What if the breakup that shattered your heart was actually revealing a much older wound?
In this deeply personal episode, Sarah shares the story behind how she became a breakup coach—and the unexpected journey that began after one of the most devastating heartbreaks of her life. What started as the end of a relationship led her to uncover a lifelong abandonment wound, explore how past experiences shape our relationships, and ultimately learn that healing isn't about getting someone else to stay—it's about learning not to abandon yourself.
If you've ever struggled with rejection, people-pleasing, losing yourself in relationships, or feeling like you're "too much" or "not enough," this episode will help you understand why—and show you a different path forward. This is a story about heartbreak, belonging, self-discovery, and the moment everything changed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Have you gone through a breakup and you're tired of feeling low, lonely or lost? I've got a pep talk through you. I'm Sarah Kernows, your breakup bestie. I'm a certified life coach with years of coaching experience helping people just like you turn your breakup into the best thing that ever happened to them. Each week, tune in to get a pep talk to heal your heart, let go of the past, reclaim your power and get back into your main character energy. Your breakup may have shattered your world as you know it, but together let's build a new better world. Let's go.
(00:43)
Hi there friends. I have a different kind of episode for you today. I recently participated in a summit where we got to share the parts of our story that aren't perfect, where we got to share how we came through the thick of something really hard. I shared a really vulnerable part of my story. This is very personal and it's not something I'm sharing because I have it all figured out or because I'm proud of every part of it. I'm sharing because I believe that healing happens when we're willing to tell the truth about our experiences. And so often what we hear are the polished perfect parts of somebody's story. The lessons that they learned and how they got over it and they're perfectly on the other side of things of the transformation. But the messy middle really matters too. The heartbreak, the confusion, the moments where we don't know what comes next.
(01:44)
Those experiences are all a part of being human. And I'm sharing this story because if you've ever felt stuck, ashamed, heartbroken, or like you're the only one struggling, I want you to know you're not alone. And because sometimes hearing someone else's story gives us permission to tell the truth about our own. My hope is that something in the story helps you feel a little bit more seen or understood or maybe even a little hopeful about what's possible for you. So thank you for being here and thank you for letting me share this part of my journey with you. I hope you enjoy this really different episode.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Welcome to Rewritten: Reclaiming Your Story, Reframing Your Life. Today we'll take you on a collective journey of transformation. As you listen to each of our 25 speakers share the raw and vulnerable moments that changed everything. You just may see a reflection of your own story in theirs. We encourage you to listen, reflect and connect so you too can reclaim your story and reframe your next chapter. We're truly grateful to have you with us in this space.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
When you have a job title like A Breakup Coach, a lot of people ask you, "How did you get started in that? How does somebody become a breakup coach? Well, I'm going to tell you my story. I'm going to tell you of how that happened, how I was able to heal my abandonment wound from one of the greatest heartbreaks of my life and why I'm so passionate about helping other people to do the same. I want to tell you about a particular day in October in Baltimore where I'm from. It was a gray Sunday. I ran a half marathon the day before and my partner at the time had decorated our apartment with balloons and streamers to celebrate my accomplishment because he was so proud of me and I was proud of me. But on that Sunday I felt pretty alone and he had just gone to a football game.
(04:05)
He was going to watch a football game except the game had ended hours ago and he hadn't come home yet and I knew that something was wrong. I knew something big was coming. And when he walked in the door just from the expression on his face, I knew what he was going to say. So he sat down side by side on the couch. He held my hand and he said, Sarah, I love you, but I don't see a life with you anymore.
(04:38)
And I was shattered. I had built my whole life around this person and our relationship, not just my whole life, but my whole future. Yes, we were planning on getting married and buying a house and having kids, but we even talked about being 80 years old, sitting on our front porch, holding hands, sitting in rocking chairs, watching our grandkids play in the yard. I had a whole life mapped out with him and in the matter of a single sentence that was all gone. And I didn't just lose my partner. I didn't just lose the apartment where I was living. I didn't just lose my future. I felt like I also lost my identity and my sense of who I am because what I realized was I really had built my whole life, including how I see myself around this person.
(05:45)
He was uncomfortable with taking big financial risks. So I had actually given up my dream of having my own business and being a life coach. I put it on the back burner and I focused on my steady but stressful day job. He didn't really like traveling so we did the traditional one vacation a year. He wasn't really into health and fitness. So even though I had run a half marathon, it really felt like an endeavor I was doing on my own instead of sharing it, sharing this big part of my life with somebody. And I'm not to say that I'm perfect here. He gave some big compromises for me too. And I think we both lost ourself in that relationship. As I see it happens for a lot of people, it's a common thing that happens. But in the wake of our breakup conversation, I realized I had a choice to make.
(06:45)
It was very much like that poem, the Robert Frost poem of Two Roads Diverged in the Woods. I had one very well trodden path. The path I'd gone down after every breakup I'd had before that and I knew on that path what it was going to look like. I knew it meant months of crying, months of being unfocused at work and not able to really hear a word that anybody was saying because in the back of my head, all I was doing was replaying conversations of, "Oh, how could I have said that one thing differently in that one fight? If I could have been just a little bit different, a little bit better, could I have avoided all of this? " And I knew that on that path months down the line, I would still be devastated and heartbroken and still obsessively thinking about him to the point where I would start to convince myself, if I'm this upset months later, maybe we're meant to be.
(07:48)
Maybe I should get back with him. And I knew that I would try to get back with him and here we would be in this cycle all over again of get back together and break up and get back together and break up. I could look down that path and I knew exactly where it was going to go because I had walked it.
(08:06)
And so I decided to look down the other path just like in the poem and I didn't know what that path was. That path was not at all to be seen. There was barely a path there and I thought, "I don't know what that path is, but I know what's on path A. I don't want that anymore. I'm just going to figure out path B and I'll just figure it out as I go. It's got to be better than what I've been doing because what I've been doing doesn't work. It leads me to feel terrible about myself. It has me feeling broken and that I failed and that there's something inherently wrong with me. " And so I picked path two without even knowing what it was. I was like, "I'll just make this up as I go. " And so I decided to play a game of opposites and I said, "I'm just going to do the opposite of everything I've done in the past.
(09:12)
If I called myself a failure, what if I'm a success? How could it be true that maybe this ending of this relationship, maybe this is a success story, not a failure story? If I was going to take all the blame on the first path, what if I didn't take any of the blame? What if nobody is to blame? How could that be true?" And so I really started playing with what were all of the areas where I was making myself feel small or insignificant or like a failure. And I just started playing with what's the opposite here. How do I start figuring this out? And it was a lot of mistakes, a lot of missteps, but oh my God, it was so much more fun. I took myself to Cuba and I went dancing and I saw art and I went and I joined a women's group where we practiced embodiment.
(10:16)
I got a therapist I got a life coach. I tried all the things and even though it was difficult, I really started to feel like I was making some progress and I was really starting to feel better about myself. I remember it was, I don't know, six, seven, eight weeks after the breakup. I remember specifically waking up and having that feeling of like, "I don't feel like wearing the sweatshirt and jeans to work today. I'm going to get dressed." You know what I mean when you have those days where you're like, "I'm going to look good today for no reason other than the fact that I want to. " It was one of those days and I decided I'm just going to dress for myself. I'm going to dress to feel good and that's what I did. I remember walking into work that day and one of my coworkers just lit up with a smile and she was like, "Wow, Sarah, you look great today." And that meant the world to me.
(11:18)
It was a little bit more momentum of I'm on the right path. I'm figuring this out little by little. Even though it's not easy and I'm still crying all the time and I'm still healing and I still feel very raw, this feels better than the ways I've done this in the past. So I keep going down this path. I keep walking, I keep doing my embodiment, I'm crying. I actually set a calendar appointment every day for five minutes in the shower to let myself cry because it's important to let yourself feel what's present and let it out. And I remember booking a massage. I think this was about four months after the breakup. My regular massage therapist was booked and so I booked somebody else in his practice and I'd never seen this woman before, but I thought, "Hey, I like my massage therapist. She can't be that bad if they're in the same practice." And she walks in and she's an older woman from Japan and somehow I immediately felt comfortable enough to start talking to her openly the way that you do with great practitioners.
(12:25)
I mean, it's already such an intimate service and I started sharing things and I can't remember who opened up about it first, but I told her I'm adopted and she said she has six adopted children. So we started talking about adoption and what that's like and our experiences with it and my adoption, I have a very happy story and at some point she pushes some muscles around my hip and she goes, "Oh, you have a lot of unfelt grief." And I said, "How is that possible? I've been crying for months. I'm feeling my feelings. I'm doing the work. I'm in therapy. I'm in coaching." "What do you mean I have unfelt grief? That can't be possible. "And she said," Your body holds onto this stuff and this feels really old.
(13:21)
"And you know when people say words sometimes that don't logically make sense, like, " I don't know what that means. What does that mean, that grief is old and that my body is holding onto it? What does that even mean? "My mind didn't understand it, but my body registered it as truth. Something in my body felt like it clicked in like, " Oh yeah, I have a lot of unfelt grief. "And so I started to get curious about that, started to get curious about where are the places where I haven't fully grieved and what kept coming up for me was my adoption.
(14:13)
Like I said, this didn't make any logical sense because I had a great story. I had a wonderful family. I had parents who loved me. I grew up with a sister that we were close. I had a great childhood, I had good friends. The worst thing that happened to me, my father did pass away when I was a teenager and I'd done a lot of work on that. Let me tell you, I've talked about that a lot in my therapy and so maybe there was a little bit of unfelt grief around that, but really I had to look at my adoption story.
(14:53)
And so I remember the conversation I had with my therapist one day of, can you do EMDR on something you can't remember? An EMDR is a therapy that gets used a lot for trauma and we had done a few sessions on that and she said," Absolutely. "She said," Sometimes the story that's in your head isn't a conscious memory, but it's still something in there and we can still work with that. "And what we opened up was a whole portal for me of unfelt grief and untapped personal power. So like I said, I didn't really understand this because I thought I had a great story. I even know the conditions of my adoption. I had a wonderful biological mother. We're friends now, but at the time she didn't feel prepared to step into the role of being a mother. I wasn't planned. I was a surprise.
(16:00)
She made a very difficult decision, but she chose to option, deciding that was the most loving step and the way that it went was she was with me for three days in the hospital and then as per state laws, I went into foster care for six weeks. I had a very loving foster family. I actually have notes that they wrote about what a happy baby I was and how much I enjoyed bath time and even though I had jaundice and I still had to go, I had to have all these checkups, I was still a very happy baby. So I even had this amazing foster experience. So I'm in foster care for six weeks and then I'm with my forever family. I was adopted at six weeks old into my permanent home with the people that I call my parents who loved me and wanted me very, very much so much so that my mom had a plaque over my bed.
(16:58)
It was called the adoptees creed that said, You may not have grown under my heart but you grew in it. Beautiful, right? However, the more research I started to do about the effects that this can have on babies and unconscious memories and how emotions get stored in the body, what I started to find was that babies can recognize their mother before they can even actually see clearly. The mother and the baby bond is incredibly strong and it starts before birth. So the baby is conscious to what the mother is experiencing. So think about a mom making a tough decision like finding out she's pregnant, deciding I'm going to place my baby with strangers. Think of how much uncertainty, anxiety, how much back and forth she was dealing with all of the conversations of people doubting her. Well, as a baby, I absorb all of that.
(18:00)
I can hear all of that. And then what I started to find was how important it is for babies to have consistent care. Their greatest fear is death. We all are born with two natural fears, loud noises and falling because we're afraid of death. As a baby, you can't take care of yourself so you have to have a strong bond. And for what my story was, I was with my mother for three days in a hospital and then I'm in a stranger's home for six weeks where I have jaundice and then after that, I have another set of strangers taking care of me. This is incredibly traumatic even though we can't consciously remember things before the age of three, these experiences get stored in your body subconsciously and that's what I was dealing with. I was up against the mother of all abandonment wounds. It was pretty much almost like textbook definition.
(19:16)
When we look at what an abandonment wound is, really it's an expression, it's a deep insecurity of being rejected or left.
(19:29)
I very much was abandoned. That's one way to tell the adoptee story is an abandonment, even though it was done with love, even though it was the best choice possible, even though I had a happy childhood at the core, there is a leaving, there is a separation that creates a wound in the adoptee, in me. And what I had to do was I had to start looking at, how was this showing up in my life? How was I acting out of my abandonment wound in all my relationships? And that took a lot of courage. And what I found was I had felt like an outsider for most of my life and the way that I dealt with it was I pretended to be the person I thought everybody wanted me to be. If I could be the perfect girlfriend, then he'll never leave me. If I behave the way I think he wants me to, he's going to stay.
(20:32)
I thought if I could give up the parts of me that I was ashamed of and I could adapt to the person in front of me, I could guarante that I could heal that abandonment wound and nobody would ever leave. That's what I thought was going to work. And I had evidence after evidence after evidence of trying that strategy and something always felt off. There was something that just wasn't connecting between me and the person in front of me because I wasn't fully showing up, I was performing.
(20:59)
And so all of this was coming together around my 40th birthday. It was also the end of this embodiment group that I had been working on with these women for six months of practicing our feelings and moving through difficult situations and using our bodies as a way to process the world. And it was an incredibly supportive group and I decided, you know what? What if I start to heal my abandonment wound in a really safe place with these women and if I never want to see them again, I don't have to. So if I mess up, it's okay. And what I found as I was going into this, I was like, "What would be the opposite of abandonment or what would be the opposite of loneliness?" And it's not connection, it's not being with other people, it's actually belonging. So a sense of belonging is the opposite of loneliness and abandonment.
(21:52)
And I thought, how can I celebrate my 40th birthday, a momentous birthday and a spirit of belonging? And so I made a big deal of my birthday. I told everybody and I let them show up for me. I let them celebrate me. I had one woman made me a flower crown. I had six women come with me to the beach to come for sunrise and watch the sunrise over the ocean. They sang me happy birthday three times that day at every meal. Five women fed me birthday cake. One woman had the staff running within 30 miles of the resort in Mexico trying to get me a pie because I eat pie on my birthday every year and pie's not a thing in Mexico. So this was an ordeal, but she got it. She got a pie and I had my roommate had chocolate covered strawberries delivered to the room for me to close out the day in a really lovely way and I let myself be healed.
(22:45)
I let myself be messy. I let myself be scared. I let them see my heartbreak, my mess, all of it. And I remember looking into their eyes and seeing nothing but love and that was the moment I was healed, not forever, not perfectly, but something inside of me again clicked into place like this is truth. I can let myself be seen in my mess and I can let somebody love me. And having a very real experience of that happening shifted something in my body so that now I'm able to see it in the eyes of others when it's happening in front of me. And because I've been able to walk through that, I'm no longer afraid to see that in others. I hope I can be those sets of eyes that looks at you if you're scared of loneliness, if you're scared of being abandoned, that I can look you in the eyes and say that you, all of you is lovable because what we're talking about when it comes to abandonment, it's actually not about other people because what I learned is that I can never be abandoned if I don't abandon myself first.
(24:08)
If I learn how to love all of me, have my back when things are hard, show up, be willing to share my mess, be willing to be seen the right people select into my life and they reflect nothing but love back to me. And that was scary at first, but now that I know that it's truly possible, it's the gift that I want to give to other people. The gift of knowing that you don't have to be perfect, you don't have to perform or wear a mask in order to be loved. You are worthy of love because you're here and I hope that you can take that away from today and I hope that something inside of you can register this as truth. Maybe it doesn't always logically make sense, but I hope that there's a moment that grabs your heart and settles in as truth for you.
(25:06)
It would be my honor to connect with you after this and it is such a delight to be here with you today. Thank you for your time.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
As we close this conversation, we invite you to dive deeper. Visit authentically-aligned.com/speakers to explore our speaker profiles and connect with their offerings. Your next step might just be waiting there. Don't forget to connect with our speakers after the event as we would love to hear from you. Thank you so much for being part of this journey. See you next time.