This episode discusses how a breakup can be viewed as a time of transition and an opportunity for personal growth and self-discovery. The key points are: A breakup can force you to re-examine who you are and what you want in life, as the future you had envisioned with your partner is now gone. Instead of seeing this as a crisis, it can be reframed as an invitation to figure out your true self and values. Sarah encourages journaling to reflect on what worked well in the previous relationship and what you never want to repeat, as well as what you liked and disliked about yourself in the relationship. This self-reflection can help you release what no longer serves you and realign your life to be more authentic. Sarah offers to provide coaching support for those interested in going through this transformative process.
Book a free consultation with Sarah to turn your breakup from crisis to an opportunity. https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=13002720&appointmentType=2184073
And, as I promised, the Hamlet quote is, "There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so."
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, my friends, Sarah Colonels here, your breakup bestie. And today I want to talk about the power of your breakup as a time of transition. And if you are someone who follows astrology or the moon cycles, this might feel really timely because May 12th, so yesterday when this gets posted was a full moon in Scorpio. And there's also some other stuff happening astrologically, and I am not an expert at this, I should just say I dabble in it with some curiosity about how can we use these things to our benefit. But anyway, this full moon things might've felt really intense for you. Full moons always come with some kind of intensity, but this one was really intense for bringing to light anything that maybe you were keeping in the shadows. And so I thought that felt really timely to also talk about how that's what happens after a breakup is that if we have the courage to look at things honestly, we also have the opportunity to see where were we behaving out of our own integrity.
(01:21)
Where were we repressing things that we weren't being totally honest about or we were pushing down some feelings or maybe going through your breakup, you aren't letting yourself really feel everything because it feels too scary. So that's what we're talking about today. I just finished Melinda French Gates new book the next day, and that's really what inspired me to talk about this time of transition because that book is all about transitions. That's the whole point, is that you go through something big like graduation or you have a baby or the end of your marriage or your best friend dies and you have to wake up the next day and ask yourself, now what? Just because that thing happened, my life isn't over. My life is going to keep going, and what do I do with my life now? And I wonder if that feels familiar to you at all of this feeling?
(02:26)
What do I do now? Because when you're in a relationship, part of what inherently happens is that you're also planning a future together. You are imagining what it's going to be like in a year, five years, 10 years, 30 years, who knows from now. And you have this whole sort of concept in your mind of what that's all going to look like and in what can feel like an instant that's all gone and all the of who you know yourself to be can also be gone. I was talking to somebody the other day who really identified himself in his marriage of I'm a good husband and I'm a good father. And that is all changed now after the divorce. And he has this big identity problem of who am I now? And I know so many people who can relate to that. And instead of letting that throw you into crisis mode of I don't know who I am, and that's a problem, I want us to start looking at this as I don't know who I am and it's an invitation for me to figure it out.
(03:49)
So it's just a little bit of a shift. It's like a little sidestep to the right of, it's not a problem, it's an invitation. I can figure this out. So I think about this often because we're wiping the slate clean. And it's not like you no longer are a parent if that's part of what your life experiences. It's just maybe that plays a different role in your life. Maybe it's not. Maybe you co-parent and you don't have your kids all the time. And if you don't have your kids all the time, well then who are you the rest of the time? And the thing is that so many people that I talk to don't ask themselves those questions until we go through this big moment of change.
(04:44)
I dunno about you, but for me, I was in my relationship and I was kind of just putting one foot in front of the other and going along with the flow of things and really just trying to stay tethered to that person. And because of what he had going on in his life, I was making a lot of compromises about who I was. I found myself walking on eggshells a lot and making myself really small so that I wouldn't create any kind of disruption. And I started playing smaller in most areas of my life. And even though I kept saying I wanted to build my coaching business, I felt really scared to go after it because I knew he didn't believe in my business the way that I did. And I was so scared of upsetting him and what that might mean. Would that mean the end of our relationship if I really went after this thing that he didn't actually support or believe in? And I was so scared to lose that relationship. I compromised my belief in myself and my belief in my business. And that's one example. But it happens all the time for people about, and it's in those little decisions that we make all the time, every day. And sometimes those decisions add up and it feels like you're giving away little parts of yourself so that when you get to the point of the breaking up, you don't know who you are anymore.
(06:30)
What if your breakup is your wakeup call, your wake up call to tune back into yourself and to really figure out who am I? What do I want for my life? What do I want my life to look like and how do I want to move forward? I can't remember who said this, but it's really rung true for me that nothing in our life has meaning except for the meaning that we give it. And I'm also like a Shakespeare nerd, and there's a Shakespeare quote too that I'm going to have to look up because I thought I had it at the tip of my tongue. And it's something like nothing exists except thinking makes it so. Anyway, I'm going to have to look it up and I will put it in the show notes because I thought it was right there on the tip of my tongue and it's not there. Oh, well, I'm a Shakespeare nerd light. How about that? Because I couldn't quote Hamlet off the top of my head.
(07:49)
Nothing has meaning except for the meaning that we bring to it. When people come to me asking for coaching, usually the meaning that they're bringing is something that I did too. I used to do this all the time and it created a lot of struggles with me moving on because it created a lot of sadness and depression for myself. And here's the mistake that they're making. They are making their breakup mean. I am unlovable. This breakup, this end of my relationship is proof that people always leave, that no one's going to love me. I am unlovable. And this is proof that if I were enough for someone to stay well, then I must not be enough because they didn't stay. This is a really painful way to look at a breakup because you are setting yourself up for a losing game if this is the way that you look at life. There's no possible good outcome from this. And so naturally you're going to feel pretty crappy about yourself. Your confidence is going to take a hit your self-esteem, you're going to dread dating because then you're going to create more circumstances where people reject you and leave you because that's how you're interpreting and seeing the world is through this lens of I am unlovable.
(09:18)
And I want to generalize that even a step further of it's not just a lens of I'm unlovable, it's a lens of fear. The fear being that I'm unlovable. And when we are looking at life through a lens of fear, it's like putting on rose colored glasses, but instead of rose colored glasses, it's fear colored glasses. It's sort of like darkness through fear. You can only get more fear. So I want you to think about this. If you wake up really early in the morning and it's still dark out, it's really, really dark, and you don't turn on the light and you're stumbling, you can't really see anything in front of you. Everything is shadowy and you trip, maybe you stub your toe. It's like you have to move really slow so that you don't hit anything. It feels very confusing. You feel very lost, and eventually you do adjust to that darkness so you can kind of see a little bit in the darkness and you adjust to it.
(10:26)
So that feels normal to be walking around in the dark. But then maybe somebody else wakes up in the house and they turn on the light and there's this moment of shock because your eyes had adjusted to the darkness. So maybe it even stings a little bit and you squint and you kind of have to cover your eyes as it adjusts to the light. But in the light, you can suddenly see everything. It's clear. You don't have to stumble, you don't have to bump into things, you don't have to get hurt. There's a clear path so that you don't walk into furniture and that you can get the things that you want much easier because you can see them.
(11:11)
So you can either walk around in darkness and hope that you adjust to it well enough to keep going or you can be in the light. I believe it's our job to bring lightness to dark. And in this analogy that means bringing love to fear. We don't solve fear with more fear. We solve fear by bringing more love to the situation. And what that means here is looking at how can I make this mean something useful in my life? How can I make this transition of the end of a relationship and me going into being single, even if that's not something I wanted, even if I really loved the person and I really felt that this was going to work out. The most loving possible way to look at this is to come to the acceptance of this is where I am right now and how can I make the most of this so that it serves me going forward?
(12:26)
And if you don't know how to answer that, that's okay because I do, I have some stuff for you to do. There's going to be some journaling. So get out your journal so that you can write down some of these questions. You can take some notes and we can start making the most of this together. And I think the most important thing as we go into this is to remember that we are going to be looking at this through the lens of love, which means we're going to stay open and curious. We're not going to judge yourself. We're not going to blame yourself. We're not going to get mad at ourselves, even though that might be really normal and tempting to do, and it might even be your pattern to be really hard on yourself. I know that very well because I am very hard on myself, so I invite you to maybe take that hat off.
(13:14)
You don't have to be critical right now. You have to be loving. So try putting on the hat of love as we move into turning this ending of a relationship into a transformation so that you can live a more authentic life that is true to you. And I think it's important to look at this part of your life as a wake up call because so many people tell me that they lost themself in the relationship. And if you can relate to that, I want to hear from you. I want to hear what did that look like for you? Because like I said, we make all these compromises and they're so small that they don't seem, we don't seem to notice in the moment, but one day we look at ourself in the mirror and we're like, I don't even recognize myself anymore.
(14:12)
And it takes these big moments to really shake us awake and say, wake up. It's time to realign with yourself. So I started this by talking a little bit about this astrological timing, and so it's this whole week, so you're really going to feel it. You probably would've felt it yesterday Monday, and you might feel it again this coming Saturday if you're listening to this in real time. But I do feel that this is timeless. It's just there might be some energetic stuff that's kicking up a lot of emotion for you right now. It might be kicking up a lot of stuff that feels kind of dark or heavy, and it's bringing that all up to the surface so that you have the opportunity to look at it and decide what you want to keep and what you want to get rid of. I think breakups do that too.
(15:07)
It kicks up all of these feelings, all of the sadness, all of the grief, all of those thoughts, and you get to look at them and say, what do I want to keep and what do I want to let go? So that's what this transformation is all about. You can make this mean. I am realigning my life to live the most authentic life I possibly can. How powerful is that actually to look at your breakup, not as a way to beat yourself up or as proof that you're unlovable, but this is an opportunity for me to realign the relationships in my life, the dynamics of the way I interact with people, the choices I make. I get the chance to realign things in my life so that it's more authentic and more supportive for who I want to be in this world. That's huge. I don't want to undersell this because this is really, really big. How often do we actually take a timeout for ourself to say, how do I want to be in the world and how do I want to show up maybe once a year around New Year's? We think about that stuff. So a breakup is another opportunity to realign, to reexamine what matters.
(16:36)
So I want to start this by getting really honest with looking at your relationship. And you can start really simply by looking at what was my role in the relationship dynamic? What did I like about myself in this relationship and what did I not like about myself in this relationship? And that might look like my ex-partner was really playful and funny and he had me laughing a lot and he had me behaving more playfully. And I really liked that. I really liked that dynamic and I want to keep that going. I want to keep being playful.
(17:21)
And something I didn't like was well, he partied more than I did, and that led me to partying more than I did, which meant I was often out later than I like and I was drinking more and then I was eating late at night. And so there were these unhealthy habits that all sort of stacked together that I picked up that I didn't really like the way I felt the next day. And it took me away from some of my healthier habits, like getting up early and going to the gym or eating health foods or not eating for a certain number of hours before I go to bed. So all these certain habits I can pick up again and I can let go of the unhealthy habits.
(18:10)
I also mentioned I compromised on my own belief for myself. I stopped believing that I could create a business that can help people, and I started listening to him more than I listened to myself. And that was a hard, hard lesson I had to look at and get really honest. If that's not who I want to be, I want to be somebody who shows up and who gives and who can create whatever I put my mind to. And I can create a business whether I'm helping one person or a hundred people, one person matters and that's a big deal, and I get to choose that because I don't have that extra voice in my head from him. That was, why would you bother? You're not going to get anywhere with this, right?
(19:10)
So this is your opportunity to really practice using the lens of love to look honestly at yourself and use that as information. Nothing's permanent. Just because I didn't have belief in myself back then doesn't mean I can't create that for myself. Now. I can build the belief now, just because I was picking up these unhealthy habits doesn't mean I have to have them forever. I did that for a period of time. I decided I don't like it. I have the power to change it, and this is my invitation to do that, to be really honest with myself. So here are some questions you might want to journal on. What was good about your relationship that you would want in a future relationship? So what are those good things that were great that kept you in love? And these things? Sometimes we think that it's unique to that person. It's not. You can find those qualities and those relationship dynamics in a lot of places. It's actually not about the other person at all these things. It's important for you to know because then you look for them again in other opportunities and other people that you're going to date and other relationships that you create. So you're going to journal what was good about the relationship that you would want in a future relationship.
(20:54)
Then you're going to ask, what do I never want to experience again in another relationship? You're going to ask, what did I like about myself in the relationship and what did I not like about myself? Or what did I not like about how I was playing in this relationship dynamic? Use those as journaling prompts and they're going to reveal so much to you about what you can create for your future. And you're laying the groundwork here for transformation because you can't transform what you're not aware of. So these questions are going to help bring things into your awareness so that you can create more of what you want and less of what you don't want. Because what you definitely don't want is to keep repeating the same thing over and over again if it doesn't make you happy. But you have to identify that thing, that quality, that dynamic that doesn't make me happy. You have to recognize it and be aware of it so that you see it again in the future. Otherwise, it's just going to keep repeating unconsciously.
(22:17)
And then because we're in this period of a full moon, I'm going to invite you to release all of the things that you don't want to come with you to your future life. Anything that feels heavy, maybe one of the things that feels heavy that you want to release is this fearful way of looking at your breakup. And you don't want to keep thinking that this is proof that you're unlovable. Maybe that's what you want to release and that's amazing. Or maybe you want to release some of those unhealthy dynamics like I'm never going to doubt myself again. I'm going to build strong belief in who I am as a person and how I want to be helpful in the world. Amazing. I'm going to invite you to maybe create a little ceremony for yourself of writing down the things that you want to release and burn 'em or flush them or tear them up into pieces and put 'em in the recycling bin. Find a way for you to ceremonially release it and let it go.
(23:30)
You can thank it for the lessons and bless it on its way. So this is an opportunity for you to really look at what have I been hiding from? What have I been suppressing? What have I not been willing to look at? And I'm going to ask you to have 10 seconds of courage and say, I'm going to look at it. I'm going to grab my journal and my pen, and I'm going to ask myself one of these questions and I'm going to let myself look at it with courage and with love because that's how I grow. That's how I turn this into a transformation. And I know this isn't easy. I know that this probably sounds like a lot of work, but this is work you're doing now so that you find a happier, more fulfilling relationship later.
(24:29)
We create our own closure around these things so that we don't have extra baggage coming with us into our next relationship where we sort of dump our unhealed parts of ourselves onto the next person. We learn the lessons so that we don't have to repeat them. Because once you learn the lessons, you're going to see 'em and you're not going to pick a partner that has the same things. Now, of course, you're going to learn other lessons in your future relationships. They'll just be different ones, but you won't have to relearn the same lesson over and over again.
(25:08)
So you're putting in a little bit of work now to make things flow better in the future. And if you want support, you don't have to go through this alone. I actually have availability to take on a few more individual coaching clients. And if you want someone to be with you, to be holding your hand through this to be guiding you and modeling and practicing love, because that was hard for me at first to practice holding myself in a space of love and I really leaned heavily on my coach through that, I would be happy to be the one that sees you in total love without any judgment and helping you see your blind spots and helping you do this harder work with somebody that is going to care about you through the whole process. So if that's something you're interested in exploring, I'm going to invite you to book a free consultation call with the link that will be in the show notes, and you can use that time to really, that consultation call is an opportunity for us to explore together what's keeping you stuck, what's in the way, and what is your personalized action plan on how to move forward from this and create more of what you do want and less of what you don't want.
(26:32)
That's what I use that consultation call for. So if that sounds good to you, I look forward to seeing you on my calendar. It's completely free, by the way, and there's no obligation, so why not give it a try? Alright, my friends, that brings us to the end of another episode. I'd love to hear from you what you thought. What do you think about using your breakup as an opportunity for transformation, as an invitation to understand yourself better and to get clear about what you do and don't want in the future? Find me on Instagram. I'm at Sarah KLEs again. I'll link that in the show notes. Let's connect. I want to hear from you. What did you think about this? And let's keep this conversation going. Alright, my friends, take good care of yourselves and have a good week. Bye-bye.