Let’s Talk Love Podcast Season 2 Episode #6 with Guy Winch | Transcript

22.10.20

This transcript is from the Let’s Talk Love Podcast, available in our Podcast Feed.

Robin Ducharme | Hello, and welcome to Let's Talk Love.

Today I am joined by Dr. Guy Winch. Guy is licensed psychologist, author, and keynote speaker. He has given two TED Talks: Why We All Need To Practice Emotional First Aid and How To Fix A Broken Heart. Both have been viewed over 15 million times. Guy is the best selling author of three books. Today we are talking about his excellent book How To Fix A Broken Heart. Heartbreak is a topic that is often misunderstood, and trivialized. Today's conversation offers new tools and suggestions for healing from heartbreak. I hope you get so much out of this conversation, just as I did. Enjoy.

Welcome to the let's talk love podcast where we flip the script on outdated narratives and cliches about love and relationships. I'm your host, Robin Ducharme, founder of Real Love Ready. This podcast is for anyone who wants to be better at love regardless of relationship status. We'll talk about the intimate connections in our lives. And the challenges and complexities inherent in those partnerships. Through our no holds barred interviews with global experts will gain insight about ourselves and learn new skills to improve our relationships. Because when we learn to love better, we make the world a better place. Are you ready for open and honest conversations about love? Let's get started.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to this episode of Let's Talk Love. Today, I am so excited to welcome our guest who I have been learning from for years. Guy Winch, Dr. Guy Winch. Thank you so much for joining us Guy.

Guy Winch | It's my pleasure. It really is.

Robin Ducharme | It really is a huge pleasure. And I've been listening to you and Laurie on Dear Therapist since and I still all the time, just whenever there's a new episode, I'm listening to it and learning. And I mean, I love your humor. And the work you're doing is very powerful and important. And you just have such an awesome approach. And today we're going to be talking about How To Fix A Broken Heart, your book that you wrote, and the TED talk that you have, that you gave that it's been, like millions and millions and millions of people have watched it, listened to it. So we're gonna dive into your book and all the lessons in there, because we've all experienced heartbreak more than once in our lives, most likely, right?

Guy Winch | Yes. Probably almost everyone has or knows somebody who has.

Robin | That's for sure. So thank you for thank you so much for joining me today. I really, really appreciate it.

Guy | It's really my pleasure. And I'm happy to have the discussion. And I'm happy to you know, help people get informed at least in terms of what's going on.

Robin | So the first question I always ask my guests is a personal question. What in your life is giving you the most joy right now? And what is one of the biggest challenges that you're facing in your life right now?

Guy | So you know, I'll answer. It's the same thing that's offering the joy and the challenge. Yeah. And which is specifically that for me, I'm it's personal questions on answering personally. For me, as a psychologist, I have a private practice, I was always very much tethered to a physical office. In other words I couldn't just disappear on vacation for two weeks or something or three weeks, because you know, I have a practice, I have to be there. So it was limiting and I could go, I would go away quite a bit. But I would go away and short stints now since the pandemic. And I have not yet gone back to seeing people in person that's freed me up to go and stay, you know, with my twin brother, if I wanted to go stay with him for a month or two and go travel here and travel there. And that has been a true joy, to be able to feel that I can really go and work from wherever I would want to, you know, wherever I have, or for however long I would want to add the moment. The challenge is figuring out how to you know come back to the office and at what point to come back to the office every time I think okay, I should go back to the office. I have another session with somebody who starts coughing and going, Oh, I just got COVID And I'm like, "I'm so glad I'm not back in the office." Because it would be without masks. And so you know, so that's the challenge and the joy at the moment since you've asked, it's what's going on.

Robin | You know, it's funny when I ask my guests this question. So many say that, their challenge and joy are just like almost like the same coin. It's flipped right. They're related. So it's fascinating. Yeah.

Guy | Like it's complicated in that way.

Robin | It sure is. So I have I've written down all these quotes and things that you've said that are going to be I'm quoting you throughout this interview, because there's just so many little gems of wisdom. And I know that you talk about, you say, given how ubiquitous heartbreak is, it is remarkable that we know so little about how to heal it. And like how incredibly true is that. And you also talk about, which is another truism, is that, like, heartbreak is not age dependent. It's like, we have this idea that heartbreak is somehow reserved for like a teenager that or a love struck, you know, you're in college, you have your first deep, romantic relationship. But heartbreak is just we all experience it. And it's not age dependent, right?

Guy | It's not age dependent. And it is, you know, remarkable. You know, you said the thing about, it's remarkable that it's so ubiquitous, but we know so little about it, you know, it also is remarkable that it is such a devastating experience emotionally and psychologically and I didn't learn anything about it in graduate school, there was not a mention of heartbreak as a separate entity or something that we need to, you know, be very mindful of, because it's so devastating at all ages. Indeed. So yes, that's a problem in that we, we don't take it seriously. And I consider it a form of disenfranchised grief, in the sense that we have grief responses, like we do to real grief, like losing a first degree relative, some of our responses to heartbreak aren't as severe, and we go through a real grieving process, but it's disenfranchised in that we don't take it seriously. No one's going to work, saying, Yeah, my, my girlfriend dumped me. So I need a week to cry at home. That's not a career move for most people. So so it's disenfranchised. We don't support it enough. We don't accept it enough. We don't consider it seriously enough. And it's real grief response for a lot of people.

Robin | Exactly. So this is what you do talk about in your TED Talk. And in your book, how you give an example of a man, for instance, let's let's just say he breaks up with his like his, his partner of three years. And he goes, You can't just go to your workplace and be like, well, I broke up with somebody, but then again, we should be able to do that. It's just like, this is a very big deal. I'm going through a really hard time in my life right now. But something that you do teach in your book and your TED talk is how, like, we're going through these responses, like you're not going to be able to work productively, right? Our brains are very much affected when we're going our brains and our whole emotional state is affected when we're going through heartbreak. Can you go through that? On how it affects us in so many different ways?

Guy | Yes, but so let's start here, though, what we know from functional brain scan studies, is that what the brain looks like when you're experiencing emotional pain of this kind, this kind is very similar to what the brain looks like when you're experiencing physical pain and actually significant physical pain. And we know that because literally do side by side studies in which people that you know, they use a heat and user on the forearm, they turn it up until you can't take it anymore. And then they look to see at what point in the brain does the heart does a heartbroken person does their brain look like it looks like when people go, you know I can't anymore. And it turns out, it's right towards that upper limit of tolerance. In other words, it's real, real pain, it feels like real pain. Now, if you had a really bad toothache, or a really bad stomach ache, or a really devastating migraine, good luck focusing, good luck concentrating, good luck paying attention in the meeting, pain is very, very distracting. It literally sucks our attentional resources makes it difficult to focus when you're heartbroken. That's what you're walking around with all the time. So of course, it's going to be hard to focus, of course, it's going to be hard to do your best. Of course, it's going to be hard to, you know, show up at that exact meeting. Maybe you can, like, figure it out and like take a deep breath and hold it together for a few minutes. But this is day after day all the time. So yes, I do say it's something we need to take seriously because our expectation of people that they should be able to function normally when they clearly cannot is problematic.

Robin | Yeah, it absolutely is. So one thing you did you did talk about just right now is that it's like if you're healing is similar from a physical injury versus an emotional injury. But in our society, and this is where I am seeing more and more of us focusing as a society more on mental health, thank goodness. But it's not there yet it's not even close to comparison. Right? And you, you say our bodies heal naturally and without much thought, but our emotional wounds need conscious and continuous effort, focus and control. Right. So this is what you are doing in your practice and your work is you're helping people to really I think what it comes down to it is that we need a lot more training on changing our minds training our minds to think differently, because the automatic response is not working, it's working against us when we're in heartbreak. We react completely differently. We're not it's not in our own favor.

Guy | All right now the two layers to that, firstly is the general approach that we have towards emotional pain in general, which is, you know, lift yourself up by your bootstraps and shake it off and come on man up, and all those euphemisms that we say to people about why they shouldn't express distressing emotions, which is not very useful because people have distressing emotions, whether they express them or not, doesn't mean they go away, if they don't express them, they have them, and they impact them quite significantly, but we don't have a good tolerance for that it makes us uncomfortable, we tend to think that, Oh, if somebody's talking about emotional distress, they're weak in some kind of way, when in fact, psychologically, weakness is defined by the brittleness of something by how brittle something is, and sometimes very rigid, things are brittle. So the stoics who are holding it together, when they crumble will crumble completely. And the people who can express things and let off that steam in a certain way and you know, are less likely to crumble completely at the end of it so that this formulation is incorrect at the start of it. But it's more even correct. It's more incorrect when it comes to heartbreak because not only is just waded out, not necessarily the best advice, our mind will make us do all the wrong things. Literally, we'll do the things that are worse for us. It's like if we got a cold, and we'll decide I'm going to wet my hair and go out into the freezing weather, because that'll help and it'd be like, No, that's the last thing you should do. But that's our impulse when we're heartbroken. So it's not just you have to be intentional. You have to be intentional, disengage from autopilot, and reengage in a very clear flight plan to navigate out of those waters. I'm belaboring the metaphor, but you understand what I'm saying there? Like, you really have to be very clear about the do's and don'ts when it comes to healing from heartbreak.

Robin | Yes. Okay. So I know everybody's gonna want to know, this why I really wanted to talk to you it's like, we need to know the tools, what are the tools for healing and getting through heartbreak? So you, you've got steps, which is great, which is all in your book, but I think I would love it if we could go through giving people some practical, like, what are the right things to do to get through it? So first, like one of the things you talk about, which is not, not all people are capable of no contact, but the like, when some people just like, Okay, I need to be like, it's like you need to fix. That was the only thing guy that I learned about this was sorry, I mean, I don't mean to go backward. But you do talk about how it's almost like if you are it's like you're addicted to love, you're addicted to this person, thinking, Okay, I need to fix it. So no contact is so hard for so many people when they're going through heartbreak.

Guy | It's very, very difficult. This fix thing is because again, when we look at brain studies, we see that very similar mechanisms get triggered in the brain when we are heartbroken as you see getting triggered when, let's say heroin addicts are withdrawing from opioids. Now, when heroin addicts are withdrawing from opioids, really nothing they do would surprise you like they're desperate people and they're desperate. So that's why they're acting desperate and doing things that are very much out of character for them behaving in ways that you just couldn't possibly understand. We're very much in a similar position at the beginning throes of heartbreak. And that is why you will see some people doing crazy stuff that they wouldn't do. Otherwise, literally sending 150 texts in a minute or taking a bus for seven hours to surprise the person who actually told them they don't want to see them again. And you know, doing you know, begging proud people are begging and people offering money just for a phone conversation, you know, people get desperate. And that's why their brains are withdrawing in that sense. The No Contact is this: What's your goal? To recover from heartbreak, it is minimize the amount of time you're thinking about that person, and minimize the pain that comes up when you do think about them. That's just generically, the goal. To that end, anything that makes you think about them more, should be a no, no. Anything that makes you not think about them by distraction by whatever it is, should be something to be considered. And anything that reduces the pain should be considered. But we do things that actually really increase the likelihood of us thinking about the person, the No Contact Rule, the idea is you're trying to minimize you know, then don't meet them. Because when you do, it'll bring everything back. It'll be like peeling a scab off a wound. And so that's something we will try to avoid as difficult as it is. And there's one other reason to avoid it. And I don't mean to jump forward, but since we're on there, I want to mention this. People especially have trouble with that when it comes to social media. And in this day and age. I don't know why private detectives are still in business because we don't we don't need them pretty much everyone puts everything about their life online, you don't need to hire someone to follow your ex, just look at their social media, create a fake account everyone does. But the point about that the problem with that is what you will see because of the nature of social media is very curated images and videos of them, having a good time. Being in a good place, being out with friends laughing go and you're at home, crying, you haven't changed clothes for three days you haven't eaten and they're at a party, it just feels so incredibly hurtful and cruel. How could they not care about me now, there's reasons for that. But one of them is that they started thinking about the breakup way before you heard about it, that's natural. So they're much further ahead, they did the breaking up. And it doesn't mean they don't miss you, or that they're not thinking about you or they're not concerned about you. They're not showing that in that photograph. And so everything you get is so misleading, and it's so hurtful, it's really going to set you back. And it's very tempting. So the only way to not get tempted is to unfriend, hide, block whatever you need to do, even if it's temporarily, so that you're not spending your time living through them to just see where they are when that's just reinforcing over and over again the strength of that association, that you want to diminish.

Robin | Yeah, you said you want to minimize the stage time they get in your head, just because you want to be thinking about them less and less. And by doing all of these things, that you are actually you're giving yourself that gift. Because like, like you said, right, this also includes taking their pictures, you know, taking pictures down of, of them right in your house. And those reminders.

Guy | Well, it's not just about reminders, in fact, because taking the pictures down is in part is about reminders. But in part, it's about you need to redefine yourself and your life without them. And so you need to reestablish spaces that are yours, not yours shared, not theirs. And so you want to take down a picture and put it put a picture of your dog or put a picture of a good friend, of your grandmother, whatever it is. But don't, you know don't have as it's going to be enough reminders of them around to begin with, you want to minimize them. And so don't necessarily have the gamma filters. Now, if that doesn't bother you, if you're aching, but you're not in that desperate mode, then fine, you can keep them up if that's not causing distress. But for the people who are feeling very desperate to just want that fix or just want something that's not going to help them in the initial stages.

Robin | So another thing you talk about, how we can heal ourselves from heartbreak is social support. How important social support is. And when somebody's going through emotional turmoil, a lot of us, is it not true that a lot of us tend to, I guess it depends on the person, but to isolate? And that's not like that's the opposite of what you should do. Right?

Guy | So it depends. In other words, there are some people who are not that comfortable talking about their feelings or sharing it with friends that they would rather regardless of what they're upset about, they would rather kind of like take an evening to deal and then go and then they'll call the friend they can go and watch a film with or do something with so they actually can have company but not talk about it. So social support for those people doesn't have to come in the, you know, let me gut myself and show you my broken heart and talk about it at nauseam. For those that can be I need a distraction. But that's social support, as well. That's some people for most people, they do need to talk about it, they need to get their arms around it, they need to try and understand it, they need to try and process it, they need to make sense of it in some kind of way. We do that by talking, we want the hug from the friend, we want somebody compassionate, we want somebody understanding, we want somebody who's going to validate our feelings and make us feel, you know, just supported and just validated. Like they get how distressed we are. When we're really upset about something and we can talk to someone who lets us know that they truly do get how upset we are. It's very, very, you know, it's very cathartic, we actually does ease. And so we want those people around, we want to be able to talk to them and this research is that that's very, very helpful when we're in the throes of that that that support really makes a difference in terms of how quickly we recover.

Robin | Yes. So what about so I'm going to quote this, this quote of yours about compassion, fatigue, this is something that I was like, Whoa, I've never I know that this exists and I like you can see it happening. But I like how you put it you're talking about how there's a preconceived notion we all have about when someone should be over the other person. And there is a moment when that compassion fatigue sets in. We go from being supportive to resentful in a moment. I thought that is yeah, I I can see that happening, right? You, let's say you've got a friend or family member or somebody that's been going through a breakup. And time is going times ticking on and on and on. And it doesn't seem like they're, they are recovering from this heartbreak. It seems like it's the same story being told over and over again. And you go from you, I'm there for you have to being like, You got to get over this. So it's like compassion fatigue. Right?

Guy | Yeah. Because what happens is they might three months into it, they might go back and go like, but they sent me that text message the day before. Now, they had mentioned this text message 30 times already you've been through, yes, they sent you the text message, because they weren't ready to tell you and then they were ready to tell you. They told you but the text message was the day before. So they said yes, love you. Because they weren't telling you yet not because they were in love with you the day before. And then they fell out of love with you overnight. That's we've been through it. But again, they'll say that they sent me that text message. And they'll be like, Oh, my goodness, we've been through this. Now what happens when you're a compassionate person, when you're an empathetic person, and there's somebody that you care about, that's really hurting, it distresses you, you're upset for them, you're not, you know, it's very difficult to shrug it off. And like, you know, someone you care about is really suffering. And so that it's, you know, it's difficult. So, but you're there for them, because that's the deal. That's what friendship and kindness and compassion is. You shouldn't be there from them in this moment. But there's this tacit agreement that we have, there's this tacit understanding that we have, in which we kind of assume that, yeah, I'll be here to support you, and you do your best to move forward. And that's the deal. But when you feel they're not moving forward, and you by your own very subjective, you know, timeline, even maybe unconscious, people are not even aware that that's what's going on, they just feel the thing. When you feel like oh, my god, now we're going back to three months ago, they haven't moved forward. I've given all this, I've experienced all this vicarious distress by being with them. And now we're back to where we were three months ago, like so all those conversations we had didn't matter to them or didn't count. And they were so difficult for me. That's where that resentment comes from. And there's part of it that is fair, if that's the case, and people do have to be aware that some friends might also be like, I got through my breakup way quicker. So why can't they. Like there's all kinds of things that might be going on that make people impatient, but just what you find is that that person who was so willing to embrace you, suddenly seems a little put off, or a little annoyed, because they're, they've hit that wall of compassion fatigue, and now they're just starting to feel annoyed and resentful that you're not moving on when they've done everything they should be doing. And you're not doing quote unquote, your part.

Robin | Yeah. So one of the things you do talk about is, which I think is just such a common, you see this all the time in your practice, I'm sure, but when you break up with somebody, you're one of your tools is that you have to stop idealizing the person and your relationship, you got to get more real about like this, because we all do that. We all tend to be like, you know, he or she was the best, or they were the best person ever. And they're not even remembering all of the other things that weren't all that great. So, can you like, how does our brain trick us in this way? And what can we do about that, because I love your, I love, we have to get into the list. That's such a good one Guy.

Guy | What our brain does is it kind of it's it just we tend to you know, and it's not just the images we get are these idealized images, when people sometimes in sessions will show me on their phone but look how in love we were. And they're flipping through their pictures, but they just went there was a picture with that person looking very much not in love. There's a picture of them looking furious at that person. They skipped through those quickly to get to the ones in which they happen to both look very much in love. In other words, it's a very idealized, curated version. I've had patients and I'm sure people who listening have had friends that on, you know, on one week, we're saying to them, I can't stand them anymore, I really need to break up. This is not for me, I have so many doubts in the week later, they get dumped in there, like they were the best thing ever. Where am I gonna find them again? And his friend is like, you weren't sure even wanted to be with him last week. How did they become the best thing ever now that they broke up? Well you know, I realize and that's something our mind does, we have to be aware of it. And we have to be aware that it's inaccurate. Because again, if our goal is to get over the person and to make it hurt less, the more we build them up to be the perfect the only one for us, my soulmate my one and only, that's gonna make it hurt much more. And again, it's fundamentally it's just not true. So what you need to do is to balance the idealized perceptions out with more realistic ones. And since your brain is going to provide you with the idealized version, my suggestion is make a list of all the ways in which they weren't ideal. All the ways in which they were annoying. All the qualities they had, that you weren't a fan of. All the way they were in a relationship because there's the person and the flaws they have. And there's the relationship and how they treated you in that relationship. And those flaws, make a list of all the compromises, you made, all the friends you barely saw, because they didn't really get along with a friend and the things you stopped doing, because they weren't into them. All those things to remind you that there was a lot of compromise, because there always is. There are a lot of things that you stopped doing, or people you stopped seeing as much, because there's always conflicts there. There were a lot of very difficult moments, there were a lot of things that were serially annoying to you or upsetting to you, or disappointing to you. Remind yourself of all of those make a list. And then when your mind goes to like, but they were the one and only and my soulmate, and there'll never be another. Go through your list and remind yourself as often as you need. That no, they were a regular human being ie flawed, ie they had some good, and they had some bad and the relationship had good and it had bad stop focusing on all the good.

Robin | Yes, go back to that list every time your mind tries to make everything a rosy picture, right?

Guy | Yes. And by the way, and I say that people, some people say like, but there's nothing on my list, I don't have anything. And I'm like, here's the answer, go ask your friends, there's a lot I've been dying to tell you and they haven't. They'll be very happy to help you flush out your list.

Robin | They'll help you build your list. It's all good. [laughs] So the other thing you talk about is filling the voids. Because you know I think about, a breakup can be so incredibly damaging in the fact that, you know, let's say you're married, and you've got kids, and you know, you're you were married to that person's family, just as they were married to your family, we're not just marrying one person, right. And so you've got that whole dynamic, where just like, that is heartbreaking. So you're grieving that so or like you talk about in your book, you've got clients that were just like, okay, they stopped going to all their favorite restaurants, they used to go with their partner, because, well, that's a lot of restaurants, let's just say, or so you talk about filling the voids. So can you can you talk about that please, Guy?

Guy | Yes, we lose much more than a relationship, when we use a relationship, certainly, if it's been a long term relationship, or had any kind of length and substance to it, because we're going to lose a subset of friends. For some people, they're going to lose a very big subset of friends, if not all their friends, sometimes people, you know, just go with the friends of the other person. And then when they lose that person, they lose everyone, they might have had relationships with family and extended family. So all of those people now go. So there can be huge voids socially familial wise, emotionally, but even very basic things like our self definition, you know, a lot of people in a relationship start to how was your weekend, well we did this and we went on that, we become a we in a relationship, and then you go to being an I, so even your sense of self has to shift. Weekends and for a lot of people we're like, do we have plans for the weekends, we might, we might not. But I'm not going to be by myself, I'm with my partner. So you know, like, my weekends were taken care of one way or the other. And now suddenly, this is empty 48 hours, with no one, unless you make it. Unless you make a plan, unless you do something, but you're not really going to be in the mood to do at the beginning. So you're coming home to an empty place where you were living, if you were living with someone, there's a lot of emptiness, a lot of voids, both physical, social, familial, emotional, you know, the empty drawers where they had clothes and the, you know, the spaces on the wall, but they had pictures and their food that was in the fridge because they use that milk and you use this milk. And there's all these things now that you know, this emptiness, you know, used to go to these, this was our favorite brunch place, I'm don't want to go there now because it doesn't feel comfortable. So there's so much active work that needs to be done in the rebuild. And this is why I'm saying just thinking that you just wait it out. No, there's rebuilding to be done. That doesn't, it will happen laterally, slowly, sometimes. But it just extends the pain of it, the sooner you can rebuild and feel like your life is fuller again, and that you're reconnecting with friends that you've lost touch with or making new ones or pursuing old hobbies or finding new ones or finding, you know, you know, reconnecting to family members of your own that maybe went by the wayside because you always went to their place to the holidays. And all of that has to be very thoughtful, and very intentional. But when you do it, and by the way, of course, it's difficult to do because you're hurting and you'd rather just be in denial and hope they come back and all of that. But when you get around to the rebuilding, you can really see progress in your recovery, because you're actually doing the things that you need to make your life feel meaningful and full again, even if it'll take a while for that meaningful and full feeling to happen.

Robin | Yes, I really liked that. So you're talking about this is I think, very important and most people when youwhen they're broken up with is understanding the why I need to know why. But you say this is this is good because you say all breakups are practically blindsides. So, unless you've really been, you know, you've been have a lot of problems for a long time, but you've been talking about it over and over again, it's finally I can't do this. Well, that's probably it is, that happens a lot. But you say people don't typically break up over cornflakes in the morning. Right. And they've been thinking about it for a while and planning it. And I saw this video that you had you said something in the journey interview, that 99% of why breakups happen, are the most common ways that people break up. Can we talk about that Guy, please? Before we talk about getting closure about the why?

Guy | Yes. So first of all, you know, we tend to want to make sense of our experiences as people that's, that's an impulse we have to understand. So certainly, when something's very dramatic and very traumatic, we want to understand what happened. It's a fair question. Here's why it's not a good question. Number one, yes, there's some times that a couple will get into a big fight, and in that fight will say, you know what, we're done. But that's not usually how it happens. And even when you're talking about breaking up, the moment that happens, the moment the person decides to do it again, it usually requires some planning. It's very impulsive to say it and like, Well, wait, where am I going to stay tonight, and people think it through, they figure it out, they start doing like taking you know, some clothes aside and putting them at a friend's place to squirrel away so that first night, they can go and have somewhere to be like people actually do put quite a bit of thought into it, and often quite a bit of consideration for the other person about the timing. But that's why it'll seem like a Blindside. Because they'll announce it when it's when they decided to announce it not when, you know. And that will always seem a little bit unnatural for most cases. Some people say to me, like I want to, I want to have another conversation. I want to ask them, I want them to tell me why they broke up with me. And I'm like, oh, no, no, no, God forbid, they actually tell you, because what they're gonna tell you is the stuff that actually wasn't the reason they're gonna start naming all their pet peeves, and everything they didn't like. And that's never the reason because you've had those all along. The reasons are, and here's why they're so not sexy. Because they are boring. They're like, the person never really fully committed, the person drifted emotionally over time, and didn't tell you till there was a big disconnect. The person wasn't investing in the relationship and that made them vulnerable to invest in another person outside the relationship because they weren't investing in the relationship. The person just felt like their feelings weren't growing, or that they're having a fine time, but it's not going to go there fully. And so why keep wasting time like I like you, I can spend a lot of time with you. But you're not the one I want to spend the rest of my life with. So, you know, it's arbitrary, but let's just break up at this time. In other words, it's all those things, but it just feels so unsatisfying, because when you hurt that much, your mind is telling you, there's got to be a very big reason for that. It's got to be a big wow, that when you hear it, you'll go Oh, wow. And even when you do hear it, it's never a wow, it's more like a because there's nothing you can do about the emotional drifted or never fully committed or fell out of love, or like, it's just not, you know, right. And so and so most people won't convey that they won't even necessarily even know, they'll just know, they're not feeling it. So this, this exploration can take us, you know, through all, down all these rabbit holes, which again, is more time spent thinking about them, giving them more space in our mind when we're trying to do the opposite.

Robin | Exactly. So what you do suggest people do if they if they're just not accepting, and that's the thing you talk about in the book about you give an example of a client who they went on a weekend together. And she was convinced that the reason he broke up with her during the vacation, or maybe where they got home, I can't remember was because she had done something wrong on the vacation. And he's like, No, nothing happened. Like I just I have to be done with this relationship. Whatever his reason was, I fell out of love, or I'm not in love with you. That was what he said to her. But she couldn't accept it. She could not accept it. She wanted a bigger reason she wanted something else to explain, but she's probably never gonna get that. And so what do you suggest in that case? It's like you say, you have to decide on your own reason. And then you have to move on. Like, it's like you have to have some sort of closure in your own mind.

Guy | Yeah, you need to like in that case, specifically, and I talked about that I think in the book, I don't talk about that breakup in the TED Talk, but it's in the book. And in that case, my best understanding was, he didn't fully feel in love. He was planning to break up they had that weekend plan. He didn't want to not do it before the weekend. So they went on the weekend, he waited a few days. And he did it then just strategically but he, he liked her a lot he clearly cared about, he just didn't cross that threshold, you know. But for her she thought he was gonna propose on that weekend. And so for her, it was like she was building up. She was like, seeing all the good stuff. And then that came such a devastating, she was sure something must have happened. And every time he was telling him, no, but she was sure. And she spent so much time unnecessarily coming up with all these conspiracy theories and ideas, and maybe this and maybe that and what's he not telling me, it's like, nothing. It's just there's nothing there. Except he didn't feel it. And he and, and, and then you look at the behavior, was that consistent with his behavior? Was he generally a kind person? Was he generally a good? Yes, you know, he wasn't a, you know, an unpleasant person. He was he did care for her. He did love her that's why the behavior was like that. But, you know, it went up, and then it plateaued. And it didn't quite get to that point where he felt this is it. And that's why he broke up. And for her that was so difficult to accept, because she had crossed that threshold. She thought he had, but he hadn't.

Robin | And so. So in her case, she had to learn to actually have her own, she decided on a reason for her own self. Right?

Guy | Right. So the suggestion I made to her and this the suggestion I make the most people is it by the way if somebody says to you, I just fell out of love. That's it. Then that's it. Sorry. But that is it. Accept it. If somebody says, you know, that version of it's not you, it's me, by all means, consider it them. Because that's more likely, they're not just sparing your feelings. If it came out of the blue and you didn't get it, it is probably them. Or if a lot of time the relationship was very conflictual, you were fighting a lot you were this and that. And then they said, I don't know, da da da. And like, we weren't getting along that well. It was a conflictual relationship. We didn't manage it. Well, we weren't able to fix it. There's the issue. So that's the thing to, you know, to keep in mind and say to yourself, like, yeah, maybe they're just never committed, maybe they just fell out of love. Maybe they emotionally drifted. And they didn't tell me and I didn't realize. It's unfortunate, it's painful. It doesn't take away the pain of it. It doesn't mean that you're not really, really hurting. But it just means that there's not unusual, incredible reason for it.

Robin | Right? Can you please tell us about complicated grief? What is that? And how does that show up?

Guy | So complicated grief and grief in general, is that we expect people to, you know, depending on the loss that you experience, you know, the general milestones of grief and to go through it, but we expect within six months, you know, plus a year etc, that people will start to move past the initial stages of grief, will be able to start to move on ie. start to rebuild, reconstitute their lives. This is about grief and loss, whether it's a heartbreak, whether it's a relative, a spouse, whatever. And with some people who don't see that moving on, you see them still very much actively grieving. Grief, true grief never really goes away. It turns into $1 ache that we carry with us and we go on despite it etc. But you see them they're not going on despite it. They're carrying it with them very much in very clear ways. And that's when we consider the grief to be complicated, because it's not, it's not getting better in ways that it should. And we see that with heartbreak when people are you know, two years later, they still haven't dated they don't feel ready. They don't you know, they're still lamenting and even if they're not regaling the friends with the same sagas all the time, they're just not back. And, and that's a problem. If it's like, a lot of time has passed, and you're not seeing a steady progression. I don't mean day to day, but over time, then it might be a sign that you need to speak with someone because you're not moving forward sufficient.

Robin | Yes. There was a community question about this. And the community question is, what is the solution for someone in your life who has been heartbroken for 25 years, and still speaks negatively about that person? What is that? Is that heartbreak unresolved? And how do I help this person in my life? Maybe it isn't, they need to, they really do need to have, obviously they need to work with somebody like you that would right? That would help them through this if it's been 25 years.

Guy | So I don't, I don't want to presume that from that little bit of information. I can say that somebody has complicated grief or something like that. But if and some people still say no, I'm still heartbroken and what they mean by that is I still feel an ache when I think about it. But the question is, if it's complicated grief, it's not just that they're heartbroken, but that heartbreak is still impacting their lives in specific ways. 25 years later, there are still things they do or don't do, that person is still in their head on a very regular basis when they obviously should not be at that time, and if they still speak, again, anger depends on the anger, if it's passionate anger, that's always something we associate with something that's more recent and more current and more alive in that way. So if they get passionately angry about the person so many years later, yes, there's ways in which they haven't fully healed potentially. And, and, and that they might need to address it. Because you know, it's not as if somebody says it's been 25 years, it still hurts to think about, but I don't think about it a lot. And I have been able to move on and I have been in another other relationships, and that's fine. That's different than I'm still heartbroken and it's really still impairing my functioning and my happiness in substantial ways. That's a problem.

Robin |Yes. So, obviously a very important step to helping yourself through heartbreak is you need to be willing to let go at the end of the day that is so very important. Right? So what are ways that people can let go?

Guy | Look, it's, some people said, No, I've let go. And then when I talk to them, I'm like, no, you haven't. And I know you haven't because you're really just biding time playing for time thinking, maybe they'll have come to, you know, the moment where they realize they made a mistake, or you're not really you're going on dates, but not really going on dates. So, you're not really open to actually meeting someone. You haven't changed your status on social media. So don't know what that's about, you know, like that? Certainly. So letting go is accepting the result. And that's what a lot of people struggle with. And if you ask them, do you accept it as over they'll have a really hard time saying yes because they don't want to. And so they'll say, Well, yeah, but like, no, no, not but. Do you accept that this will not happen now, and in the future, because the idea of it's over, is not oh, maybe one day, maybe in two years, maybe in six months, the assumption is no. Never. That's what Olga means it's done with this person. And that's very difficult, sometimes people to endorse, but it's a decision, you have to kind of make at some point, you have to realize that you are suffering, and you're extending your suffering by not coming to that reality. Yes. And unfortunately, a lot of people when they do the breaking up in order to not hurt the person, or they think they're doing them a favor. They'll add qualifiers that give people hope, in that sense. And they'll say things like, I don't know, it's not the right time for me, but maybe if we met in five years, who knows, and that person is like, I can wait five years. In their head. And but they'll say to me in a session, like, you know, but five years, you know, I can date people, but I'm just like, like, you don't want to be walking around available for this person who didn't want you for five years, you don't want to do that for five months, or five weeks, even.

Robin | That's right.

Guy | And so and so you really have to be compassionate to yourself and do the right thing for yourself and understand that all you're avoiding, by not letting go is that you know that there'll be a spike in grief when you do. But it's spike it goes up and it goes down sharply, that spike, you'll be able to then come back to where you are now, but in a healthier way. But that spike is scaring you that truly coming to terms with it's never I've lost this person forever. It's scary. And that's what holds people back. But they, you really need to get over that because that fear is causing you a lot of pain and extending something that really shouldn't be extended, and causing a lot of suffering you don't need to have.

Robin | Yeah. So you talk about rebuilding our self esteem, through self compassion, you say the worst thing we can do is internalize and become self critical. Right? So the opposite of being self critical is self compassion. Can you tell us about like ways that somebody can practice this daily because you talk about mindful meditation, a lot of beautiful ways that we can start, we have to start thinking in different ways rather than being so self critical.

Guy | Right. It's very natural to become so critical a breakup and especially even after a minor rejection because when our feelings get hurt, again in our efforts to understand what happened we will start to review all our faults and shortcomings surely the answers there surely I was not enough of this too much of that or whatever it was. So it's a very natural thing to do. It's unfortunate because it's literally kicking yourself esteem when you're down it's literally like taking a knife to a wound to deepening it it's like it's just the wrong thing to do but it's very you know that that negative punitive self talk I'm such a loser, I'm an idiot, I'm ugly. It's like all the people just say horrific things. for themselves, self compassion is the opposite of that. Self compassion is what you would say to somebody who really cared about who was in your situation. So the exercise to practice of compassion, just the basic exercise, is to imagine that your very dear friend, sibling, someone you truly care about, was in the exact situation that you're in and saying to themselves and aloud to you the very horrible things you were saying to yourself, in your own head, what would you say to them? And you would probably say to them things like, look, no, it's not you, they told you that it was them. And you tried really hard here. And I know, it's incredibly painful. But what you need now is to remind yourself of all the wonderful qualities you have, that somebody else will appreciate once you get over this. And you're so great in this way, and you're kind in that way. And it's okay to feel like, crap now. It's fine, that happens. But, you know, you deserve hugs, not barks. You know, like you, that's what you would say to a friend, you would really like you would not tolerate their stream of, you know, put downs and negative and self hate you, you wouldn't, it would be hard, you would be like, no, no, no, and you would correct it. And that's what you need to do for yourself, you need to visualize that, externalize that, and then restate that to yourself, and it's going to feel hokey to do it, it's going to feel really weird when you're inside and your head is telling you I'm a loser, I'm an idiot, I'm not this, I'm not that, to actually pause that and go, You know what, no, I have so much going for me, and there's so much I have to offer and it will feel like, just roll your eyes, I Don't roll your eyes. But say that to yourself, because the research is incredibly clear that self-compassion will help you heal much more quickly. Self Compassion will absolutely help you move forward. And it really is the best tonic that you can have. And, it's what you deserve. And it's what you would give a friend. Unfortunately, we tend to treat our friends much nicer than we treat ourselves a lot of the time. But, that's the best thing. And there are forms of meditation that involves self-compassion, mindfulness meditation does. And that's a wonderful thing as well. But even if you're not meditating, just to have that orientation of I deserve sympathy, I deserve compassion. I deserve, you know, to be loving towards myself, rather than savaging myself is very important.

Robin | Yeah. So we have another community question. The question is, I have a very close friend, that is currently going through a lot of heartbreak, her marriage of our 15 years is over, she and her children are staying in the family home, and her ex has moved out. She's spending a lot of time at home on her own, when she's not with her children, how she's supposed to start to heal while she's surrounded by the environment and the life they shared together and also co parent, as a close friend, what advice can I give her.

Guy | So it's very difficult when you get divorced, and you have kids and there's there is no option for no contact rule you have to co parent. But a couple of things you can say, and I don't know how, you know, I mean, if this is very, very recent, then you just stay with support and compassion, the beginning sounded a little less recent, somehow there was a flavor I got. You want to, you can help A by being supportive. And by being understanding, you can help by being practical also and saying, Look, do you have to do the handoff and you always feel crappy after you give the handoff? So I'll be ready on the phone. So just call me the minute you hand it off, and feel free to vent and you know, etc. And I'll be there for you, you can strategically kind of do these things. But you can also remind your friend, that there's a rebuilding that needs to be done. And part of the rebuilding is really transitioning your thinking of this person from you know, and it's gonna take time, but just having the orientation that you need to start thinking of them not as a loved one, not as a family member. But as a co parent, a co parent, ie business partner for the business of raising children, it's a much more distant relationship, it should be a much more transactional relationship, you know, and that you want to try and get in a groove in which you can do that well for your children. And so the more you can get yourself into that mindset of this person is no longer to support of my love and my feeling attracted and my feeling needed and my feeling appreciated. They no longer have to offer that to me. They no longer want to and I have to find that elsewhere. But what they do need to offer me is cooperation, participation, partnering when it comes to dealing with our kids in the best way possible for our kids. So sometimes when you have that mindset It helps you orient a little bit towards how you need to shift your perception of the ex, but because they're going to be around a lot because you can't get away from them, then you do need to do a lot of rebuilding of the other areas of your life because that's your break. You know, if you share custody in any kind of way, every time the kids are not with you, you get to be a single person, again, which you hadn't been for 15 years. And to try and reconnect to the I can go out with my single friends, I can go out, you know, I can flirt with people in a bar or in a club, or I can do this or I can join a book group or I can like whatever it is, I can put myself out there in ways that I couldn't. And you know, there's this thing about custody, that you feel terrible that you don't have your kids when you don't have them. But there's a lot of freedom that comes with those moments where you don't, which you would never have had had you not separated. So, you know, to try and in time, take advantage of the freedom that came with that breakup, so that you can really explore things and get back to yourself in serious ways.

Robin | Yeah. Well, I really love that you said that word rebuilding throughout this interview. And I think that is so important. Because heartbreak can be so devastating. It is for many people. But once you like if you can employ all these things that we've just been talking about, that you teach, around, healing yourself and changing your mind and taking, it's like a proactive approach. Time does heal. However, when you're proactive, you can speed the healing process along. And that's what that's really what you're teaching, right Guy?

Guy | You can't speed it, but you can make it more thorough, like I said, sometimes a lot of people will kind of in time move on, but they didn't really rebuild. They didn't reconstitute from the inside, they didn't get in touch with who am I now. And who do I want to be? And I have to answer questions. And they rushed through it. Some people I know were with somebody for 20 years and try to go back to exactly the lives they had 20 years ago. And I'm like you changed over 20 years should have certainly and so just why don't take the time to ask yourself these questions before you answer them with answers that a 20 years out of date? So we have to be patient. But it's a process. But the rebuilding needs to happen from the inside and from the outside. And every possible way.

Robin | Yeah. So we have to we're coming to a close here. But something I was I was reminded of when we were just talking, we've been talking. Dr. John Gray said to me a few weeks ago, he was talking about how when his wife passed away, and how incredibly devastating that was and how his heart broke, of course, it broke. And he said now that he has he was very proactive through his healing process. And he says, you know, he is with a new partner. Now he's very happy. He's always going to have, you know, so much love for his wife that passed. But what he said, which I thought was so profound, is that is he feels that his heart, even though it broke, now it's it's healed, and it's bigger. Have you had that experience with your clients that you've worked with? Like you can go through something so heartbreaking. And at the end of it, once you're healed, you feel like actually, you're stronger, you're better, you've got a bigger heart. Have you heard that before?

Guy | I've heard it many times, I look for reasons. I mean, there's all kinds of different reasons. One of them might be that a lot of people make compromises that diminish them in a relationship. And I've been fully aware of how much they diminish them. But then suddenly, when they're not with that person and emancipated and rebuilt, they suddenly realize there's a lot of aspects of me that I was not bringing forth and that I was not living. And now I'm living a much fuller life that's much more authentic, to who I am much more satisfying because of it. So there are different reasons, but there are all kinds of reasons that can happen. We know from trauma that people can reconstitute in a way that we consider post-traumatic growth, in other words, they can actually grow by finding meaning, by finding purpose, by identifying things about themselves by accepting the resilience that they have recognizing their strengths. So there's all kinds of when we go through something. We can always come out the other side stronger if we try to go about it wisely.

Robin | Yes. Wow. Well, I recommend everybody read your book. I loved it. And your TED Talk, all your TED Talks, your TED talks are fantastic. And you're so funny. I didn't realize that you were a comedian before. Before your life as a doctor, is that right?

Guy | I wouldn't call myself a comedian. I wasn't fully a comedian. I did. I did dabble in stand-up for a few years. So there were a few years where I was definitely going out regularly to do stand up. But I wouldn't classify myself as crossing that threshold. And I did it while I had a practice. And so that was on the side.

Robin | Oh, that's so great. Well, you have a fascinating, fascinating story. And I love what you talked about your twin brother. And you know, there's so many really, really good stories you share about your work as a doctor and you're just doing such great work in the world. And so I really thank you for sharing your wisdom and for being with us today. Thank you.

Guy | Thank you very much for having me. It's been a pleasure.

Robin | Please visit realloveready.com to become a member of our community. Submit your relationship questions for our podcast experts. At reallovereadypodcast@gmail.com We read everything you send. Be sure to rate and review this podcast. Your feedback helps us get you the relationship advice and guidance you need. The Real Love Ready Podcast is recorded and edited by Maia Anstey. Transcriptions by otter.ai and edited by Maia Anstey. We at Real Love Ready, acknowledge and express gratitude for the Coast Salish people, the stewards of the land on which we work and play, and encourage everyone listening to take a moment to acknowledge and express gratitude for those that have stewarded and continue to steward the land that you live on as well.

Transcription by https://otter.ai & edited by Maia Anstey