Healing Is Just the Beginning—Here’s Where It Actually Gets Good
If your goal after a breakup is to “just move on,” you’re aiming way too low—and settling for a life that hasn’t truly changed. In this episode, Sarah challenges you to see heartbreak as a catalyst for reinvention, not just recovery, and shares how her own breakup revealed she had been playing small in her life. This pep talk will push you to break old patterns, expand into a bigger identity, and go after the life and love you actually want—not just what feels comfortable.
Book a clarity call to see if The Bad Girls Breakup Society is right for you: https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=13002720&appointmentType=2184073
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.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
All right, my friends, Sarah Krnole's here back for another episode of Breakup Pep Talks. And I'm here to tell you that if what you've been saying is, I just want to move on. You are setting the bar way too low for yourself. Here's why. When we just aim for moving on, what we end up with is average. It is returning back to your baseline, returning back to what was. Now, I get it. I get it. If you are in the middle of heartbreak, if you are in a ton of pain, going back to feeling a little bit better sure does sound pretty good right now. But if nothing changed other than your relationship status, if you had the same kind of relationship dynamic with all of its faults, all of its shortcomings, all of the caps on the version of you that you got to be, does that feel right to you and your soul?
(01:53)
I don't just mean in your mind, which of course your mind is going to go like, yes, I just want it back because your mind is craving comfort again and your old life feels like comfort because it was familiar. But sit with that question. I mean, really, really sit with it. Okay? I want you to let this sink in to your heart and your soul. If nothing else changed and everything stayed the same, including the version of myself that I got to be, would I really be happy? I think a lot of people would tell me no. And when I was going through my breakup, my answer would have been no. When my ex told me after ... We were talking to real estate agents about buying a house. We were looking at rings to get engaged. We were talking about a timeline for having kids.
(03:01)
And he came to me one day and he said, "Sarah, I love you, but I don't see a life with you anymore." Of course, I was devastated, but there was 2% of me that was relieved. And that was the 2% that I decided to explore of what does that mean? What is going on here? What do you mean I'm feeling a little bit relieved about this?
(03:30)
And when I really looked at that part of myself that felt relief that the relationship ended, what I discovered was I was staying really small in that relationship in order to keep the relationship because I don't think that person had the capacity for the big version of me that I see out in the world, for my dreams of what I want to do with my life. I don't think that would have been a match. And the funny thing was, I quickly gave up my dreams and the big life I wanted in exchange to stay in that relationship. And it's almost like the universe had other plans for me and it was like, this relationship's got to go. We got to clear this out of the way because another version of Sarah is really needed in the world. We need the version of Sarah who's out there teaching and helping people and shifting perspectives and building community and making connections for people.
(04:43)
If she stays in the relationship, none of that gets to happen. So it was almost as if the universe or God or whatever you want to say, cleared the relationship away so that a new version of me could emerge. That's what I mean when I say settling for moving on is way too low of the bar. Okay? Your goal isn't to just move on. Your goal is stepping into a new version of yourself, a new identity, and it is more than likely an identity that could not have been true of who you were in that relationship.
(05:26)
I like to think of this as even bigger than just a glow up. What we are looking at, it's not just like a little tweak, which little tweaks are consistently how we make change, but what I'm looking at is almost reinvention of who you are. And I do it in the most fun way possible because that might sound like a lot. It's actually not. It's actually a lot of fun. So let me back this up a little bit. Let's look at when we say, "I just want to move on, what is actually happening under the surface with that? " When you say, "I just want to heal," what ends up happening is that maybe the pain fades eventually, but you just end up in the same kind of relationship dynamic over and over and over again. I've seen it with so many of my clients when they tell me about their past relationships before their current breakup, it seems like it's a repeating pattern of the kind of person they tend to date.
(06:32)
And it's because we only look for how do I get out of my current pain and into the next relationship? Because honestly, that's what we've been taught. So there's nothing wrong with it if that's what you've been doing. Nobody has taught you a different way. It's why I'm out here because I feel like nobody is saying this and somebody needs to say it, so I'll say it. And we settle when we're healing, like I just want to feel better, which is why a lot of times people tell me they want their ex back. It's truly ... And I know this logic too, because my brain did this too. If I get my ex back, I stop feeling bad and all my problems will go away. That's what's under that for real. It's not necessarily true. My ex and I did that dance of we would break up, we'd get back together, we'd be together for a year, then we'd break up again, we'd miss each other a lot.
(07:26)
We'd be in a lot of pain. We'd get back together. We'd be together for two and a half years and then we broke up again. I did not want to keep doing that cycle over and over and over again. He was clearly not the feel good magic pill that I thought it was going to be. It lasted for a little while and then the effects were off and we would break up.
(07:52)
The answer's not the other person. The answer's you, my darling. You're the one I'm interested in. We're not going to tolerate settling for less than what you deserve, just because it gives you a temporary fix to help you feel better. That's actually, it's misalignment. And maybe you're back in the dating world. Maybe you're trying to move on. You're thinking if I get back out there and I put myself back out there and I get in another relationship, then it's going to all figure itself out, but nothing actually upgrades. Your life stays the same. Your problems stay the same. You watch the same TV episodes. You have the same complaints. Mondays still suck. You have the same routine of going out to dinner on a weekend, sleeping in late, nothing changes and so nothing upgrades. And so it just feels like this rinse and repeat of your own life where you don't even feel engaged, excited, or alive.
(09:03)
And so as you're listening to this, you might be thinking, "I just don't want to get hurt again." And I can understand that because getting hurt sucks. Nobody likes it. It's not fun to go through. One out of 10 stars do not recommend, will not go to again. Right? Nobody goes into these kinds of situations of dating and romantic life and life in general. Nobody goes in there wanting to get hurt. But if you are always bracing for the worst, if you are always pulling yourself back, afraid of the worst case scenario, you are never letting yourself go for the thing that you really want. You know that saying of shoot for the moon and even if you miss, you'll land among the stars. You have to shoot for the moon first to land among the stars because if you aim for the stars, you don't get either.
(10:07)
You don't get the moon, which is the thing that you really wanted. You don't get the stars because you're going to fall even farther short than that.
(10:22)
When people tell me what they want, there's an energy behind it that I can feel. And I can feel when they're self-editing and they're pulling themself back because they're afraid of being disappointed that they won't ever get what they really want. And when I push that a little bit and I say, "Is that really what you want? Is that really what you think? " They'll tell me, "No, but I don't want to be disappointed. I don't want to be let down." Guess what? A disappointment or being let down will not kill you. You are so much stronger than you think. You are so much more resilient.
(11:11)
So stop being worried about feeling a little disappointed. You got to go for the big thing, the thing that you really want that your heart truly desires. And if you go for it and you get disappointed, nobody says you have to stop. You can keep going until you have the thing that you want. It's not like a one and done World Cup, first loss, elimination kind of situation, like you're not kicked out just for trying and it didn't work. You can keep going and you can handle disappointment. So this breakup actually doesn't say anything about you other than that was the ceiling on the version of you that you had been living.
(12:09)
It's time to break through that ceiling. It's time to step into the next version of you. And we don't create that new version of you by journaling every single day or just by meditating. Those are nice. Those can be useful tools, but what you need in order to develop your new identity, your new version of you, you need proximity to the right people who have similar goals and who will hold your vision for you as you expand towards it through your doubt when maybe you don't even see it for yourself, but they go, "I see that in you. I want that for you and I am going to hold that for you until you step into it. " And then those friends who are cheering you on like, "Yes, you got this. Keep going. Don't give up." You need that proximity. You need structure of a program that's basically like a GPS that says, "Do this and then do this and then do this.
(13:13)
This is the order in which healing happens that is most optimal for your personal growth. None of this scattershot. I'm just going to do a little bit over here. I'm going to do this workbook. I'm going to listen to this podcast. I'm going to think about it. " None of that. We implement here and that's what creates actual change, not just I'm thinking about it and I'm applying this little tiny thing. No, you need structure and you need a system.
(13:42)
And finally, you need the container that is the safe place that says, "We are all doing this for a committed period of time and we are going through this together." Wherever you are in your breakup actually doesn't matter. It's that when we all come together and we say, "I am doing this for a committed period of time, say three months, where my dedication is going to be on learning how to heal and take care of myself and to develop my new version of myself that is bigger than just moving on. " It is about me as a main character in my own life. It's about me as a badass. It's about me breaking the rules of what I thought was possible for me, whatever that version is for you. And I am building a room where women come together, not just to move on, not just to let go, but to reinvent themselves so that they can do this with a group of other women in the same goals.
(14:49)
If that's of interest to you, I want you to get on the wait list for my Bad Girl Breakup Society. This is going to be a really small, intimate room of only 10 people, because I want to hold a clean container where we are all focused in the same direction, going towards the same goals, and we're committed to doing this together. You can sign up to get on the wait list by going to my website, www.sarahkronoles.com/badgirl. All right. We will be opening the doors very, very soon, but I will be telling those people on that wait list all about it first so they get first dibs. It's only 10 people, so I can only have so many, so many people are going to get in and so many people I'm going to have to tell no. So as we wrap this up, I want you to hear this.
(15:40)
You were not too much. Your ex just wasn't enough for who you're becoming. It's time to stop apologizing for taking up space in your own life and it's time to step up into who you will become when you are with the right people and the right process. I'll see you in the society.