How To Navigate Life After A Breakup

Welcome to Shrink for the shy guy. This is the show for you. If you are sick and tired of being held back by fear, self doubt, social anxiety, shyness, anything that's stopping you from you being you. I'm going to share the most powerful tools and resources that I've been discovering over the last 15 years on my journey to eradicate social anxiety and instill confidence first in myself second, and then in every single person that I meet on my journey. You're going to learn these tools and how to apply them in your life now so that you can become the most free, powerful, bold, authentic version of you. So your relationship ended. You broke up like a loser. And now, welcome to today's episode of the show. I am making light of this, and sometimes, though, it doesn't feel light, but we're gonna bring some humor in to deal with this topic, as this topic can feel so heavy and painful. But really, we're gonna talk about how to thrive after a breakup. That doesn't mean you're not gonna have pain or heartache or lessons or growth. In fact, you're gonna have all those things. But let's talk about how this doesn't mean it's the end of your life and that, you know, the past was the best point and it was the peak, and now it's all downhill or you're never going to have love again or any story. Let's open this up to how we can really grow from this. And the best is yet to come. And here with me today to help us expand our possibility after breakup is my man, master coach, Jonathan Hernandez.

You don't understand, Aziz. She broke up with me. That's what I did when he first called me back in 2015.

Yeah, that's right.

I remember. I. Thanks for having me on the show, by the way.

Absolutely.

I'm, like, ready to jump into this. Let's do it.

Let's dive in.

I remember my first phone call with Dr. Aziz, and I listened to a webinar that he had, and I applied for this sweepstakes thing and I won. One of the sweepstakes is you get a one on one session. And I was like, oh, this is awesome. Best day. I remember calling my mom like, I won. I got this. And my Mom's like, who's Dr. Aziz?

He's totally famous on.

And I remember I was, like, minutes away before my call. I was like, don't talk about the relationship. Don't talk about the breakup. Don't talk about the breakup.

Why don't you wanna Talk about the breakup.

Cause I wanted to talk about my future goals. And, like, this is where I'm going. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wanted to date more. I wanted to, like, get out of my nice pattern. And as soon as I heard his loving voice, it was like. It just came. I could not stop. It just came out like, she broke up with me. This is awful. I always. I thought because I was doing, like, some therapy. This was back in 2015. I was doing some therapy already. So I was like, oh, I'm getting over it. I'm getting over it. But it just came out. And. Yeah, that was that. Actually, that phone call just helped me heal a lot.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah. And that is what's needed after a breakup. And so, you know, one of the. One of the biggest, I'd say, pitfalls after a relationship ends. And this could be. And I had a very simplistic idea about relationships when I was younger where it's like, well, if you break. If someone breaks up with you, you'll be heartbroken. If you break up with somebody else, you'll be fine because you broke up with them. It's very. It's so simplistic. It doesn't understand, like, human bonding and emotion. Right. It's like, yeah, you deeply care for someone or love them, and relationships end for a million different reasons. And sometimes it's logistical, sometimes it's. You really care about each other. Like, the first one that I fell in love with, we really cared about each other. We were just in different cities for, like, I mean, the foreseeable future, the next four or five years, because I was starting my graduate program and the idea of that long, and neither of us could move or wanted to move, and that was so painful. And we tried to do long distance for maybe, I don't know, six months or something. It just didn't. It wasn't the same. We couldn't maintain that connection. And for me, personally, like, that wasn't satisfying. And then imagining years and years of that was just not. It's not something that I wanted.

Yeah.

And so I chose to end the relationship. And then I was just distraught afterwards because it didn't mean that I didn't deeply love her. It was just. I thought it was untenable. I couldn't make it work. So what happens is generally after breakup, you'll experience some sort of pain. And you don't have to. You might just walk away unscathed, but generally you'll feel some sort of pain, some sort of loss, and maybe much more. Maybe a Low, you know, jeez. If there was a cheating involved or it was a harsh breakup, you might feel like your self esteem is shattered, your confidence is shattered. You might feel unlovable. A really common experience for people is a fear of, I'm never gonna find anyone again. I'm never gonna find anyone like that person. If you really cared about that person, or even if you said, you know, this person's not right for me, I'm gonna break up with them. And then you do. We can still formulate the idea, I'm never gonna find anyone. And that is actually in any. All these symptoms of post breakup. These are all symptoms of we can wall up our hearts a little bit. That's how we deal with that pain is like, oh, and that's the big. That's the first pitfall is this hurts so much. I'm gonna do whatever I can to numb this pain out so that I can get through it. But then the more we numb that out, the harder it is to open to a new relationship.

Yeah. And another thing that made me think of was I think talking to you is just like you were encouraging me to like, go for walks, go for. Get like more oxygen in the body, get more. You didn't say physicality, but there was a goal of like, I want to do a pull up a day. There's something that happens when you break away from someone you're really close to. You kind of like feel like you get sick. Like, you lose the connection. So it feels like there's a lack of like a deficiency in something. Maybe it's just the connection, but maybe it's also like physiologically wise, like, you lose that touch, you lose this. So it's like self healing, self soothing in a sense of like really being around support, being around your friends, being around the people that really care about you can help supplement that huge loss.

Yeah. And one of the guys in our mastermind program, this was more than maybe a year or two ago now, was telling someone had gone through a breakup and they were really.

It was me, guys.

Yeah. So it was always Jonathan, but. And he was really struggling. And this is another thing people do with that loss or pain after breakup is they kind of try to deny it and are incredulous that they're even feeling anything at all. Like, oh, God, why am I still upset? It's been two weeks. Why do I even. Why am I still feeling this? And it's like, yeah. And the advice that this mastermind member had was, you know, it's kind of like A sickness? Yeah, it's like a. Grief is like a sickness. Like you're gonna. It's like you get a cold or something, you're gonna be sick for a couple of days or whatever, and it's like, yeah, you got grief. You're gonna feel stuff for a period of time. And people really want to fight that. And the more you try to fight it, the worse it goes and the more you can just say, yeah, I might feel periods of sadness or adjusting to less touch or less, less connection or less intimacy for. There's an adaptation period to that and a healing period to that.

Yeah.

And the more we can honor that and acknowledge that, then it's like, then the question, it goes from like, this is wrong and how do I stop it or what's wrong with me to how do I nurture myself? How do I take care of myself? If I were to focus more energy on me, you know, like with the breathing and the pull ups and anything physical or anything that brings you into yourself, then you start to work with that adjustment period and really heal during that time.

Yeah, I love that you said it's an adjustment period because you're right. It's not permanent unless you want it to be where you're like, I don't want to date anybody ever again. It's like, okay, you don't want to do that, but you're. I mean, everybody is so unique and fun and has this, like. What I see in them is like just an inner child of lightness and fun and playful and if you want to keep that to yourself, that's fine. But I've noticed in my life, the more I want to let that out with my, the people that I care about, the more, the more I get back from showing up and having fun in my life and being with people that I really love and admire and I'm able to. People just see that. They see a lightness in me. Whereas I remember when I first was in this slump, 2015was like rock bottom for me. And I was very like closed off and hoodie up, cigarette out, like it was just. Did not want to talk to anybody. I felt so, like I didn't want to. Wasn't willing to put my heart out again because it's like, it's so painful. That was so painful. Why would I ever want to do that again? And maybe you don't want to do that right now. I don't know how recent the breakup is, but. But it's in your best interest. Just as, I mean, if you're listening to this. I'm imagining you are one of the outliers who want to focus on yourself, want to improve your living. So I would encourage you to put your heart back out there and take the time to really take these steps and have a focus, have an intention of, like, yeah, right now I feel closed off, but in the future, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to feel closed off. I'm going to bring myself more.

And what you're describing is an awareness of the adjustment period and that it's not making a permanent decision.

Right.

Cause that's the walling off of the heart.

Right.

It's like, this hurts so much. I'm never gonna do this again. And that's the pitfall. Like, this hurts so much. Okay. Yeah. And I don't ever want to date it. I don't want to date someone like, okay, yeah, I'm not gonna go date someone, like, right now. And, you know, that actually can be counterproductive. Like, I'm hurting. I've got to fill the hole right now. And. And, you know, that's kind of common advice. Unfortunately, people don't understand the adjustment period. Don't. There's really no space for grief and a lot of emotions in all of life. Yeah. It's like, you know, so people will have really kind of shitty, unhelpful advice like, oh, you're heartbroken. When did you guys break up? Last week. Oh, yeah. Well, hey, you should come out to the bar and get made.

Yeah.

You know, it's like, that's probably not gonna fill the void, really. You know, and there's a great. What movie is that? I think it's forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Oh, yeah.

He's, like, making love with this woman. He's picking her up and he's like, they're out, they're having sex, and there's bed and he starts crying.

He's crying. Ye.

You know, I think she asked, is everything okay?

I'm fine. I'm fine.

You know, and it's like, he's not ready. So it's okay to feel like, I don't want that right now. Yeah. Let yourself bring that energy and attention inward and start to heal what's going on and then. But keep awareness, like, this is just a phase and that because you don't want to draw a whole lot of conclusions about the rest of your life from this experience. I'm never going to do this again.

Yeah. Yeah. There was. I think in my experience, there were two parts. It Was like, I don't want this ever again. But then there was another part of like, well, shouldn't I be getting over it now? So there's like this impatience that I'm getting on myself. Just like, I don't want to feel this. I should get over it. I should get over it. And it's like, man, you're being pulled in two different directions here.

It's helpful for me to see how ineffective that resistance is, because you can say, well, resistance is bad, or you shouldn't do it, or I should be more accepting. That doesn't. That doesn't really change our mind that much. But if we just really. If we. I think as humans, we like to be effective at what we do.

Yeah.

So when we see that we're doing something that's like, really, we're failing at it, we kind of have this natural desire to fix it. Whether it's like you. You make a recipe and it tastes like shit, and you're like, how do I do that better next time? Or you're. You're trying to fix something, you want to figure it out. And we get kind of obsessed. How do I figure? How do I fix this thing? And it's the same thing with, like, looking at how that resistance of, like, oh, this has been going on so long. When's this going to be over? That it's so ineffective. It does not reduce the time that you're feeling.

Right.

Anything. And in fact, it actually extends the amount of time.

Yeah.

Because the way. So what happens when you feel this heartbreak or heartache at the end of a relationship? You can think about it like your heart energetically fuses with someone else's. And we do this in all our relationships, even friendships and. But family relationships. But it's very intense with romantic relationships and. And with pets, too. Right. You know, we are. Our hearts fuse. And that is. Actually, you can think of it metaphorically, but you can also think of it literally in the sense that, you know, the. Our energy field goes out way beyond the physical heart in our body, and you can get a feeling for someone. And that's why when, you know, you miss someone, you might, like, feel next to you in the bed where they were. You might even feel there. Or sometimes you can have a dream after a breakup where you're with that person and your nervous system, because in your dream, you're experiencing it. Right. And you feel what it's like to be touching them. The sound of their voice, their whisper, the smell of their breath, everything. And then you wake up and you're.

Like, I miss them. It's good.

I remember that. And one of my post breakups, it hurts so bad. And so you are fused in this way. There's a merger. And that's. That's the. That's the risk of love.

Yeah. Right.

It's like you cannot. If you don't do that and you kind of hold yourself back, you're going to have some minor connection with people, but you're not going to feel deeply fulfilled.

Yeah.

You need to put that in there. And the cost of that or the risk of that is that at times it could end. And that's the game. It's the human game if we want to play it. And so what can. There's a. You can imagine that. That breakup and now it's like, pulled apart. And then I like to imagine, like, there's all these little energetic strands, like strings kind of like, kind of blowing around in the wind. Like they don't, like, I don't know.

Imagine like this amoebic, like seaweed kind of thing. It's just like, oh, what do I.

What do I go?

Where do I grasp? Yeah.

And it's. I think it's really about tending to that. And so taking time and each day and you notice resistance or fighting it or whatever, trying to get away from it. And instead, if you can minimize resistance and escape behaviors, it's okay. If there's a little bit it's like too overwhelming, you're like, fuck it, I gotta get drunk. Like, that's okay. Don't beat yourself up. But then what you're doing when you do that is you're just extending the pain.

Yeah.

And it might not be. You might numb it out a little bit, but it's gonna be. It's gonna. You're gonna get more pain the next time you try to start a relationship. Or you're gonna get an anxiety about talking to people you're attracted to or whatever. So you have the courage and the willingness to step up to receive what life is giving you as a. It's for your growth. It's a gift.

Yeah.

And when you do that, you can start to tend to that. And then what you can do is literally bring your attention into your heart. You can put your hand on your heart and you can start to feel, and you will actually feel like the throbbing or the aching or the hurting or any other sensations that's there. And all you want to do is, like, bring attention to that and send love to that. And you can even imagine some of those strands, and you can just start to see. It's almost. They call it like a waking dream imagery where you just start to imagine those strands and then see what can happen to them. Can you imagine light going into them? Can you imagine some of those strands connecting to other people in your life that you love? Can you imagine some of those strands, like, dissolving? And you can also get a sense if there's any strands that are, like, still connected to that other person, that even though you guys are. You decided you want to break up, there's still a party that's, like, kind of corded to them.

Yeah.

And you can imagine, you know, with love. Releasing that cord, cutting that cord, and imagine, like, them separating from you with love. You can imagine some of those cords going into, like, a tree or the earth. And that kind of imagery and. Or just being with a sensation in your heart for even a couple minutes a day will go so much further than any amount of resistance or escape. And that's how we actually work through that adjustment period and heal so that the next time you're opening your heart up, there's not a whole lot of baggage there that you're bringing with you from the past one.

Right. Right. And I love this because the focus is more on you. I think we tend to focus on, like, the end, when will this be over? When will this pain be over? And the thing that I always ask myself is, like, I don't need this to be complete right now. Like, if throughout my life, I feel it again, I can get through it. I can release that feeling, because I know how I have these tools. But there's no end date to this. There's no finish line. There's no, like, when will I get to there? If we can eliminate that, then anytime an emotion comes in, we're able to just be with it and be here with it. Just like how Dr. Aziz was saying, you put your hand on your heart, it's like, yeah, I feel that. I do feel that pain. Whether it was two years ago, four years ago, just last week, it. The duration of when someone loves somebody and when someone, like, wants to cut that off. Like, that time does not have anything to do with that.

Yes. Yeah. Your. Your heart is outside of linear time.

Yeah.

And that's a. That's a whole fascinating topic. I remember I interviewed a woman named Mindy Niss, who was a. She was basically a heart scientist. She had, like, a PhD in.

Oh, nice.

Philosophy and some. Some sort of study of the heart, the intelligence of the heart. And so brilliant woman. And she was like citing all this research to me that was just blowing my mind. But one of the pieces of research, what they did was that they would show people images on a screen and measure their internal physiological reactions to them, particularly their heart and their heart rate and their, you know, galvanic skin, sweat response and other things. Kind of like a lie detector would do that as well. And so they're showing them images on the screen that's like boring image, field, tree, whatever. And then they show them like either sex or violence, like, pow. Like an intense image. And then back to the normal stuff. And sure enough, people watching it would have a physiological reaction inside, either arousal or fear or upset to the, to the imagery. So, you know, nothing exceptional there. But what was exceptional about the study is they found that people, their heart would respond to the image before the image came on the screen. Whoa. Yeah. So, like, and it was randomized. The scientists didn't know what was coming next. It was randomized. So boring image, boring image, boring image. And then the next image in the deck was going to be the violent image. And they're still seeing the boring image on the screen. And then before the violin image came on, their heart would respond.

They like sense that.

Yeah. Whoa. And so that's just. I mean, there's so much research about energy and our hearts and all these things that really starts to bend our perception of like, oh, we're just like this organism moving linearly through time and our heart's just this thing that's pumping blood and it's actually no, like, it's this like hyper receptive organ.

Yeah.

That has maybe even more intelligence than our mind or a different kind of intelligence.

Yeah.

And that intelligence is plugged into intuition to subconscious, to life outside of us. Because there's no. The barrier between our skin and outside of our skin is not so solid.

Right.

And so the heart can actually receive and interact and perceive all these different things. So you're absolutely right. Like, what's happening in our hearts can be from any time period. And so this like, idea of like, I want to get through this, get done with this, get back to a life of like, ease and pleasure and comfort, I think is a conditioning that we have all grown up with and especially fostered by media and advertising that's like, yeah, if you're feeling bad, do this little thing, you feel great forever. And if you're not, just take this other pill.

Yeah.

What's wrong with you?

Suppress it, suppress it, suppress it, suppress it.

Smoke this, eat this, take this medicine. Go do this fun activity, do something. Because you're supposed to reside in a state of perpetual ease and joy and pleasure without actually needing to do anything. And yet the most, like the deepest relationships that involve love and pain are what create meaning, fulfillment in our lives, which is what we really want. Not just pure pleasure.

Yeah. And growth, you know, it's like all those other things just prevent you from growing that level. And if you're not willing to, like, I love when you said like, it's, it's, you gotta play this. Like, if you're not willing to have played this game in life, it's a full contact sport. If you're not prepared to do it or if you don't wanna do it, that's fine. But you're gonna be missing out on a lot of rewards.

And you know, what do you, what are you here for? Right. I don't think any of us are here to like, exist. Just, you know, get through life, kind of just get through with as little pain and as little risk and as little anything as possible and kind of suffer mostly because we're not taking any risks. We're not fully living. And then we die. Like, what, what was that? What was. Yeah, I don't think. I mean, you know, there's a million one theories as to why we're here and where we come from, where we go and all that stuff. But to me, I'm like, it seems like we're, we're here to do something. We're here to live more fully. And you know, many people who have near death experiences say that the main reason we're here is actually to learn how to love and open up our hearts. And nothing. Oh, there's a great quote from Khalil Gibran, the guy who wrote the Prophet. That's something like the deeper the cut, you know, into your heart from the loss, the deeper the chalice to fill.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

It's absolutely true. Like, if you, if you don't close down, if you don't put the walls up and it's okay if you did and you do, you can take them down. But that, like, cut into your heart, if you meet that daily as much as you can with love, with presence, with moving towards it, then what you're gonna do is you're gonna deepen your capacity. So then the next time you have someone to love and connect with, you're gonna be that much deeper. You're gonna have grown that much more as a person.

Yeah. You'll be able to hold that space for her or him or whoever. Yeah, I was just. I got wrapped up in what you said. I was like, yes, I'm ready to date again. I'm ready. Oh, man. Beautiful.

So let's turn this into action. Time for action. Action, action. Here is your action step for today. Now, you might have recently experienced a breakup and, or maybe not. And, and yet, even if it was a long time ago, my guess is there's probably still some feeling there, some unresolved feelings from trapped feelings, things that you didn't maybe process fully at the time to let you be fully present now. So your action step today is going to be very short and very simple. I want you to take three minutes. You can even set a timer on your watch or phone if you want. Or just guess it. Three minutes where you're just going to put your hand, your dominant hand on your heart. You're going to close your eyes, stop all the other activity and just breathe and focus on your belly to get the air in there. And then start to focus on your heart underneath your hand. Feel the warmth of your hand on your heart. And you're going to bring your attention into your heart and just feel what's there and surrender to it. If there's. And notice, like, the physical sensations. Do you feel ache? Do you feel pain? What's really fascinating is if you start to feel some ache or tension or squeezing or something in your heart that maybe feels, quote, bad or unpleasant, start to notice where it's really. And you can start to localize this. Sometimes it'll be on the heart, the top of the heart, or different sections of the heart. Sometimes for me, I'll feel like something on the bottom of my heart. It's also kind of. There's a depth to it. Like, is it closer to my. The front of my body and my solar plexus, or is it behind in my. Kind of more. Closer to my spine and my low back. You want to become more and more and more aware of what's happening in your heart. And if you want to take this even further, I highly recommend Reginald Ray's program. So you can get it on audible. It's called Awakening the Heart. And it's a beautiful series of guided meditations about literally how to become a lot more connected to your own heart with your awareness and beyond to the earth, to life around you. So if you want to, you know, that would be like action step plus. If you want to go further with that action step.

Plus, plus, plus, if you've just had A recent breakup. Treat it like a symptom of having a cold and, you know, drink a lot of water, eat a lot of healthy foods, and go out and exercise. Or even if you feel like you cannot do it, getting some fresh air, getting some movement in the body will really help heal that.

Yeah. Beautiful. I love those. Action step plus. No, no. This one, we're gonna end with 17 action steps. No, we're gonna end today. Thank you for being with us. And if you recently experienced a breakup or are going through that you are loved, you will find love again. It's inevitable. If you're willing to do this inner work, this can be an opening to the best thing that's yet to come. And it's possible for you to connect with someone who is an even better fit for you. If it didn't work out, it's not a mistake. It's not a failure. It's learning. It's life. Everything is unfolding exactly as it should. And you can create something absolutely beautiful and extraordinary that's going to magnify your life beyond what you can ever imagine. You are destined for this if you're willing to do this work, and I know you are, because you're listening to this and you're here with us. So thank you for being with us today. Until you speak again, may you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.

Yeah.

Boy, that was seamless. Let's try that one more time. Let's see if we can get on.

I got too excited.

Okay. Yeah, you came in a little early. Until we speak again, may you have the courage to be who you are and know on a deep level that you're awesome. Awesome.

I came in too late.

Now we're gonna work on this. We're getting this the next time. Thanks for being with us, everybody. Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Aziz. If you know anyone who can benefit from what you've just heard, please let them know and send them a link to shrink for TheShyGuy.com for free blogs, ebooks, and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com.