How to Get Your Confidence Back After a Bad Breakup (Day 4)
Matthew Hussey distinguishes real confidence from confidence based on external validation, arguing it comes from small self-wins and self-compassion. He guides a visualization exercise projecting six months forward to find opportunities the breakup creates, and introduces therapeutic tools in his upcoming Healing Immersion Month program.
Chapters
Hello. Welcome back. Day 4 of 5 Days to Mend. So good to see you all again. I am— I'm officially in the habit of seeing you guys every morning. It's crazy. I'm like, we have this feeling— me and my team joke, we always have this feeling on the retreat as well, when we get together for our yearly retreat, we're like, "What are we gonna do next week?" I have that feeling. Of course, I don't have that feeling with all of you who are coming into Healing Immersion Month with me, but I have that feeling of like, this is gonna be weird on Saturday, waking up and not doing this together. Tell me who has that same feeling of like, this is like this, this sacred appointment in my day each day right now that I come back to. And, uh, it's like this— who feels like it's become an anchor for them each day, knowing that this is coming each day. Naveen, you have. Dagny, Deborah. Sacred appointment, says Victoria. Yeah, I also want to just say thank you to all of you who have been with me since day one. I mean, it's amazing, like, you keep coming back to be with me. I had no idea what the drop-off on this was going to be. I was like, how many people are going to come from day one to day two, day two to day three? I had no idea. And the fact that there's so many of you who are just going the distance with me, and you're like, "I'm in. I'm not going anywhere. This is 5 Days to Mend," is incredible. I do wanna say though, we've had some people joining who are only finding out about it while Mend Week is happening. I had to read you this, 'cause I thought this is commitment. This is— this person has the spirit of 5 Days to Mend in them, even though they weren't here on day 1. Verena says, "Thank you, Matthew, for this Mend Week. I was listening to you last night being interviewed by Lisa Bilyeu on her podcast, so I signed up late last night. Tonight after work, I launched into catch-up mode and listened to day 1, 2, and 3." That is unbeliev— That's like Audrey's rewatching Game of Thrones right now. You basically have been watched— binge-watched Mend Week the way I'm watching Audrey binge-watch Game of Thrones for a second time right now. Um, I love it, Verena. I love it. Uh, the comments have been amazing. Lisanne said, uh, I'm so excited for this journey. I couldn't really afford Love Life or the month-long journey, but somehow my funds just came through and I jumped at both opportunities. So Lisanne, welcome to Love Life and welcome to Healing Immersion Month that we're going to be starting on Tuesday. As I've been saying Tuesday is like day 9 of Mend Week to me. For everyone who's coming with me into that program, um, it's even more special to know that I'll be celebrating my 35th birthday with this community on the 14th of August. I felt like life is just passing me by because I'm single at the age of 35, but this week has already helped me to show up for my human. I love using the language. This is truly a blessing. I'm truly grateful to you and your team for all of the work. This is for me. Biggest birthday gift I can give myself. Benjo said, I just signed up for Healing Month. The timing of all of this has been amazing. It's been a message received from God. Just separated 2 months ago from the woman I loved and a 20-year marriage, uh, something I didn't want. And I'm now on the path to heal and work on myself and the part I have played in our separation. Thank you, Matt and team. The thing that has stunned me is the the, the mentality, the attitude, the spirit, the kindness, the authenticity of this group. It is exceptional. And anyone who is in the community each day inside the Love Life app will be experiencing that for themselves. If it is your first day today here on day 4, don't worry about it. This is going to be an amazing day. We're going to talk about reclaiming our confidence after a breakup today. Um, and once when we've had our heart broken in general, how do we bring back our confidence? Uh, and we have a whole community right now involved in this. If you haven't signed up to that community, you can do that at mendweek.com. And, um, remember, you can also for this week alone have access to Matthew AI on the journey with you. I know how many people are using Matthew AI and are loving that right now. I've been reading gorgeous comments about people's use of Matthew AI this week. I'm so happy so many of you are actually using it. Um, um, so, uh, we had a lot— I mean, we've got so many comments that I was reading this morning and last night. Um, I— we had Amy saying in the community, boyfriend pulled away after she, in her mind, made a mistake in the way she handled the finances of a business they had together, an antique booth. And he's now reduced the relationship to barely anything. She feels like she can't let go. Um, we'll talk a little bit about some of these types of situations. Um, Shah, you had mentioned that there was someone who wanted to explore their other connections, um, and you know, you're now— in the past you might have ended it, but in this situation you're finding it hard to end it despite the fact that he's not fully committing to you. We'll talk a bit about that today because that has to do with our internal confidence as well. Um, there was an interesting one that I want to refer back to, uh, from someone who was talking about having recently been diagnosed with ADHD after 30 years. And, um, she's now beating herself up that she wasn't able to do something about it sooner because it affected her relationship. And she feels like, if I was able to treat this sooner and do something about it sooner, I would have maybe been able to hold on to that relationship. How many people here are in their mind, they're holding on to those ideas about like, if I had just been able to like fix this sooner, the relationship might not have ended? And that's a thought. I know we've talked about that this week, but that's a thought that plays on your mind. I'm going to talk about that a little bit today in relation to confidence. We've talked about it in relation to ruminating thoughts. Today we are talking about it in relation to confidence. Um, Katie, this was a beautiful comment from Katie. She said, this week is releasing me from other areas of life too. Who here feels that? Who here connects with that idea that being here this week is actually some— it's actually much more holistic than you even realized, and it's helping you in other areas as well? I loved this comment. Someone said yesterday on the live— I didn't have a chance to address it, but when I was saying— was it yesterday or the day? No, it was yesterday. When I was saying change their name in your phone from whatever their name is to "done," as in like when they call you or text you, it's just like, "Oh, done. I'm done with that. I'm done with that person." Someone put— because I was using this phrase a lot, forgive my language, but I was using this phrase a lot. I was saying, "Fuck that," and this person put, "I'm actually changing it. Instead of changing their name to 'done,' I'm changing it to 'fuck that.'" Which I thought was great. I love the idea of that person's name You know, that person calling you or texting you, and then it just comes up on your phone. Fuck that. Maria said, "I've..." Maria was terrified before this. Because of Mend Week, she said, "I deleted my ex's number," which she described as superhuman strength. And I wanna say to you, that's not superhuman strength. That's the power of an amazing state. We've elevated our thinking. What did I say? 100 great conversations can, can get you past this, can get you past this heartbreak. If you felt the, the strength to do something this week that you haven't had the strength to do before, it's because of the great conversations we're having. Our job is to have more of them. By the way, um, make me a promise today, okay? I'm here for you all week. I've, I'm every day, I'm, I'm giving this 1,000%. Today will be no different. If you don't come and do another journey with me ever, it doesn't change how much I'm gonna give to today. You're gonna come out of Day 4 and go, "Oh my god, ano— another day like that? Like, I got so much out of that." I promise you that. So, whether or not you carry on with me, I'm here for you, but make me a promise. If you can get to my retreat this October in Miami, you'll come and join me, because if you love this, you— that is a whole other level, and you will absolutely adore it. Second, even if you don't come to Miami, if you can continue with Healing Month with me that is starting next Tuesday, you'll come with me into Healing Month. It's called Healing Immersion Month. We're doing it right after this for anybody who's enjoying 5 Days to Mend and wants to continue that healing with me so that next week You don't go into your week without me. Just promise me that if you can do that, you'll do that. If you're enjoying this, and you have the means to be able to do it, promise me you'll do it with me. Okay? I'm committed to you no matter what. I'm showing up today. I'm gonna give you my best. I don't hold back. I'm not— Anything I hold back from you is purely a time issue. It has nothing to do with me holding anything back. I'm treating this like you paid $1,000 for it. But if you can come with me, come with me, because this work isn't going to be done tomorrow. We have so much more we can do together. I have so much more I want to give you. This is my life. This is my passion. This is a vocation for me. It's more than a career. This is my love. This is what I enjoy doing, and I have so much more I want to share with you, and I want you to come with me. Um, so, um, let me get into this now. By the way, I also just want to acknowledge we had Stephanie um, in the community saying, are there any other lesbians here? I love— we have such a diverse community in this community. We have so many different people, sexualities, genders. It's amazing. It's a place for everybody. So Stephanie, I want to give you a shout out. And I also want to say, you were talking about how you can get okay with losing a future with somebody. What about when— how do I get over someone when I feel like the future I thought I would have with them was better than the one I imagine without them. I don't wanna— at the risk of dodging a question, Stephanie, this is something that we're going to talk about at length tomorrow, okay? How do I grieve not only the relationship but the loss of the future I believed we were creating? Tomorrow is going to be a big day for that. So, um, thank you for raising that, Stephanie, um, and, um and thank you for making yourself known to other people who might relate to you, you, your sexuality, and what you're going through. I really appreciate that. Um, okay, let's do this. Reclaiming Your Confidence, day 4. The first thing I want to say is I have a sip of tea. Um, is that heartbreak offers a unique opportunity to build our confidence. It's a time that for many of us feels like it destroys our confidence, but actually there's a— it gives us a gateway to build a much more solid kind of confidence than we've ever had in the past. Um, there's a lot of fake confidence in the world. A lot of people, their confidence is based on having the wind at their back. Their confidence is based on the fact that they are riding a wave in life. Their confidence is based on the fact that things are going well, right? Now, we can call that confidence, but it's a very conditional kind of confidence. It's the kind of confidence that we get when things are happening for us, when things are going well, when we're getting opportunities, offers, when we have love, when someone's choosing us. But real confidence is built in the moments where life tests it. Real confidence is built in the moments where it feels like we don't necessarily have an external locus of our confidence. We're not able to derive it from that relationship because that relationship just went away. Someone just decided they didn't want to be with us anymore. And it's a beautiful chance to lose one kind of confidence that we've been enjoying and begin building another far more foundational kind of confidence. I know that in the worst heartbreak of my life, I got closer to myself. It was the first time actually, uh I'd ever felt sorry for myself in that particular way. And we associate feeling sorry for ourselves with negativity. We think that's, you know, we think it's pathetic, or we think we shouldn't do that. There's a very British thing of like stiff upper lip, you know, keep going. Don't, you know, we don't, we don't feel sorry for ourselves. It's associated with weakness, with whining. My feeling sorry for myself in the worst heartbreak of my life actually was none of those things. Um, I got devastated so badly, so painfully, that it— for the first time in memory, I actually felt sympathy for myself. I don't know if you relate to this, but I, you know, had spent most of my life— have spent most of my life being a bit of a tyrant to myself, being a bully to myself, putting myself through impossible schedules and regimens and workloads and responsibilities, and then beating myself up for not achieving it, for not getting my to-do list done at the end of each day, which was an impossible to-do list to begin with. For not being perfect in the way I showed up in that relationship, for saying the wrong thing and hurting someone's feelings and then feeling guilty about it for a really long time. Or I had spent so much of my life being so cruel to myself and so punishing to myself. And in my heartbreak, it offered this interesting opportunity to look at what I was going through and to actually say, this is really, really hard for Matthew. It's like almost I got to step out of myself and say, this is like, Matthew's going through a terrible time right now. And it gave me this, this space, this daylight to be able to actually focus on myself in a more loving Why? It gave me an opportunity to say, how— like, what does this, this person need right now? How can I be there for myself? And I, I felt, um, every time I did something for myself during that time, I, I felt a little bit of pride in myself that I had, in spite of feeling so terrible, I had found a way to see a friend, or I had found a way to get to the gym. And, and I was— sometimes I was in the gym and I was, as you know, like, I'm sure many of you are experiencing this right now. I was, uh, I remember being in the gym and feeling like a complete zombie. I didn't have the words to speak to anyone. I felt like at any moment I could burst out crying. Even when a rep was hard, I remember this feeling like if I was doing a rep and it— or I was squatting or something and it felt really difficult, I felt like I could burst out crying. And it wasn't because I have ever been someone who cries in the middle of a difficult pain in the gym. It was because it was almost like it became this almost physical representation of how I felt, like, it's too much, I can't do this, this is so painful. And, um, I— and it was like that was just waiting to come out. And I would think to myself, God, I'm, I'm sort of— I am actually proud of you. I'm proud of you. You, you are so beaten down right now, and you're so in pain, and you're feeling so rejected. You know, I've told you the story before. I, I remember around that time seeing a friend for the first time, a very loving friend who I could be vulnerable with. And I said to him, I— this has just made me feel like I'm not 'Good enough.' And I meant every word of that. I really felt connected to those words, that like I, I wasn't just saying a platitude. I really felt like at my core, in losing this person, I felt like I wasn't enough, that I had given everything and it wasn't enough. And so I I— it was almost like I felt so rejected and I felt so hurt that it almost became pointless to pile on. It almost became pointless to make myself feel worse. I was like, I, I feel so bad already. And I— and then I started doing little things for myself, and in doing things for myself it started to make me feel proud of myself again. It actually brought me closer to me, and that was a really— that was a beautiful thing. I actually had this strange kind of connection to myself. I remember going— I went on a vacation, and I went by myself, which was a really— at the time was a difficult thing. I'd never been on vacation by myself before, and I felt really odd doing it. It— logically, I knew it was fine. I didn't think there was anything wrong with it on a logical level, and I knew other people who had, but I was— somehow it was like I was deathly afraid to do it. And I remember getting to day— I remember going on the trip. I nearly canceled it before I went, and then I remember going on this trip against all of my impulses to cancel it. And I remember getting there and thinking, I, I don't, I don't want to be here. It was in this beautiful location, and I remember having this instinct to turn to someone and be like, isn't this amazing? Oh my God, this place is gorgeous. And there was no one there, it was just me. And I— it was a very— it was like this piercing pain I felt that I was on my own there. And I thought, what the fuck am I doing here? Why am I here? And I started, you know, trying to figure out where's the email for my hotel booking, because I'm gonna find that and I'm gonna go to the desk and I'm gonna cancel. I'm gonna like make it 2 nights instead of the 5 that I was gonna be there for. I'm gonna move my flight forward so that I can go home. Like, I can't do this. Or even there I was like, I can't, I can't be here. And it was funny because I got to day 2 and I felt a little shift, and then I got to day 3 and I was like, the weirdest thing is happening. I, I have my little space that I go and find in the morning with my paper. I get my— I had my little free newspaper that the hotel would give out in the morning, and I would pick it up and I would go down to this breakfast table that became my table. And I sat there with the paper and my coffee and breakfast, and, and I started to get this sense of almost like I had this little routine in this hotel. That this was this strange hotel in the middle of, you know, a place I'd never been, and I was a stranger, and yet I was finding my little rhythm in this hotel. And I'd find my little bed outside by the pool, I'd sit there and And in this little rhythm, I started to experience being with myself. I started to experience just being in my own company, and that made me proud. And I know to some of you, some of you would do this with your eyes closed, you know. Some of you, solo travel is easy. But for me, in that moment, feeling that rejected and that alone and not having done it before, it felt like that— it felt like I was, you know, climbing a mountain to go and do this. But it made me proud of myself. And these little moments when we become proud of ourselves, they begin to build a different kind of relationship with ourselves. Because when someone rejects us— and that's how we feel it, for many of us that is how we interpret someone leaving us— we don't interpret it as they've got their stuff. For most of us, we interpret it as a rejection. Because we think to ourselves, yeah, they might have their stuff, but if I hadn't been this way, they wouldn't have left. If I hadn't been so difficult, if I hadn't been so insecure, if I hadn't pushed so much, if I hadn't asked for so much, if I'd been more attractive, if I'd been prettier, more handsome, if I'd have been more manly, if I'd have been sexier as a woman, if I'd— we, we have these stories in our head that say, yes, but— yeah, I get what you're saying, but in our head we go, if I was more they wouldn't have left me. If I was better, they wouldn't have ended it. And that plays on our mind. And what happens as we start to do these little things that make us proud, what happens is we start to switch the energy of this. Energetically, we're no longer focused in the same way on the rejection with— and how, if only I had been better, if only I had been more. Instead, we focus on, I am proud of this person, and also I've built a nice connection with this person. I felt like that after my holiday. I felt like I went home better friends with myself. So like, wow, I enjoyed my own company there. I felt like a better friend to myself going home. And in feeling a bit more proud of myself and feeling like I was being a good friend to myself, I had that feeling that we often get when we invest in a friendship. You know, if you invest a lot in a friendship and then someone is mean to your friend, or someone says something bad about a friend of yours, you stick up for them because you're like, well, hang on, I know this person and they've done a lot for me and they've been great. And you, you feel protective over them. As I started to begin this friendship with myself, I started to get more protective over myself. And it wasn't coming from a place of, I'm so impressive and therefore someone should want me. Like, it wasn't coming from an arrogant place. It wasn't coming from a place of being conceited. It was coming from a place of warmth to myself. It was coming from a place of, uh, of wanting the best for myself. It was coming from a place of having a relationship with myself. So now I thought, well, I better find someone who treats this guy well because he's been through hell over the last 9 months. He's been through a terrible time. And he's done really well to deal with that. He's done really well to come out the other side. And I wasn't out the other side, I was still suffering, or I was still in pain, but I was doing better, and I was feeling a bit stronger, and I was feeling proud of myself. And I thought, I'm— I now need someone who gives this guy the treatment he deserves after all of this. And that made me protective of me. And when you feel protective of yourself in this way, it breeds a kind of confidence because it changes how we allow ourselves to be treated. Now, if we come across another person and that person doesn't treat us well, we think, I don't care how impressive you are, I don't care what great qualities you have, you're not treating my person well. And they've just been through a really hard time, and they've— even though they've been going through hell, they pick themselves up, they get up in the morning, they They've been to the gym, they've done this, they've done that, they've continued to find a way to get through at work, or they've found a way to, to be in their own company even though just being alone at night and being on their own is the scariest thing in the world. How dare you not give my person respect? How dare you not, you know, how dare you treat them like they're nothing? And we feel that because we been treating ourselves like we're something over the past few months. We haven't been treating ourselves like we're nothing. So when someone else does, we, we, we— our tolerance for it really goes down. So this period right now that you're hurt, I want you to understand something. This is where true confidence is built. We think this is where our confidence is lost, but this is actually where true confidence is made. That's something you can celebrate right now. If you're in hell right now, tell yourself, this is where real confidence is created, brick by brick. There is an opportunity here for me to be more confident than I've ever been in my life. Not conditional confidence, not the kind of confidence that comes from someone saying yes to you or someone telling you you're great. The kind of confidence that comes from a relationship you build with yourself every single day, from a friendship you build with yourself every single day, right? Bullshit confidence is the confidence where you tell yourself you're the best, you know. And, and by the way, the moment you tell yourself you're the best, you're vulnerable. Because what happens when someone walks into the room and they've got more, or they are better looking, or they have a better body? What happens when you're in a relationship and you just tell yourself, I'm the best, all the time about everything? So anyone can walk into a room and, and if that person's really hot, if that person's younger than you, if that person's got something you don't, you all of a sudden feel threatened because your identity as being the best is threatened, right? So now you're a jealous person because your, your confidence is conditional on feeling like you're the best looking person in the room, on feeling like you've got the best body, on feeling like you're the most attractive, on feeling like you're the most clever or the funniest or the most charismatic. But we don't have to build our confidence around any of those things. Our confidence can be in relation to ourselves, in the relationship we build with ourselves. I want today to be a kind of pressure valve. I don't want today to put on a load of pressure about how confident you have to be. I actually want it to do the opposite. I want it to be a pressure valve. Many people here right now are considering how they might have been different in a previous relationship, how you might have shown up differently. How many people are experiencing that? How many people are, are like You know, that's, that's something that's affected your confidence, is thinking, I could have done better in that relationship. I could have been more, I could have been more secure, or I could have shown up differently. I could have created fewer arguments. How many people are experiencing that? Catherine, Claire, Fede says, I did until yesterday. It's amazing. Teal, you Sandra, someone said— Ambrose said, yes, he told me it was my fault because of my emotions. So let's get a few basic principles down because this is going to help you, okay? This— let me give you a pressure valve right now for that feeling. Number 1, change is hard. Change is hard. 18 years of coaching people, going on 19 now, and it actually is 19, it was my birthday recently. 19 years of coaching people has taught me that change is hard. When you start out as a coach, you, you think you're gonna just like be able to click your fingers and make shifts in people, but change is hard. It takes time. And when we do change, we tend to change by degrees. We don't have a personality transplant. We change by degrees. And maybe we change by 5%, maybe even 1%. The good news is that a 1% shift can change the trajectory of your entire life. A 5% shift can change everything. You don't need to change 50% of your personality, your habits, your patterns, your behaviors. Small shifts change the trajectory of our life. I know that I'm not an entirely different person than the person Audrey met, my wife, but I know that there were a few degrees that I shifted, a few percentage points that I shifted, that made it possible for Audrey and I to work. What I also know though is that there are people in my past that I could have made a 180-degree shift with, and it wouldn't have been enough to make it work between me and that person. Often when we talk about how if we'd have changed something, it would have worked, we're talking about a level of change that's not even realistic for us, and it certainly wasn't realistic in that time frame. Our insecurity is what makes us focus. Our fear is what makes us focus on, if I just hadn't done this, if I just hadn't done that, it would have all worked out. But the truth is that in those relationships, the amount of change that would have been needed in the space of that relationship was more than we were able to achieve. In some cases, it might be more than we'll ever achieve, because change is really, really hard. And I want you to remember something. Relationships— this is a key truth of relationships that, uh, people routinely forget. This isn't said nearly enough. Relationships don't just fail because of our patterns. They fail because of the interaction between our pattern and another person's patterns. Relationships don't just fail because of our patterns, our behaviors. They fail because of the particular relationship and interaction between our patterns and their patterns. Does that make sense? Do you see the subtle difference in that? There's an— there's a, a relationship between you and another person's patterns, and it's the relationship between the two patterns that often makes a relationship impossible. So when we talk about compatibility, we're not talking just about who two people— how two people get on in a relationship on their best, most secure day. When we talk about real compatibility in relationships, we're talking about the interplay between our patterns and their patterns on our worst days too. And some people were never going to be the person whose patterns and style matched our own, could work with our own. And we could have changed by 5%, we could have changed by 10%, which by the way is huge. That doesn't mean that we would have worked with that person because maybe what they needed was a 50% difference. Well, that's a personality transplant. So how does this relate to confidence? It's like this: we have to stop beating ourselves up for not being able to make a 90 to 180-degree shift in a past relationship when all change is hard, can take a long time, and requires a lot of help and the right environment for those changes to happen. This is why I talk about this idea that, "If I'd have just shifted that thing..." "If I'd have just changed that in time, we would have worked out." To the person in the Love Life Community who said, I got diagnosed with ADHD after 30 years. And in her comment, she said, this was a huge relief and it made so much of my life make sense. But she talked about the end of her relationship and how the end was precipitated by some of the challenges that she brought to the table with her ADHD. And she said, if I had just been able to figure this out sooner, just a bit sooner, we would have worked. I love this example because it points out the absurdity of it. We are talking, for this woman, about something about her and her behavior and her patterns and her brain that took her 30 years to diagnose. 30 years just to diagnose, let alone figure out and work out, okay, so now that I know this and I have a sense of closure and I have a sense of relief and a lot of my life makes sense in a way it didn't before. Now, okay, what can I do about it? How can I, you know, manage some of the symptoms of this? How can I treat this? How can I, uh, work on my relationship with this and how I relate to another person with this? That's all— that work is happening in real time. The idea that it took 30 years to diagnose this, this deep, uh, challenge that she faces with her own brain, at the same time as saying, 'But if I had just, like, 5 minutes before the relationship was over, relatively speaking, if I had just in the last few weeks or months been able to shift this, then it wouldn't have ended.' It doesn't make any sense. That's a really hard thing for a person to figure out. That's a life's work for many people, is figuring these things out. So we have to understand something. We have in our lifetimes certain, uh, makeup when it comes to our DNA, the way our brains have been since birth. And then on top of that, we have the fact that we've all been through things, we've all had our own version of a difficult life. We have deep wiring that has in some cases helped us and in some cases hurt us. We've learned some good survival mechanisms, we've learned some very destructive survival mechanisms, but all of these things have been in existence in our life for a long time. When we lose somebody because of something we think we did, even if we're right and we lost them because of that thing, that is not the same thing as saying, "It would have been easy for me to just change and do something different." If it were easy for you to change these things, you would have done it already. Let me repeat this. You can write this down. It's important. If it were easy for me to change these things, I would have done it already. The fact that I haven't, and it has a negative impact on my life, means it is not easy for me to change these things. And for many of us, that's because these patterns, this wiring, was embedded at a time when you weren't even choosing your wiring. So we're sitting there in a relationship today beating ourselves up, or out of a relationship today that ended a month ago, or 6 months ago, or 2 years ago, saying, 'Oh, if I could have just done something different in that relationship.' But what we're really talking about is, in many cases, a child who learned a survival mechanism many, many years ago, or an early version of us in adulthood, or someone that had a traumatic event in their life, and their, their wiring got linked up a certain way that was actually a rational response to the situation, a normal response to the situation you're in. And we're looking at this child all the way back then and saying, why couldn't you have had a different childhood? Why couldn't you have not had someone betray you in the worst possible way in that relationship? Why couldn't you have not had that awful toxic narcissistic relationship. In reality, these things happen in our lives, and it takes a long time to figure them out, to sometimes to even realize that we have these behaviors, these patterns, let alone try and improve on them or improve our relationship with them. If it were easy, we would have done it already. So given that it's so hard to These things actually require compassion from us, not the flippancy of, "Oh, I could have just done something different in that relationship and I would have—" What you're really saying is, "Oh, I should have been able to reverse 20 years of conditioning in the space of 5 minutes in that relationship." Is this making sense to everyone else out there? Like, are you, are you seeing how how flippant it is to assume that we can just— like, if I'd have just made a difference, if I'd have just been more of this, if I'd have just been less of that— is kind of tantamount to saying, if I could have just had a completely different life. When you put it like that, it's absurd. If I could have just had different parents and a different childhood and different early relationships and different everything and a different brain and different DNA, then I could have saved that relationship. What? This is what I mean by the science fiction of it all. This is what I mean by we oversimplify the story. And why do we oversimplify the story? Because we use breakups as a place to punish ourselves. We use breakups as a place to punish ourselves, to tell ourselves that you messed this whole thing up. You had a chance to be happy and you screwed the whole thing up. If you'd have just done this one thing differently, if you'd have just not been that, then everything would have been fine and we could have been happy, but you fucked it up. We use breakups as a place to punish ourselves. But here's the beautiful thing: we can actually change. We can, we can change. It's not that we can't change, we can change, but we have to respect that change is hard. It requires new inputs than maybe we've had in the past, whether it's new mentors, whether it's new ideas, whether it's new training, whether it's new situations, whether it's new people. We need new inputs than we've had in the past. And the really beautiful thing is when we get new inputs, we can genuinely create different results. We can, we can be different than we have been in the past. And then we start to fight for those degrees of change, recognizing that it is hard, but we can actually get them. And the excitement The excitement can be that we start to realize that the person who's going to be the right person for us, the thing that's going to make them so beautiful, is going to be their ability to appreciate the ways that we are showing up to make those changes vulnerably, with full accountability for changing them. We own the fact that we're not simple. We own the fact that we're not We have our own complications, we have our own things we're working on, and we fight for those degrees of change. And when we find someone who sees where we are and sees that we're doing that work and accepts us in that space, it's the best feeling in the world. What if the best feeling in the world is the one that's coming for you through a combination of the work you're doing right now here with me and the person who's going to see you in that space and be like, "Fuck yeah, I'm in. I'm in." And by the way, there will be people who are so grateful to meet you in that space, because I have great news for you. You are not the only fucked up person in this world. Isn't that liberating? There are other awesome people who are fucked up too. We're all fucked up in different ways. Some of us are a little less complicated on the surface than others, but I speak as someone who, who found another person who was just as complicated as me. Audrey looked at me and went, rude. Right? Isn't that cool? You can find someone who's complicated like you are. When both of you are vulnerable, accountable, and, and fight for the degrees of change, you can have the best relationship in the world. The fact that you're even— and by the way, this is again like, let's take the moments of pride, let's take the moments where we can pat ourselves on the back. The fact that you're even here doing this work, learning, being humble about where you can improve, being humble about how to move forward— the fact that you're doing this is everything, because plenty of people don't. There was a comment I thought was really interesting in the community. Someone said— I think it was overnight, last night— someone said I found the idea— when I looked back on myself in the relationship, and Matthew said that if you could have done better, you would have done better, so you can't live in the idea that, like, I— if I'd have just done something different. You did the best you were capable of doing at that time. She said that, that idea was liberating when it came to me and my mistakes, but actually extremely triggering when it came to someone else and the ways they betrayed me. Because if I think about that logic, that, well, when they cheated on me, it was the best they could do. When they hurt me, when they abused me, that was the best they could do. How do I— how do I reconcile that? Because if I apply it to me, I've got to apply it to them. I want you to— I don't want you to misunderstand me when I talk— use the word best. Whatever the choices people make, sometimes They can be terrible. They can be terrible. But there is a difference between people who look at their choices, reflect on their choices, have a desire to do better, own their mistakes, and people who don't. When we talk about true narcissists, Narcissists don't. They don't. You're, you're not with a narcissist. You're rarely, if ever, talking to someone who is owning all of the ways they've hurt you, who's self-reflecting, who's trying to be better. You're not talking about a person like that. You're talking about a person who has no accountability. That's the problem. That's, by the way, what separates people here from people like that, is if you're even asking. We had a guy yesterday, um, Jack, beautiful guy, young guy, talking to us inside the community. And, you know, he was talking about how he made certain mistakes in his last relationship, but he was so accountable. And anyone, those of you who were there, you know, if you're not joining these coaching sessions afterwards, you're missing out because they're really, really amazing. Um, many of you who were there saw a person who was so accountable and so owned the things that he wanted to improve on. The moment you do that, you're in a very different camp to the person you're talking about, who, by the way, I still think was— if he, if he could have been better, he would have been better, but he's not capable of being better, right? That's I know it sounds horrendous, but it's like, yeah, that's the best he's capable of doing. Now, I think when there's certain people in life where we go, if that's— if you can't do better than this, you don't deserve to be anywhere near me or anyone I love. There are certain people who, whatever is the best they can do, means they have to stay in jail for the rest of their lives, away from the rest of us. Because you're not safe to be around. There are certain relationships like that. But the fact that we are trying to do this work, that separates us. That's something we should be incredibly proud of. The fact that we're saying, how can we be better next time around? That makes us a catch. You understand that? Germany, do you know how many people aren't asking that question? Who, who here has a toxic narcissist either in your past or in your family, in your life, that you have had to cut out of that relationship or out of your life? I guarantee you, for 9 out of 10 of you who are going to say yes, what made that relationship impossible on any level, what made it impossible for you to even have any relationship with that person, was not that they were complicated. It was the total lack of accountability, ownership, empathy, and morality. That they had no ability to say sorry, that they had no moral compass, that they have no empathy, that they cannot be accountable. That's why you couldn't just— there are certain people who are complicated enough where like, even though you are accountable, I can't be too close to you. But you don't necessarily become fully estranged from those people. The people we say, 'I can't have you anywhere near me, I don't want to utter another word to you ever again,' are the people who aren't just complicated, they have all of those qualities I just mentioned. And my friends, just as a reminder, No one's better than you. We, we get dumped in a relationship. Someone decides they don't want us anymore. Someone rejects us. Someone finds somebody else within 2 weeks. Someone— we find out they've all of a sudden met someone else, or they've been cheating on us all along, and that's why they found someone else so fast, or whatever it is. We, we go through these things, and they make us feel like we're less than. They make us feel like we're worse than. No one's better than you. People are way more fucked up than they let on in this life. People are way more confused than they let on. Our ex who dumped us is often way more confused than we think they are. They're way worse at making themselves happy than we give them credit for. Very often they don't know whether they're making the right choice, or they don't know whether the next person they choose is going to make them realize what a mistake they've made, or how unhappy they really are, or how they don't even know how to be happy. They don't know thing about how to pick a right partner. And yet we give these people all this credit like they are God. They are the arbiter of our worth. There's plenty of people who are— who have all the same challenges we do, all of the same issues, all of the same doubts, and we just don't know it because they don't show it. They're not vulnerable. Maybe you don't know them well enough to know what's going on in that person's head, but we have to stop assuming everyone else is better. That's what— when we're insecure, that's what happens. We start assuming everyone's got answers I don't, everyone's figured out something I haven't, everyone's got something that I don't have. You know what the, like, most attractive thing in the world is? Like, the most attractive thing in the world? Certainty. Certainty is a magnet. If you can get certain, if you can communicate certainty, people want to be around that. People want to be around someone who's, who's got a sense of certainty, because they— because as soon as you have a sense of certainty, people realize they can't— there's— I can't just take away your power. I can't just tear you down. You've got something I want because I want more certainty, so I want to be around you because you seem like a really certain person. Maybe I don't know where to go in my own life and I see someone with certainty and I'm like, I'm following this person, they seem like they know where they're going. I want to learn from this person, they know what they're talking about. Certainty is the most attractive quality in the world. The problem is that we're all trying to get certainty in ways that are impossible. Right, if you look up the Oxford Dictionary definition of confidence, it says confidence is— one of the definitions is confidence is a feeling of certainty about something, right? A feeling of certainty, but about what? Because where you try and derive your certainty is going to dictate whether you can be confident. If you're trying to derive your certainty from the fact that you're never going to get rejected Good luck. Your confidence is only as good as you never getting rejected. There are certain people— let me tell you this— there are some very attractive people on this, in this world, on the outside, who never approach anybody, who never put themselves out there. You know why? Because they cannot, cannot allow the ego they've built about being good-looking and being attractive to be fucked up by talking to someone and getting rejected. So these people that look cold and frosty and always wait for people to come to them, they're terrified. We think they're arrogant and, "Oh, they just think they're so great." No, they are fucking terrified. They have built their entire identity around how hot they are, and they cannot fuck with the fragility of that identity by being the one to put themselves out there and make themselves vulnerable, because the moment they get rejected, their entire idea about how hot they are, which is what all their certainty is based on, is done. If you don't base your certainty around that, you can get rejected all day long. That's not where my certainty comes from. If my certainty comes from how much you guys will like me today, I'm in trouble, because if you— if I get a negative comment, that's going to throw me off. So where could my certainty come from? Where else could it come from? I'll tell you one place is how much I care. Like, I, I care deeply about this. I care deeply about this subject. I love it. It's fun to me, this stuff. Like, what, what else in the world is there? Like, this is the best. What we're talking about right now is the best. So it's— this is like human beings. What could be more fascinating? Trying to get the best of us out of ourselves, having a a better life. What could be— what could be more fun to talk about? I really enjoy talking about it. And what's more, I really, really, really care. I really care about making this as good as I can make it for you. Whether you all like me or not, that's not what my certainty is based on. But I'm, I'm gonna care more than is reasonable to care. And no one can take that away from me because that's me. I control that. So if you want to be more confident now, there is an immediate way. Switch the source of your certainty to something you control, to something you know to be true, to something you know you can stand behind. Switch the source of your certainty. You can— your confidence can take a jump immediately if you say, I'm just certain I can never tolerate that shit again. I'm just certain I can never tolerate that behavior again. So now someone comes over and they try and, you know, woo you, and initially they're attractive, but then they start treating you poorly and you're like No, I'm good. And they're like, wow, this person's so confident. I'm so attractive, I'm so sexy, and they're rejecting me. Wow, they're so confident. No, I'm just so certain that I'm never dealing with this shit again, right? Yeah, in a way, yes, I am confident. My confidence is my certainty that you could— there is no amount of facial symmetry or beauty that could make me tolerate that shit again. Man, these sessions go so quickly. I've got so much more. I have so much more, guys. This is— I have so much more to say right now, and I've just seen the time. Fuck. There's an exercise I really, really, really wanted to do with you today. Let me think about this. Okay, look, I'm gonna do the exercise here for everybody. Let's do that because this is an important exercise. This is something that can frame up literally the rest of your year this year. We'll do that ex— let's— we're going to do that exercise no matter what. We'll do that exercise and then we're still going to go to the Love Life app and we're going to do some coaching together. And luckily we still have another day tomorrow, so I will try and make it all work. Um, before I go into the exercise, has— who here is joining me for Healing Immersion Month? Let me know in the comments. It did fly by, I agree. Will Stumble, it did fly by. Um, who here is joining me for Healing Immersion Month? Let me know in the comments. Who here, by the way, does not— if, if you say, um, if you didn't hear about it, put 'didn't hear' in the comments right now because I just need to know. It's very important. I feel like this is a PSA moment. Um, who here is like, 'I don't know what you're talking about,' put 'didn't hear,' like, 'I didn't hear you when you talked about this,' or 'I wasn't there when you talked about this.' So Susie, you didn't hear. Elenad, you didn't hear. Okay, so there's a lot of you. All right, um, for everyone who's joining me, just please give me the grace of 5 minutes and then we'll do the exercise. For everyone who didn't hear, this next 5 minutes is really, really important to your year this year. Um, if you are enjoying Mend Week, if you're enjoying the work we are doing together, I wanted to find a way to continue Mend Week into the next month. Um, this is something I've done purely altruistically in terms of these 5 days. I wanted to show up for people and have everyone come through a process with me that anyone could do. I didn't want it to be— I didn't even want it to be $50. I was just like, let me just get into people's lives, let me help them. I also know that many of you will want to continue this, but this is my job, this is my living, this is what I do with my life, so I have to get back to doing it for people. But what I've chosen to do over the next month is to continue this healing process with those of you who are going through this right now. And I wanted to do it in a way that everyone could be a part of. So I have created a program called Healing Immersion Month, which I'm essentially looking at as an extension of Mend Week, where today is day 4, tomorrow's day 5. Tuesday will be day 9. But for the next month, I'm actually gonna be continuing this journey with you. I know that heartbreak is 24 hours a day. It doesn't switch off just because we finish a session. I saw someone say recently, just in the comments, like, I, I don't feel better. Of course there are going to be people who don't feel better right this moment. This is a journey. This is a process. But the right conversations can change your life. Can change the way you process this stuff, can change how you go forward. I want everyone to look back on this moment and be like, remember when we all did that together? That was— that changed the course of my life. I'm with the love of my life now because of this. I can't believe in that moment I thought that was the great tragedy of my life. I can't believe I thought I'd never move on. I can't believe— God, I remember that place I was in. Thank God I'm not there anymore. I want everyone to look back on this moment together as that. So I wanted to continue it. I'm doing that in Healing Immersion Month. In Healing Immersion Month, I have thrown everything at your progress. So me, my wife Audrey, who's right there, my brother Stephen Hussey, who co-wrote my book with me, we are all going to be with you 3 times a week for a month in live coaching sessions like this, except you'll get to ask questions. If you wanna be on live with me. We're gonna bring people on live. But the idea is that heartbreak is 24/7. You need massive amounts of repetition to get through it. You don't just need one touchpoint, you need many. Epiphanies are great, but epiphanies don't last. Anyone else had an— Anyone ever had an epiphany that was like, "Oh god, I feel at peace all of a sudden. I feel better." And then 24 hours later, you get a text and it knocks you sideways. This isn't just about epiphanies, it's about training those epiphanies into your, your psyche. It's so that getting it in your bones so that it's a truth you live. So what I wanted to make sure is I was like, what if everybody knew they were never more than like 48 hours away from their next session with us? This feeling you have this week where it's like every day I'm checking in and every day I'm getting grounded again, what if you had that for the next month? Imagine what we've done in 5 days. Imagine what you'll do in a month together. So that's the first thing, is we're going to be coaching you, all of us, 3 times a week. The next thing is we're going to put 2 programs in this special program for you in Healing Immersion Month. One is called Surviving Heartbreak, which is a track for you to follow. It's a broken-down modular program for anyone who's gone through fresh heartbreak. The second is called How to Move On, which is a program for people who are in chronic heartbreak. It happened months ago, or it happened years ago, or it happened decades ago, and you still haven't been able to move on. That's for those people. But you can do both. You'll get both, but you can decide which is your adventure. You're also going to get a process called the Rashomon Process, which is a process that allows you to finally see this whole thing differently. If you're like, I have ruminating thoughts that consistently make me feel like I've lost the love of my life, I'm never going to recover from this, this is horrible, this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me. The Rashomon Process is a very specific process we take people through that by the end of it allows them to have processed it in a completely different way that actually allows it to become this beautiful thing in your life that you see through a completely different lens. So, so we're going to do that halfway through Healing Immersion Month. I'm going to give you a weekly mission every week so that you know how to structure practically your healing. You won't just be going, "What do I do now?" Some of you after these sessions are like, "So what do I do now?" I've got that taken care of in Healing Immersion Month. You're going to know every week what the next step in your healing is. I'm going to give you a practical mission. You're going to get daily reflections from my brother Stephen so that every day you have something there on your phone that lifts you up, that re-centers you. Um, we're giving Matthew AI for the whole time. So if you've been talking to Matthew AI this week, Matthew AI is going to be available to you for the entire rest of the month, and that is a godsend. I know so many of you are enjoying Matthew AI. It can— Matthew AI can talk to you in the times where I can't. Anytime we're not in live session, if you're ever struggling, if you're ever in pain, you can talk to Matthew AI instead, and it has been a lifesaver for people. And the beauty is, the more you talk to it, the better it gets, because It recognizes your history, your ex, what you've been through. It has full context for the way you operate, your patterns, your behaviors, your fears. So the more you talk to it, the better it gets. And lastly, this whole beautiful community we have here, that carries on for the rest of the month. Uh, for those of you who weren't there when I said it, this is not a multi-thousand dollar program. It could be, but we've decided this is not for the few. This is some— heartbreak is something everyone goes through, and I don't want someone to not be able to do this because they can't afford it. So I have made it as cheap as I possibly can. It is 3 payments of $99, or a 17% discount if you just want to pay upfront, and it's $247. That's it. It's not a membership, it's not going to renew at some point in the future. It's a standalone 3 payments of $99 or 1 payment of $247, and you get the entire month with me. I— when I was going through the worst breakup of my life, I hired a therapist. I paid more for 1 hour of that therapist, significantly more for 1 hour of that therapist, than this entire program with me. And you're not getting 1 hour with me, you're getting several, uh, also with Audrey, also with my brother Stephen Hussey, another one of our top coaches. And the programs and Matthew AI and the community. Uh, the only caveat I'm telling everyone is I can't do this again. I can't— like, this is really like a— this is not just a digital program, it's me. You're getting my time in this. Um, and I can tell you right now, if when I was going through the worst breakup of my life this was available to me, I would have bitten your hand off for it because it's what everyone needs when they're going through this. The timing of it The time— you may not like the timing of your breakup or going through heartbreak, but I can tell you the timing of this arriving when you're in this place is that it's a bizarre coincidence, uh, because I've never done this program before and I have no idea when I'll have the time to do it again. I've not built this to be convenient to me. I've built it to be something that actually works in getting you to move on, in getting you to feel better, in bringing back your confidence. Evidence. So the link is healingmonth.com. Um, the team will throw that up if they haven't already. For anyone who hasn't joined us yet, um, we only have 500 spaces on this. We're keeping the community tight. We cannot service the size of community we have here. It's just— we don't have the size of team for it. We're able to do it for a week, but this is literally taking up all of the team in my organization for this one week. And it's free. We're just— at the moment, we just have this whole expensive setup and everything we're doing, and we're not charging a dime for this. It's free. Um, but we can't— I can't allocate my entire team to this going forward in this way. So we have to have a community we can manage properly. We have to be able to provide the right level of service. We can only do that for 500 people. Um, over half the spaces have already gone, by the way. I should say that in the last 24 hours since I mentioned this. Over half the spaces have already gone. Um, we were keeping this open until Monday. We don't think that there'll even be spaces by the time we were going to close it on Monday. Um, we're gonna— we're gonna alert the rest of our Love Life members in the next 24 hours. By the way, if you're a Love Life member, you get a huge discount on this. It's $99. Um, so we're alerting all of our Love Life members who haven't been here live in the next 24 hours that's going to take up another huge batch of spots. And we're also going to start actually promoting this on social media in the next 24 hours as well, outside of this live group. So if you know you want one of those spaces, if you know this is for you, I'm saying this as a PSA because the places are going to go no matter what. From the way that this has already happened in the last 24 hours, these spaces will go. I'm saying this as a PSA now because if you're joining me live I want you to be able to be there. I don't want you to miss out on this, and I want to continue the party that we have created here. Because a month from now, I have to get back to planning my retreat in October. I have to get back to being a dad. I have to do all these things that take up my time in a normal year. I've allocated half my summer to helping you through heartbreak. So if that's where you are right now, this is for you. Please, please, please take advantage of it. Um, all right, I want to get to an exercise. Um, for anyone who's asking, healingmonth.com, um, is the link. I know a lot of people— I don't want you to be distracted in this exercise I'm about to do, so I'm going to give you 3 minutes for anyone who has not signed up yet. Grab your spot. I don't want you to miss out because you're doing this exercise with me. Grab your spot. We'll take a 3-minute break, then we'll do this exercise. Um, and I'm excited for this one because it's gonna— this alone is gonna get you thinking differently about this next few months of your life. So exercise coming up. Let's just take 3 minutes, team. Give everyone a chance to join who hasn't already. Once you have joined, by the way, put in in the comments, I in, so that I know who's joining me for this next month. I'd love to give a few of you a shout out. Um, very good. I'll see you in 3 minutes right back here. Welcome back, everybody. Um, just to give a shout out to a whole bunch of you who are joining right now. Um, Amber— Umberta is joining. Um, amazing. Marinka, it's good to see you. We have Naveen, Denny, uh, Denise, Shima, Sabine, welcome, Margo, Nihar, Erica. Who we got? Mayhem Buzz 88, you're in. Alice, it's amazing, man. I wonder if there's going to be space by the end of today. Amy, it's good to see you. So many of you joining. Penny, Kate Katron, love the name. Amanda, you're joining us. Petra, Lisa, Oz. Can't wait, this is going to be amazing, everyone. Remember, day 9 is this Tuesday. We're on day 4 of Mend Week. Day 9 is going to be next Tuesday because for all of those of you who are joining, that's going going to be our first live session together. So you don't have to feel like I am not going to be with you when I wake up next week, or when we wake up next week. You're going to be like, why is Men Week over? It won't be over. We'll be together on Tuesday. All right, very good. There's an exercise I did when I was heartbroken that served me really well, and I want to give it to you now so that you can begin this process. The exercise goes like this. What we— when a breakup happens, or when we get heartbroken, we think all in— we think in terms of what we have lost. We think in terms of the future we have lost, the person we've lost, the present we've lost, the, the life we're now mourning. And the depression that we feel, so much of it arises out of this feeling of total loss. Because the lens that heartbreak creates, a lens, and that lens makes it hard for us to see any of the good in our life. Even if we have good friends, even if we have family who love us, even if we have a good job, even if we have lots of things to be happy about in our lives. Heartbreak creates a lens that means we view everything through this, this prism of total loss. And we have to start retraining that lens because heartbreak doesn't just cost us something. Heartbreak makes an enormous amount possible. And I want us to start, just to begin lifting our gaze a little bit. You don't have to— I'm not asking you to not be heartbroken. I'm not asking you to not grieve the loss. Grief doesn't happen overnight. I'm asking you to create a separate track to that grief where, alongside the loss and the pain, there's something else happening. And there's something else is that this has— this has begun this new, uh, this new path in my life, this new track. It's created new space, it's created energy. It's— it's give— heartbreak gives us a kind of energy. I always remember a friend saying to me after he'd got over his heartbreak. I said, how are you? And he said, I'm good, I'm much better now that I'm through that heartbreak. But he said, I have to be honest, there was a kind of energy, like a almost a strange, morbid kind of motivation that I felt in that time that I actually kind of miss. He said, it gave me— there was a kind of energy to it that I actually miss. Now, when we're here in this place, who, who would not want to be through this as quickly as possible? We certainly don't feel like we're going to miss this, but there is an opportunity here. And what I want us to do, there's a, a A guy I know, um, got cancer or got diagnosed with cancer, and he said at a certain point he realized, I'm gonna stop looking for the meaning in this because it's not about me finding the meaning, it's about me creating the meaning. It's about me making the meaning. The meaning of this isn't in the past, it's in the future. Heartbreak gives us an opportunity to do this. It gives us an opportunity to decide what the meaning of this will be in the future. So I want to do an exercise right now. And the exercise is this, and we're not going to complete this exercise today, especially for those of you coming with me into Healing Immersion Month. This is something we're going to do over the month, but we can begin it today. And it's this: I want us to think about when we project forward to, let's say, the holidays this December. Let's say we're at late December. What we in now? July. Okay, so we got 6 months. When we project forward, we can ask ourselves a question. I'm standing in December now. What has happened this year that only happened because this heartbreak happened? What has happened this year? Where am I now? What am I doing? What have I learned? Where am I in myself? Who is in my life? What's happening in my life that is only happening because I got my heart broken? Not in spite of getting my heart broken. Is only happening, only exists because of this heartbreak. So I wanna, I wanna just close our eyes for a minute and do this together. I'm gonna count down from 5, and I'd love for you to just close your eyes as I count down, and we'll do this. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. With your eyes now closed, let's just do a little imagining for a moment. I want you to set aside the pain you feel over losing this person. That will still be there when you open your eyes. It's not going anywhere, so don't worry. You can hold on to that. You can hold on to that pain for as long as you choose to. It's not going anywhere. No one is denying that pain. That pain is real. That grief is real. It's going to take time. But when you look at what's happened, what does it make possible in your life? Maybe it makes possible a kind of work, or that you feel an invitation now to do with yourself, with your emotions, with your own healing. Maybe it's an invitation into a part of yourself that you've ignored for a long time. Maybe it's an invitation into time with yourself and a kind of comfort that you can build with that, that you've never built before, which for anyone who builds that is one of the greatest assets in their life. Maybe it's an invitation to go to places or to experience things that you never had the time to go to or experience before. Maybe it's an invitation to a level of depth in the relationships that still exist in your life. When we're heartbroken and we need support, we find ourselves reaching out to people that we haven't spoken to in some time. Maybe we haven't spoken to any real depth The kinds of relationships that can break our heart are often extremely consuming. For some of us, they're so consuming we lose other relationships. They become distant. Some relationships are so consuming, so emotionally taxing, that we actually forget about the friendship in our life. We forget about the people who love us the most, who love us the most consistently, the people who are always waiting in the wings for the times we needed them, the love that never went away. Heartbreak can give us one of the greatest gifts there is, which is realizing the love we have. We lose love we thought we had, but it highlights the love we really do have, the love we can really count on. I want you to, for a moment, flash forward to December of this year. It's both a short and a long time. In one way, we know we'll blink and it will be December, but we also know that 6 months is actually a significant amount of time for change in our lives. A lot can change in 6 months. There could be someone new in your life in 6 months. There could be lots that's new about your life in 6 months. When you think about 6 months from now, what's changed? Changed? What has happened in your life, standing here in December of 2026? What has happened in your life that could never have happened and would never have happened if you were still in that relationship? What would never have happened if you were still there? Who would you never have gotten closer to again, if that relationship was still there? What love is in your life now because that relationship is not there? What opportunities are in your life? What experiences are in your life because that relationship ended? Only because that relationship ended. I'm not telling you to give up the loss. You can take time to grieve this loss, but don't let it distract you from the opportunity here. We don't always have to try to find the meaning in this heartbreak. We can actually create the meaning. We can say, "You know what? This hurts so badly. This is so painful. This is so dark. This is so deeply painful. I'm gonna make it count. I'm gonna make this pain work for me. I'm not going to experience all this pain for free. I'm gonna make this pain really, really expensive." positive for life. It is going to give me so much in return. I'm gonna do so much. I'm gonna experience so much, and I'm gonna take some powerful lessons from this. What do I need next time round? What has this shown me I need? Because every hard Heartbreak shows us something we need. It doesn't just reveal a loss. It shows us something we need that we didn't get last time around. What kind of love is made possible by this heartbreak? What kind of love couldn't have happened if you remained in that relationship? Where am I? I'm standing in December. What am I so grateful for that's happened that it would actually be risky for me to go back and eliminate this heartbreak, even if I could? Here's a key question. It's December of 2026. It is December of 2026. So much beauty has happened in my life as a result of this heartbreak. Beauty I would never have expected. What if so much beauty had occurred by that point that if someone gave me a time machine and said, you can go back and you can erase all of this beauty, you can erase all of this progress, you can erase all of this work you've done on yourself, you can change back to the person you were 6 months ago and you can have this person back What if so much good had happened that if someone offered you that, you might just have to say no? That is the life we have to create over the next 6 months. That's the life we have to create over the next 6 months. I'm gonna count down from 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. Open your eyes. If you're happy you're here right now, if you feel so happy and lucky to be here right now, leave your favorite emoji in the comments. I always like seeing people's favorite emoji. I'm so happy you're here with me. We are going to go over to our coaching session inside of Love Life together, and we're going to do a little coaching together and really cap off this great day that we're sharing. For those of you who haven't already, who are intending to sign up for Healing Immersion Month, I strongly encourage you to do that as soon as possible. The link is healingmonth.com. Healingmonth.com. Go over to that link now, grab your spot. Do that before you join us in the coaching session because I really don't want you to come back to a sold-out page on that. So, go and grab your spot while they're available, and I will see you in the coaching session shortly. If you've just— even since that exercise, if you've got your spot, put the word "in" so I know who's in. Every time someone gets their space, let me know. I just love to know who's joining me. Karen, I'm so happy this has been helpful. Hey Wagner, I'm so happy you're in. Salon, I'm so happy you're joining us. Relzy, Lanid, TMPA, ETA, so many of you joining us. This is amazing, it's amazing. What a privilege to get to do this work together. I'm just— I can't wait. DJ Comedy, Matt's little solo holiday newspaper. That's so good. That's my favorite one, obviously. So good. SJW says, this is so great, I love this comment. Feel so lucky to have been dumped at this exact time. Listen, if you were ever gonna get dumped, this is it. This is it. You like, you hit the Super Bowl of be— of timing for getting dumped. You won the lottery of timing for getting dumped. Oh man, when I got dumped, I didn't win the lottery of timing, I'll tell you that. I would have killed for this. Oh man, I love it. I love that we're laughing, by the way. It sucks. What a fucking hard thing, being heartbroken. But the fact that we can laugh, the fact that we can laugh, like have a dark sense of humor about it, it's the best. It's the best. All right guys, well, I will see you. Like I said, healing month.com is the link for everyone who's still getting their place. Um, and I'll see you in our Love Life app for the coaching session that's happening right now. Um, are we— did we throw the link up for the coaching session for everyone doing— okay, now— okay, great. So we're going to throw up a link right now and we'll cut this feed for now, or we'll leave it open for comments, but We're gonna go over to Love Life right now where I'll be coaching people live, and I'll bring on a couple of live callers on camera and microphone. By the way, if you haven't come to these sessions this week, they're literally one of the best parts of Mend Week. Uh, back me up in the comments for everyone who's been there for those. Um, please let everyone else know that they are missing out if they don't come and join us for those, because they are literally one of the most powerful moments of this entire week is when we go and we do some coaching after the session. So we're going to go over there and do that now. I'm going to bring a couple of you on live, and you're going to hear other people's stories, which is again one of the most healing parts of this whole experience. Um, beautiful. Thank you everyone. Thank you for today. I'll see you now for our after-hours coaching session inside of Love Life. I'll see you there right now.
