A short excerpt from a YouTube episode in which two speakers discuss what people should do after a divorce before entering a new relationship. The core recommendation is to do identity and healing work — reclaim parts of yourself lost during the prior relationship, examine beliefs formed by betrayal or childhood trauma, and use outside perspectives (counselors, groups) to rebuild a stable sense of self before seeking love again.
So for people who have experienced divorced, what work would you recommend for them before they enter into a new relationship?
We need a separate podcast to talk about this. Okay, let me. Let me try to give a short answer. If you don't reclaim the parts of yourself that were stolen or lost in the relationship, you will constantly be seeking something outside of you to fill that void. So, again, on the journey, this is a journey about wholeness. So there are so many things that shape us into who we are. And I feel like when you go through betrayal, it shatters that sense of self. So now you have an opportunity to decide, who do you want to be? Who do I want to be? And if you only know that, hey, this other person did this awful thing to me, and again, you know they did that, but you don't stop and think, but what did that do to you? And now what do you believe about yourself as a result of that? If you don't do that healing work, you will constantly be seeking that validation, that affirmation from someone else to tell you who you are. So, you know, if you don't do anything else, it's like you've got to get. Do the identity work, do be in touch with yourself, know what it feels like to be loved so that when someone is unloving towards you, you can quickly move the other way.
That's such a good answer. I mean, I think, yes, we do need a whole other podcast episode, which we probably have you on, to go through the pieces of what that looks like. But that is so good because I always say how my trauma as a child, childhood trauma, was what led me to be a chameleon and just want to get love in any way, shape, or form. And so. And then also, we only see three things through our own normal. Like you said, you need to know. And that, again, is why group is so important, because you're getting these outside perspectives. And that's where I recognized, oh, that behavior I did as a child was not just me being a bad kid, it was trauma because I heard somebody else say it. And so having other people, starting with a counselor, that can help you make sense because we. It's hard for us to see outside of our own experience. So we need those other people to help us put the pieces back together.
