How To Move On
Speaker 0: Welcome to Takeout Therapy. I'm Rebecca Hunter. A therapist who knows therapy is actually very expensive and believes that mental health education should be free. Stick with me for the next few minutes and you'll learn something that will help you think about life differently. Or maybe manage things better for yourself.
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Let's get to work. Well, hello there, friend. I'm so happy that you're stopping in today to get a little bit of this lesson, which yeah is kind of a hard one to learn, but when we all have to go through. You and me both. It's important to learn how to move on when things end in any relationship.
And really, I think we can address that in romantic relationships, it's extra special hard to just move on. Before I get into the episode today, which I think is gonna be a really helpful one for you, and me maybe too. Right? Because there's always things to move on from. But before I get into the episode, I want to once again think you listeners, you very kind people for your really sweet reviews.
This this review is one of my favorite. It says accessible help, outstanding, accessible thought provoking, and fun sessions to understand the self. Don't walk away from Rebecca, run toward her to hear what she has to say. What? That is so kind.
Thank you guys for taking the time to leave a review. It's helping the project, so I encourage you to keep that up. And I will keep doing this and holding this space for you to be your fullest, most bestest self. Every single day, that is possible, which is not gonna be every day, you know, because, like, let's be realistic. We're all flawed.
And one of the things that really tends to drive people into therapy is that a relationship has ended. And it's heartbreaking. And people don't know what to do. And people don't know what to do in the middle of breakups too. I a long time ago did this episode called how to leave like an adult.
And it's basically about like when you're kinda done in a relationship, how to deal with that, how to get out of that, and how to emotionally deal with, you know, that whole situation, but this move it on part may This is a hard part. Isn't it? And so, yeah, I hear about this in the therapy office a lot because it's sometimes kind of provokes an existential crisis of sorts. Right? Like, let's talk specifically about a romantic relationship ending, but just know that I'm kind of also talking about all relationships, work relationships, and friendships and, you know, just like those deep relationships that we become invested in.
And frankly, sometimes we take for granted a little bit. Right? And when it ends, I'm sorry, by the way, it's hard when it ends. We have a lot of dealings. Right?
Lot of feelings. If I if you were in my office, we would make a list, but I encourage you to do that for yourself. So, yeah, lots of feelings, lots of thoughts. Right? And we know that when we're having feelings, the thoughts kind of follow the feelings.
And so recognizing kind of what those are is important. And we also know that thoughts and feelings, feelings and thoughts, they cause us to do things. Right? When our relationship ends, there's so many questions a lot of times for people. It's like, well, why did this happen?
Or, like, whose fault is this? Or what could we have done? Many people find themselves really, really stuck. You know, one of the reasons that people get stuck isn't because this specific relationship they were in ended, it's because a relationship, a relationship. That we thought was kinda gonna go on and on isn't gonna be like that.
Right? Like, maybe it was something we were enjoying. Maybe it wasn't. But in the mind, a relationship sometimes takes on a permanence. Right?
Like, it's always gonna be there. And when it's not there, it's really, really hard. One of the things as a therapist that I found to be such an interesting experience is that I used to work in a shelter environment for women in relationships that have interpersonal violence of any kind. I used to do some free counseling there. And one of the things that always as a new therapist just like astounded me is that people could be in abusive relationships, like constricting nasty physically, emotionally, verbally, all the things relationship and still it really hurts when it's over.
You know? That always it was so interesting to me, but, like, not that surprising. Right? Because we're humans. And when relationships end, we feel it as though it's a failure or as though something is wrong or as though really like sometimes even the nervous system gets so kicked up that we feel it as danger.
And so remember that that's kind of like behind a lot of the thoughts about it. And this kind of idea about, like, wanting this relationship versus like just a relationship. Is why we get stuck? Because maybe it wasn't that great of a relationship, but the alternative is no relationship, and that feels scary too. That feels like unknown.
Right? So we get stuck right there. And it makes so much sense. Of course, that would be a place where we would get stuck and we would need to kind of like do some work right there to figure out like, well, what's going on? Right?
One of the things about not being able to move on from a relationship is that we just get stuck in this very, like, ruminative space that's so destructive. That's not super kind. A lot of times there's a lot of blame. Right? We blame the other person.
We blame the relationship. We blame ourselves. You know, another option is that we always keep in mind that relationships Sometimes they end and it's not about us. Right? Sometimes it's like, yeah, there are things about us that somebody doesn't want to settle in with, but sometimes that's not about us.
Sometimes they're looking for something different. And so I think like Where we get stuck is that it feels really challenging right there. Like, there is an opportunity right there. For some personal growth work. There's an opportunity for you to be able to develop Or, right, we we just keep going back and back and back to the relationship, or there's a lot of blame and anger and resentment and just like shutting down.
But in order to expand, in your life. You have to understand that not all relationships end in this, like, way that is harmonious. Some end in these really terrible, hard, nasty ways and we have to move on. We have to understand that that was part of our experience, perhaps we got what we needed there. And it's time to figure out, like, well, what did we get right there?
Did we get information about ourselves? That's the self development. Because in order to get into the next relationship, you gotta move on from this one. And in order to move on from this one, you kind of have to get a little self involved. Now remember, I'm kind of along in the years.
And so I went through a lot of relationship times where it was like the best possible way to get over the relationship was just getting a new one dummy. Right? And that works so good. For a long time. But there's a limited amount of growth that happens there.
For me, it was like the amount of control that I tried to exert over the people that I was dating, just got bigger, just got more, But the amount of growth that I was experiencing, well, I mean, yeah, not much. But I was always in a relationship and so I could focus right there. And I just grew out of that as I think many of us do, and that that is part of personal growth. Right? It's part of developing oneself because there's a need to really examine what's important to us.
Like, what's our why? There's a need to examine, like, how do I spend my time in my life? How do I balance my work and my emotional life and my self care and my relationship. What kind of roles Maybe do I play when I'm in relationship? In June, this is what we're doing in the club, by the way.
So if you have interest in digging into this like like, yeah, look at your values. Look at the things that are important to you in your life and examine the roles that you're playing in your life. If you're interested in digging into that, come join the club. It's not expensive. But we have to do that in order to move on.
You have to get involved in like who the heck are you? Because you're like, probably a cool, worthy individualized human being. That deserves to be loved and validated and seen. And like, yeah. Maybe I have some relationship skills to work on.
Don't we all? But, like, that's part of the thing. And so I think moving on is really just You know, like, when we're in a relationship, we're always turned a little bit towards the other person. Just depending on how you are, Some of you are, like, turned so far towards the other person that you're, like, I could never even not be in a relationship, and that's fine. That's something to look at later.
Some of you are turned a little bit towards a little bit away. Some of you are turned, you know, just a teensy bit toward a lot away. We're all very different in relationship. And so it's just important for you to be able to say, like, It's time for me to turn towards myself if I wanna move on because that's how you do it, frankly. You self develop.
You feel your feelings. About the loss of a relationship. I think a lot of people wanna move on and they think, well, it's been six months, like I shouldn't have even said anymore. And I'm totally with you on that, and it does not work. And it is not true.
I Sometimes I will confess this to you. Just you. Sometimes I still have dreams. About the utter heartbreak caused by my adolescent relationship. No kidding.
I have all kinds of crazy dreams in which my ex boyfriend from high school appears and I gotta say it's awkward, but Sometimes, our dreams are just our feelings kinda working themselves out. And some situations in life cause us to feel feelings for a really long time, and that's really appropriate. It's okay to just rest and feel a little feeling. And then be like, okay, I felt it enough. I'm good and all me on.
There's podcasts on that. Right? You but you have to build a new reality. You just have to be willing If you want to move on from a relationship and you're like, okay. I want to move on from this.
Not okay. I don't want to feel this ever again. But okay, I'm gonna build a new reality for myself. I'm gonna get involved in my own life. I'm gonna see what's up with me.
I'm gonna try to learn lessons that I need to learn from this particular relationship, and it's time for me to move on. And as a parting gift, I will say, don't forget to follow the very important rules. Of be kind to yourself. Be kind to yourself. Allow yourself to feel your feelings validate them.
Nobody else is gonna do that for you. It's totally appropriate to be sad about having to let go of a relationship. Absolutely. I have let go of relationships in my life that sometimes I'm like, oh, hurts. It still really hurts even though it was the right idea, even though there's nothing wrong with let Nicole, it was just time to move on.
So be kind, be open, be open to your like, to what you learn. Be curious about yourself and the process of how and heck you're gonna move on. Because you will, this is life. It's a bumpy bumpy river friend. Get your life preserver, and we'll float down it together.
Okay. I'll see you soon. Thanks for listening. The goal of this project is really to provide mental health education to everyone who needs it. So if you want to help me with that, forward an episode to a friend or write a kind review.
Pleets. And if you like my style and you're ready to dig in, do some work with me, come join the club at takeout therapy dot com. Where I'm now hosting a monthly mental health maintenance club. I also do classes, groups, and one on one coaching and therapy. It's time for change.
Are you ready?
