Ep 12: Healing After a Breakup or Divorce

(upbeat music) - Welcome home. I'm Dr. Tama, a minister, licensed psychologist and sacred artist, and this is Homecoming, a podcast to facilitate your journey home to yourself. While I will provide weekly inspiration and mental health tips, this podcast is not a substitute for therapy. I'm so excited you're on the journey. If you want to request specific topics or share your progress, email me at [email protected]. Also, after you listen, be sure to like, subscribe, and share. Let's begin. Today's topic is healing from breakups or from divorce. When you have had a relationship come to an end, it can disrupt your sense of self. And the reality also is if the relationship came to an end, in the midst of the relationship, you may have also been losing yourself. That sometimes trying to hold on to someone can cause us to disconnect from who we are. And so whatever the type of romantic relationship whatever the depth of it is, whether you all were together weeks or months or years, whether it is a divorce, a separation, or a breakup, I want you to know that your heart matters. And that this is safe place, this is sanctuary, where we don't have to try to hold it together and either convince the person that we're doing better or we're fine or convince other people that we're doing better or fine or trying to convince ourselves that we're doing better or fine. That this is a safe place where we can be honest with ourselves about the times our hearts have been broken. We can be honest with ourselves about the disappointment, about the sadness, the depression, the grief, the anger, the rage, the confusion. We can be honest in this space about those feelings of desperation or loneliness. We can be honest in this place about the shock or even for some the relief. And the reality is you can have more than one of those feelings at the same time. You may be anxious and angry. You might be relieved and sad. So those emotions can coexist. So the first part about healing and coming home to myself after a breakup is to first come out of denial about the truth and the truth is it's over. So if you can just whisper that to yourself, it's over, it's over. Because some people have been holding their breath waiting, either waiting for the person to change their mind, waiting for the person to see your worth or value or you may have been the one who decided to end it, but just shocked that you are alone again or shocked that it ended the way it ended or really in a place of disbelief. Because when you put your trust in something and someone, when you put your trust in a relationship or a marriage, then you have certain assumptions or expectations where you think you know that person, you think you know you, you think you are fairly sure that this is going to have some longevity. And so when the rug is pulled up from under your feet, it really can leave you stalled. It can leave you feeling stuck. It can leave you as we said in a prior episode, wondering why and I wonder if on today to start the healing, if you can tell yourself the radical truth that it really is over, that it really is over. And while we have talked about grief and loss in a prior episode, because I know some of you will be listening to all of them that some who are listening are actually widows that your partner died either by medical illness or by an accident or by violence. And even in that circumstance, there is a need for the truth telling of the acknowledgement that they're not here anymore. And as painful as it is to come home to myself means I have to sit with that truth. That that chapter of my life, however long or short it was that that chapter has ended. And so along with recognizing that it is over, it is then to know that my emotions are acceptable to me. Right, it doesn't have to be for anybody else because a lot of people, including your ex, may have ideas about how you're supposed to be feeling or what you're supposed to be doing, but you aren't together anymore. So it is for you to accept your feelings and that you don't need permission for how you feel. You don't need permission or agreement. You don't need all of your friends or family to agree with you. You feel what you feel. And so this even makes sense when people have come out of unhealthy relationships. A part of you might still miss them. And I want you to know in this space, you can even tell yourself that truth. That you might be mad at yourself for like why? Why would I even miss someone who didn't treat me well? Well, there was history there. There was connection there. I would assume it wasn't always bad. And sometimes we operate by comparison. So they may not have treated you the best, but it was better than some others. So whatever it is, I'm feeling, I accept, I accept that. For those who are dealing with the anger, depending on your family or your religion or spirituality, some people will try to convince you it's not okay to be mad. Well, you're mad. So let's just tell ourselves that truth that you're mad. You're mad at them or you're mad at yourself or you're mad at the circumstance or you're mad at a third party or whatever it is, but I cannot come home to me as long as I have to lie about how I even feel or what I think. And so that space of truth is the beginning of the journey home. I recognize that it is over. I acknowledge the ways, the complicated ways that I may feel and what I may think about the relationship, about the person, about me. And then thirdly, recognizing that I am valuable, that I am worthy of love, starting with the love for myself. Breakups can really break you if the only thing that was affirming your worth was the other person. If my self-esteem was built on someone choosing me and now they no longer choose me, it will be even more devastating if at my core I have not chosen myself. And so in order to heal and come home to me, To me, it is not about a rebound. So I don't need to quickly find someone else who will tell me I'm beautiful or worthy of love or attractive or a good partner. I have to first. I don't have, let me remove half to. 'Cause you can do what you're gonna do. You can do whatever you wanna do. I invite you. I invite you to choose you before you choose another. I invite you to love you before you move on to looking for love in all the wrong places. I invite you to affirm you before you go out in the world, hungry for compliments, thirsty to be seen. I invite you to see you, yes? So recognizing that my value, my worth, my love for myself is not dependent on someone else believing it or someone else agreeing with it. I give myself space and time to grieve, to reflect, to heal. It does not need to be rapid fire of like I cried once and sent them a million text messages and now I'm done. All right, that is an emotional response in the moment, but that's not the healing work. The healing work requires that I give myself time to really feel it, to not run from what I feel and also to pull the wisdom out of the experience. I wanna pull the lesson out of it. What did I learn? What did I learn in that relationship? What did I learn about who I am, about what I want and what I need? What did I learn about my attraction, who I'm attracted to? What did I learn about assumptions I had made? What did I learn about warning signs? And many times we don't, you know, people will say, all day long, there was nothing. There was just suddenly this person just turned into a terrible person. I encourage you to look back over the early stages and see sometimes there are things that we don't think are a big deal or that we ignore or that we hope and assume will change. That sometimes we have fallen in love with a person's potential instead of who they are at this moment. And when I fall in love with a person's potential, that is not the person. And so pulling out the lessons is important for me and also thinking about what are the ways that my unhealed wounds from before I even met this person may have set me up, may have set me up to choose them, may have set me up to stay, may have set me up to ignore some things or accept some things that are unacceptable, may have set me up to sabotage it. Maybe my unhealed wounds led me to act in some ways or to speak in some ways that contribute you did to the ending, to the resolution of the relationship. And so I need space for that. I have to give myself space for reflection, for honesty, for humility, for truth, for truth. And once I have given myself space for that or as I'm giving myself space for that, it can also be important to cultivate nourish positive friendships, not dating. I'm talking about, sometimes when we isolate ourselves, we can replay in our minds a distorted script. So in psychology, we call it a cognitive distortion. And so if I don't have someone to bounce things off of, sometimes I'll keep telling myself something that is off, right, that is not true. And so being with good friends who can be honest, I would also encourage you to really consider therapy, right? Someone who does not have an agenda is not biased, but can hear things that are said and hear what is not said, to be able to reflect, to heal and to grow. Also, if you are spending all of your time by yourself, it can magnify this sense of loneliness and can also sometimes lead you to going back to a situation that is not good for you, just because you can't tolerate the silence or can't tolerate the loneliness. And so you can end up in that cycle, yes. So spending time with positive people, but the important thing is also people you can be honest with, right? So not those kind of friends where you have to be like fake energetic, fake joyful, fake anything, right? But I'm talking about the kind of friend where even if I'm just gonna breathe on the phone, if I'm just gonna sit here staring out the window and I just know they're there or they're gonna come over and we just gonna sit here and I'm staring and they're sitting, I mean, that's real friends, right? Where it doesn't have to be entertaining. I don't have any funny story. When I go into the movies, I'm just sitting here in this valley and you're willing to sit with me, yes. So those kinds of connections, it may be a family member, it may be a friend who you can have that space with is really important. Then I want to encourage you to think about who you were before you even met them, right? 'Cause sometimes we can get it twisted or for those who are marriages ending, you may have gotten married very early. So it may be like your whole adult life you were with them. But I want you to know that there is a you beyond the we that you all created. There is a you. And so getting back in touch with, what do I like? What do I wanna do? Who am I, what do I think? Because sometimes we call a social psychology group thing where you start to think like the people you're around. But let me get in touch with, let me come home to myself. Do you remember you? Do you remember you? I know there are many memories you have with them. I know there are many things that are gonna remind you of all of the time with them. But what are the things that reflect you? What is your identity besides being their boo, their boyfriend, their girlfriend, their wife, their husband, their fiance, there is a you. There is a you beyond all of those identities. And so coming home to who that person is and appreciating them. Getting reacquainted with yourself because the other reality is if it was a long-term relationship, you may be different, right? And the relationship has changed you as well. Some things that you didn't know were important to you, right? We choose people based on things we value at the time, that they have attributes or qualities and we were making decisions based on those. And then you get in a relationship and sometimes you figure out, well, there are some things I didn't even recognize was a value, were a value to me and they're very important to me. So that's also a sign of growth that what I was looking for before is not identical to what I'm looking for now, right? That I start to see some things from a different lens. I'm in a different season of my life, right? And so getting reacquainted with yourself and giving yourself permission to be different 'cause that's the other part with relationships or with marriage is both of you changed. Sometimes we point to the other person, they say, well, they changed, I was the same. But all of us, if we're growing, if we're growing their things, their aspects about us, that change. And so giving myself permission to choose who do I want to be, who do I want to be without having the shadow over me of how I need to show up for someone else or who someone else wants me to be, but that freedom, and I would say being able to really appreciate and sell me. celebrate, well, I won't say celebrate that might be a strong word for those who are still grieving. I want to say appreciate the season you find yourself in, that you have a blank slate, right? You are newly single or someone who are listening, it's been a minute, but you are still processing and that's fine. But you find yourself on a new day, in a new year, in a new season, where you have never been before. And you get to paint on this canvas, what you like. You get to paint on this canvas, what you want. You get to make some new determinations about what your life can look like, what you want it to look like now, that reflects the fullness of who you are. Not only that, I want you, I invite you to really think about reducing communication and interaction when you're in that raw phase especially. So this is a little different for those who have children together, because then you have to communicate and deal with the co-parenting. But if that is not your circumstance, sometimes people want to instantly shift into being friends. And the reality is, many of you were not friends before, so we say, "Oh, we're going to go back to being friends." Well, when were you friends? And number two, sometimes the way people have treated you or talked to you is not how a friend would. So, forget being a dating partner, have they been a good friend to you and have you been a good friend to them before we start trying to recreate this fantasy of protecting our friendship? Yes? So, cutting off or at least for a season, communication can give you time for clarity. Sometimes we are wanting people to answer questions for us, and they have not yet healed or reflected, so they don't have the answers. And I know that's really hard, especially when it's been a long-term relationship, because you want some answers. But I want you to know, often people are not in a place to engage with you in a fruitful way, and it can create more pain when people are talking out of their woundedness, out of their defensiveness, and when they have not really reflected on their actions or have not really reflected on themselves. And so, creating sacred space that can mean about, in terms of following people on social media, that can mean about, you know, not contacting them by phone, that can mean taking a break before you say, "Let's just go meet for coffee or lunch, because now we're like magically friends." For many, it's too soon. It's too soon. So, that's why it's important to cultivate your other friendships, to cultivate time with other people, and also to learn how to appreciate solitude, right, and don't constantly have to have someone in your space, but that you can come home to you, that you can come home to you, and it's not usually an easy road, right, because you're used to companionship, you're used to spending time with them, you're used to them being present, and now you get to be present with yourself, and that's not a punishment. That is not a punishment. Sometimes we think about time with ourselves as something horrible or bad. It can be good, and I know for many there is the desire for connection and for companionship, and so we are not removing that. We're just saying, "Give yourself space for the growth and the healing and the insight, so that when you do move forward, when you are ready to move forward, that you're not bringing the baggage with you." So, you can unpack it, so you can lay it down, so that you can cleanse and release them from your system. And there are ways in which we have merged with people emotionally, financially, sexually, psychologically, spiritually. And so this is really about the release on every level, the release on every level, and so emotionally, you are not, and to be honest, nor have you ever been, but especially now, you are not responsible for their emotions. So, we can let go of some people have this thing where they want the other person to think good things about them, and you're concerned about what they're going to tell other people about you, release it, release it. You don't need to convince them that you're a good person. The past is their experience, and anything you say now is not going to alter their perception of you. And so it really is about, "Is it enough if I'm okay with me, even if they think I'm a bad person, and I may have even treated them badly." Who knows? Well, you know, you were there, they know. But can I make peace with myself without trying to chase them down and convince them to see it the way I see it? Most of the time, in a breakup, you're not going to have the same narrative. Sometimes you will. Sometimes people are in agreement about what happened, and then other times people are telling drastically different stories, and sometimes not just to other people, but to themselves, because they experience it differently. And so coming to that place where I emotionally release what you think about me, I cannot remain tied up in how you feel about me, nor me needing to investigate how did you ever feel. Sometimes we get all caught up in like, "Well, I need to know if they ever loved me." That can be a conversation where you're talking in circles. So I release myself from the false obligation to determine how they feel, how they felt, what they think about me. I choose to turn inward to value, reflect, nourish myself. And the areas of myself that do need growth and do need work, that I will be accountable to myself, not because I'm trying to convince them, but because I owe it to me. And so being very mindful of the emotional release is important, and also when you're dealing with that kind of emotional entanglement where I have to stay with them, because if I don't stay, they'll be depressed. So that is bondage, right? That is bondage, where it is a psychological warfare, where if I'm making a decision not because I choose to be here, but I think I have to be here because you're going to be upset, there has to be more to the decision than that, right? So I do an emotional disentanglement, and then I do a sexual disentanglement. That includes when I said not pretending now we're going to be friends. When your emotions are tied up in a person to say now we're just going to have sex, and that's it, it's lying to yourself. So it is self deception. And being able to not only release that physical connection, but also the things that they told you or said to you, we talked before about body image. Sometimes we are walking around with other people's critiques as our script. So you look at who they're with now, and now you're making some assessment or evaluation about you, about your worth in comparison to someone else. And so letting that go emotionally, sexually, physically, let me also say financially. And so if we are no longer together, then unless we're talking about those who are divorcing, and are dealing with, you know, alimony, your child support, those kinds of things, yes. But if that is not it, if it's a breakup and you are remaining financially entangled, it is stalling your healing. It is stalling your healing. And so making some other decisions about your emotions, your body, your finances, and then let me also say your spirit. So spiritually, we deposit into each other. Spiritually, we can be merged with other people. And so I invite you at this moment, if you can put your one hand on your heart and one hand on your abdomen, on your stomach, and we're just going to reflect in on our breath, paying attention to our breathing at our own pace. And I want you to get their face, your ex's face, in your mind. I want you to see them. And you're gonna repeat these words. I release you from my emotions. I release you from my heart. I release you from my mind. I release you from my body. I release you from my spirit. And now putting one hand on your head and one hand on your heart. I want you to remove their image from your mind and picture yourself. I want you to see your own face looking back at you. And you're gonna say these words. I choose you. You are worthy of love. You are worthy of grace. You are worthy of compassion. I choose you. And now you can remove your hands. I invite your soul to tell your mind, heart, body, spirit, welcome home.