S13E19: Moving Forward After A Breakup w/ Dr. Gladys Ato

00:00:01 - 00:05:00

The Dateable podcast is an insider's look into modern dating that the Huffington post calls one of the top ten podcast about love and sex. On each episode, we'll talk to real daters about. From sex parties to sex droughts, date fails a diaper fetishes and first moves to first loves.  I'm your host Yue Xu, former dating coach turned dating sociologists. You also hear from my co host and producer Julie Krafchick as we explored this crazy dateable world.

What's update ables? Welcome to our season finale of the dateable podcast for season 13. We've had quite a run for the season and I can't believe we're already at the end of this season, but it doesn't mean that the end of our podcast it just means we go in season so we get a little break for ourselves and then we ramp back up again. This is not a goodbye. It's just a more of a see you see you next year. This episode is the perfect way to tie up the season, which we're talking about breakups, but beyond all of that is how do you close the door? Find a finale to a previous relationship. And then move forward from there. I think that's the more important part is, yes, we want to be compassionate about the ending of relationships. But then how do you propel yourself forward and find your person? So this is where we're at. I think this is a perfect episode for anyone that's in the thick of it. And apparently this is breakup season right now. From Christmas to Valentine's Day. Guess that's when his shit hits the fan. You spend too much time with families, maybe there's this looming gift giving that's around the corner. I am just relying the facts, apparently this is the biggest time. But it's also new year new me. So maybe it's a lot of people that are ready to start fresh. So for anyone that's in the thick of a breakup, I think this is a fantastic episode. But even if you're not, one of the things that you weigh and I've learned from talking to all the people in our finding your person program and just our community at large, a lot of time, breakups do hold us back. Maybe you think you're over your ex, but I think what we see a lot is this fear that creeps in, a fear of getting hurt again, a fear of making the same mistakes. And all of that is sometimes buried very deep, and we've had to see that we pull out like four layers before we actually get to that being the real root cause of it's not the data gaps, it's not the surface level things. It's usually something much deeper. So I think this episode is a phenomenal way to maybe get ahead of it too. Even if you're not in that position, I know even for me that I'm in a very happy relationship and one of the things that I do fear and I don't think this is gonna happen per se, but I think just you know a fear of abandonment from schemas. There's always this fear of will this end. And I think we just never know, but the alternative is not getting into a relationship that doesn't seem like the best way to deal with that fair either. So I think what doctor Gladys Otto who's our guest today talks about is creating that narrative, even if you're not at the current position that a breakup doesn't have to be what we think of like, do you mean gloom? And when you zoom out of the fear of breakups and the fear of things ending, it's really just the fear of change. The only are we know what we know and we are comfortable in the person we used to know the relationship we used to know and we fear the unknown. How do we know that this change is going to be good for us? And this episode is really about being brave enough to face a change and to know that your next step is going to bring you closer to what you want and not detract you from where you were not getting in that previous relationship. Yeah. I think what I've really come to terms with too is we always say this, the only person you can control is yourself. I mean, it's a scary thought that in reality someone could change their mind any day about something. That's regardless of what relationship you're in. That is just real life. Even if you're married. And I think the only thing that we can really do is be secure enough with ourselves and happy enough with ourselves that we know that we'll be able to pick ourselves up if there was something that happened and changed in our relationship. And I think there's a lot of empowerment that comes with that. So much. Takes the fear away. And it's God forbid I broke up with my boyfriend. I would obviously miss hanging out with him and being with him, but I do feel that I've built a life that I'm happy with that I don't think I would be destroyed, I guess. Yeah, and something that Gladys will teach all of us in this episode is how to face the ending head on versus trying to avoid it. A lot of us don't like to talk about death or divorces or breakups.

00:05:01 - 00:10:01

And she is really a proponent in saying, let's talk about it openly. And map out what a good ending would be. Now, to me, Julie, you know what a good ending is. What happened to mister big? Okay. I think that's the best ending you could possibly get from mister big, no spoilers here, but you may have seen all the all the articles I've been out about the new sex and city reboot. Come on. That is the best ending to mister big. Okay, you ain't drastically different here. And we did give you all a week to catch up. I feel like at this point, if you're a sex of the city fan, you've already seen it. So I don't feel like we're blowing it for anyone. That's why we were afraid for talking about it last week. I was ready to talk to you about it the day it came out. We have very different reviews here. So I agree the big was toxic. I agree. That's a dick. Okay, he was the original fuckboy. I agree. But by romantic side, and I think this is why they went for it, right? You want them to get together. And I always thought they had the best banter in connection and I know that doesn't make up for the incompatibilities of not being reliable. And trustworthy and all that stuff, but it's fantasy. It's fiction and in my mind, I still like them being together. And I just hated that they killed him off. I just thought it was the worst thing they could have done. I would have actually preferred them to be divorced if they wanted her to be single because I think I know why they did it, they wanted it to be like, no, Carrie ended up having the love she always wanted, fine. I get that. But I also feel like it wouldn't have been totally off brand. It actually probably would have been more realistic if they broke up. You know, I mean, this is a perfect conversation for the breakup grief episode. That's for damn sure. You know, there is some stat out there that I think it's like 50% of couples break up at least once and then get back together. Oh, I believe it. Yeah, totally, but it becomes really toxic when it's on again off again on again off again, and they were what on again off again for 8 years or something. It was definitely bullshit. But I get it. They had to do it for the storyline. They couldn't just have carry in a happy relationship. And we tried to Candice Busch all about this. We had her out the podcast and she. I mean, Carrie is based off her. She was Carrie Bradshaw. In mister big existed, he was an executive at a magazine. Natasha, Natasha character did exist he did leave her for 25 year olds. But they'd ever got that together. There was no cheating. There was none of that reconciliation. I get why Sex and the City didn't go that direction because it was so core to the plot. Killing him off, I just, I hated it. I'm still upset about it. It's been weeks and I'm still upset about it because it was just morbid. I think that was part of it. And I don't love that the plot now is unraveling their past relationship and heard now suspecting something was going on with Natasha. It doesn't make any sense. The actual plot just destroys me. I love it because it's not the fairytale ending. I love that this is after the credits have rolled and they're like, let's check back in with the happy married couple and see what's up and you start to see that they were happy at the end of their marriage. But now it's unraveling. She's starting to remember how much of a dick he was to her and the fact that their marriage started on both of them cheating on their partners. That's never a good foundation for relationship. But my biggest gripe with mister big, that character is that he is the reason why women for so many years chase after fuckboys because they were looking for their mister big, and the reason why their banter was so good was because he was inaccessible. He was always this mysterious man that came and went as he pleased, and it made her want to be on her a game every time she saw him 'cause she didn't know when was the last time she would see him again. And I know that guy, I chase that guy and that guy would have never been good for me. We all did. Yes. And Aiden who I love who I think is still the better looking one, okay, objectively speaking, he's still more than was all in for her, he was ready to marry her. He was so devoted to her even in the subsequent movies. He still was pining after her. I feel like that was a guy that was going to admire her and love her and respect her. But of course not because they didn't have the banter that she and mister dick had. Yes, I called mister dick because he's no longer big. Okay, I agree with you. I do think a lot of women, you know, definitely held onto this idea that eventually can win this person over. I certainly did. And that came from this that eventually would all work out even if they treated you like shit.

00:10:01 - 00:15:00

I don't think Aidan was right for her either. I do think you need the banter to some degree because this is your life partner at the ends of the day. I feel like they really had nothing in common. And I think what they had in common was that he adored her. And while I definitely want someone that adores me and I think all of us should strive for that, that can't be the only quality of why you're with someone is that they adore you. I think fair. She should have just looked for someone else. I'm sure in New York City there were zillion other dudes that didn't have to be just the two of them, you know? But the ballet dancer. Yeah, exactly. Candace. Well, he wasn't the ballet dancer. He was the artist, Alexander petros, but a real life, yes. I don't know. The whole new sex with this city, I have such mixed devotions on it. I of course went back to rewatch the original last night, and it's just so much better. I mean, clearly, Samantha is a mistake force. I think that I like what they're doing in the sense that they're making it more diverse and woke. That's where I was going. They're tackling issues, but it feels very forest. And I think that's the part of it. That's a little challenging with it. The podcast scenes are just a little cringey, but I do. I don't know if you've thought about this. You know what the co host? The guy representing Bobby Lee? Yes. He provides me so much of Tommy danger kit, one of our pastors. Oh, I agree. Yes, they're so I feel like they could be brothers. They tossed the same way. They have the same sense of humor. I kind of like the podcast scenes because it just shows the disconnect between Carrie and this podcast. Yeah. She's just like so out of her element. What is really interesting about the juxtaposition of the two is that she was so ahead of her time during the initial Sex and the City she was like, you know, the rebellious woman that wrote about sex. And all of a sudden she was very risque and now she's on a podcast where she's seen as conservative. And I kind of I find that kind of a fascinating transformation, but the new Sex and the City, I will still keep watching it. I'm not a big fan because what it does for me, Julie, is that a rehashes all the old feelings I have about mister big like I have for an X so then I started looking at his track record and I was like, in what world was she so in love with this guy? He was never around for her, right? Okay, he broke her heart numerous times. He broke up with her like a thousand times. Okay, let's also not forget that he cheated on his wife with her, left his wife to be with Carrie, and then at their wedding he stood her up, he did not show up to the fucking wedding, okay? That should have been the end right there. Yes. Now he's sexually assaulted all these women. I know. It's the character and the actor, but I am conflating the two because now they're the same person to me. He's back for the dead assaulting women. He's like, dick on dick on dick, like this guy has just grade a dick right there. Okay, so when I said that I do like the fantasy of that being together, which I still do, I agree with all your logic you just said. I'm not just a great. I do for I try to forget that the movie's never happened because they were just terrible. So I actually kind of blocked off that whole bit. I will say the show is actually better written. I think than the movies. The movies were really low bar though. Yeah. Yeah. But I think it's interesting to kind of tie it to our episode. I mean, in a few ways. What you just said, sometimes we're in these positions that we want to keep going with but are they really objectively what we even want? And what will make us happy? We hear from listeners all the time about trying to win over these people or this situation ship that's not coming into fruition or someone not making plans or flaking all the time. And I think that does count as a breakup when it's over. I think even ghosting can sting like, but ultimately in these situations, I think it is going back to yourself and being like, is this even what I want? How can you look at it objectively like you were just saying? I think so many of us, including myself, get wrapped up in the romance of it, and the storyline, and that's what I think I like about the mister big Carey relationship. You want it to be triumphant. You want them to overcome it. But I think what you just laid out is so much more real life. You never know that at a snap of a hat. They could change completely. I was rewatching the episode actually that was a complete foreshadow for his death of when he goes into heart surgery. Oh yeah. Cardiac arrest, right? And she is taking care of him and he see the soft side of mister big and he wakes up in just like that.

00:15:01 - 00:20:01

He's back to himself. Do you see what I did there with the just like that? I didn't even mean to do that. That just came out. Just like that. But I think the other piece that I find really fascinating is how she grieves with this. And I think while yes, there's a lot with mister big that he is not the best partner for sure. I think she is a lot of work to do as well. We can't just let him be done. We can't just play mister big. I think a lot of times for sure. You know, I was in a situation ship for way too freaking long and I actually don't blame the guy. I look at myself and I'm like, why did I stay in this? That was not serving me and what I wanted. I think you need to take your own accountability. And I think she is terrible at processing emotions or speaking up and communicating. The way he dies, she's not crying. Okay, whatever. I know people handle grief differently, and I don't think she's avoiding the situation in the sense that she has come to terms that he has passed away, but I think she's avoiding her feelings for sure. Yes, and her entire life revolves around mister big. She is always catering to him. When has he ever catered to her? The show may be about her, but it ended up being about him. How she was there for him. So again, I'm not saying y'all go kill the guy that has been a dick to you, but symbolically we can kill off that person and free ourselves from this entrapment of this fuckboy who made it seem like it was such an interesting relationship and then you fast forward to them in their 50s and he's so fucking old looking at this beer belly. He's got to that moment. Do you still want to be with this person? 'cause I surely was like, he lost all his appeal to me. Just put them on a peloton, right? That's the way to go out. Yeah. Kill them with a stationary bike. The peloton commercial, though, is the funniest thing I've ever seen with mister big. Like they played that so well. I mean, the whole thing is fascinating to be peloton claims they did not know they were being used in this way. It was all planned. I was gonna say, how did they come back with that ad so damn fast with so fast? And it was like a peloton instructor was playing the character. How would she have done it? Yes. Without any sign off. But I do think their whole but I was like rewatching that episode of him with the cardiac arrest. He does this thing like, I'm alive and that voice in that. Ad he did the exact same thing and I found it so funny. The whole thing is so dumb. So dumb. But I think I have some predictions for the rest of the season. I think Miranda is going to be a lesbian. Oh, for sure. They've already shown a little bit of that. Charlotte's daughter is now non binary and she's going to have to navigate that with her family. So yeah, we're pushing the boundaries a little bit. This is actually Julie and I had this vision for a new Sex and the City. What would it look like in 2021? And that's pretty much how we picture to accept with younger people. Sorry, we did not have 50 some year old characters in our idea. And Carrie is definitely gonna be back on the apps. Oh. That would be fascinating. Well, Aiden's coming back. Oh my God, is he? No, no, no, I don't know. I don't know. I think she needs to go out on Tinder and find someone new. That's what I feel. Well, I just look through I like to look through Aiden's Instagram and how to work recently. And he has it. So he's definitely making a comeback just so whatever his real name is. John Corbett or something, yeah. Oh, his name is John. Yeah, anyone that's not a sex of the city fan is probably just like, what the fuck are you guys talking about? But I would go out a gamble that a lot of our listeners are OG Sex and the City fans. Yeah, oh yeah, even my boyfriend's like super into what's going on right now. And he never even really watched. My two, he's like, he's like, this is terrible, but I'm gonna keep watching. Yeah. Yes. Everyone at a top two is the same boat. It's like we acknowledge this is horrible. This should never have been made, but we are still in for it. I am so on board with it. I lost my Internet like all day yesterday. I was like, I'm gonna stream sex of the city on my phone. That is the what I did. You watched it on the phone. That is pure desperation. I didn't realize. Okay, moving on to our question. Debate over Julie's been pent up all week trying to have this debate with me on air so there you go. You guys, you all witnessed. I feel like you could have converted it to the other side through it. I win. I will no, you can't argue with fuckboy. Like that's just no one's gonna be like, he was a very nice young man. No. It's that fantasy side of eye coming through. Sometimes you do just be the realness.

00:20:01 - 00:25:00

Yes, I will shake the, I will shake the big out of you if that time ever comes. Okay, our question for this episode. How can you tell if you're over your ex? And we do touch upon this in this episode a little bit, but I think just by virtue of asking this question, you're probably not over your ex. I will start there. If your ex is still taking up real estate in your mind, and they're living their rent free as people like to say, you're not over your ex that you haven't fully processed them out of your system. I think if you're trying to find them still, and I think social media makes this too damn easy. If you are looking up your accent social media, my ex didn't even use social media yet I would still look them up. You barely posted ever, but I still would search for him. And then there becomes a day that you don't anymore. And that's when you know that you've moved on, or when you're secretly hoping they're going to text you out of nowhere. Or, you know, everything you see reminds you of them in some way, and then one day you're just not thinking about them. And I think that's when you have moved on from your ex. Oh, I've been there are so many times. There are days that you, a lot of us try to recognize patterns. Well, usually he would have texted me by now. Usually after we break up, he would have contact me by now, and then you get all disappointed if they don't. That's when you know you're really not over it because you're still counting down the days. And I've also found with myself, I know I'm not over an X when I talk shit about them. If someone's like, oh, what was your last relationship like if I go on a first date? And then I talk shit about them how terrible they were or how toxic they were. I know I'm not over it, 'cause it's still affecting me somehow. You start to feel like you're over your ex when it doesn't affect you like that anymore. You can talk about it more objectively and not get all worked up about it. I think it can swing the other way too is even if you're not talking shit about them, but you're comparing everyone you meet. Oh, you're keeping them on this pedestal because I've been there before where one I would come out of the date and be like, this was horrible because they're not like my ex and be upset. Instead of giving a new person a new chance, that's one piece of it. The other side is sometimes I would find myself even talking about my ex on dates. And that means that you're not over it. You know, I think there is a time and a place to reveal some of your past relationship history, but especially on a first date, I don't think that's necessary. And I think sometimes when you're spending a lot of time talking about your ex, there's an ulterior motive that you're just want to talk about them and not because you need to get information about this new person in any way. So I think yeah, I mean, I think sometimes it does take just meeting someone else. I think there is a piece of that that you might never be fully over them until you meet someone else. But I think you start to see it Wayne when you're constantly thinking about them. It's very hard to meet someone else because they are just even if they're not physically with you or even in contact. They were just occupying so much mental space. So I think if you're not told a 100% over your ex, you can cut yourself some slack and don't feel like you need to be a 100% need again. I just don't know if that's ever realistic. But I do think you can tell when you are 75% not over them. And that's probably not the right place to be in today. No. And you know it. You just feel it because you're still indulging yourself in those moments of memories. You're still going down that path of oh, I remember when we did this and how we met and the moment he or she said this to me. Yep. You're still living in that world in the past, you haven't exactly come into the present, so how can you even focus on the future? And like Julie said it's be very open to that feeling. That's okay. Don't be too hard on yourself, but also acknowledge that that's what you're going through. Something you'll hear in this episode is you have to fully process the person before you can say that you are over them and processing means feeling the feelings still and not ignoring them. Every time you think of your ex, it doesn't help you to say, no, I'm not going to think about it. I'm going to distract myself because they're going to keep coming up anyway. So you've just got to go through the process of getting them out. Yep, that's why Carrie's fucked. She just hasn't gone through the process yet. It's just going to come out in waterworks. Season finale, I can see it already. Oh my God. Sometimes processing is different for different people, but coming to terms with what's going on and not holding them on this pedestal is really important. I feel like there's so many good things that I want to start talking about, but we have an entire episode to do that. So we're going to move on to sub adapted. So like you a said, this is our season finale, but don't worry. We will be back.

00:25:01 - 00:30:04

Starting a January. We will be taking one week breather over the holidays. So no worries, we will be back the first Wednesday of January, if you're not subscribed already. Make sure to hit subscribe so you can get a Tuesday night. Right when the episode drops and if you are, there's usually a little delay. So if you're not subscribed, sometimes it takes longer to get that episode. So get on it. The other piece is send it to a friend. You know, there's always an episode in our back catalog that is exactly what someone needs to hear in the moment that they're in. We guarantee this episode about processing breakups is probably super relevant either to you or to someone you know. So, you know, send the love around and share this episode out. So the last announcement we have, we all know that January to February is super hot for dating apps. What is it the first Sunday of the new year is the Super Bowl of dating apps, the busiest day of the year. I think it's you know that new year do be Valentine's Day is always, you know, something that's in the back of our minds, whether we like it or not. So we all hear all the time from you all how difficult dating apps are and how challenging they are and we really strongly believe it does not have to be. So you can wait till January to hear what we have up our sleeves. Her boyfriends from apps as well. And I think they really are a great resource. So we have something very special that's coming. We're not going to say all too much. We will say it's not a program like our finding your person program. It is a bit different. So you can wait till January to hear what we have up our sleeves. Okay, let's take a quick break now to hear from our sponsors. This episode is sponsored by better help with so much going on in the world today wouldn't it be nice to know there's a dedicated team on your side to help you through all of life's ups and downs. That's why we're so happy to introduce you to better help, a professional counseling platform that matches you with your own licensed professional therapist. Send a message to your counselor anytime or do what I do, schedule weekly video or phone Sessions. Better help is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches, so they make it easy and free to change counselors if needed. Their licensed professional counselors specialize in depression, stress, anxiety, relationships sleeping trauma grief and so much more. Just check out the testimonials posted daily on their site. We want you to start living a happier life today and as a listener, you'll get 10% off your first month by visiting our sponsor at better help dot com slash dateable. Join over 1 million people who have taken charge of their mental health. Again, that's better help better HELP dot com slash D ATE APLE. This episode is brought to you by drizzly, fun fact number one, it's gifting season. Fact number two, no one returns alcohol. In fact number three, I love gifts, hint hint. And so for this year, get everyone on your list and I hope I'm on someone's list. The gift of beer wine and spirits delivered right to their doorstep with drizzle in under 60 minutes. It's no wonder drizzle is the number one app for alcohol delivery. And I love that I can share my favorite bottle wine with my favorite Friends without even leaving my house. It sure makes those virtual gatherings so much more entertaining with bottles of brunello all around. So right now, drizzle is giving every new customer $5 off their first order. Just use the promo code fast 5 at checkout. So download the drizzly app or go to drizzly dot com that's spelled DR I Z dot com and use the promo code fast 5 that's spelled FAST and the number 5 for $5 off your first order. Okay, let's get to our conversation with doctor Gladys Otto. I know that we were trying to figure this out, but the last time we saw doctor glad is Otto, I think it was how many years ago? Three years ago? Is that what we decided all years ago? Right before right before, right before the world changed, but we saw you talk about grief and I guess parting ways, things that happen in life and it really moved us. So we're so happy to finally have you on our show Gladys to talk about everything that has to do with breakups, changes, the end, the beginning, because with every beginning, there is an end with every end there is a beginning. So who is doctor Gladys ato? She is 47 years old lived in Mexico right now. She's been there for 9 months and loving it. She has no plans of leaving Mexico. Oh, she told us. Originally from California, she's a clinical psychologist, grief and loss expert, public speaker, and author of the good goodbye, how to navigate change and loss in life, love and work.

00:30:04 - 00:35:06

In addition to co hosting her own podcast timeout with Gladys and ula, doctor Otto has shared her thought leadership in several top publications and podcasts, including BBC News, Forbes, TEDx, Lincoln square, NPR, NBC News and the data podcast. Gonna add that to the list of credentials. And she's been such a leader in the space and speaking about loss, which is a topic that many of us don't talk about openly, so I'm glad that we're we are openly talking about this now. Glad is so nice to have you on our show finally. Oh, I am so thrilled and just super looking forward to what I know is going to be such a juicy conversation for everybody. Yes. I remember. I remember when you spoke. You talk about grief and loss at beyond just dating. This is all aspects of life. But I remember you and I thinking this would be a great topic for the podcast because sometimes it feels like breakups are such a form of loss, but it's not at the same level of death, but sometimes they can really sting at that side too. So I think it's really good that we're kind of addressing this with you and we know that from your life experience you dealt with the loss and the passing of your mother at an early age and that kind of stem to why you were so interested in this topic. Were there any romantic situations that you kind of experienced loss in two? Kinda, yeah, many. Where are you? Where do I start? Yeah. I have to share that first off. This is a bit of me checking off something off of my dream list because I have for several decades wanted to talk about relationships. And I'm not a relationship therapist. It's not part of my specialty in my background, but having gone through a number of breakups myself, that crushed my soul. Those were the moments that I felt that death experience the hardest. Those were the moments where I felt that my sense of self was shattered. Those were the times when trying to think about getting out of bed was the hardest thing that I could possibly do. And myself worth plummeted every single time. So I went through the wringer in my own relationships and then when my mom died, that just knocked everything out of the ballpark because that was the biggest loss I would ever experience. But my perspective on grief on loss on breakups on relationships in general have all been shaped by the loss experiences that I've had relationally. And so here I am today in a position where I can speak from both my expertise as a psychologist, but also my lived experience and really provide a fresh perspective on what it is that we are dealing with when it comes to loss. And to really help fill in a lot of gaps that, unfortunately, have been left wide open in terms of media and society and all the crap out there that tells us what breakups and loss should be like. Right. Yeah, and if you think about it, we celebrate the beginning of relationships. We celebrate the DTR conversation, getting married to getting engaged. But the end of the relationship, we always celebrate what was there and we don't talk about what comes next. So why do you think it is so hard for people to talk about loss and grief and the ending of things? Yeah. Well, the biggest reason is that we just haven't been educated or given the tools to know how to have healthy dialog and even just a healthy perspective around it. And it's no fault of our own. I think it's important to establish that first. You know, when we think of loss, what are some of the immediate words of debt describe the feelings that you associate with loss? Sadness. I think there's almost like this shame that you did something wrong too, especially when a breakup happens, which seems so stupid saying that out loud. But I think there is some of that. Absolutely. And I'm raising my hand as somebody that felt a lot of shame because I have this very strong narrative in my personal life that I'm always doing something wrong or fucking things. And this is why I'm type a perfectionist. Did I want that? I think also like sadness. It just feels like very dismal and at the end of the path opposed to starting of something new. Exactly. So, you know, when I was doing research to write my book, the good goodbye, I did a little focus group to basically get input on the same kind of question that I just asked you when it comes to loss when it comes to endings change. What are the feelings that you associate with it? And some of the top responses were sadness, anxiety, anger.

00:35:08 - 00:40:03

Anchor. Which is very interesting. So if we look at it from that lens, loss means it's going to provoke an emotion in us that we are not accustomed to tolerating, that we tend to want to escape, get away from avoid, move past. And it's not that we need to wallow in it. But what we're doing, if we zoom out, all that's happening is that our attention and our focus in the moment of a breakup is going to one end of the emotional spectrum. And that's the side that we tend to label grief, which are those hard emotions that we just identified. But on the other end of the emotional spectrum, there's also joy, celebration, gratitude, acceptance, understanding, forgiveness, same emotional spectrum, we just haven't been taught how to embrace the other end. So when it comes to how we can navigate breakups or loss of any kind. The work isn't to diminish those tough feelings. Because heartbreak is real, but it's to be educated that just as real as a heartbreak is the heartbreaking through to a new threshold of expansion. Right. I think some of it, though, is I mean, obviously, there's a loss of the person. But I think some of it is, you know, the loss of the life that you thought you were going to move forward with. And now, you know, there's this starting over feeling. How do you see people navigate between the two of not being with that person versus starting over and change that comes with it? Yeah, well, the starting over that provokes a lot of anxiety in people because it's a path of unknown. We don't know what it's going to be like without this person in our life. We don't know how we're going to show up differently. I know one thing that I have have mold over myself and just reflection of past relationships that have ended is, am I going to make the same mistakes next time? And so we can also develop a bit of a fear and anxiety around this belief that maybe we are missing signs or something's wrong with us or we are fucking things up. And so stepping into that new chapter can be filled with so much of this unknown space that it makes us uncomfortable and the tendency when we're uncomfortable is to grab on to things that make us comfortable, things that help us feel grounded, things that help us feel a sense of security and safety. But if we are grabbing onto the past, things from back then to help us feel safe and secure what we can end up inadvertently doing is bringing those pieces of our past relationship into the future. And that sometimes isn't in our favor. And Gladys, I'm sure a lot of our listeners right now are reminiscing about some of the bad breakups they've experienced. Can you walk us through the worst breakup you've ever experienced? Oh my God, yeah. Where's my tissues? So my mom passed away in 2003. And at the time, a day before she passed away, I actually was able to have an art reception to showcase my art and at that time I used to call myself a closet artist because I would paint, I would draw but nobody would see it because I throw it in a closet. And so I was part of San Francisco's first Thursdays where a bunch of art galleries opened up to the public. And so I had a reception, my family was there. My partner and I were there, my sister had a partner afterwards, my family went to dinner and it was a very complete moment with my boyfriend, my sister's boyfriend, my parents. Next day, my mom passed away very suddenly, from a brain aneurysm. And that was in 2003. And then I believe it was 2005. The winter of 2005, so almost two years later. My boyfriend and I broke up. And it was a combination of a lot of accumulated grief that I was going through. Any time that we are going through a loss, whether it is a loss of somebody that died or there's an illness, any kind of stressor, and you're in a relationship, it does a number on your relationship as well. And so this became a really big stressor for my partner and I plus, we were dealing with our own existing issues that we were trying to resolve in therapy. And it just got to a breaking point where he decided were done. And that moment snowballed into a series of losses for me. So when we were living together at the time. And I had to move out because it was his home. We had adopted a dog together, the dog stayed with him.

00:40:03 - 00:45:02

Ouch. Oh, yeah. I was then living on my sister's couch. I went to my friend's place for over a month and I was staying and her daughter's bedroom. I was not eating. I was drinking and sure, to just get enough kinds of calories and nutrients within me. I and remind you guys, this is a couple years after my mom died. So this is like grief on top of grief, but also in addition to my life-changing physically, our dog being separated from me, Friends also separated. So there were friends that kind of allied with him, friends at allied with me. So my social life changed. Then I had to leave the community that I was living in in San Francisco to find a new rental on my own. And a couple months after that breakup, a cousin of mine was killed. Oh my God. She was getting married on Valentine's Day and the night before there was a drive by shoe and her and her unborn baby were killed. Oh God. Talk about fucking trauma and loss. And I'm very short amount of time. That was the worst breakup ever. And I will tell you, it's been several I mean, it's been decades since I've talked about this, but going back now and just reflecting on it. I'm having two feelings. Number one, it's like holy crap. That was a doozy, right? Because it was lost after loss after loss after loss, but also, I'm very aware that unconsciously what happened then, and I was in my late 20s, maybe I was turning 30. So I was also entering a new decade of life. That was a pivotal breaking point for me. And everything around my beliefs of relationships and loss started to crumble and change. And looking at where I'm at now, right? I'm approaching 50 in a small number of years. I know that the work that was left for me to do was to rebuild. My internal sense of safety and security to know that no matter what kind of loss I endured in life, because we're always going to have loss that I would be able to not only get back up, but I would be able to maintain my sense of self and not let that crumble with everything crumbling around me. And this is what I now call becoming the eye of the storm. Wow. I love that. I think that's such a powerful way to put it 'cause I think there's I think that does prevent a lot of people from even entering relationships because there's this fear of it ending or I've talked to a lot of friends about this. I don't want another one to end. I think that goes back to the feeling of picking things up, but also like this feeling of being a failure almost in this. But I think the strengthening of your own self is really the only thing to do because what's the alternative you just never enter a relationship? That's not necessarily the answer either. I guess how can people start to build that sense of stuff and get over that fear? Head first, even if they had a bad breakup of the past. Well, I think one of the pre steps to doing that. And we'll get to that in a little bit. Is recognizing that any relationship that you are in is solely a reflection of the relationship that you have with yourself? That's it. Can you say that one more time? I feel like people need to hear that one more time, including myself. Any relationship you are in is solely a reflection for the relationship you have with yourself. We are creators. We forget that. We are born knowing that we are here to create anything we desire. And yet we lose that knowing as we go through society and life. The relationships that we have with other people are mirrors. That's all they are. And if we can accept that and look at life through that knowing, this is a universal truth, everything outside of you as a reflection of what's in you. Then, if a relationship ends, task number one be really freaking gentle with yourself. Yeah. That's it, right? Because what you're seeing outside is just showing you where there's an opportunity to heal to close a chapter to redefine who you are within you. And if we look at it through that lens, we realize that any time a door closes, it's a gift. It's a gift and opportunity of expansion because that as creators we are here to expand. And the only way we expand in this life on this earth is through contrast. So the contrast that we receive in relationships, if a relationship doesn't work, that's providing a contrast to you of where you feel that there was synergy and not synergy.

00:45:02 - 00:50:03

And a lot of times when we go through a breakup, it's very easy to fall into that place of blame, whether you're blaming outward, right? Or you're blaming inwards so much that you can't really step into this place of reflection. So in those moments, it's really important to understand that being gentle with yourself isn't just treating yourself to ice cream and Netflix for as long as you need. That's really helpful. But also, it's being gentle with your nervous system. One of the key areas that I focus on in my work is teaching people how to identify what their nervous system feels like and how to develop a different relationship with their nervous system so that they know how to ease their nervous system so that your nervous system isn't on edge because your nervous system is designed to keep you safe. Right. And if you're going through a breakup or if you're going through mental chatter of you not being good enough, you fucked up again or that person shouldn't have done this and all of that, you're nervous system isn't a chronic state of agitation. So from a chronic state of agitation, your mind can not do any real processing that will be beneficial for you. So don't try to go to the meditation. Don't cry to go to the mindfulness. Don't try to be zen with everything happens for a reason or all those generic things people say when you go through a breakup. Instead, get clear on what your nervous system needs and help deescalate your nervous system. So you can feel that deep breath. That's when you know your nervous system is chilling out is when you feel that exhale throughout your entire body. Then you can start to go to your mind and do some of that re corrective self talk because your mind now isn't in fight or flight mode. So it always amazes me how people process breakups so differently. There's some people that just bounce back immediately, then there's others I've definitely been this person that takes months and months and arguably too long to get over something. I guess what are your thoughts on this? There's a sex of the city saying that it takes like half the time you dated to get over someone. Is there kind of like a silver bullet or is it really like person by person or have the people that kind of get over it quicker figured out how to process it better? The first thing that came to mind is it takes as long as you need it to until it doesn't feel good anymore. Yeah. And that's gonna look different for every single person. So what does feel good mean? Now this can get I won't go down the rabbit hole too much, but I think there are two ways to understand feeling good. If you are suffering and you don't like that suffering, right? You could say this doesn't feel good. But if you have a history of suffering and suffering has kind of become your norm, it might be a comfortable place for you to be default. It's your default. And so it's like a security blanket. This is what you know. And so you might hang out there underneath that security blanket a lot longer than you might realize you actually are benefiting from just because it's familiar to you. So a better question that ask yourself in these moments, if you find that you are suffering, that you are various areas in your life are being impacted. I think that's one of the good things from my background as a clinical psychologist whenever we are doing an assessment with a new client is what areas of life are being impacted by the stressor. If you find that you are becoming more isolated, or maybe you're becoming extra clingy, right? Like you're talking to friends and you're repeating the same story. Like that, right? And then my friend gets tired of it. So you go to the other friend that's going to listen to all the beginning. It's check in with your inner dialog. And be able to pause enough where your nervous system is chilled out, right, where your brain is a little bit more calm and ask yourself am I benefiting from this right now? So instead of looking at, okay, this should be 6 months because it was a year relationship or whatever. Look at it, am I benefiting from this feeling right now? Day by day. And sometimes it can be an hour by hour question. And then what about the flip side? 'cause I could see the people that bounce back. I know I had a friend once that, you know, had this terrible breakup was dating someone new within like a month. And then it all hit 6 months later. Yeah. Is there this possibility of avoiding the feeling when you're jumping back too soon? Or is it a way that you can process it and still jump back in? Again, I think it varies by each individual. I have a really dear friend of mine who has made it a practice to not date anybody for a year after he ends up after he's ended a relationship so that he can actually be in a place of self reflection because he also understands this universal truth. Everything outside of you is just a mirror for what's in you. He wants to learn from all of these moments of contrast.

00:50:03 - 00:55:04

So he takes a time that he needs. And he has put a time frame on it, you know? I don't think you need to be that prescriptive. But if you are, if you've gone through a breakup and then you immediately meet someone new and you're a full attention is on that new, but you haven't felt closure or completeness or resolution of the past, just know it's going to come back up. And some people are cool with that because they need a little bit of that buffer space to just recalibrate. And again, if we look at it through that lens of a nervous system, calibration, right? Like we got to do things to help our nervous systems recalibrate so we can feel grounded and safe again. That's all we're trying to do in these moments. We're trying to find safety. We're trying to find security. Some of us find safety and security in isolation. Some of us find safety and security in connection to other. So if we look at it just as a simply trying to regulate all that barrage of emotions, we can't have prescriptions or time frames for anybody, because it's going to depend on that unique person. Gladys, I don't know if you've seen this pattern, but in my dating coach experience from years and years ago, I found that a lot of people after a breakup would be fine in the first few months because they're like there's so many people out there, there's online dating, they start dating a pretty frequently, and then one day something reminds them of their ex. It's a smell. It's a place it's a type of food and they just break down. And in those experiences, every all of my clients said, I just need to seek closure. What are your thoughts about this overwhelming need to seek closure? Is it necessary? And is there such a thing as seeking closure? Yeah, what is closure look like? You know, it reminds me of the 5 stages of grieving and for those listening that aren't familiar with it. This was developed by Elizabeth kubler Ross. So 5 stages of grieving are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. So that response that you're talking about, the first couple of months they're fine. There might be some shock in it, right? It might be some denial. We don't know. It depends on per person. It might be that they've just fully gone to the acceptance place, and now they're just moving through the layers. But there was an unintended interpretation that the final step in the grieving process is acceptance, which is what you're referring to as closure. We're complete with it all. We feel resolved. We're good. We've integrated. We can move on. We're not affected anymore. And I called bullshit on that and writing my book the good goodbye. Because if we become so finite and thinking about this, we are not accepting that loss change, grief is an evolutionary process. Everybody doesn't have to start with denial and ended acceptance. And so my approach, which I call a good goodbye approach is more counterintuitive in that I start with acceptance first by redefining acceptance as just recognizing what's in front of you without trying to change it. That's it. I think that is so important because I know I can speak to bypass breakup that was like one of those I couldn't get out of bed like detrimental breakups. And there was this period that I did not accept what happened, that I thought, you know, if this changed, then this will work out. And it was kind of like, oh, I'll just check in in like three months. And then, you know, there was always this feeling of like this isn't over. And in my head, I thought this is still my person, even though it was over. How do you, how can you get to that stage of acceptance? How can you be kind of like, in theory, it could have been just like this is over. This isn't your person. But that seems a lot easier in retrospect when you're not going through it. How can you help someone when you're in the thick of it? Right. Well, it goes back to really asking yourself am I benefiting from this right now? So lying in bed, thinking that maybe in three months you'll get back together, does that benefit you? And if the answer is yes, you're not going to change. If you find benefit in it, I mean, you can have Oprah Winfrey and Deepak Chopra talking in both ears and they might not change your perspective because you're still finding value in holding on to this possibility. Now, one thing that I do recommend is and this is a really tough one. I'm pausing on even saying this because I understand that when you're in the thick of it, you're just too focused on the emotional experience. So I'm going to caveat this by saying one great practice to have is as you're going through the thick of it. Practice regulating your nervous system on a daily basis with something as simple as a technique that I developed called the reset remedy. It's repeating four phrases to yourself over and over again to stop the mental chatter that's driving you crazy.

00:55:04 - 01:00:00

And you guys all know what I'm talking about. You're watching TV. But you're replaying shit in your head. Over and over again. What that person will say, yeah, okay. That's called rumination. Or perseverative thinking. So the reset remedy is a way to stop that depress a pause button. So you're nervous system can chill out. You can recalibrate your thoughts and you can just have a moment of peace. Now, as you practice this over and again, the part that I was hesitating on offering, because I know how grueling breakups are. It is to practice going within. Where do I want to go next? What do I want this next chapter to look and feel like? How do I want to show up today in this moment in this hour in this minute? Am I benefiting from what I'm experiencing right now? Because remember, everything external is just a reflection of what's inside. We overemphasize keeping our focus on the external them, then them. What if this? What if that what are they doing on Facebook? Oh my God, they were at a party. Who is this person that just liked their post? And then we start keeping the focus external. That is a way to avoid the internally to take care of yourself and a beautiful visual to hold. If you had a little three year old child that was sitting by your feet, was scabbed knees and elbows. A torn face that's bleeding. Tears streaming down their eyes. Looking up at you asking for help. How would you respond to them? Would you ignore them and get on Instagram to check your ex's latest story? Or would you turn to this little three year old and say, how can I help you? I'm here for you. And you guys, if only if I had the ability to give myself that kind of attention when I went through my breakups, I wouldn't have dragged myself forth through the gutter as often as I did. Right. But I had no connection to my sense of self, and that's all that we're asking you to do in those moments when we say go inward. Justin your little three year old saying, please hold me and let me know I'm gonna be okay. I think the self worth is so I can see even my own breakup. Like years later, clearly, but in the moment did not see this. There did a lot of it was tied to my own self that I thought that this I couldn't find someone else. There was that piece of it that honestly had nothing to do actually with my ex when you're really thinking about it. But how can you start to get that self realization and realize that it ties to your self worth? Because I think so many people are in the state that you're describing of just how do I get this person back? I feel like I bought so many books of like, how can I get my ex back, you know? It's like, how do you get out of that state and focus in words? Yeah. Well, I mean, let's go with that. I think that would be a book called how to get your Xbox. Yeah. I feel like if there isn't someone should get out that SEO. Maybe I should write that next book. Yeah. And then be like, and look at yourself. That's how you get. Just one sentence. Thanks for your ten 99. Thanks. You guys are actually going to write that book. Here, let's go with that, right? If you're in a state of how do you get your ex back? Let's work with that energy because that's where you're at right now. That's what's real to you. That's where your focus is. Number one recognize that everything is energy. Everything is energy. The energy you put out is the energy you receive back. So if you want the energy of your ex coming right back to you, you gotta get your energy in that right state to actually be a vibrational match for what your ex is at so that he or she comes back to you naturally. Being in bed ruminating on stuff from the past does not help you raise your energy to be at a vibrational state of calling love back in. What we don't realize is that when we are heartbroken, when we are aching, when we are a state of suffering, a lot of times we are identifying as a victim. And victim state energy does not attract love relationship connection energy. It just doesn't. So if you want to get your ex back, you gotta raise that vibrational energy up to being an empowered open woman man who is ready for love and the only way that can happen and there's research around this. I think was it osho that did the studies on water. If you look at the way that you talk to water or to plants, there were studies done on this and you talked to one plant through negative self talk and you talked to another plant through positive self talk and guess which plant grows fastest.

01:00:01 - 01:05:03

Right? So if we look at it through that lens, give yourself benefit of the doubt, love on yourself. Do the positive self practices that you know how to do not to minimize those tough emotions. Be with the emotions as though it was a little three year old, needing your love. But when you do that inner work, you will raise your vibrational energy to that place where it is a match for love, because love is the highest energy vibration that we have on this planet. And it is an energy of openness. And when we're wounded, we're not open. Right. So you got to heal first before you're going to welcome in a healed relationship. And it's bullshit that I remember when I was in my 20s being like, fuck yeah, whatever. You know, I gotta love myself first. I couldn't tolerate it. And I didn't want to look at it because I hated myself, you guys back then. I genuinely hated who I was as a human being. And that was a result of a lot of childhood trauma. So I was close to it. But through my work that I've done in my own therapy, my own healing practices and obviously my background as a psychologist and then going through multiple other relationships to practice. What I'm sharing with you all now is the golden ticket to stepping into a new chapter where you can receive anything and everything you desire relationally that you got to realize that you are your own generator of energy. No one else is. So it has to start with you first. Okay, let's take a quick break for a few messages. Have you ever thought about how much better dating would be if you had a whole army of people supporting you along the way? We know that dating can be frustrating and lonely, but it can also feel fulfilling and fun. Have you recently decided you want to make some changes to your love life? Maybe you've recently reentered the dating scene, maybe you've gone on one too many dates that went nowhere, or maybe you're just ready to take your current relationship to the next level. That is exactly why we created the sounding board, a true extension of our podcast that delivers a personalized experience, which includes monthly office hours where you can drop in and chat with us about anything. Weekly sound offs with guided discussions and regular virtual happy hours, allow Julie and I to become your dating sherpas to provide real-time guidance and wisdom in a more intimate way so we can all navigate dating and relationships together. Join the sounding board today by going to dateable podcast dot com slash sounding board. Again, that's data podcast dot com slash sounding board. I do want to ask you a kind of a controversial question here. Controversial between Julie and I basically, we should be about this all the time. And it's sometimes it's not black and white at an end of breakup. Maybe you don't want your ex back, but maybe you don't want them completely out of your life either. So I personally like murder my exes in my mind after we break up. I just feel like I can not it doesn't serve me to be around them. That's how I move on. Julie and a lot of our listeners feel like it's fine to stay friends or contact your ex later down the line when you feel like you're ready to. Is there a clear I'm sure you will say that it's up to the individual, but do you believe that there is a strong stance on something like this of keeping your ex energetically around? You know, if you had asked me that question 7 years ago, I would have said absolutely you don't have to keep him in your life. When you're done, you're done. You close the door, you move on. That helps you get closure. I went through a breakup that was a very significant breakup for me in 2000 15. This also was clustered around me closing the doors of a university where I was a president and CEO. So I was going through again a number of goodbyes. I was also leaving the corporate career that I had built, venturing out to start my own business. And my ex had said to me, in relationship, when we were still in a relationship, some comment about how he's friends with all of his exes. And I looked at him with bewildered eyes and said, what? What? Why? I'm not trying with any of my exes. We don't talk. We're not connected on Facebook, none of that. And he goes, yeah, I mean, why would you need to not have communication with somebody that you admittedly at some point loved? Love doesn't end, and I'm like, yeah, but and we said we did the whole argument thing, right? And I think you and I are probably in the same camp and Julie, you would have been on his camp. Well, this man was persistent. And we are the best of friends today. And I would have swore that it would have never happened. Now, would I invite this in with past X's? No, because remember everything is energy. And the energetic vibrational state that I'm at having done all the inside work that I have. I'm high vibe. Yeah. So for me to invite in an ex that maybe isn't high vibe, maybe hasn't done the same kind of spiritual work. That will not necessarily be a good energetic match.

01:05:03 - 01:10:09

So to have him to have him in my life for me personally would not really bring value. It might be familiar, it might be nice, but do I need to put a steel wall between us if they reached out? No, absolutely not. I had one X reach out to me after several years of breaking up. And I was surprised, but I welcomed him to a conversation. And then I never heard from him. He just needed to reach out to say hello. Thank you for what our relationship meant for me. You changed my life. And then I never heard from him again. So just be mindful, and this always goes back to why everything outside of you is just a mirror for what's inside of you. If you remember you are a creator in this life. And you are your own source of energetic output. Then you get to be selective of the energies that you surround yourself with. And if you take that perspective, you are honoring yourself as a creator that you are. You don't want to put unleaded gasoline into a Lamborghini that requires premium. You're going to take really great care of that Lamborghini, right? It's the same thing with the people that you allow in your life, whether they're love interests or friends, family members, coworkers, as applies to any everybody. So I have changed by tune over the years with this topic. I just want to make sure that that's clear. Okay, so in theory, I agree with your ex of this is someone you loved, why wouldn't you want this person in your life? I would say even before I change my two, there was always a period of no contact of having to process it and get over it. I have a lot of thoughts on no contact, and we could maybe talk about that after. But to wrap this up, he's up. I think my tune is changed because I had my most serious breakup was an ex that stayed in my life for 5 years and it was never really platonic, like even in a platonic period. One of us wanted it to start. And I think it greatly got in the way of me meeting someone else to be honest. And I think I thought it was okay for a while and I think that the more if you're fixated on someone else, it's really hard to date with new PL. And we've had people in our listener community say the same is like, I thought the issue was dating apps, but it turns out I'm still hung up on my ex, right? And I think it's very hard to move forward if that person's still lingers in your life. That being said, I have another act that has moved to the UK that we check in here and there. I mean, it wasn't the same emotions either. But that one to me is perfectly fine because it's platonic and it doesn't pass a certain level ever. And it's not someone that I talk to on a regular basis at all. Maybe once every 6 months if even. So I think there's distance clearly on that one too, right? It's like just out of. So I think some of it is circumstantial of who this person is and how they're affecting you. And I mean, I had to basically end the friendship with my ex because it was getting in the way, even of my new relationship. So I think there is a point that you realize that you need to move forward and I think you need to see if it's serving you to have this person here. And again, that it's vague to say it's all circumstantial, but I love this, what is it that I ultimately want? Do I want to be in a happy, healthy relationship? And is having this person here helping me with that or hurting me with that? Yeah. Well, and one thing that can make it complicated is that we tend to think of that other person. If we're having a hard time moving past the relationship, we tend to think of them in their idealized state. If this person were to change this, then we would just be so happy or maybe I can just get over this kind of bug the shit out of me when we were together. And then it wouldn't be that big of a deal. And what we're failing to do is really honor what is. This is why I talk about acceptance as that first part of creating a good goodbye experience. If you can recognize what's in front of you for what it is without trying to change it, you stop putting your energy into trying to change the past. It's done. And then you can go to that next place of understanding where you're at and where you desire to be. And we've given a number of examples of how you can go about doing it. But remember that if your doorway and at my friend said this actually my ex, who's one of my best friends now. He said, if your doorway is filled with energies that are not at the vibration that you desire. And you can't think of the future vibration their idealized self. It's who they currently are now, what they're bringing to you energetically. If you got a doorway full of the energies that are not aligned with the energy you are at, the energies that are right for you can not come to you. So you gotta clear the doorway. And one way to do this, just be mindful that it doesn't have to mean a severe ending. It doesn't have to be that steel door closing down around you. I created something called the good goodbye ritual as a way to help people clear the energetic buildup, the gunk that's in you.

01:10:10 - 01:15:01

So symbolically clear that doorway from an energy perspective through a beautiful and simple ritual where you can come to a deeper sense of understanding about what happened and find more of an acceptance of that you can integrate into your narrative of the breakup. Because it's the narrative that you're playing in their head, that screws you over or keeps you tight to the past or holding on, right? So the go goodbye ritual is a way to be able to honor what happened as a Rite of passage. And through this energetic cleanse and release, be able to come out of the other side clear internally so that you can make better choices that you can actually think more objectively about what you desire as that next step. And this is a ritual that I've done through majority of my breakups. This is a ritual that I will do anytime I'm going through a transition or change. And you guys it doesn't have to be a difficult one. Sometimes breakups, I actually have a dear friend of mine that's going through a breakup and him and his partner are doing this breakup in such a beautiful, beautiful intentional way. They're doing it through a lens of love. They're communicating throughout it all. They are processing their feelings together. And they are also expanding into their own new chapter in a way that is actually recognizing even more that their time together only allowed for a certain amount of expansion as a couple, and now they're expanding individually, but their way of creating this Rite of passage allows them to soften into seeing breakups, not as something that has to be painful, ugly, anchoring, a shame filled, but rather a breakup can be a beautiful transition into a new threshold of expansion that you can do together with somebody. And the ritual that I created allows you to do it on your own or with someone to be able to really ease up a lot of that chunkiness that can get hard and just clean out your energetic pipes because that's often what we don't know how to do. That's such a beautiful way of explaining or describing a breakup too because we often think breakups need to be nasty. If it's not nasty, there's something wrong with that, right? Right. So we can even shift the verbiage we use around breakups and how we want to describe them. But if that is the case and we do have this beautiful breakup and we're doing all the self work. When do we know we're actually ready to date again? How do we know great question? Well, how have you known in the past? A lot of mistakes. I mean, I think for me, I've definitely gone on dates in real life, I wasn't. I remember coming out of a date like crying, it had nothing to do with the person I was with the date. And I think there also on the others flip side like after my last breakup, I took time to myself. I dated a little and felt like I was okay with it, but not super excited to be meeting new people, kind of paused again. And then there was this day I just, I don't know what happened, but you just magically hit this day of like, I'm ready to meet people. And it's hard to say, what that is, but I think for me, it was better to wait to that day than to start trying to push to meet people when I wasn't there. And I think sometimes it's tempting because you're like, I don't want to lose time. I think especially for me after a second breakup, the first one I had spent so much time ruminating about it that I was like, I want to get back out there and not lose any time and that kind of just came back to bite me. I thought. Yeah. Thank you both for being so honest around it. And I'll share something revelation that I had several months ago this year. Because I see everything in the world through the lens of energy. And my own podcast time out with gladis and ulu. We talk about the one topic that nobody wants to talk about, which is death. And not just physical death, but the metaphorical death, which happens anytime there is a relationship ending anytime that you have an illness and you recover anytime the world changes and all of a sudden you're on lockdown. And then you've got to go back up. It's all about change because if you go through the layers of any loss or change that you experience in life, the reason we're so terrified of it or we struggle so much is because it's connected by a thread to our perception of death. Now if we see death as as nothing more than a shift in our state of being, and we cease death as a continuation of energy because we're infinite beings, energetically, we don't stop existing. We might not exist in a human body, but our energy state continues on. And if you look at anybody that has gone through a near death experience, which is what ula has gone through. So she died when she was 23. She's now just 23 when she died. And she came back to life after 20 minutes of being pronounced clinically dead. Oh, what a wild story.

01:15:01 - 01:20:00

Yeah, and she's now 51. So anybody that's gone to the other side always talks about how amazing it is and how love filled it is and celebratory and joyful in all these amazing words that are just pure love. We don't have to die to experience that in our life now. So earlier this year, I was reflecting on my readiness to enter into a relationship because it's been a couple years since my last relationship with my ex that is friends with all his exes and I score. I would never be Friends with you. And I asked myself, if everything is energy. And if we attract according to our vibrational state. So wherever my vibrational state is that that is that same vibrational as a state that I'm going to attract back. What's my vibrational state around relationships? And you guys, my heart sunk immediately because I realized I have been afraid to go back into a relationship because like you said earlier, Julie, I'm afraid I'm gonna fuck it up because I've had so many relationships and none of them have quote unquote worked out. And I had to do some energetic cleanup good goodbye ritual stuff there to just let go of that narrative. And to remind myself, I didn't do anything to fuck anything up. Every relationship has served. So if my energetic state around relationships has been fearful, then I'm not going to attract a relationship because I'm fearful. Right. But if I can change my energetic state to excited, curious, open. You guys, next time we get on this podcast together, I'm going to tell you that I met my love. Yes. We welcome that opportunity. I love it. We will be receiving emails after that. So I know I brought this up earlier, but I have this very mixed feeling of the no contact period. I feel like it has helped me separate from the person, but then you also mentioned that it actually can help to work it through with someone. And then also the other side of the content, I feel like so many of us do it as a means to an end. Like if I do it for a month, then they'll contact me because they'll miss me so much. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the no contact and if that's a tactic that helps or hurts or whatever. Yeah. Oh, I love that question. I want to ask you to ask yourself what do I envision my ideal breakup looking like? When we are in the midst of a breakup, again, we have a tendency to focus so much on the external on the other person to avoid the opportunity the invitations to go inward. So empower yourself by remembering your creator and ask yourself, okay, I'm going through this ending. What's the ideal version of how this ending can go? How would it feel amazing to me to transition through this and to get on the other side and feel incredible about the experience? If your response is focused on, well, if that other person does this or if they apologize to me for that, or if they come back, you're not, you're not really taking this question within you. How do I envision this ideal breakup looking like? Then you start there. If your ideal breakup involves contact with that other person. Just be mindful that you are not in control of the other person's response to you, staying in contact or their reactions at any moment in that period of continued contact. If your ideal breakup involves a period of no contact, remember that you do not control the other person's response to your no contact or any reactions that they're going to have in between. You can only control your response. And this is why I continually go back to it so important to do that part of calibrating your nervous system so that you can entertain that question from a mental state of clarity. And if you see yourself, and you've got to be really honest with yourself, you know, if you're in that space of like, okay, I'm not going to contact them for the next week because it's just too much, but inside secretly or like and then they'll miss me and maybe they'll exactly. Right? I love the honesty that you guys have created on this platform because that's the real stuff people are dealing with. You gotta be honest with yourself. Is that the best version of the breakup that I want to go through? Or is that a manipulative tactic? That I'm using, right? And then why my IB trying to manipulate this situation? What am I needing in this moment? And is this benefiting me right now? So these questions that I've been sharing with you all today are important questions that you can write down and reflect on. And you can even use them as journal prompts. A lot of times when we take the time to just focus inward and do some writing, we can even do painting, sometimes it can be walking and just reflecting on these questions.

01:20:00 - 01:25:13

That can allow you to come from a place of clarity. So no contact with your ex for a period of time can become something very clear to you that you may or may not need. And then you get a revisit it every single day as needed because there is no prescription that works for everybody. But there is one reality is that you are creating the experience right now because you are a creator and that means you get to create the breakup experience that you will have. And you are in full control of the narrative that you're writing right now. And if that narrative, you've been given free reign to that narrative being written whatever scattered way that it is being written right now. That narrative will define the lens that you carry with you into that next relationship. So you got to own your story around this. And create the story that's most could empower you. That really sums up all of my takeaways in one. I think first and foremost is we are in control of our lives and our story and we can not control other people's actions. So in a time of grief and breakups, we can only look within and think about what can I do for myself right now? And see myself as that wounded three year old vulnerable kid who needs a help first before thinking, well, I need to show my ex that I'm worth it. Or I need to get them back, but we can't control these external actions. The second takeaway I have and I love this so much because my mom has said this to me many times. She said, you would never do anything if you were always afraid of the ending. And so, you know, this is sort of my fear around marriage, my fear around relationships. She's like, why would anybody get into anything if they were scared of the ending? But on the flip side of this is we experience endings and beginnings every day. The day ends and a new day begins. And we no longer fear that because we've come to normalize ending in the beginning that we experience on a daily basis. So the fact that you're encouraging us to focus on the ending to create the ideal ending and to remove the novelty around the ending. I think as somehow removes a fear and it makes it normalize that things to end and I can't not start something because things could end because things could end any day, and sometimes without warning. The very last takeaway I have from all of this is that many times we, when it comes to relationships, and when it comes to the ending of relationships, we do have so much blame on us and on others. And the blame is always like this unfinished sentence. Like, well, I could have tried harder where he could have done better. She could have done this and coming to acceptance and I love that you start with acceptance, coming to accept the reality of the ending is first and foremost, most important, and removing that blame. And relationships can be very seasonal, sometimes they end without anybody's fault. It just you come in and out of each other's seasons. And I think it's okay to see that and to lift the veil on that. So thank you for all those words of encouragement and inspiration. I think this applies to everything else in life too. And something you said really resonated with me, Gladys is that your life on other areas of your life you could be high vibing on all of them. But if you check into one specific area and you realize that your vibes aren't up to par with the rest of it, that's very telling. Sometimes we feel like everything's going well because we're seeing the other areas, but they're some areas that we're abandoning too. So it's good to check in on all areas of your life every once in a while. So Julie, what are your takeaways? I think my biggest takeaway is that, you know, it sounds cliche, but every end of a chapter is the beginning of the next. And I think when we're really in the thick of things, it's hard to see that that everything makes room for something that serves us better if we allow it to. And how do we remember and look at our own life experiences? I think a lot of us I know for me this has been the case is every partner I've had has built on and become more serious. And I've learned more about myself and I've operated different in relationships. So instead of seeing things as I'm never going to find someone again, how can you look at it as a building block to where you're supposed to be? I think by other big takeaway is how can I make this about me opposed to the other? I think when we break up and we lose something and I'll put lose and quotes, I feel like so often we're focused on how do we get that other person back. Instead of thinking, like, is this actually what I want? It was this actually serving me. And I think when we can reframe it to ourselves and I love all the stuff that you said Gladys about just like, how can we relationships reflect back our own stuff basically? And how can we look at it that way and how am I growing from this? How am I getting more clear on my needs? Then it turns it into a positive experience opposed to this is what someone took away from me.

01:25:13 - 01:28:54

It doesn't mean that we have to forget the bad feelings. I think that's not realistic to say that there won't be any herd or anger or whatever emotion that's unpleasant. You can insert there. But I think also taking inventory of what are we actually gaining from this experience is super important to make it not be like this is all bad and have that fear too. Great. Before we end this episode, Gladys, what are three prompts that you would give our listeners today for them to journal or think about just as a wrap up to this episode? The three that I would start, well, there have been many today but the three that I would end with not start with would be, what is your current definition of a goodbye when it comes to breakups? So just take a moment to define what breakups have currently meant to you up until this point. Secondly, how would you love a breakup to go? And get really descriptive not from a place of who's doing what but how it would feel for you. And get into that feeling as much as possible. A lot of times we focus on the doing and not the feeling of where we want to go. So write down as detailed as possible, what it would feel like for you to go through an ideal breakup. And then lastly, what am I willing to change about my own narrative around breakups today to allow for a good goodbye experience? I love that. I hope people are taking notes. And if you're not taking notes, you can always get Gladys book, the good goodbye. I'm guessing anywhere books are sold. You can find it on Amazon, online, and for those that are interested and also learning about the reset remedy or the good goodbye ritual. You can learn more my website, which is doctor glottis auto dot com. And if you want, I can include a little link to that. That's wonderful. We'll have it all in our show notes. Thank you so much Gladys for being on our show. I'm glad that it took us two years, but it was so worth it. And a lot has happened in those two years. So we had a much more in depth conversation this time as well. Okay, we're gonna wrap up this episode. The dateable podcast is part of the frolic podcast network, find more podcasts you'll love at frolic media slash podcasts. Want to continue the conversation? First, follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter with the handle at dateable podcast. Tagas in any post with a hashtag stay dateable and trust us. We look at all those pose. Then head over to our website dateable podcast dot com. There you'll find all the episodes as well as articles, videos, and our coaching service with vetted industry experts. You can also find our premium Y series where we dissect analyze and offer solutions to some of the most common dating conundrums. We're also downloadable for free on Spotify, Apple podcasts, Google Play, overcast, stitcher radio, and other podcast platforms. Your feedback is valuable to us, so don't forget to leave us a review. And most importantly, remember to stay dateable. We did it again. Verizon was just named America's most reliable network by root metrics for the 16th time in a row, proving once again that nobody builds networks, like Verizon builds networks. That's why we're building 5G right. That's why there's only one best network. Verizon best and most reliable based on route metrics reports in second half 2013 the first half 2021 of three operators on all network types combined, not specific to 5G networks.