After the Breakup: Taking Your Power Back

Lisa Marie Bobby:

One of the worst parts of going through a bad breakup or divorce is how disempowered can leave you feeling, especially if ending the relationship was not your choice. So that’s why on today’s show, we are talking about how you can take your power back after a breakup or divorce and transform this difficult experience into something positive and meaningful.

productive, and most importantly, empowering for you. Our mood music today is La Tigra, the songs tell you now, and it’s so perfect for us. The things you tried to kill, I found a way to grow, like, this is the kind of energy we need to set the tone for today’s conversation. I’m so glad you’re here with me today.

I am Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby. This is the love, happiness, and success podcast. If this is your first time listening, um, I’m the founder of growing self counseling and coaching marriage, a family therapist, a licensed psychologist, all the things, but I am here every week for you to talk about love, happiness, and success, healthy relationships.

Mental and emotional well being, but also like, you know, growing into the kind of person who can achieve the things that are important to you. That’s my version of success. I’m sure you have yours. Every week, you know, I’m, I’m taking a look at your questions, your comments, the things that you’ve written and asking me about through Instagram, Facebook, letting me know what’s on your mind.

I love hearing from you. And I am wanting to record this podcast episode today because I’ve been hearing from you guys lately. Especially those of you. who are in the midst of a challenging breakup slash divorce experience about just the feelings of helplessness and disempowerment that can come along with this, particularly if you feel that Major life decisions have been made for you without your consent and that are not in alignment with what you want.

You know, if, if you have been broken up with her, your partner asked for a divorce, you know what I’m talking about, that if you didn’t want the relationship to end, you wanted to work on it and they won’t do that with you. It is by definition. Disempowering, it can also, even if you are the one who ended the relationship, be quite disempowering if, like many people, um, you feel stuck on your end.

Ex. You are still kind of obsessing about them. You can’t stop thinking about your ex. It feels like there’s unfinished emotional business, even if this logical part of your brain is like, this relationship needed to end. This is a good thing. You did the right thing. If you feel like you just can’t move on emotionally, it feels like being trapped.

It feels like you’re helpless to change it, right? Like something is being done to you against your will in that regard. And, um, Well, you know, this desire to break free is very real. So, so disempowerment can look like a lot of things after a breakup. And we are going to be diving into all of that on today’s show.

By the end of our time together today, I hope that you have more clarity and some new ideas and different perspectives that help you understand your own experience differently. But also we’re going to be talking about. actionable strategies that can help you reclaim your power in this experience. Um, just so that you have some direction so that you don’t stay stuck.

We’re going to get unstuck in today’s podcast. So with that intention. Let’s dive in. Um, as we all know, I mean, going through a breakup, a divorce, any kind of relationship loss can be, can be incredibly painful. I mean, it can be such a traumatic life event, whether or not you’re the one that did the splitting.

Right. But, um, The other thing that’s true is that by definition, nobody wants a relationship to end. None of us enter into relationships or marriages with the intention that it’s not going to work out. Right? And so you wanted it to work out and it didn’t. Whether or not you pulled the trigger and you were like, you know what?

I don’t want to do this with you anymore So I’m gonna be done. It still wasn’t what you wanted You didn’t want to end the relationship You wanted the relationship to be better or to be different or you wanted your partner to make some changes They couldn’t or or wouldn’t do right and in that You were not able to get what you wanted, which is the definition of disempowering.

So disempowerment is always part of a relationship loss and the work of changing this to reclaim your power and in doing so. Kind of become your own hero again happens on a number of different levels, but it starts with you reconnecting with your own sense of agency. And doing this has so many positive Effects.

It will help you feel better. You know, it’s still going to be a crappy like life chapter, but it will feel less bad. If you can connect with your own sense of control and power and agency. And though the thing that’s really cool is that when you’re able to take hold of like control of your own emotions.

It’s going to feel a lot better. Now, here’s what, here’s what I’m in control of all of a sudden all these other doors start opening up for you that were closed previously doors that you can walk through doors to growth and learning. Doors to healing, but I think most importantly doors begin opening into transformation like Here’s who I was here is who I want to be and here’s how I can use the things that happen during this experience to help me not just change who I am and how I operate but really create a completely different outcome for my life in the future because I have the power to do that.

That’s the important part. I have the power to make that happen. And so by learning how to focus on different things during this experience, you can be making that shift from helplessness. And this isn’t what I wanted to No, I am in charge of this situation. I am in control of what happens next. And I am a powerful person because that’s, that’s where we all want to go.

Right? So we talked about why taking your power back is so important, but. Let’s also just talk for a second why it can be really hard to do. Um, we talked for a second about, you know, the, the reasons why the breakups, relationship loss, and by definition, not where you, not what you wanted to have happened and can feel helpless and disempowering.

Yeah. What is really going on here many times is that we start focusing on the things that were actually outside of our control in these moments. So anytime we begin indulging in thoughts that are focusing on factors that we had no control over, like What your ex did or didn’t do, or, you know, circumstances that may have impacted the situation that were outside of anybody’s control, um, or even, you know, mindsets around these things were done to me.

The first step here is simple awareness about the fact that that internal process, the internal thought process is even happening to be able to notice. I am engaging in disempowering. helpless thinking because I’m focusing on the things that I really was legitimately powerless over. That is step one.

Then once you do that, you can intentionally shift to, here is what I did have control over. And this starts by thinking about what you have control over inside of yourself right now. How you take care of yourself. Just simple self care activities. I am in control of whether or not I Make my bed in the morning or go on a walk or do very small things, whether I remember to eat lunch, these are things that you have control over and simply by bringing that focus back to what you have agency over in the here and now can be one of you.

Believe it or not, subtle, but also like subtly powerful first steps to just resetting your, I am in charge of me kind of dialogue. Another thing that you can do is to intentionally, instead of cataloging, these are all the things that my ex did or didn’t do shift that narrative into a more empowering.

Possibly in the short term, more uncomfortable thinking process, which is what was it about my way of being or the decisions that I made or the actions that I get engaged in contributed to this outcome that’s uncomfortable to think about. That might bring up feelings of regret and or guilt if you connect with a fact that Maybe mistakes were made on both sides and I’m gonna be focusing on the mistakes that I made for a minute now you know in some ways I think it’s more like We can be Righteous victims when we are focusing on what other people did wrong, right, which never feels good I mean, we’re angry we’re hurt for all the things but but somehow Less uncomfortable than thinking about what we actually do have responsibility for.

However, this is the path of not just reclaiming your power, but also of growth. When we experience feelings of regret or guilt, it is, you know, us saying, I could have handled that. better. I actually did have control over the outcome that I experienced and that the message here, the, the hidden gift of regret, which I talked about at length in another podcast on, what did I call it?

It was actually divorce regret actually. But the, the main message is that We do not feel regret unless we have agency. We believe that we had agency. If I had done this differently, it would have led to a different outcome. Therefore, I feel regret. But like the core concept here is that you did actually have power at various points in your relationship and just reconnecting with that truth can be extremely empowering.

Uncomfortable in the short term, but in the long term that then opens up the doorway to growth. It allows you to come back into the space where you’re taking ownership of your actions. You’re saying, you know, in the here and now I am responsible for how I’m thinking, how I’m feeling, how I’m treating myself.

And you know what, that was actually true in the past too. Um, I wasn’t. necessarily victimized. Here’s how I collaborated in this life experience, at least to a degree, right? Even if it was, you know what? I looked past red flags that maybe I should have paid attention to, or I didn’t do a good enough job of setting boundaries and limits to protect myself.

That is pushing you back into contact with the things that maybe you actually did have power over, and that is how we reconnect with our personal power is through our personal responsibility, our, you know, self directedness. The fact that we do have control over the things that happen to us. Another really important concept for reclaiming your personal power after a breakup is by focusing on yourself and by making a conscious decision to love yourself.

In a very healthy and intentional way. So as I think, I think we all know, I mean, breakups can leave us feeling rejected or, or unworthy again, even if you did the breaking up, there’s still that. But if I was more lovable, they would have treated me better and I wouldn’t have had to break up with them, right?

Okay. We all go there to those, those places, but you can reclaim your power when you can say, I’m not going to engage in that kind of hostility towards myself anymore because it’s not true. It’s not true. So self love is not a feeling. It is a practice. It is deciding how you want to behave in loving ways towards yourself.

It involves kindness. Compassion, acceptance, it involves talking to yourself the way that you would talk to anybody else that you cared about, right? Um, and it’s okay if this doesn’t come naturally. The important part of, I think, self love in these situations that is empowering is understanding and observing When you are acting in an unloving way towards yourself, beating yourself up in an unproductive way, which is different than feeling guilt or regret, shame and beating yourself up, not productive.

But if you’re doing that, or if you are engaging in, you know, Um, I’m, I’m unlovable, I’m unworthy, I was rejected because I’m all of these bad things. Noticing that and then taking your power back by simply saying, I am not going to participate in abusing myself. This relationship ending has been hard enough on me.

I’m going through enough right now. The last thing I need to experience is some bully living in my head telling me all this crappy stuff about myself. I am not going to do that anymore and challenging it, talking back to it, being your own champion, defending yourself from the abuser within, right? This can be hard to do.

I mean, not going to lie, particularly if you have old entrenched thinking ways of thinking that involve you bashing yourself for various things. However, This can be, learning how to do this can be a very, very, very important and productive part of the growth and healing process that comes on the other side of a relationship.

Particularly if you were in a relationship with a person who did a lot of that, who was unkind to you, who berated you, who said mean things to you, you may have internalized a lot of that. And so this practice of self love. Active, powerful self love will restore your sense of control, of personal empowerment, but it will also be quite healing.

You might need to do this with the support of a really good therapist who can help you understand, A, when you’re in pain, Being unkind to yourself and help you shift into protective and self loving, um, thoughts and behaviors towards yourself. But this is one of the most important things that you can do if the goal is to restore a sense of empowerment and control after a breakup.

Um, because when we, when we deliberately. Uh, engage in a self love practice. We’re tapping into ourselves. We’re setting boundaries. We’re being aware of our feelings and our needs. We’re nurturing ourselves physically, emotionally, um, sometimes engaging in a spiritual practice if that’s part of your belief system.

But all of those things are things that you have agency over. These are all things that you All things that you can do for you because of this love for yourself. And as we practice behaviors, as we start doing things, that’s how we teach ourselves who we are. So again, there’s a healing and corrective emotional experience that happens through the act of self love or acts of self love, I should say.

That can be a very important part of this healing process. Lastly, another thing, well it’s not lastly, but one of the other things that we need to talk about here is, um, how important it is to intentionally take charge of the story. Our thoughts create our feelings and our emotions. When we create a story, when we create a narrative of what happened, it’s also a critically important component of creating closure, making meaning, especially out of any negative life experience, right?

And it’s very important for you to be cultivating and crafting a narrative that empowers you rather than disempowers you. Um, This can be a complex process. It may be beneficial again, to work with a therapist who specializes in divorce or breakup recovery, who can help you develop this. However, what it looks like in action is to become aware of what you are telling yourself about what this relationship was, how it started, what happened, why it ended, and then really doing some evaluation into, am I casting myself as a victim.

In this story, which is disempowering, or can I rewrite the story in a way where I have agency, where I am not actually a victim, where I can see clearly what happened in a way that doesn’t bash myself or blame myself, but you know that I’m nothing, nothing was done to me. Right. And how can I also then cultivate this imperative in like.

Empowering narrative around how do I want the story to end because the story doesn’t end when the relationship ends, you get to be the author of your story, like going forward. So, yes, these things happened and then the relationship ended and then now what? happens next. Where do I take this? Where do I want this to go?

This is where I am now. And what is the vision for how I would like this to unfold in the future? If you can connect this narrative to new opportunities for yourself, particularly around, so here’s how I would like to develop. Myself. Here are the things that I would like to learn or work through. You know, yeah, I, I was in that relationship for a variety of reasons.

Some of them probably weren’t like really healthy reasons for me. And now that I’m aware of that, because of having lived through this experience, I have the opportunity to do something differently about this. I can now. Do some of this work that, you know, maybe I wouldn’t have done had I not gone through this experience, but that’s really going to benefit me in the future.

And here’s how this experience is going to serve me. And here’s how I am going to use this experience to get to where I want to go, putting you back in the driver’s seat. of your own story making meaning about the why like, you know, yes, this relationship ended. Maybe I didn’t want it to, but nonetheless, it has also opened up some really important new opportunities for me that are probably really good things.

It’s putting you back in power and in a very positive way. So these are a number of different shifts that you can be making. However, um, you know, the last one, and I believe the most important one is related to connecting what you’re going through to the possibility and potential of your own growth in the future or in the present and in the future.

Post traumatic growth is a real thing and it is Always, um, not just possible, but I think the norm to come through difficult life experiences truly stronger and wiser than, than you were. People who go through difficult life experiences and, and experience themselves as being damaged because of it or broken or less well because of it.

Either things happened to them, maybe they actually were victimized and they did not have the support, um, at that time in their life to grow through that experience. They didn’t get what they needed in order to use that experience. That life experience, they maybe didn’t have the, especially if it happened when they were kids, like let’s get real, but, but have the protection, have the support, have the guidance to become strengthened because of it.

Um, and that is a really real thing and a very sad thing. And we are here today to talk about how you can reconnect with your personal power and with your control. And it is true that we grow as humans, not despite the things we live through, but because of them. People who aren’t challenged by life do not have opportunities to grow.

There’s a quote that I love. Um, Jane Lotter, I think, is the author. The obstacles in your path are not obstacles. They are the path. This, this is the path. Nobody gets through this without going through stuff. And when We encounter obstacles, go through painful things, and see these for what they are, which is truly an opportunity to develop ourselves, to stretch ourselves, to grow in ways that we wouldn’t have otherwise, to gain new insight, to gain new wisdom, to become more compassionate humans.

Maybe it’s, it’s to have the opportunity to practice working through anger and finding forgiveness, maybe expanding our definition of love and compassion. for listening. Maybe learning how to love and care for ourselves differently. Like there are so many opportunities here, but the path of life is doing this over and over again, but the key here is learning how to do it for our benefit, seeing these opportunities for what they are.

So you can absolutely do this when it comes to. Anything, but I think especially with something like a breakup or a divorce, it, um, you know, to lean into this opportunity for growth and development and to be thinking about what did I learn here? What did this teach me about myself, my values, the things that are important to me?

How do I take this awareness and turn it into, um, a vision for what I would like to have be different in the future? And how do I grow into the kind of person who knows how to attain that future? Because, you know, just setting a goal is not the same thing as being able to create it. So I want to have a healthier relationship.

What does that actually look like? You know, My parents got divorced. They hated each other. I didn’t have good role models for healthy relationships. And now I’m in patterns where this, you know, I’m kind of doing some of the same things. I really want a different kind of relationship experience. So how do I do that?

That’s not easy work. It’s not quick work, but my goodness, I mean, like we all have one life, right? What else are you going to do with your time? Digging into those kinds of questions is very powerful. It is where the action is, is, is in the darkness, not in the light. And so being able to claim This and lean into this and do this kind of work is you taking your power back.

It is putting you back in control of the situation, but it’s also putting you back in control of your future. So looking at the different areas of your life and thinking about. where you are now and where it is that you want to be. And you know, what, what do I need to do? What do I need to learn in order to be able to create these realities?

And it doesn’t just have to be relationships. It can be in your physical health. It can be your career. It can be socially, it can be emotionally, but like, what do I want and how am I going to get it is the name of the game. It is the opposite. Of feeling helpless, the narrative here is related to a growth mindset, which is, you know what?

I might not know how to do all these things yet, but I know what I want and I can work at this. I absolutely can work with this. Other people have figured this out. I can too. And I’m going to. This, this is the path to personal empowerment. It’s not the comfiest path. I mean, I’m not gonna lie as we’ve discussed.

It’s, it’s easier to, um, I don’t know if it’s easier. I mean, to, to experience helplessness to experience the pain of, of feeling like a victim to feel out of control and unable to. You know, have any agency over the things that happen to you is always painful. And it is emotionally challenging in a different way to say, wait, just a second.

I can actually have control over my outcomes. I’m not a victim here. You know, like. That can bring a different level of discomfort, but if you had to choose between the two and when you think about where those two things are going to take you, ultimately, to me, the choice seems easy, but at the very least, I hope that this podcast has illuminated for you the fact that there is a choice and how we’re experiencing these things.

I hope it’s created you with some new ways of thinking. And also just laid out some different ways of doing things, particularly when it comes to how you’re handling things internally, that will set you up for a different experience going forward. Of course, in today’s conversation, I mean, this is a, a 30 minute podcast, which is only scratching the surface.

But what we’re talking about today is one of the pieces of the journey, the process, of healing inside and out after a bad breakup or divorce. This is the kind of work that I do here at growing self. And, and this is also the kind of work that people do through my breakup recovery program, my heal after heartbreak recovery program, where we’re actually walking through the different stages of healing and recovery.

And what we were talking about today is one of those stages of, of reclaiming one’s power is actually a large component of a stage of healing that involves digging into and processing dark emotions. Um, this happens after things like the withdrawal phase and the grief phase, but it typically happens before we can move into that really exciting growth phase of the healing process.

Um, If you would like to learn more about this, of course, you’re invited to come to growingself. com and enter into the divorce and breakup recovery section. And you can also take my stages of healing quiz. Um, when you come into my website, there’s usually a playlist. pop up, but you can also find it in the free resources section of my website that will, um, it’s a quiz.

It’ll ask you a bunch of questions and you can find out where in the healing process you are currently. I mean, like the things that just transparently, the things that we’re talking about today may be in a stage of healing that is. is not yet attainable for you because you haven’t done like the prerequisite courses, um, to be able to come into this kind of reckoning phase.

And you know what, if you’re honestly like feeling really uncomfortable with the things that I was talking about today, that could be an indication that you actually haven’t yet done the work of the previous stages so that would allow you to kind of move into this kind of place and, and that’s absolutely valid.

I mean, this work can take a long time and easily measured in months, right? But if you come to my website and take that assessment, it will reveal to you the stage of healing that you’re currently in so that you have clarity around what to do next in order to keep moving forward. And so you’ll get a report like with custom scores and also recommendations around if you’re in this stage.

Here’s what you need to do next, which might be really helpful for you. So I do hope that you check that out. Okay, my friends. Thank you so much for spending this time with me today. Um, I hope this was helpful for you and I’ll be back in touch with you next time with another episode of the podcast. Until then, take care.