healing from a breakup - ep. 3

0:00I'm terrified right now. Oh! Hi, Emma! Talking to you for a second. Or this could be for anyone. I started recording this because I have been really anxious about it all day and I figured I might as well just hit the button and get it not over with but just get it started so I stopped spiraling. I have my notebook. So oh my god it's so quiet. How do I do my notebook so that it's not like super obvious and you can't read my inner thoughts? Cosmere you're going to help today? Do you have anything to say?

1:01Right. Throughout this year I'm okay. I'm okay. This year my DMs have been filled with one question in different forms over and over and over again and I have wanted to respond to every single one of them because I have a lot to say. How do you heal after a breakup? How do you do it? I feel like I have done pretty fucking well this time around in my own opinion at least compared to how I have healed or not healed from previous relationships and today I'm going to give you a modern girl's guide to healing after a breakup. I don't know how I feel about that. Okay. I would love to give some disclaimers before we dive into everything. First and foremost, every person is different. Okay. Every relationship is different. There just even the sake of if you broke up with the person or the person broke up with you, how it happened if you're in a heterosexual relationship, there's so many different factors that affect every relationship.

2:01Everything's different. This is my take on it and what I have done in this past year. Speaking of that, this is not a tea session. I am not going to be spilling tea. I'm not going to be sitting here giving you a story time. This is not about that at all. If you have watched the introductory podcast episode for this podcast, you will know that my goal with this podcast is to help people and to have a conversation and to make people feel seen and heard and give them some sense of understanding maybe. That is what I want to do today. I want to talk about the healing. I'm not diving into other things. I do also want to add that if you came here looking for some sort of explanation, I understand it. I understand the frustration you might feel because I'm not giving that to you. I, through my healing journey, have learned how deeply important it is to protect myself and my energy and that is a part of it.

3:03I can't open that door yet because I'm still dealing with what's behind it. I don't know if that makes sense. I'm still processing everything that happened surrounding the breakup. It was a lot and I have said things here and there. I am going to reiterate what I have already shared with the internet. I was not happy. I felt unsafe and you are allowed to leave a relationship whenever you feel like you need to. You are going to get from me today and now we can get into the healing. I feel like I'm going to throw up. Oh my God. What's my heart rate? 130? Right. I was going to spray some perfume. Do some aroma therapy before you get into this so that I can feel better. You know what?

4:03Whatever works. We'll be talking about that a lot today. Whatever works. Now that feels like perfume and giving Cosmo a little belly rub really quick. Cosmo, get off the notebook. I don't need the notebook. Okay. First things first, I want to discuss how I have tried to heal from previous relationships and what did not work for me. The main factors of that, I was still in active addiction throughout all of my previous breakups and treated them terribly. Not the people. My healing process. I treated that terribly. I treated myself terribly. I was not doing things in a healthy way whatsoever. A lot of the time it was getting drunk. I honestly, and I know that I'm not alone in this, the feeling of getting out of a situation ship or a relationship. Whether you feel freedom from that or whether you feel hurt, whatever you're feeling, especially in your early 20s, I feel like it is so exciting to get ready.

5:09Feel your absolute best, look hottest fuck. Post a transition or two, go to the club, get drunk, drink to forget them, and then go get under somebody to get over him or her. And I did that a lot. I was so excited to take a couple shots. I have an excuse to go do some whole behavior, which I was going to say if it works, it didn't work. That's the thing. It felt good in the moment and it got my endorphins going, I guess, or my adrenaline would start rushing and so it would feel good in that sense. Then I would have this come down of, oh God. I wasn't actually feeling the feelings that I needed to feel. I was not processing anything that happened within the relationship. I was just get me to the club, get me tongue down someone's throat.

6:09I don't think I realized the toll that that was taking on me. I have been assaulted multiple times when I put myself in those situations and I have ended up with worse people because I just wanted them to help me heal over somebody else. I put myself in dangerous situations. I will talk about all that too within sobriety because I feel like that is why I'm doing these three first episodes, the way that I'm doing them because I do feel like all three of them go hand in hand so much healing from my relationship. A big part of it is my sobriety. Basically, the way that I dealt with my previous relationships was horrendous. I remember saying all the time, I probably should go to therapy and then I didn't. The two relationships I was in in my mid-20s before my most recent one, one of them ended in me having to get a restraining order against my ex and the other ended in me leaving

7:09them because I found out they were cheating on me. Both of those are very traumatic and I did not treat them as such. I within days was already hooking up with other people already on dating apps, not helping myself at all. There's a lot to be said about all of that and I will revisit every single conversation that we have today in the future because I know that I have a lot more to say about it. This topic alone is a beast. It's a lot and there's a lot of aspects to it. So I'm going to do what I can. I finished recording. I was in the middle of taking off my nails and I realized that there was something incredibly important that I felt like I needed to add into all this. I will tell Emma when to put it into the episode. I just wanted to make sure I got it out there. If you are in a dangerous situation, in a dangerous relationship when the breakup happens, please utilize resources as much as you can and remember that they exist. If you are so isolated in your relationship where you feel like you have nobody, please

8:14know that there are professionals out there who are there to help you. I say this a lot within my content because I think that I've been put in a lot of positions in my life where I forget that these things exist and then remember or happen upon them or am told that they exist and sometimes you need the reminder because sometimes you don't have it in you to remember that they exist. Sometimes you're so caught up in your own stuff. If you feel really alone and you feel like you don't have a way out of your relationship, there is help out there for you. There are people literally designated to do that and to help you out and it can seem scary and it can seem daunting, but you can be safe and it will be okay. I talk a lot in this episode about relying on friends and family and I do think they're very important, but I understand that if you're in a severely toxic relationship, you might not have those relationships in your life to fall back on.

9:18So just know that there's a million different forms of support if you look for it and while it is good to be alone and you're going to feel freedom being alone, it is really good to talk about these things to people who will listen. That also goes if you can't afford therapy, I would recommend finding discussion boards or just other women out there or men out there or non-binary folk whoever you are. There are other people out there who have gone through the same things as you and there are people out there who are willing to have conversations with you and there again, I'm going to reiterate, there is help to get you out of the position that you are in. I just wanted to make sure that I put that out there because I, as I talk about it in this podcast, had the privilege, had the money, had the family to get out of my relationship and not everybody has that. I think especially because I mentioned earlier that one of my relationships ended in me having to get a restraining order. That's a big one that I'm referencing right now.

10:19I worked with a women's advocacy group to achieve that restraining order and thank God for them. They were so helpful and they did my case pro bono and they represented me well in court and I was able to get the restraining order. I'm happy that I took that step and I reached out and I got that professional help in that sense. I just want to remind you, okay, I just want you to know that it's out there because sometimes you need the reminder, but okay, I'm going to go back to taking my nails off. I do now want to get into how I have healed from this most recent relationship because I think that I've done everything right. I'm already getting emotional. I think that I'm doing everything right and I think that I am a completely different person than I was ever. I'm just a completely different person in every way, shape and form and I feel that every

11:23single day and I know that to be true because I see myself in my day to day life and the mechanisms, the coping mechanisms, the toolbox that I have created to help myself and to get myself in this position and I'm very proud of myself and I want to be able to share it because I know how hard it is and I know how daunting it is when you find yourself alone. We're going to go about this in a kind of timeline-esque manner without talking about necessarily what happened, just what I was doing personally. Day one, day of the breakup, this also, I feel like it's like my breakup happened at night. For me, day one is also just the following day, but day one, obviously the emotions are going to be their highest on this day. I'll still come and hit you later throughout the breakup, but day one is the worst. What my day one looked like was having an emergency session with my therapist.

12:27It was talking to all of my friends and family. It was talking to the people that I needed to concerning the situation and figuring out my exit strategy. So that was a lot for me to process. So aside from those phone calls and those conversations, I went on a walk with a very dear friend of mine. I watched some TV. I tried to watch traitors. I was with some friends when everything happened and so I was with them and we watched traitors just to try to stimulate the brain, give me something else to think about. I have no idea what happened in that show. I could not tell you. I have not watched it since. I'm sure it's a little traumatizing for me to try to watch now, but we tried to watch a show. Thankfully, because I was with people, they got me some snacks to eat because God knows I could not eat. So day one was really just about figuring out next steps while trying to calm my nervous

13:32system as best as I can. And if you are alone on day one, try not to be. Try to find someone who cares about you to be there for you. Do not isolate. We'll talk about being alone in isolation a lot more as we get more into it. But return to basics on that first day. It's really hard. It's your brain is so focused on one thing and it's a scary thing and it can be really detrimental to your mental health. So water, you know, eat a chip or two, maybe a slice of bread if you're feeling really crazy. But just deep breaths honey, there's no more running. Right. Now we're moving into the first week. Okay. So for me, what my first week looked like, my dad came down to help me get my cats and my clothes and drive me up to Washington state where I lived with him for about two weeks

14:35before finding my apartment. And I, a little bit of a special circumstance, I threw my back out like two days after the breakup happened. So I was completely couch ridden and I mean that in the sense of I couldn't twist. I couldn't do anything. I was down and out. And I think a lot of it was stress. I also started my period. It was all bad, but I was forced to be on the couch. And I don't know if maybe that's the best advice. Maybe I could have gone to dinner with a friend if I physically was able to, but since I was on the couch, I spent my first week researching apartments, so continuing with that plan that I had set in place on day one. So but also expanding upon that plan, figuring out what else I was going to need moving forward, how this was going to look. Unfortunately for me, it was tied to my business. So having to figure out business aspects of it as well. But no, that first week I started rewatching Vanderpump rules because the new season came

15:37out, which is the entire new cast and I was really curious about it. I watched it, didn't hate it. I thought it was decent. But then my dad got into Vanderpump because every time he would come home from work, I was watching it and we finished that season. And so we started rewatching it. He's hooked on it. I am now rewatching them on season five, I think. Anyway, so a comfort show. I was watching a comfort show. Once I was able to physically move, I went for a couple walks. I've become a huge walker. I love walking. But I went for a couple of walks. I started curating a bit of a playlist. There was a couple songs in particular that were really helping me. And that's something I want to do that I'll bring up at the very end of this episode to deal with music. You'll see. I'm very excited about it. I was listening to some music. I was still talking to friends and family. I had at least one other therapy session within that week as well, aside from the emergency one the day of. I also started journaling. I think that it is incredibly important to journal as much as physically possible through

16:43a breakup because you can look back at it later and think, oh, I'm so sad about this. Why don't I go back or why I want to be in a relationship again? Why don't I reach out to them? Yada yada yada you have those thoughts creep in, which is normal. Of course, and we'll talk more about that. But journaling everything helps remind you different thoughts that you've had throughout the breakup because you're going to have a lot. It's going to consume your mind a lot. So journal, get them out. It feels so good to put a pen to paper and get the thoughts out of your head. Stop spiraling. Stop letting the same thought. Put it out, put it literally, take it, place it, revisit it physically when you need to, but it doesn't need to live in here, okay? It does not need to live in here. Something that I learned through this year in therapy is that emotions are like visitors in our home. So you can feel sadness.

17:45It can enter your house. You can host it. You can welcome it in when it has overstayed its welcome. You need to realize that. Get it out of your house. You don't have to let it sit there and fester and start squatting, okay? Sorry, I don't know why I did that. So the first week for me too was again, just very calm. And I do also want to add in that I understand I am a very, very privileged person in a lot of aspects. And I have felt that privilege a lot through this breakup in the sense that I had the money to get out of the situation that I was in. I have a job where I am able to work from anywhere. I also have a job where I am completely in charge of my schedule and was able to take that first week off. I want to talk about this healing process in a way that can help you.

18:48I want to make it relatable to you. So that's why I'm saying that I understand that I am privileged because not everyone's going to be able to take a week off of work. Not everyone is going to be able to leave the situation that they're in the way that I did. Not everyone has family that can come down and help them. I want you to understand that this is what I did and I think that it's good and I wish that everyone can do it exactly the way I did it because I feel so good at where I'm at now. But I understand that not everyone has those privileges. And there's also negative aspects of my breakup that not everyone is going to have to deal with either. I had 30 million views on a video saying that I wasn't in a relationship anymore. I had news articles written about my breakup. I was being told horrifying things about myself. I had opinions from people who don't know anything and don't know, don't even know

19:49what state we were in when the breakup happened, sharing their opinions on what happened. And that's why I'm saying again, I understand that it's frustrating that I'm not talking about it. I'm only referencing it now to reiterate the fact that I was struggling with that a lot. It was a really scary factor of my relationships that I was dealing with in the first couple of weeks that you're likely not going to have to deal with. But you might also have to deal with something similar. I'm not sure your situation. That's why I give the disclaimer that everything is different for everyone. I want to get more into the first month of the breakup because this is when things kind of maybe started looking up a little bit because this shit takes time. I'm not going to lie every healing process like this. It has to take time. It is not going to happen overnight. You are not going to change overnight. You're not going to process everything overnight.

20:50You're not going to process for me two years worth of something overnight. It's not going to happen. I'm still not done with it. I want to get into the first month. I moved into my new place, which was very exciting. I was focusing a lot on celebrating the little wins and that also included reconnecting with old friends and making new friends. Because I was living alone, I knew that I needed to make sure to get out and go see people. I think that there is a big conversation to be had about learning to be comfortable alone after a breakup. I think that for most people, there is some truth behind that that you do need to learn how to be comfortable with yourself. But for me, I felt very isolated in the relationship that I was in. I felt like I was on my own for a very long time. I kind of needed the opposite. That's where you have to reflect on your own relationship and understand what was not great about it and what you need to do to help heal. I didn't have any friends within my relationship.

21:51I had friends. I had friends. None of which lived in the same state as me nor did I talk to any of them daily. My sister-in-law was my closest friend and we would talk every couple of days. So within the first month, living in my new spot, I was going and seeing people almost every single day. If it wasn't a friend, it was going to see my dad. It was going to see my brother and his family. I was making sure to see people because I also needed to talk. I needed to talk. I needed to get my thoughts out to people. I had a lot to process and I was scared and I didn't share anything about my relationship with the people in my life. And I deeply needed to do that. I needed to have those conversations and I'm so thankful for my friends who were there for me and who continue to be there for me to help me through that.

22:51So seeing friends from you has been such an integral part. Is that even a real word? Such an integral? An integral? Important part of my healing process is other people and I never want to say that to put things on people's backs and I also need to make a note here. I need to apologize for something I said in a previous podcast that I had. I once upon a time said that your friends are not very important once you're in a relationship and I'm sorry. I think that I was wrong. I think that I was coming from a place where that is what I believed at the time. And I thought that my partner should be the person who takes the most importance of my life because that's who I'm going to spend the rest of my life with. And yeah, but no, you need friends. You need friends to be there for you. You need a community.

23:52Everybody does. You cannot just be with one person. That is not how like you don't isolate yourself. Try not to let other people isolate you or recognize if it's happening. You got to have a friend group because you got to have other people's opinions. You got to have conversations with people. That's why I'm here, even though I'm alone in my room right now, I'm here for the people who need someone to either listen to or to talk to. My friends are fucking important to me. I love them so fucking much. I love them. I love them. I love them. And I love the friends who I didn't talk to as much through the relationship and who are now back in my life. And I am so lucky that they stuck the fuck around. And I am so lucky that they listened to me and that they understand me. And I just, I love all of you so fucking much, so much. My heart is so full knowing that you are in it.

24:54I don't know if I mentioned this already, but also during the one month time period is when I started going to the gym. And I found a lot of love in that. This is something that I talk about within my sobriety episode as well. But I fell in love with taking care of myself and being a little active, you know, not crazy. I'm not a gym rat yet. I actually haven't been to the gym in a while and I've noticed it was a place for me at night. I would go to the gym a lot of times around 10 or 11 p.m. Because that was when cortisol levels rise and you're starting to get a little antsy and you might begin a little anxious and you might be solving your eyes out eating a tub of ice cream. It's okay, but if you don't necessarily want to be feeling that, I'm not telling you to stop those emotions or to not feel them. But again, they were overstaying their welcome. So those were the times I went down to the gym. I would put on a playlist of music that I really like and that's another thing.

25:57The music that I was listening to through my breakup, happy, happy music. Be a breakup song here or there. Mostly happy breakup songs if it was going to be a breakup song, but happy, feel good music. Music is so, so insanely powerful and you need to listen to what you want to feel genuinely. And I did that a lot at the gym. I would go listen to a lot of Sabrina Carpenter, a lot of Audrey Hopert. I would listen to girly things where I felt heard and seen and poppy and just happy. And I wouldn't do anything crazy at the gym. A lot of times I would just go walk on the treadmill, maybe do a light workout here there. And once it got nicer outside, I would start walking around my neighborhood. And doing that, I loved the feeling of endorphins coming home. And I would feel the sense of pride that instead of just wallowing in my grief, which is

26:59okay sometimes, but instead of really just wallowing in it, I went and did something. I had the wherewithal to think, okay, what would the healthy action be right now? And sometimes the healthy action is to sit there and let yourself cry, maybe call a friend. Because sometimes it was go down to the gym, get your frustrations out, get your feelings out. And the endorphin rush feels really good and puts you in a little positive headspace. And again, drink water. Okay, my last part that I wrote for within the first month is this is the point where it's no contact time. Okay. If you can go no contact right after the breakup, I recommend that. In my case, I still had some things to work out and figure out because I had my business tied to it. So it couldn't fully go no contact. But within the first month, I was able to then go no contact.

28:01And the only the only contacts I had was to figure out logistical things. It was never I miss I have never sent an I miss you text or received one. I have never and I have in previous relationships. I'm talking about this one specifically. There has been no communication like that whatsoever. And I think that is for the better for both of us. And I think that you should do that after your breakup at whatever point feels like you can. Because also I understand that some people have children involved. You know, there's an option where you can't go no contacts because you have to figure out custody and things like that or like that's one of those where it is very situational but for me, it was within the first month that I could go no no contact, which did relieve a lot of anxiety for me. I'm going to turn my lights on because I meant to have them on and it's not feeling as cute and girly in here as I wanted it to. All right, let's move forward. So this now is the continued slash months after and I'm going to lay back down.

29:03I'm going to get my little feet under my blanket. We're going to get comfy. Can you see me? Everybody good? OK. So for the continued slash months after the first rule that I wrote down. Also, I don't think I mentioned this. I wrote everything down. I needed to kind of gather my thoughts because I have so many about all of this. I had to put them in one place so that I could try to figure it out, try to get there, you know, continuing forward for months after. So anything after the first month, the first thing that I wrote down is no dating. Don't do it. Don't do it until you're healed. It is not fair to you and it is not fair to the person you were just in a relationship with and it is not fair to the person that you the new person that you're seeing. It's not fair to anybody and it's not going to help you. You have things that you need to resolve whether you were the problem in the relationship, whether they were the problem in the relationship, whatever it is, you got to figure that out. You need to understand it. First, you need to heal first before you start going and seeing somebody else. And I mean that even in the sense of hookups, I think that sharing your body and I have

30:07not always thought this. I think that sharing your body with someone is so intimate and they're intimate, intimate, intimate. And there's so many feelings there. I think just stay away from all of it and don't download dating apps. At least for me, I almost used that in the past as a form of self-harm and just a distraction to go open myself up to someone else. And honestly, it would start more shit. There's always tea, whether it's a relationship or a one night hookup or whatever it is, there's always drama and feelings involved in it and you should not have to deal with those feelings while you're still dealing with the feelings of your relationship that you just got out of. Focus on yourself. If you feel lonely, phone a friend. And I mean that, okay, I still feel the need to say disclaimer, you do whatever you want. No, I feel so strongly about this.

31:09K, but tell yourself, find a therapist, get friends and I know that therapy is expensive too. That's another thing where I want to say that I understand I am very privileged in that sense and not everyone can afford therapy and I completely know that and if you can afford it, get a therapist. I think of it as almost like a shrooms trip, okay? Because everyone says when you're about to take shrooms, like you have to be in the right headspace for it, you know, like you just be out in nature, be happy, like you have to. And then I've taken shrooms when I'm not in a good headspace and it's shit and I feel like I'm dying and the world is caving in and everything's fucking terrible. I think it's kind of the same thing as relationships, like you have to be in a good headspace, right? Does that make sense? Okay, think about it like shrooms. And that ties into the next point. I feel trust within yourself. I'm still working on this a lot. I recently, I try, oh my god, duh. I tried talking to someone. I had a little situation this summer. Okay, it lasted almost exactly one singular month and it up not working out for various

32:16reasons. Not going to get too far into that. Just realized it wasn't for me. Mostly wasn't for me because I, hey, I'm still dealing with stuff. And I said that on the second date with this person that I was seeing where I was like, hey, here's what happened in my previous relationship. I laid it all out. I said, I'm not looking for something new. I'm very content with myself right now. This is fun. This is fresh. I like you as a person. I'm letting you know. And I should have walked away then. I shouldn't have started it in the first place because over the course of the next two weeks or three weeks or whatever it was because it was only a month that we were talking. I just wasn't ready. I was not ready and I hated those feelings and revolving my day around someone else in any way, shape or form, whether it's waiting on a text back for them, whether it's waiting for them to go on a date with me, whether it's wondering what they're up to. I was not ready.

33:17And I realized that and I told them, I'm not ready. I got to knock this off. We're done. And that was fine. It actually ended fine. It was fine. Everything's fine. But within ending that, I had a moment, a long moment. I shed a lot of tears, not because of the one month long situation. But because I had this deep fear that I didn't trust myself because I recognized patterns with this person that I didn't like. That's the reason why I was like, hey, this isn't going to work out. But I started panicking because I felt like I didn't trust myself. And that's something that happened or that I developed through my last relationship. And I had a whole breakdown about it. And I talked to my mom, which my mom and I have gotten a lot closer over this past year and it makes me really happy. I just felt like I couldn't trust myself. I didn't trust myself to not be aware of red flags.

34:20I thought that I was going to put myself into another bad toxic situation. And it was freaking me the fuck out. And then through therapy, talking to my therapist, I realized I should actually trust myself because I recognized those red flags and that's why I ended it within a month. I ended it exactly when I should have. I should trust myself because I did the right thing even within the past relationship. I did the right thing. I did what I needed to do to save myself. I should trust myself. But that's something that I had to learn and that I still struggle with and that I am still figuring out. But if you can find it in yourself to rebuild your trust and to understand that you know what your warning signs are from other people and you know how to recognize them. And you have done the work to understand them and you trust yourself.

35:22You need to feel that before you move on to the next, you know, exploring why it didn't work. That kind of ties into what I was just saying. I have done a lot of thinking and talking about when the relationship went wrong and what wasn't good about it. And it's fairly simple to figure out once you start trying, but that's something you need to look at. And you also need to look at your part in that. A big part of that that I'm thinking a lot about right now while saying this is that I was not in a good place getting into my relationship. And that's also why I'm saying right now you need to heal before you start dating again. I wrote down understand everything and that includes the fact that you won't understand everything. Wow, Brynn, phenomenal work, truly. I think it's impossible to understand everything.

36:23So I don't know why I wrote that. But that's also me saying that includes the fact that you won't understand everything. You're never going to wrap your brain around it. Okay, you're never going to, but you can come to terms with that and you can understand that. And that is enough. And then this year, another thing that I have focused on a lot post break up is reconnecting with my passions again and finding myself and coming back to her after I felt like I lost her. I did not feel like myself throughout 2025 at least, but especially throughout 2025, which I understand that and I understand why it happened. But I felt lost and I don't know if I realized how lost I truly felt until I feel like I found myself again. And a lot of that came through, oh God, I hate to say it, reconnecting with my younger

37:24self. You see this room? You see the way it looks. It's kind of giving child. For me, finding myself was really mainly about rediscovering my passions and why they are my passions. So that's makeup. That's a little bit of interior design here or there. What the fuck was that voice? I'm sorry. No, for me, it's makeup. It's interior design. It's fashion. Oh, I've gotten into fashion so much and I love it. And I'll talk about it a little while because I love fashion now. I am my hair and drawing and but dazzling things and being creative. That is my biggest passion. And this podcast also now, hello, doing all of these things again, reminded me of who I am and the girl that I have always been and the best versions of myself. And I'm doing things that I found a lot of love in. Before my addiction got bad.

38:27Oh, no. Oh, God, I need to teach you. I feel like myself again. And I feel like a version of myself that I thought I lost a really long time ago. And I feel like the version of myself that I always wanted to be growing up and I just feel so sure of myself. I'm so happy with myself. I know my values. I know my core. I have connected with myself. This will be an entire conversation within the sobriety podcast. Believe me, but it started because I was able to find myself again as strongly as I did because I lost myself as much as I did. And within my healing journey, I have learned to look at things from the most positive angle that I possibly can. And within that mindset, I am grateful for how much I lost myself so that I can find myself and so that I am now who I am.

39:30And I feel so connected to her. Try to think about things that you did when you were growing up and what brought you joy. What gives you a reason to get out of bed in the morning? What's the thing that makes you have to run and jump off the couch and go start doing it? Do you have something like that? Because if not, you need to find something like that. And think back to different times in your life when you've had something like that. I don't know if that's just a me thing, but I'll have an idea for something that I want to do. And if I don't get up and do it right then, I feel like I'm going to lose this feels like an ADHD thing. I'm not diagnosed. But if I don't do it then, I feel like I'm going to forget about it. But they're always with my biggest passions. So for me, makeup is the biggest and will always be, well, I don't know that, but it's one of the biggest. But I think that also helps you stop from being depressed. And I think, again, this is where the privilege comes in because I have all the time in the

40:31world to do those things. And I understand that not everybody does. But I hope that no matter what shoes you're in, you have something, some way that you can explore a passion. Even if it's just when you're, I don't know, skin care is a passion for me sometimes, which again, it's expensive. But okay, an example. I love a good bath. I love baths. I have been taking so many baths. And again, baths yes, do take time. But it's little things like that. It's really just thinking about what made me happy when I was a child. And when I was a child, I didn't have all the time in the world. I didn't have the job that I do now. There's been plenty of times in my life where I've had a regular job and been going to school at the same time. And I don't have time. But I still find time for my passions. It's an important one to me. Clearly. I also wrote down that all of this is hard. And I'm focusing on positives because that's the best outlook, not to discount the fact that it will be difficult. I did say already that I focus on positives a lot.

41:33And I have learned to do that a lot this year. And I wrote that down because I felt like I was going to have this be a very positive podcast. But I think I've done a pretty good job at explaining the fact to that healing is difficult. Healing is not just rainbow sunshine, doing your passions and feeling good and like growth and all these things. Because it is that it is. You will feel that, but you will also have days where you are sobbing into a pillow, right? You're going to have those breakdown moments. You are going to feel all of those things. You are going to miss them. You are going to feel negative emotions and it's difficult and it's fucking hard. But you have to know that it's going to pass. You have to know that eventually it will leave you. You're not going to feel that way forever. And time is so tricky because it exists. But do we really feel it until it's happened?

42:34Like you don't feel it as it's happening. All you know is the moment that you're in and that can seem so daunting when you're dealing with these heavy emotions and with this grief because it is grief. You shouldn't be yourself up if you are feeling these negative emotions because you are human. Just know time passes. That's literally what it does. It keeps moving forward whether you want it to or not. Trust in that. Time will continue to pass. And it will be okay. I quickly want to talk about some specific questions that I've gotten within my DMs that I or comments that I've seen too that I want to address. I saw this girl. I think she was mid-twenties if I remember correctly. And she asked how to cope with feeling like she was too old to get married and have kids now in her mid-twenties because she just had a breakup and she felt like she was now too old to have her dreams in that aspect come true.

43:37I'm currently 28. I have had those thoughts kind of trickle in a little bit. But I'm able to shut them down fairly fast. Especially as you get into your late twenties, it kind of feels like everybody and their mother is getting married and having children and that's just not true. And I know it's not true because you and me both, if you're one of the people asking this, you and me both are still single. I think that I am a catch in a lot of different ways. I think that I am a good person with a good soul who has good morals, who is doing the work, who has a solid job, who takes care of her space and her body. And I know that then logically because I exist, there's plenty more out there. There are other people who are your age, who are going through the same thing that you're

44:40going through and who are also catches. And when the time is right, you will find them. And if you are freshly out of a breakup, I'm going to say this again, it is not your time. It is not their time if they're freshly out of a breakup either. But just trust in the timing of the universe. I know that that's so much easier said than done. You have to understand that what is meant for you will come to you when it is meant for you. I am also personally so content with myself and understanding that I have gone kind of back and forth on this throughout my life. But personally, I don't really care whether I ever get married or have kids or not. I made that a big personality trait of mine for the past two years that I mean in the opposite sense where I was telling the internet that I wanted that because I thought I did.

45:43But now I am at a point where I do feel content being alone and content being an aunt to my nieces and having my cats. And I don't feel the longiness for time. Hello. Yikes. I'm really happy with my life right now and I don't need to bring someone into that currently and I understand that my body has a clock. But I also understand that adoption exists. I understand that people in their 40s can get pregnant. I understand that it is not too late for me and that things can change at any given moment. Right? Right now. But by the time I'm 29, I could be engaged. I don't know. I don't think I'm going to be. But you never know and just stop worrying about something that's out of your hands right

46:47now and don't get into a relationship just for the sake of getting married and having kids because you feel like you are reaching a certain age. I don't think that's healthy and I don't think that's going to cultivate a good relationship for you. I don't think that you should be with someone because they enhance your life and they make you happy. I don't think you should get with someone just if a filler role that you feel like needs filled. Being someone who has raised Catholic, I grew up thinking that I needed to be married and have children and I still feel that sometimes because it's been so ingrained in my brain. But I can look at my day to day life. I'm happy going for my walks and listening to my music and having my cats and filming and doing my passions and working and working out. And I am content. I feel fulfilled.

47:49I don't need to look elsewhere for that fulfillment. And that's me personally. You are not too old. Especially the comment that I saw that made me want to talk about this. They were in their mid 20s. That is not too old. You have all of the time in the world and you are okay and don't force it. It's not going to work if you force it. Let things happen. Focus on yourself. And trust that things will work out. You have to have optimism. You have to be misoptimist prime. If you want to marry, anyway. I have only ever done a comedy podcast. So sometimes I feel I need to be comedy. Anyway, the other question I was going to talk about a little bit was missing them. I feel this maybe on occasion. That's why I mentioned journaling at the beginning of this because if you ever feel like you're missing them, you can kind of go back through what you were feeling at different times in

48:52life. You're going to be like, right. Never mind. I think that whether you were the person to end the relationship or the other person ended it, you got to move on. Okay. And I know that it's difficult when you love somebody. And I understand that. That's part of the reason why I still am not dating because I still have feelings and I still miss my old partners. Honestly, all of them. There's aspects that I miss all the time. I have come to terms with the fact though that those relationships, any past relationship I was in, did not work out for a reason. If they ended it, it's because they didn't want to be in it. And I have to respect that. And I have to understand that I'm not the person for them. And because of that, they're not the person for me. I know that I deserve somebody who loves me and who wants to be with me. That's so. I almost said easy to wrap your brain around.

49:53It's not, it's not. But it's easy to tell yourself at least in the moment to help. And if you're the one who left them, then remind yourself that you made that decision for a reason. And you might miss happy moments, but those were not, at least in my experience, the majority of the relationship or the lasting effect that the relationship had on you on a day-to-day basis. It was not a constant. It was fleeting moments. And I can't pick and choose aspects of the relationship. I have to understand that it was an all-encompassed thing and there was many facets to it. So even though I maybe miss one part of it, that was a small part of a really big thing. And that helps me get past it.

50:57And you know, also again, cry, feel it out, miss them, you know, just don't text them. I also made a note to talk about closure. Like I said, don't reach out, no contact, all the things. I heard this recently from my therapist, hey, you cannot give someone else closure. And the inverse of that, someone else cannot give you closure. So if you feel like you need closure, all that means is that you need it from yourself. You need to work through it. That just means you need to understand what you're feeling. You need to process your thoughts. You need to do some more healing if you feel like you need closure. And then also understand that you cannot give someone else closure. So if your ex is asking to meet up, hang out, they want closure, whatever it might be, don't text them back and know that you can't give that to them. They have to figure that out on their own. You can't be the person to give that to them. Okay. I feel like I've gotten out a lot of what I wanted to get out.

51:59There's a lot more to be said. It's still early on with me doing the podcast, you know, there's going to be a lot more conversations about all of this. This is my immediate little guide to breakups. Everything that I said here, all of my little healing tips and just what I did in talking through all of this, all of it is so much easier said than done. And the thing about healing, it only works when you actually start implementing it into your life. So it's easier said, but it's also easier to hear all this and be like, yeah, I am going to do all that. It's one thing to do that. But to have it actually work, you actually have to apply it to your life. Every single day, you are faced with decisions that are going to either help or hurt your healing journey. For instance, instead of stalking their social media or downloading hinge or doing something bad, a bad nasty little little little bad nasty coping mechanism, maybe instead research a hike.

53:00Call your friends, take a walk. Think before you act and try to do the right thing and the healthy thing. And it is difficult. And I think there's something there with like dopamine, rushes and adrenaline and all of that. But you're going to feel so much better from doing the healthy things. I've done a lot of work to learn what healthy coping mechanisms look like and what they are for myself. And that's just what I go and implement every single day. And I've learned what makes me happy and I've learned my routines. And it helps a ton. It is the easiest advice to give. It is the hardest advice to implement. I wrote down healing is not linear, but it is a decision that you have to make for yourself. And I hope that something from today stuck with you in one way or another and you leave here feeling like you know how to handle a breakup.

54:02And even if you don't, that's okay. I didn't feel that way. When my breakup happened, I felt like the entire world was kiving in and I was terrified. And I'm very lucky to be at this place now where I feel like I've done a lot of work and I've done a lot of healing. And I'm happy that I can recognize that I still have more to do when I get excited about it. I love knowing that it's going to get even better. I love knowing that there's more steps to take. I love that because I can recognize that I feel good now. I love that. Something I talked about in the first episode that I want to do in all the episodes is give a song of the week. Sometimes this is going to apply to the episode and what I was talking about for this week. Sometimes it's just a song that I really like. I talked a lot about music in this episode because it has been a very important part of my healing journey and I always have thought the music is important and I could do a whole podcast of episode about music. If you're unaware,

55:04there is a modern girl playlist where all of these songs that I say at the end of the episode every week are all in one place and you can go listen to them. They will become a playlist more and more obviously as more episodes come out. But the song for this episode is none other than happier than ever by Billie Eilish. Go listen to it, scream in your bathroom, do some healing, you're going to be okay. Okay, I love you so much. You got this and I hope you have a good week.