How Long Does It Take to Get Over a Breakup?

Lisa Marie Bobby:

  If you are going through a really challenging, traumatic, demoralizing breakup or divorce, I know that you have so many burning questions on your mind that are worthy of being addressed.

So things like How long is this going to take for me? How long am I going to keep feeling this way before I start to, to mend? Right? When am I going to feel like myself again? You might be grappling with like, how does the grieving process work even for this kind of loss? You might be struggling with how to navigate some particularly challenging moments related to like anniversaries of important things that happened in the relationship or even how to navigate holidays when you’re going through a breakup or divorce can be tough ones.

But also lastly, even questions like, how do I know if I’m moving forward? What does healing look like? These are oftentimes. The most burning questions on everyone’s mind as they’re going through what you’re going through and that’s why on today’s episode I was so excited to invite my friend Kendra Allen Who is the podcast host of Breakup Bestie and also the social media?

Celebrated book author, a fellow expert in these kinds of matters of the heart. I was so excited just to bring her voice into this conversation and share her perspective with you. So Kendra, thank you for being here and for doing this with me. Thank you so much for having me. I am excited to have a little collaboration with us.

I know so many of our ideas are very lined up. I loved our conversation on my show, so very excited to be on here. That was so fun. I had the best time talking with you. And also, as I was putting together ideas for this, I really wanted to do a really like great, helpful podcast about addressing like other facets of the breakup recovery experience.

But I was thinking like, I don’t know, my listeners have got to get bored with me if it like going on and on, like it’s just, my perspective. And so I thought it would be really cool to invite yours into the conversation. So thank you. Yeah. Yeah. So let’s just roll right into this. And in order just to orient our listeners and our viewers into who you are and where your perspective comes from, I happen to know that you have a very powerful story related to your own journey of healing.

And I think that It’s so helpful for us even just as a culture to be able to talk about these stories openly because Otherwise we can fall into so much shame, right? What is wrong with me that I am having such a bad experience like do other people feel this way? and so that’s why I always love every opportunity to just bring other people’s stories into the air.

Would you mind sharing yours? Yeah. No, and I mean I Believe that so much that hearing, I can remember very specific times where I heard someone share a part of my story that I thought I would take to the grave and hearing them say it instantly healed something in me. So I think it’s so important to share our stories, but to go back, I’d say I started drinking pretty early on in my teenage years and it honestly, for better or for worse became problematic.

pretty quickly. And I say for better because I feel really grateful that I hit my bottom with alcohol and drugs young. I got sober when I was 21. Amazing. And so it’s been almost 12 years now. And I and that’s a huge part of my story, whether or not that’s an easy connection to make between getting sober and going through a breakup.

I find it very connected. But When I got sober, I remember believing that, okay, now that this problem is over with, I’ll be able to get, find a good relationship. I had been in an abusive relationship prior to getting sober, and I thought it would solve all my problems, but what I realized, it was actually just the beginning of my healing journey.

It was, I had to take away that, Very troubling and problematic band aid. And then I had to get to what was underneath. And so I, still struggled in relationships, the first few years into my sobriety. And then after a pattern that I didn’t see until the very end, I kept finding myself in non committal situationships.

And finally, by the third one in a matter of a couple years, I looked up and thought. Okay. I think it’s, I think it’s me. I think something, I think there’s just something to who I’m attracting and what kind of relationships I’m finding myself in. And I’ve never actually worked through my relationship history.

I’ve never made these different connections and I’ve never looked at it under the microscope that say I looked at my sobriety under. So I took a year after I had about three years sober, I took a year and really dove into Me as it relates to relationships and that was and I went through a really hard breakup.

That’s what sparked it all and I became the breakup bestie to my friends and then started writing about it and started sharing about it. And that’s where breakup bestie came from. And I do think the, a powerful thing that I provide is I’m very big on validating feelings because I really don’t think breakups get the, like the justice that it, that they deserve.

They’re one of the most difficult things we go through. And I remember thinking there’s not enough of it. In this area, and so I feel really, proud to be one of the people that has, has been adding resources to this space for, since 2017 for me with my Instagram.

Yeah, that is so awesome. And I know we’re we are definitely on the same mission. And I just want to share. Like you, I stumbled into an addiction early. It wasn’t alcohol, it was cigarettes, interestingly. But boy, we can wallpaper over so much stuff with various substances, right? And that also, going through my own traumatic breakup, just that, that was the most precious thing to me too, was this experience of being validated.

Like for somebody else to say, What you’re going through is so real and it is so awful. And I just, I see that it meant so much to me at the time, because I really felt like there must be something so wrong with me that this was happening. And just to know that these experiences are fairly universal, that even if we’re not talking about them, people experience this.

And also that there is a way forward. I think that we can’t stay here. And I love that’s part of your message too. Would you be willing to tell us just a little bit about the, your breakup recovery journey and how that could have influenced your life? Your mission and your message.

Yeah. Yeah. So I think my first step was, was taking away the crutches almost of getting down to me, and I think not realizing it, but I had used so many different things to take away from that recovery prior and realizing, okay this is up to me, which is. scary, but I also think it’s very powerful because, I have the power to heal from this.

For me, a big part of my journey was just getting really honest with myself about my past relationships. And I know this looks different from every for everyone. But for me, I, had gone through this abusive relationship and I and it had been years and I hadn’t, I hadn’t been able to let this person go.

And for me, I had to own my part in certain parts of the relationship. I had to take away the idea that I just had bad luck or that the universe, hated me and kept giving me bad relationships. I had to look at what was my part in this and how can I change moving forward? That was a really big part for me.

And it wasn’t to victim blame myself in the abusive relationship. It was just to say, okay, I stayed in this well past the point where I realized I should have walked away. And for me with, the noncommittal relationships I had to, I got to a place where I saw, I don’t feel like I’m commitment material.

So I’m attracting people who don’t want to commit to me. And so if I can change how I see myself. I can change the kind of people that I attract. So that was a big part. And then I’d say the other part was allowing the sound. So counterintuitive, improving my relationship with women and friendships dramatically improved my ability to have a relationship with myself and then have a relationship with others.

And then have romantic relationships. Oh my goodness. Okay, now I’m curious. Can you tell us a little bit more about what you learned through that process? About the relationship between friendships and your romantic wellness, I guess we should say. Tell me more. Yeah. I think I, I really had a skewed perception of what intimacy was.

And if I’m being totally honest, it was very much like sexuality driven where I thought to be intimate with someone just meant the physical part of it. I had to learn what it was like to be, to really show myself and to be at a point where, cause when they say you go on dates, just be yourself.

But if you don’t know who you are, which that was me how could I do that? So I needed to have a safe space to be myself. And I found that through female friendships and really investing in those. Not just, I don’t know. I’ve, so I really took that year and just had so much fun with my friends and had these like really deep, meaningful connections with them.

We took trips together. I made new friends. I, some friends fell away, but I really took a year and just had the year of girlfriends. And that allowed me to learn how to be myself. And then when I started dating again. I felt comfortable because I had practiced it so many times and that, and I knew that my friends loved me for me, they weren’t getting physical intimacy from me.

Like I, like I thought people needed and they still loved me and wanted to be around me. So it was a very powerful experience for me in that regard. This is so cool and also I think so important and I’m just, I’m feeling incredibly grateful that we are talking about this, Kendra, because I think what you’re describing is true and also total path of not just.

healing, but really growth that I think can happen on the other side of a relationship loss when you do it really well. Because I think that many times, at least in my experience as a therapist, as a coach, people coming in the door, the primary motivation is to not feel bad anymore. Like they are very spiritual.

specifically in heartbreak over the loss of a specific person, and they are thinking about their ex all the time, they’re ruminating about the relationship, they’re having all of these bad feelings, shame and their self confidence has been bruised and also a lot of fear what’s Am I ever going to find somebody but it’s like very focused on the relationship piece.

And so I know that we have so much work to do as I think we talked about on your podcast like there are so many of these stages of healing and recovery but like. When people give themselves permission to go through this whole process, but and not just have the goal to be over this one specific person, but have the goal be so much more profound, which is, what do I need to take a look at in terms of my big picture patterns?

And what do I need to learn from this experience? How do I need to grow from that experience? experience and then doing what you did, which is all of the work to make that happen. You transformed yourself through that year after your breakup, you became a different person. It wasn’t just getting over that, whatever guy that we probably can’t remember his name about anymore.

It was like, who am I? What do I want? And how does my own self development play into that? Yeah. Yeah. And I really learned that through getting sober is, they call it, in the recovery community, the gift of desperation. I can relate to that. Yeah. And it’s, as self motivated as some of us may like to believe we are it’s hard to do the work.

It’s hard to look at ourselves. It’s hard to take the time to, to write and to talk through things with other people. It’s so much easier to not do that, so break, I think the reason breakups are so powerful is because we are at that place of I don’t care what I have to do. I just don’t want to feel this way anymore.

That’s a really powerful place to be in. And I think that is why breakups can provide so much transformation because we are a sponge. Hey I will try anything. I just don’t want to be in this pain anymore. So I will, look at my past and I will admit to my mistakes and all of that.

Definitely. It’s an entry point into very profound growth if you are receptive to that. But also, though, I just, I do want to highlight something that you said, because I think that to people who are in this place, especially the early stages where they’re just feeling so raw Rejected, defeated, I have so many big dark feelings that I think it can be hard for them sometimes to hear this message in a way that feels helpful and constructive.

I think it can be interpreted. And understandably in this place of fragility, meaning Oh, it was my fault. Cause I think that’s like their worst fear anyway. Like I am fundamentally unlovable. I did all these things wrong. Nobody will ever love me like that kind of thing. And that to move into a mindset of growth and what can I work on?

I think it can feel very threatening, Oh, that is true. And so in some ways, yeah. So let’s like, how, what would, what advice would you give to people who are struggling with that to how to do the work step by step over time with the goal of achieving bigger picture transformation, but without falling into this shame narrative, or also this like defensiveness that can be such an obstacle to doing good growth work.

What do you say to that? Yeah I’m very glad this, and this has been something that probably happened later on since I started doing my work of just noticing, I don’t know if this is helpful all the time, to say, do the work, do the work. My, I think my opinion on this is a lot of the times we rush to heal the breakup and sometimes no, not even sometimes.

Most of the time we need to learn how to survive the breakup before we grow through it because I Just know for me when you’re in the thick of a breakup you cannot think clearly You’re not looking objectively. Yeah, and Most of the time, your negativity spotlight’s gonna be on you. Whether or not you, I was just talking to someone on one of my episodes about the shame that comes with being broken up with.

Even though we didn’t do anything wrong, it just still feels so shameful that someone didn’t want to be with us. I think in the beginning, and maybe it, and for some people it might be longer, all you, I think healthy distractions, surrounding yourself with people, doing whatever you have to do within reason, obviously, not to be destructive, but you just have to learn how to be okay.

And then once you start thinking clearly, then you can start really taking a look at stuff. But I don’t think it’s, I don’t think it’s productive to do it in the beginning because you’re not, all you’re going to do is see all your quote unquote faults, which probably aren’t even faults. That is such good advice.

And just to give yourself grace and understand that this is a Process and that particularly earlier stages, like to, Don’t feel like you have to force yourself into some sort of growth or healing or some achieve some nirvana of Oh, I have everything. I’ll figure it out now. It’s goal number one is literally just to survive and get through this like emotional crisis because and I’ll just say this as a psychologist, it is It’s pretty much impossible to do meaningful, deep, profound growth work when you are in the kind of emotional crisis that happens in, in the period of time right after a breakup.

And so to have any expectation of yourself that like, that’s what should be happening is going to not just make you feel bad because when you can’t do it, but I think it also sets you up for failure. Yeah. And so I love what you’re saying is just be really compassionate with yourself and give yourself time and let it go for a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah. I had a big insight working with my therapist, this was 2018 working with my therapist doing EMDR therapy. And I remember. I wanted to just jump into the trauma right away. And she said, we don’t do EMDR until the trauma level out of 10 feels under a five. She said, I will not work with you on something that feels like an eight, a nine or a 10 because it’s too big.

Yeah. We have to wait until it calms down and it gets a little bit more manageable before we can do any meaningful work on it. And that was very. Insightful for me to realize, Hey, when something’s at a 10, we’re just going to, we’re just going to try to survive and get by. And then with time on its own it’ll go down and there will be a time where it feels.

It’s clear and I feel like I can have more insights into what’s going on. Yeah. I love it. Fantastic reminder. If it feels like too much, it probably is that I could trust yourself. This first chapter of our conversation has been so helpful. In the next chapter, I know that you and I want to talk about a specific question that a lot of people have, which is, but how long is this going to take?

I think to your point, because that like the early stages that like just suffering and emotional intensity is so profound. And so I hope that you stay with us as we move into this next chapter. Click on the next video to hear Kendra’s thoughts about how long it really takes to get over a breakup. so much for that.

I know it’s so super dorky, but this is what we have to do. Apparently. Okay. So I’m going to go back into this. I will reintroduce you. On this episode of Love, Happiness Success, we are talking about all of your burning questions related to breakup and divorce recovery. With me is my special guest, Kendra Allen.

She’s the host of the podcast, Breakup Bestie, and a celebrated author, and she’s here to share her expertise with you. Hello, Kendra. Hi, thank you for having me. Yay. So in this next segment, I know that we had wanted to talk about something really specific. I often get this question, you probably do too, from people who are just in So much pain.

They are in that everything is raw, spiraling and like obsessing about the X and feeling all the bad feelings and what they want to know is how long is this going to take until I am over this, until I don’t feel this way anymore, I don’t want to think about them anymore, I want to feel like myself again, and they would very much like to have a timeline.

I know what I usually tell people in this situation, but I’m interested to hear your thoughts about this. The million dollar question. I always joke that if I had an answer to this question, I would be able to retire early, but Cause you would sell it. The answer is it depends, which is not a fun answer, but it really, it, it depends on so many things and it doesn’t depend on probably what a lot of people think.

think it depends on. I think it was the city that, said, Oh, it’s half the amount of time that you were with them is that’s how long it’s going to take to get over them, which is not true. I just had someone on my podcast who went through a 17 year marriage divorce and By all means felt completely fine and then was with someone for six months and that ended and Completely flipped their world upside down.

So it yeah, so it just it depends on so many Things the where you were at in the relationship if you’re in the honeymoon stage and it ends that’s a lot harder, you know So totally so it really depends on so many things and usually what I tell people is You Is to adjust their finish line as you would say of, let’s not focus on getting over them because what you think of being over someone isn’t really what it means to get over them.

In my opinion, I think it doesn’t mean that you’re going to stop thinking about them. I joke that I can still name, my, the first and last name and birthday of my boyfriend in the sixth grade. We don’t just forget people. That’s not a valid way to. To judge if you’re over someone. It’s You’re going to feel different as time goes on.

And in some ways you’ll feel better. Like the thing you’re stressing about today, you probably won’t be stressing about in a month, but something new might pop up. And so just allowing yourself to ride. The roller coaster and know that you’re going to have really hard days and then you’re going to have days that feel good and not to ruin those days because you feel like, Oh, I shouldn’t be feeling happy today.

I should feel sad. So really just allowing yourself to do the up and down and having tools in place for when you’re having a really hard day and just knowing that it will pass and I know it’s hard to imagine being over something that feels so big, but I invite people to, to think to other aspects of their lives when they thought something was the end of the world, whether it was losing a job or a fight with a friend or something like that.

And just knowing, just having the knowledge that things pass change and sometimes relying on our experience in other areas to remind ourselves that this also will pass. Yeah, no, that, that’s really good advice. And I also like it that you’re really bringing up to that. There are things that we can do to help ourselves through this process and that by engaging, like in the kind of work that you did, that it isn’t so much about closing the door on an ex, it is about really working on yourself in such a way that you are actually changed, that you are no longer the person that like has that unhelpful attachment to an ex, but you’re absolutely right.

And I could not agree with you more that in terms of what that process is going to look like and how long it is actually going to take and how long it’s going to be involved is highly dependent on a lot of different variables and so that there is no one This is the answer there is that mathematical formula from sex in the city And like I couldn’t agree more like it’s so interesting i’ve seen this too You would think that people who were going through like a divorce Maybe they’d been with somebody for 20 some years and now they are getting divorced and you would think that would be incredibly traumatic and so so much harder to get over than perhaps a shorter, a more intense relationship, but that is not always the case.

And in my experience, oftentimes people who are divorcing have like almost separated mentally and emotionally and psychologically. over a long period of the time because of the things that have been happening in a relationship that felt like so Damaging like that death by a thousand cuts experience where by the end of it, they’re like away with you.

You know what I mean? That it can actually Not that it isn’t still a challenging experience on many other levels. I mean there’s like logistics stuff custody like that All is very real. Identity things wrapped up in it. But in terms of the heartbreak it’s different than it is. As you said, with somebody who’s going, experiencing a relationship loss in that early stage where there’s that like emotional intimacy, maybe an intense love.

sexual connection. They’re feeling a strong attraction to that person. When that type of relationship ends, it sends people into a tailspin that can feel very different than a more long term situation. It’s fascinating, but understandable. Yeah. Yeah. And I do think it’s, it’s layered. I think, we were talking about when things feel in the last segment we were talking about when things feel really big, it’s not always the best to address them.

I do think there’s some self protective things that we have, or sometimes. a couple months down the road, something new will come up and it’s, Oh my gosh, that hurts all over again. And it’s, again, it’s this different thing. So you just have to realize that, that things are layered and it doesn’t, if things are taking longer than you think they are, it doesn’t mean You’re doing anything wrong.

It doesn’t mean that you’re a maladjusted person. It just means that this breakup is hitting certain things for you. And this, it, when this can trigger stuff with your parents, it can bring up stuff from childhood. There’s just so many things that a breakup can tap into. If you’re someone like me in the past where Your relationship becomes your whole life and your whole identity and you did let go of friends to be in the relationship Yeah, that can make the breakup really hard because you don’t feel like you have anyone to turn to so there’s just so many factors that go into it and do need to give yourself a lot more grace than you think you do because I don’t know.

I just feel like we double the work going through a breakup when we’re dealing with the judgment and the shame that’s coming from ourselves plus the heartbreak. Oh yeah. Yes. Absolutely. Okay. Then one, one last question on this topic of like how long it can take and then we’ll move on to the next segment.

But in your experience. Experience and working with people and just, hearing their stories. I’m curious if there are things that you’ve seen people do or not do that you associate with, if somebody is operating this way, they’re more likely to get stuck and it is going to take longer versus what.

In your opinion, it looks like for somebody who is able to move through the process in an effective way. And again, there’s so many variables, it’s different for every person. And I don’t want to, send messages like, so this is how long it takes for you. This is what should be happening because gosh knows we need less of that.

But generally speaking what can help it move faster versus. Yeah, I guess I have two answers for this, but I think I really want to say acceptance. And acceptance doesn’t mean approval. Acceptance doesn’t mean you like it or that you agree with it. But for me, what I’ve seen are the people who, Just do not accept that the breakup happens.

Yeah. I think that’s a very difficult Framework to move forward in totally like that. We could get back together Reunion fantasies if this than that like magical thinking Totally if only I can show them this if only I can get them to see that if only I can Wait around in the wings for long enough.

They’ll realize they made a mistake and This and so I when I talk about this people will say How do I just let go of the hope that we’re going to get back together? And I say, you don’t have to let that go. That’s okay. It’s, I think it’s very normal and honestly, maybe sometimes even helpful to have a little bit of hope.

It’s more of, I tell people to act as if they have accepted it, even if they haven’t, because I really think our actions drive our thoughts and feelings, not so much the other way around. So as long as you’re not just posted up saying, I’m not going to move forward, I’m not going to take any steps. to move forward.

I’m not going to talk to my friends. I’m not going to make an appointment with a therapist. I’m not going to take down the pictures of me and my ex around my house. So if you’re choosing not to do those things, to me, that means not accepting it. But you can still do it. Still be absolutely devastated, still have the hope that you guys are going to get back together, but still move forward in those actions of taking the photos down I don’t know, whatever that looks like, booking the appointment with a therapist, starting to journal about it, that will allow you to move forward, and I think our thoughts and feelings, We’ll follow that.

So I think the acceptance piece is really important. Yeah. That is such a super good point. I see people get stuck with that as well. And I just love that you’re bringing that acceptance, that radical acceptance and also reminding us that our, the way that we feel can oftentimes follow what we do.

And so going through the motions can sometimes make things real for us. And that’s really great advice. On the other side of that, are there particular things or practices or behaviors that you’ve seen people do where you’re like, this person is going to move through? Obviously, first of all, is being able to say this is over and needs to be over.

So that would be, the first thing, but are there other others where you’re like, you’re going to move through this I tell people that I would rather see someone, absolutely devastated and being completely honest and transparent with where they’re at, even if they feel like it’s too much.

I think the people that can be completely transparent with what went down in the relationship, how they’re feeling the more that they can open up about that. I think those are the people that heal faster than the people who Act as if everything’s fine or don’t tell, I think not telling the truth about the relationship is a big one, whether it’s people, and I know people who want to get back together with their ex oftentimes won’t tell their friends and family about any issues within the relationship because they think, okay, we’re going to get back together and I don’t want my friends and family to hate this person.

Honesty is a big one. Big one honest with yourself honest with other people. Maybe you’re just honest with a pen and a piece of paper That stuff’s really important. Yeah such good advice that they’re And can I just say really quickly that i’m so happy that we’re talking about this because I think Even above and beyond breakup recovery.

I think that there is a powerful and enduring myth in our culture that emotionally healthy well people are not falling apart. They’re not having big dark emotions. They’re not moving into these very intensely emotional spaces, right? And what you’re saying is, in my opinion, too, the absolute truth is that the people who are the most emotionally resilient and the ones who are really Going to be processing things more quickly are actually oftentimes the ones that are most comfortable with moving into these dark spaces and allowing themselves to feel all of the big things, but doing so with a lot of courage and honesty, being honest with themselves.

Being honest with them others being vulnerable as opposed to people who have bought into this myth where they need to keep it together and conceal the truth and that they shouldn’t, be spilling over and that there’s something shameful about things that have happened that they tend to have a harder time.

A long term emotionally and overall be less emotionally resilient and that’s true about so many different things. So I’m grateful that you brought that back in to the conversation because it needs to be understood. Yay. Yeah. And even taking it back to what we said quickly at the very beginning of this idea of forming meaningful relationships with friends.

I think a lot of the previous segment for people who missed that would go back and watch the first video. Okay. I think the I hear from a lot of people that they don’t feel like their support system is fully supporting them in their pain and their breakup. And I do believe a lot of that is because they’re not being honest with them.

You can’t expect people to know how you’re feeling. But if I can tell a friend, I’m struggling so bad right now. It’s a connection, they’re going to connect with me and they’re going to be able to support me. I, so I just think the vulnerability, especially in friendships is really important and oftentimes I think that’s why sometimes it feels like relationships can’t go as deep as we’d like them to, right?

We’re holding ourselves back from that true intimacy. This has been so helpful and I really appreciate you just sharing your perspective on, different factors that influence how long it’s going to take to move through this process. And so thank you for that. And so then in the next segment, what I also want to be talking about is some other things that I think that people are going to be dealing with, particularly so as we’re talking about this, we’re starting to roll into the holiday season.

Maybe it’s like a little further down the line, but it’s certainly upon us and, but how to deal with not just holidays, but also changes. big, impactful, emotional, often anniversaries and just times or even places where people are feeling triggered. Like the past is flooding in and what they can do to manage those moments.

So that will be our next segment. You guys stay with Kendra and I click on the next video and we’re going to talk about what to do with that. Yay. Thank you. Thank you. You’re so sweet. I like the structure. No I, it’s great. I like learning from other people. Oh, good. No I’m happy. Yeah. It’s something that I’ve been experimenting with just fairly recently.

Just like seeing, nobody watches more than 10 minutes of a YouTube video. So I’m like, let’s make 10 minute YouTube videos. It’s hilarious. Yeah. Okay, so where were we? Okay, and so let’s, how much time, I know that you have a hard stop here in a few minutes. We have 12. Okay, let’s see if we can power through even two segments.

So let me come back over here. This week on Love, Happiness Success, we are talking about some of the questions that you might have around healing after heartbreak or relationship loss or divorce. I am joined today by my special guest, Kendra Allen, podcast host of Breakup Bestie and author. And we’re tackling these questions.

questions one by one Kendra, thank you for doing this with me today. This has been fun. Thank you so much for having me. This has been a very fun conversation. We have a good time together. I will say but so the next question that I know that we wanted to tackle for the benefit of our viewers here is related to how to handle some of the triggers that can happen as you’re going through a relationship loss and you’re still super raw related to things like maybe anniversaries, like on this day, last year we were taking this incredible vacation and just how triggering that can be.

Also, I know that many people can struggle with holidays. Either for some of the same reasons like having memories perhaps of holidays past, but also I think there’s a different layer of that being single against their will while at a time of year when a lot of other people are with families and perhaps they’re feeling like disconnected socially from friend groups that they might’ve spent time with in the past.

But also even environmental triggers. I know a lot of people struggle with this is the restaurant where they proposed to me like so many different things. But I think the net result is that there are these intrusive feeling memories and feelings that people can really struggle with. And so I guess I’m curious to hear your perspective.

With people that you’ve known, your own story, things that you’ve learned along the way through your own work, that might be helpful to people who are going through this or are anticipating going through it with the holidays upon us. Yeah. Yeah. I think the biggest advice that I first have is prepare for the worst, meaning prepare for the fact that a day is going to be hard. I think a lot of the times we think. I got this. It’s just Christmas or it’s just my birthday. And so we don’t plan in advance. I think every day going through a breakup has the potential to be hard. So if there is a day that you know has extra potential to be hard, put some guardrails in place, put some planning in place.

Don’t think you can just tackle the day completely by yourself. So preparation is a really big one, whether that’s you send a text to your friends. Hey, my birthday is coming up. Me and my ex had planned to take me to a concert that day. Can we do something like that? Or it could be, okay, my, my ex’s birthday is coming up.

I know I’m going to be tempted on social media to, to look and see what they’re doing. So that day I’m going to delete Instagram for the day and just take it off my phone. Just set it aside for 24 hours because I know it’s going to be hard. So just having self aware moments like that, where you can be honest and be like and that’s my single biggest piece of advice.

And that is awesome advice is to use that self awareness and just take pro active steps to just take care of yourself in a different way during those periods, are going to be really vulnerable. And particularly when it comes to using your support network because you’re not in this alone.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and people want to help you and I think we just need to let them know, hey, this day is going to Be hard for me. I remember when I went through my breakup a long time ago, I had my friend change my Facebook password. So I just literally could not get into my account that day on my exes for things I knew I would be looking at who is common, this was back when Facebook was big, but who was writing on his wall and all that kind of stuff.

Be cautious, be overly cautious about how the day’s going to impact you. Fantastic advice. Okay. Thank you so much. All right. So then let’s in this next chapter, just ahead, we’re going to talk about one last thing, which are signs that you are actually healing from heartbreak, subtle signs, but signs that you’re making progress versus some signs that you might be vulnerable to staying stuck in this situation and that it is time to maybe do something differently and what those different things might be.

So stay tuned with us for this. Click on the next video in the series to get Kendra’s advice on how to move forward. Yay. Okay. Okay, one more and then I promise I will let you go. Okay. This week on Love, Happiness Success, we are tackling some of your biggest questions related to heartbreak recovery.

Joining me for this series is my friend Kendra Allen. She is the host of the podcast Breakup Bestie and author on the topic of breakup recovery. And she’s here today with me answering some of your questions. Thank you so much for having me. I know. This has been so much fun. And so in this next segment, Kendra and I wanted to talk about something I think that is really important and that I get a lot of questions about.

I know you probably do too, but especially for people who really haven’t been through this before. are signs that you are actually healing after a breakup, even though it’s still hard, even though it feels bad, you’re not all the way there and maybe some days are better than worse, but like general trends that you are, you’re on a trajectory where you are walking out of these woods versus signs that You are vulnerable to getting stuck in this for longer than you need to be and that it is time to take some different kinds of action on your own behalf so that you don’t stay here one moment longer than you need to.

Do you have any visibility into that, Kendra, from your experience? Yeah, I think the first one that came to mind is, I think, a sign that you’re moving forward is being able to see your relationship your past relationship for exactly what it was That is you don’t have your ex up on the pedestal and you don’t think that You’re a piece of crap, you can see I was existing in the relationship My ex was existing in the relationship and it just didn’t work out if you can get to that place I think that is a huge sign that you’re moving forward Even if you still feel sad or upset about the fact that it’s not the relationship is no more But when you can get to a place where you can see that we’re both doing our best We were both just human beings doing our best.

That’s a huge place. Whereas if you keep your ex up on that pedestal and can’t name, and I know it’s hard in the beginning, can’t name any single thing that they did wrong within the relationship or one thing that wasn’t compatible with you. That to me is a sign that you need to start really looking at them in a new light.

Yeah. Yes. And I love it too. This reminder that it is balanced. It doesn’t need to be that they were Satan and go into all the blaming things either. But really to get some perspective on the relationship as a whole and like reality based perspective where you’re not engaging in this mental relationship with your ex anymore, where you’re putting them on a pedestal, they were the best person in the history of the world, you will never find a love like them again, like that whole thing.

That’s actually a warning sign that you’re vulnerable. Got it. Okay. Yeah. I would say that. And then another thing I would say is, we haven’t really talked about it, but I’m very big on no contact. If you’re able to do that, yes, which I know we share. So I would say if, when you get to a place where you don’t.

feel like I have to see them. I have to talk to them. It’s taking I’m like white knuckling, not reaching out to them. If you get to a place of feeling kind of indifferent, meaning if you heard from them, you would probably still be excited or upset or you would still get a reaction. But you’re not sitting on your hands.

Trying not to reach out to them. I think that’s a big one. Cause people will often say when can I reach out to my ex? I don’t want to think about it forever. And my usual, my answer is. When you don’t really care whether you hear from them or not, where you get, I think indifference is a powerful place to be.

And I think it’s oftentimes underrated because we feel like we need not like the person or want them completely wiped away from our memories. Indifference is a really great place to aim for when it comes to going through a breakup. Yeah, absolutely. I think that, I think there might even be a quote that I can’t remember who it was from, but something about how the opposite of love isn’t hate.

It is, Indifference, actually. So that’s a really good reminder. And again so not that you need to be there totally, but that you can feel their importance kind of being released to you is a sign that you are actually making progress, even though it’s maybe not as far along as you would like it to be.

There’s movement versus that um, staying in that obsessive compulsive kind of phase of this. Yeah. I need to talk to them right now. I think once it can stop feeling so immediate, that’s a really great sign. Yeah. Okay. But that’s, those are good. I think it’s helpful for people to have almost some benchmarks around if I move in, what does it look like?

And then very lastly, In your experience, if people are listening to this or even in other ways, maybe there’s something else that’s going on in their life experience where they’re like, I think I might be stuck in this what do you typically advise people to do? Are there actions that people can take to get some momentum back into this recovery process?

Yeah, I’m stuck is a big thing that I hear and what I invite people to do is get a little bit more curious of what, what does stuck mean? Take out your journal and write. Yeah. In what way am I feeling stuck? Am I angry? Am I sad? Am I lonely? What is it? Stuck is a hard thing to solve.

Whereas if you can a couple feelings attached to that, that we can work with a little better. And then again, like self awareness and being honest with yourself. Are you looking at their social media every day? That’s probably keeping you stuck. Are answering their texts that they send you every so often?

That’s probably keeping you stuck. If there’s something that, if you’re stuck and there’s something you’re doing that you know you probably shouldn’t, just try not doing it and see if it makes a difference. Yeah. Amazing advice. Kendra, thank you so much. I had the best time talking with you today.

And if people would like to get more Kendra Allen, where would they go to stay connected with you and learn more about your mission and your message? I’d say the best place to connect with me is on Instagram. I’m at your breakup bestie. I post all my new podcast episodes on there and then my website is breakup bestie.

com. There you can find my courses and all the other information and content that I have. Wonderful. And that’s fantastic. Kendra, thank you so much for doing this with me today. It’s a lot of fun. Thank you so much for having me. This was great.