex? Do you have an opinion about that? Do you think it's possible? What is your protocol? Yeah, no. I mean, I think it's person to person. So one of my biggest pet peeves is out in the Google world, you hear all day long about no contact. The fascinating thing about no contact is I'm not going to say it doesn't work because it does work for some individuals. It helps you not have the trigger in your face for a while to get the work done to then practice having the trigger in your face. However, I was no contact with my ex for a year and a half, and I still felt the same anger and resentment that I had at the beginning. Again, because it's not the outside world that determines how I feel. It's the internal thoughts that I have that determine how I feel. So with that being said, I work with a lot of individuals who work with their ex and have to be around them 40 hours a week. I work with a lot of individuals who co-parent with their ex, which is a completely new kind of relationship. So in those scenarios, I'm like, yes, let's reduce desire. Let's reduce attachment. Let's get clear about the stories of what you're making it mean to build a badass relationship with yourself, create closure and get really fucking excited about your life. Because if you're living a bigger and better life than the one that you had with them, you're like, I could totally have a real relationship with this person as a friendship. I'm living my best life. I don't care what you're doing. Like I'm having a great time, right? When you have everything that you want. It's usually not a huge issue to be in contact with your ex or have some sort of relationship. But I think where that can get iffy is the reasons why you're trying to stay in contact with your ex. Yeah. Right? It's like if you want your ex back and you don't need to be in contact with your ex, but your ex has clearly stated, I don't want to be with you. That's something to question and really look at what are my intentions here? Why do I want to be friends with someone who doesn't want me in their life and really looking at that. That's so important, that distinction. I kind of want to go back to a bit of your story here because you were like, okay, in the year and a half that I was no longer with my ex, I got in the best shape of my life. I was doing all these amazing things and to the outside world, it looked so great. But in a way, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, you were almost kind of like doing it in spite of or like for the attention of. And what And what I'm hearing from you is like, we want to get into this place where we're living our best lives. We don't even like care about our past behind us because we're like, we have so much ahead of us and we're enjoying the present so much. So where does that switch happen? Like where you're still doing the same thing, but it's the emotional charge behind it that's different. Like, can you explain that shift that can happen? Because I think a lot of people get stuck in that first part. I love this question so much. I'm so glad you're asking. So the way that my program split up is in four pillars, and I'll tell you exactly where it happens. So the first pillar is all about, it's like the really shitty pillar. No one likes this pillar. It's about feeling your feelings and getting really comfortable feeling like ass. Because you have to do that to be able to reduce desire. You have to experience discomfort in saying, I want something and I'm not going to give it to myself. So there's that piece. Then the second piece is about rebuilding your relationship with yourself, learning how to trust yourself, learning how to make different decisions, feeling confident, empowered, attractive, like magnetic. You start feeling good about you again. You've rewritten that story about you. The third pillar is about creating closure and rewriting your breakup story. No matter if you've had a conversation with your ex or not, no matter what, how it happened, what happened, creating that closure and rewriting it in a way where you feel empowered and excited to get into that next chapter. In that pillar, they host a funeral for their ex. I love this. I love this. Yes. So I feel like that in that ceremony, it's really like a wrapping up the version of yourself as well as a version of your partner and that whole kind of chapter, it really wraps it all up. That funeral, within that section. I feel like for my clients, that's where that shift happens is between pillar three and pillar four, because pillar three are wrapping it all up almost like a perfect little pretty package. And you either light it on fire, burn it. It's just like gone. It's energetically gone. It's physically gone. And then in pillar four, you are all about breaking the chains of what you thought was available to you in your life and creating things that you thought were absolutely impossible. And so it's in that kind of middle ground between pillar three and four where I see that switch happen for my clients. Holy shit. That is epic. Like I literally just lost it at the idea of hosting a funeral. Like I want to do this for all my exes and like all of the people I've had falling outs with, which is just like it happens as a course of life, right? Things shift, priorities change, but I just like the idea of hosting a funeral is like lighting me the F up. Can you tell me more about this? Yeah. I mean, it's such a powerful experience and a powerful exercise. So there's a lot of different ways you can do it and it's really up to you. But a lot of my client, I'll just give you some examples. One of my clients went to the top of a really tall building New York City. I forgot what it's called. It's really famous. Empire State Building? I think it's that one. Yeah. If that's the one that's in Gossip Girl where they were going to meet at the top, I think it's that one. I think so. I think so. Gossip Girl, it's been a minute. I know. It's been a while. She really had a tie emotionally with that building and with her ex. She wrote a really long eulogy. She went up to the top of this building, read the eulogy, tore it up, and let the pieces of paper go in the wind from the top of this building. Epic. Epic. Yeah. So then another person went to this nature walk that ends – It's a big hike that she did. I say nature walk. It was a legit hike where you end in this mountain with a beautiful pond-looking lake thing. She brought matches with her. She brought the eulogy. She brought a sweatshirt and a couple of other items that symbolized their relationship. Then she burned it all up there. Oh my God. Can I just say, I love feminine energetics. Right? It's so good. It's so good. And then I had another client who boxed everything up in like a. Something that would sink. I don't even know what it was, but it was like box everything up and like sunk it in the water So there's like a million and different ways that you can do this, but it's really up to you I just highly recommend creating a eulogy of, really pretending like this person passed away and died because I think that's one of the things that breakups is a lot of times it's harder than even an actual physical death because you think you still have some sort of control or could have control or could have done something differently. Whereas when someone actually physically passes, you're like, okay, that's done. And there's literally nothing I can do to bring this person back. And so creating a eulogy, having a symbolic way of ridding the. Things that tie you to that person, and of course, like cord cutting meditations could be incorporated into that. There's all kinds of ideas. Oh my gosh, brilliant. I want to also ask you a bit about support and like seeking support around heartbreak because I know at the beginning I kind of introed I was like for many people it can be a lonely experience or you don't know who to reach out to so what are your tips and thoughts around kind of how to share what you're going through truthfully especially if I'm kind of almost thinking of I'm going back to like maybe pillar one or two of your protocol which is maybe more about like feeling your feelings and really just acknowledging the grief and the anger and all of this stuff. And so where and how do you see bringing in different support systems like friends or family members and just feeling like you can speak your truth and maybe not be so quote unquote alone because we're never alone in our experiences. So yeah, what are what's your kind of take on kind of being able to handle that or where to go? Yeah. I mean, this is hard because I think that the world, we're just now like up leveling the way we do heartbreak and it's not talked about and it's not, it's disappointing to me. And this is like, again, why we have the brave heart movement and we're like working on this and making it people like aware, because I even think like as a, an organization we have leave for when someone dies, but why don't we have leave for when someone's going through a divorce or a really like long-term committed breakup. It's just as equally as painful. I know, like our country doesn't really really know how to grieve. We don't handle grief well. Yeah. I know. It's wild. We're working on it. So, so one of the things that I do want to say is that the way that I work with my clients is through a group setting. And it's really interesting because I worked one-on-one with people for a really long time. And when I started groups, I didn't realize how impactful the group would be. And I feel really like naive because I'm kind of like, how did I not see that coming. But once I put people in a group, the healing happened faster. People were connecting, easier. They were feeling less isolated and alone. We were spending less time doing quote unquote thought work on loneliness because they had a community, they had support. And they had a group of people who fucking get it, who have been through heartbreak before, who can be like, oh my God, you just went a day without thinking about your ex. And they like really understood, how incredible that actually was. Do you know what I mean? It's like so different talking to someone who has been married to their high school sweetheart, have everything they want. And then you're like, I'm going through a breakup and they're like, it's okay. And I'm like, boo, I'm sorry, but you don't get it. You don't know. You don't get it. So there's that. But I think when it comes to pillar one and two, when you're really just in the thick of it, I think prefacing it and that like communicating to people what it is that you need. Go to a dear friend. And instead of just talking about it, saying, I'm in my feelings right now. And I just need you to hold space for me to explain my feelings and to empathize and sympathize with me. I don't think there's a solution to this right now. And like kind of just describing what it is that you need, because at some point you're going to get to a place where it's almost like the friends bashing the ex isn't helping anymore. And that's when you can go to your friends and be like, Hey, I'm up leveling my energy around this. I'm changing the way I'm doing this, I'm done feeling sorry for myself. I'm done feeling sad. I'm ready to move the fuck on. Can you help me?" And every time I come to you and I complain about something, interrupt that thought process for me. Remind me that we're not doing that anymore. Remind me that we have a different story now. This is the best thing that could ever happen to me. We're doing things differently. I'm going to have what I want. Just remind me. I went through a miscarriage back in last year. And that's one of the things, like halfway through that process, I really had to remind the people around me and my intimate, close world. But I was like, hey, I'm getting stuck in this story and I need you to remind me that I'm still going to have a baby, that baby Marilyn's still going to show the fuck up, that she's still here. Everything's fine. I'm fertile Myrtle, like you've got to remind me of these things. And so anytime I would even start, they would be like, I'm going to stop you right there. Here's what's happening, right? So you can tell people how you need support and that's going to look different for where you are within the process. That is such beautiful insight because I think like a lot of the time you're right like we'll get stuck at square one and then like our friends are there with us and they're just wanting to maybe mirror your energy. So they're like, okay, like are we bashing? Okay, we're bashing. Like are we, you know, so I think, you know, like I'm along for the ride. Like just let me know how I can support. So I really like how you're kind of like also be the one to kind kind of guide people and be like, you know what, actually, I'm ready for this next up level. I think we're good here. I think we can kind of begin to change this narrative. So that is amazing, amazing, amazing. I want to talk a bit about the kind of like self-compassion, self-work part of things because I think there's a part of me that's like, okay, I understand that you need the. Support of other people in this process, but again, it's like we never want to be that friend who's avoiding or that person, I suppose, who's avoiding their own feelings via going through everybody else and just like kind of manically like nonstop talking to your friends and family and people around you about it because at the end of the day, that's like. You need some alone time. You need to do a little bit of self-reflection. So hard. You're saying that and that's so much easier said than done. I call that urgent emotions. I have a whole podcast episode on this because that's like my go-to, like my My natural default, I talk about emotions, and I talk about, you know, either we're kind of avoiders, we're reactors, or we're resistors to our emotions. So I am definitely a reactor, and one of my telltale signs of me reacting to emotions It's like... I've called everyone on my phone and no one's picking up. You know what I mean? I'm like, oh, okay. I'm reacting to this emotion. I'm not sitting there for myself. I'm not showing up for myself. I think that's really important. And the first step of that is you have to be aware that you're even doing it. It's really hard to just even wake up to the fact of, am I reacting to my emotions? Because it can show up in such a variety of ways. Even that first year and a half, I was in a form trying to distract from my emotions. I'm like, if I travel and I'm having new experiences, I'm going to not be thinking about my ex as much. I jam packed my days so that I would wake up at like 530, go to the gym, go to work, go to the gym, go home, clean up my stuff, eat dinner, repack, go to sleep as soon as I could so that I didn't have to think about it because my thoughts were what was creating like so much pain and suffering, but I just didn't know that, right? Right. So just ask yourself, am I sitting with the uncomfortable feelings? Like, do I find myself reacting to them? Am I distracting from them? Am I reaching out to people and not learning how to self soothe? Or am I resisting them and trying to like kind of push them down like a big beach ball. And one of the best things that I can tell you in terms of of emotions is that if you don't calm your nervous system first. You can't even look at the stories that you're telling yourself that are creating the pain in the first place. So we've got to calm the nervous system. We've got to regulate the nervous system. And three steps that I was taught that I feel like is super useful is to first just ask yourself, am I physically safe? Because the nervous system is only like firing because it thinks you're physically not well. If the answer is like, yes, I'm physically safe, which normally it is, you can then ask yourself, do I feel safe? And most often the answer is no, if you have a heightened kind of reaction. And in that moment, it's as simple as. Bringing your awareness to the very acute areas of your body that you're holding the stress or the nervousness or like the tension, right? So maybe I'm feeling like in my stomach and just really focusing on relaxing that area in my stomach, going to my throat, relaxing the muscles around my throat, going to my leg or my butt, like whatever it is, really relaxing those muscles in in those area, just like very acutely becoming aware of those areas and doing that. And that will help you regulate your nervous system enough to just be able to like look at what's presently going on with yourself. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, completely. I had a moment like a couple of weeks ago where I ran into an ex-friend and I – similar ish. And it reminded me that in that moment, I remember I had that same reaction of basically calling my entire roster on my contact list and I'm like, what do I do with this right now? And I remember the feeling I had, I was like, my throat is like, it feels like it's on fire and it feels like I'm a kid, you know, I could so easily place the sensation of that feeling. So I love that like somatic experience and that somatic tool of kind of disarming everything. And just like getting yourself back to like a little bit more of a baseline. Yeah, because once you do that, then you can start to implement like a lot of like the real tools of like looking at what's creating the experience, right? Totally. So what are like some of your tools around I suppose fostering that relationship with yourself that you are like so excited to step into. I think like that is really where I'm sure you got really excited in your own work of like that transformation of like that empowerment and being like, no, I'm going to take this experience and continue to like keep living that amazing life that I see for myself. So can you just give us some tools and tips around where you feel like that begins? There's so many. When you added the word begin, it really kind of directs me to a very specific spot. But I just, I have so like, that's an entire pillar. There's so many tools within that because you're not just the relationship with yourself is robust, right? There's confidence, there's trust, there's decision making, there's certainty, security, groundedness, there's knowledge around yourself, loving yourself, responding to yourself, respecting yourself. There's so many components of this, but where my clients begin that journey is something called a self-evaluation. And we look at seven really specific kind of areas within yourself and we rate them. I'm a huge data analytics nerd. It just comes from my past. I know. I love this about you. I was thinking this earlier. I was like, I like that you're putting numbers and measurability behind this very elusive topic. Right? It comes from my data analytics background and it also comes from, I've been a part of a lot of different coaching programs and. It's easy to measure progress in terms of like a business coaching program, because you're looking at revenue or clients. And then even weight loss, you're looking at the scale, you're looking at body fat percentage, like there's so many like tools. But then when it comes to like getting over your ex, what are the standard measurement tools? You know, it's crazy. Yeah, we start with a self evaluation, we're looking at seven components of yourself. And we're rating those on a scale from zero to 10. How confident do I feel in each of those areas. So for one of them is like in it for the long haul. Like we are the only person we're going to spend the rest of our life with. Are we looking big picture? Are we spending time being like, this is the only person I'm going to have in my life for the rest of my life guaranteed. So like, have I committed to myself in the way that I want to so badly commit to somebody else? And if not, why not? And looking at tangible practices that you can actually be working on every day in that one area. And so When you do the self-evaluation, you get clear about like, okay, there's areas that I'm really good at, there's areas that I can improve on, and there's areas kind of just in the middle. So we look at the ones that we could really use some improvement and we start looking at how can we improve those every single day. It just gives you like a baseline, it gives you a start of like where you can focus your energy and attention. Does that make sense? Totally. I'm curious to know like some of the metrics around – I know you probably have so many different cool analytic practices for the different like pillars and all these cool like granular components of and exercises that you have for your clients. But thinking big picture, are there kind of like marking telltale signs of somebody's progress around heartbreak? Because there might be someone listening who's like, okay, I felt like my feelings around it. But now people people might be finding themselves at different parts of their own healing journey, so... Is there something that you're like, okay, this is like one of the biggest signs that I see that I know a client or someone is really progressing right now? That's a really, really great question. I like that. The primary things that I'm thinking of are a lot of what we've already talked about. So desire, has that gone down over time? Attachment, has that gone down over time? Thoughts about your ex, has that gone down over time? The compulsive behaviors. Have you noticed that you're interacting with those compulsive behaviors less and less? Like if you used to pick up your phone 30 to 50 times a day looking for a text from him, is it happening only 10 times a day? Right. I'm trying to think of some others. I have a lot of clients who measure feelings. So like self-trust or confidence or feeling like in control. They'll measure those feelings in percentages. So in the beginning, maybe they're like maybe 30% of the time in a day, like they're looking at it either daily or weekly, like 30% of my week, I felt self-confident or 30% of my day, I felt self-confident. So measuring that over time, but I feel like if you are someone who's like in the middle of your process and you didn't start in the beginning measuring this, it might be a little bit difficult. But if you are someone that is like that, I would really look at, am I comfortable experiencing my negative emotions? Like, do I squirm in my seat thinking about it or do I not? Because that would be like your first step. And if you feel comfortable experiencing the negative emotions, I'd say you're making like hella progress because the majority of, at least the United States, they're not even like woken up. To their feelings yet. So if you can be comfortable with negative emotion, you can do anything you ever want in the entire world. Like seriously think about it. How many things have you not done because you're afraid to feel embarrassed, rejected, nervous, scared, right? If you feel comfortable experiencing those emotions and you're not afraid of them, you'll do anything. The world's your limit, right? Like it's absolutely insane. So I would look at that first. And then when it comes to like breakup specific stuff, look at your desire and your your attachment? Do I have a strong desire for my ex? Zero being not at all, 10 being all of the desire. Do I feel attached to my ex? You can look at it emotionally. Zero, I have no emotional attachment. 10, I have strong emotional attachment. Or the other way that I like to look at attachment is, do I feel like my future requires my ex to be in it for it to be created? Do I feel like I can't create that future without that person? Zero being not at all, 10 being like, I'm not going to be able to create the future that I wanted without him. And so looking at that kind of attachment as well, and then how often you're thinking about your ex and how emotionally triggering that is. Because when it comes to thinking about your ex and obsessively feeling like you're constantly, the biggest thing I hear from my people is like, I want to erase him from my brain. He is taking up mental real estate in my brain for free. Living rent-free in my mind, right? So like, how do we stop that? And the first step is like the step that no one wants to hear is you have to get comfortable with those thoughts being there because you have built up narrow pathways. They're almost like ditches in your brain. It's like a ditch that you've walked on it so often. It's so deep that the default is going to be that way. And so you might not feel like you can control the first thought that comes Thanks a lot. But you absolutely can control the second. So if you notice yourself thinking about your ex, the second thought is really, really important. You can either think, Oh my God, I'm not over this person. I fucked up. There's something wrong with me. I can't get this right. Why am I constantly thinking about this person? Which makes you feel shameful, embarrassed, annoyed, angry, resentful, which perpetuates the ruminating, the rose colored glasses, thinking about the past. It just perpetuates the problem. Or your second thought can be, I don't have to make this a problem. I am learning how to reduce the amount of time I think about him. I'm going to refocus this energy on something that really matters to me right now. What matters to me more? And then that is going to make you feel calm and in control. And then you will redirect your attention. You will feel calm with that thought being in the room with you. You won't make it a problem. Your brain gets bored. It's like, she's not reacting to this. Why not? Right? It's bored a little. And so you'll see less and less of those thoughts because the brain's like, this isn't even the chew toy that we're working on. We're working on making millions of dollars, or we're working on going on this amazing trip that we had planned, or we're working on lunch. I'm hungry right now. Anything else, right? Right? Yes. But yeah, I think the biggest thing that I I would tell anyone listening is like, I swear to God, if you learn how to reduce desire, which it's a lot simpler that people realize and desire really comes down to, do I feel like my life is better without this thing in it, AKA your ex, my life can be and will be better without this person. And can we tell ourselves the whole truth, which reduces desire, just like we did with ice cream. The whole truth is, yes, it might be my favorite food, but if my goal is to not be eating ice cream single night and to fit into something I really like and feel good naked. I am going to tell myself it's simply sugar and milk so that I'm not eating it every single night, right? I love this. Oh, my God. You're brilliant. I love this. I love all your analogies. I'm like so excited about how like your data analytics brain has conquered heartbreak. It's so good. And also, I really love your story too because we haven't even gotten into this. We'll just have to have you back at some point. But I love what you said at the beginning where you're like, the life my ex showed me was something that really expanded me. And what's so cool looking at you right now is like you've probably taken that and done like 10x since. So it was only a springboard. I know, right? I love that. And it really, the analogy that I have for that, another ice cream line, is that I want to build this amazing epic Sunday so that my partner is simply the cherry on top. And if that cherry rolls off this Sunday, it's not a big deal because I still have my Sunday and I can get a different cherry. I want to live a life. Where my partnership is not attached. I want the non-attachment in it of my life is amazing with this person and my life is amazing without this person. And those kinds of relationships just feel differently. And so that's been like my life, my personal life's work of just constantly creating this epic Sunday. And it's gotten, yeah, it's exploded. It's bigger It's way bigger than what I thought I was going to have with my ex. I'm obsessed. I love it. Okay. My final question for you. I ask everybody on the show this, but what is currently on your bedside table? Oh, I love this. This is so good. So right now, like literally or, or. Oh no, I want the real deal. Okay. Yeah. So this is important to me, actually. my bedside table. It is important to me that it is very like not crowded. I do not like crowded spaces. So I have very minimal things on my bedside. I have a lamp. She's a Taurus. Yes. I have a lamp so that I can turn, I can have amazing lighting with not like the big light on at night. And then I have my phone charger and that's literally all that's on it right now. Last week we had a book on it all about relationships. And I actually can't remember the the name of it and I feel absolutely terrible. I think it's something called like us, but it's all about relationships in terms of keeping your own identity, but how do you have like a partner while you hold that own identity and like each individual person is their individual person, but creating a collective. So I was very interested in that. I love. So it's very boring. I feel bad because it's very boring, but it's just because it's so like I just don't like cluttered things. I mean, yes, I get it. I'm a Taurus, moon, and rising. I understand you. No, fully and And I think what I love just in general about Bedside Tables is it just says so much about the person, you know, how they don't care, what they're up to, what they're interested in. So I love ending there. But anyways, thank you so much for joining me on the show today. Can you tell us where we can connect with you, where we can just like follow you, enjoy more of your resources, give us all the deets? Yeah. So I have a podcast called How to Get Over Your Ex, so you can find me there. I'm also on Instagram at Breakup Coach Dorothy. And then my website, if you feel like checking that out, I honestly haven't been on my own website in forever, but it's Dorothy, D-O-R-O-T-H-Y, A as in apple, B as in boy, johnson.com. So you can find different resources there. Amazing. Okay, we'll link everything in the show notes for people to check out. But thank you so much for joining me today. And yeah, we'll have to possibly do a part two at some point. Yes, thank you so much. All right. Bye, everybody. Music. I hope you loved this episode as much as we did making it. If you have any feedback, questions, or suggestions for future episodes, or if you just want to chat, don't hesitate to reach out to us at The Bedside on Instagram and TheBedside.co online. You can also find us at ByTheBedside on TikTok. To stay updated on our latest episodes, be sure to subscribe to our podcast on your preferred platform, and if you found this episode valuable, I would so greatly appreciate if you could leave us a rating, a review, text it to a friend, share it to your Instagram stories. Let's get this message out there loud and clear. Until next time, thank you so much for tuning in and I'll see you next week! Music.