Date Yourself Instead - How to master detachment

Episode Date: July 17, 2023

It's a detached girl summer. Psssst if you loved this episode, DM me on instagram @lyss and stay updated by following the podcast on Spotify.

How to master detachment and truly let go of something that you just can't fucking let go of? How do you do this? How do you just drop this person that was the love of your life for a year, for three years, five years, maybe you were married with kids? How do you just let go and pick up the pieces and move on like nothing happened? Well, How do you just let go and pick up the pieces and move on like nothing happened? Well, the truth is healing takes time. And that's the first point I want to make in this episode, because it doesn't happen overnight. It's not an overnight fix where, you know, one day you can be grieving someone and you wake up the next day and it's all gone. There's going to be a grieving process because if you had someone in your life for

a very significant period of time, there's going to be a period of time where you need to heal. And that's okay because we all go through it. And it's human and it's normal. And this is what life is all about, you know. So before I get into today's episode, I want to make a point of saying detachment doesn't mean you don't care. It doesn't mean that you don't love this person anymore. It doesn't mean that you're completely over it and you don't even think about this person ever again. That's not what it means.

Detachment is just simply about not letting the actions and behaviors of other people and their decisions and how they affect you to cause you to suffer so greatly. Because when you're really clinging on to something that isn't working anymore, it can destroy your life. It can really hurt. It could be extremely, extremely painful. You cannot hand over your power to someone else.

You can depend on someone as your source of happiness. This rush of dopamine every single time that they text you back, or they tell you they love you. You can't depend on that as your main source of self-love and happiness because once you do that, if they were to leave or if you need to separate and you can't see this person ever again, you're gonna fall and crumble into a depression.

And this has happened to me on several occasions where I put my happiness in the hands of how someone treated me. I put myself love in myself worth and how I valued myself in the hands of someone that I cared about. I was super in love. I would do anything for this person. And my level of self worth was based solely on how they treated me and how they loved me back. And I got myself into trouble that way. I got myself into a lot of sticky situations where I would wait for their tax, I would wait for their calls, I would wait for them to ask me out. And I would consume myself with this idea of if they're not constantly up my fucking ass and obsessed with me, I'm going to be depressed because they're not validating me anymore. And that's no way to live your life. That is the most unhealthy dynamic ever because you need to learn

how to love yourself without any of that. And detachment for me is a concept that I've actually learned through a lot of experiences and having to detach when I didn't want to. But there's this quote that attachment is the root of all suffering and in a way it's true. Because if you're attaching yourself to things that can walk away from you or disappear, you're giving yourself away and your power away to things that often are out of your control.

And if they're gone, it can really be difficult to repair yourself and rebuild yourself. So that is why it is so incredibly important to have discipline when it comes to dating. Because if you just start falling head over heels in love with someone you've been on two dates with, you're doing it all wrong. You need to control your emotions. I saw this woman on TikTok, she's everywhere now, this woman's share of seven, she's so unintentionally hilarious, and I love her. Her content is very cutthroat and some of it's kind of funny and some of it's just like, I wouldn't take the advice, but other pieces of her advice are really,

really spot on. And one of the videos I bookmarked recently was about treating your emotions like a business. And I thought this was such a good topic of conversation to open up on the podcast today. You are in a business partnership with whoever you're dating. Now, if you treat it like a business partnership, who is investing more? Who is investing more currency energetically into the relationship currently? If it's you, that's not good. If you're pouring your heart into a situation and thinking about a guy and obsessing over him 24-7 and you're already attached and you're not in a serious relationship, you got to cut it out. Why are you giving so much more of your time, energy and headspace to a man who can only make a plan once a week with you and doesn't text you until the day the plan?

That doesn't sound very fun, doesn't sound like he's making a huge investment in you. Yet you're attaching yourself because you like him, you like his qualities, he makes you laugh, he's attractive, he's six four. Great, those are great things, but at the same time, what about you? Look at yourself as the prize. That's what she always says. Oh my God, you need to follow her.

I literally binge watched all of her videos the other day and I was cracking up. But seriously, you are the prize. If you're investing way more into someone else currently and you're super attached and you feel yourself emotionally waiting for them and emotionally clinging on to whatever they're doing. Okay, it's time to stop that and start putting your attention somewhere it actually deserves to be. So you can level up your life and by that time once you direct your focus onto something more productive, you're not

going to care so much about what this person's doing, who they're going out with, what their day is like, or what girls they're following on Instagram. Okay, stalking a guy and making him try to talk to you and posting stories for him doesn't work any way long-term. That's just simply manipulation. You cannot manipulate someone to fall in love with you. You can try and it could work temporarily, but I always think it's very crash and burn situation, because I've done this before. I've tried to play my cards with certain guys that I really wanted to date, and I would say and do these things that I thought would please them, and it would work temporarily, but it would always end up ending anyway because

eventually everyone's true colors come out. So if you're trying to manipulate someone into liking you and you're trying to play these like little mind games and you know, waiting to text him back at a certain hour, whatever it is, just understand that that's not true, authentic love. Like of course playing a little games in the beginning of dating is fine, but just don't put all of your energy into doing that because the best thing you could do for yourself is just be your fucking self. And everyone's true colors will come out and then you'll be able to weed out easily if that person's actually right for you or not and then not waste two years of your life

with someone that wasn't right for you. Does that make sense? So most of your focus should not be on you trying to make someone else obsessed with you. Most of your focus should not be on trying to make this person fall in love with you. That's just coming from a place of fear and it's coming from a place of insecurity. They will like you. If they like you, they're going to like you. Okay. So just be yourself. That will come naturally. The relationship will happen in unfold naturally if you just redirect your energy into loving yourself.

And if you do all these things anyway, where you're loving yourself, you're focusing on yourself, and you take your focus off of him, and he falls off the map, it wasn't meant to be anyway. So you didn't really lose anything. Now how do you really detach and focus on you? Some ways that I do this that I think are really, really effective. Number one is quantum jumping meditations. Quantum jumping meditations have changed the game for me.

Whenever I'm shaken up or triggered by something, or you know, I thought someone like me and they rejected me, whatever it is, I go into Zen mode, I go in my shower, I let the shower run over my body, make it nice and steam in there like a sauna, like a steam room, and I just put on a quantum leaping meditation on my phone. I open Spotify, put a meditation on, and literally visualize my higher self, not giving a fuck about anything or anyone, as I'm showering and letting the water run over my body. I don't know what this does,

but it's some crazy ass magic that I discovered because every time I do this in the shower, I leave the shower feeling like a newborn baby. So that's one way you can start to practice the art of detachment. You could start to practice just visualizing your higher self really just not caring and letting go and understanding that you deserve to be happy and you deserve to be at peace and you don't need to waste your time begging for someone to stay in your life or catering to other people's emotions and feelings 24-7 that aren't reciprocating.

Number two. Another way I like to detach is understanding that all these thoughts that are spiraling in your head and weighing down your happiness because you're hung up on someone and you can't let go of them and you're clinging on for dear life, once you actually release those thoughts, your happiness will create new breakthroughs and take your life to the next level in ways that you couldn't even imagine. Whenever I've truly cut ties energetically with people that I didn't want in my life anymore, my life got so much better. And it would show, the universe would give me signs showing me that I made the right decision to let these things go. And I've spoken about this in many other episodes when I let go of certain toxic people and let go of certain things in my life that weren't good for me. My life always got better and improved and I always leveled up.

So understanding that once you truly let go of all these thoughts of, oh my God, are we going to get back together? Who's my ex sleeping with? Whatever it is, once you truly just clean out your brain and you're like, fuck this, I need to be happy. I need to focus on myself now. That's irrelevant. The chapter of my life is closed. I wish them the best.

And I'm going to take care of me now. Once you really, truly believe that, and you have to really believe it, your life will ascend to the next level. I can guarantee you that. You can also accelerate these breakthroughs by meditations, centering yourself during these meditations, prioritizing your peace, cutting out

toxins. I don't recommend drinking alcohol or doing drugs when you're trying to embark on a self-love journey. Although having a drink at a bar and taking yourself out is fine to dinner, whatever it is, but don't go get wasted and fucked up every night to try to distract your emotions, taking care of your physical health, you know, changing other parts of your routine, just to feel good. Doing whatever you can to feel good will also accelerate you to the next level of your life and help you move on and let go and feel

better about you. Then coming back into your life is going to simply just be a side effect of you completely letting go fully and trusting that just be a side effect of you completely letting go fully and trusting that there's a better option for you. Because once you really detach, you start to become truly magnetic again. You start to attract better things into your life just by letting go of simple thoughts. Thoughts can block you from so many blessings. Negative thoughts can hold you down and weigh you down from so many good things that are waiting for you.

And once I started to really trust that concept and understand that your thoughts are so powerful and everything's emitting a frequency from your brain, I was so determined to let go of anything negative in my brain. And it could take time, obviously. It might not happen overnight, but those quantum jump meditations, I'm telling you, do them in the shower.

Highly recommend, really does help. Now, another way I've learned to detach, if I'm going through something that's triggering me, redirecting my energy into something that's going to make me feel better, doing something that's going to take my brain and my focus off of whatever that person's effect on me is. So, there was a situation that was kind of upsetting to me recently with a specific person, and I went and created a new podcast episode.

I, well, I'm mentioning the situation right now again, but I was doing something. I made a situation, a productive thing for me. And I actually said, you know what? I'm just gonna put my energy into my work today and see what happens and try to take my energy in a different direction because I just don't wanna get lost and swept up in bullshit.

I love myself. I deserve peace, I deserve peace. I deserve happiness. I don't want to be caught up in someone else's drama in bullshit. I felt myself slipping into that. In order to pull myself out of that, I had to redirect my energy into something that I actually was passionate about, which is my podcast. I love recording episodes.

I love strategizing new episodes and scripting and talking to people through Instagram and hearing your feedback and that's my passion project. So having something to do, that's important. You need a life. You need things to do to take your mind off of whatever this person is doing that's trickering you. Now this is kind of funny. This is like half a joke, but not really,

because I've done this before and it kind of works. Picturing a solid replacement of this person and taking them off of the pedestal that you've put them on in your head. Because at the end of the day, you've created so many memories with this person that it's built this image of this person in your brain, but in reality, they're just another human being, okay?

So, for example, if this was your cousin that wasn't texting you back or a friend that you're not that close with, that wasn't texting you back, you'd probably have no issue detaching and letting go. You probably could go a month without speaking to them and you'd be totally fine, right? So, trying to envision them as that person,

instead, it sounds a little ridiculous, but I swear like there's been moments where you know, someone didn't respond the way I wanted them to respond, for example. And I felt rejected for a hot second. And then I'm like, okay, but really, it's just the image of them that I have in my head that's making me feel this way because I'm kind of putting them on a pedestal in a sense if I feel so rejected. Instead of putting them on a pedestal, I'm just gonna pretend that this is my grandpa

that just texted me. Like, I don't know. Does that make sense? Okay, maybe that's a silly piece of advice, but no, I really, I can't explain it, but it's helpful. Okay, it's helpful to me, Ellie. So hopefully, that'll put things into perspective for you too.

Another thing that's super important in the process of detachment. Going no contact if you're trying to detach from an ex, the worst thing you could do is still immerse yourself in their energy 24-7, because then you're trying to detach from an X, the worst thing you could do is still immerse yourself in their energy 24-7 because then you're never going to fully let go. And I've done this before where me and my ex were going back and forth for so long and we couldn't fully let go of the communication because it was so comfortable. And we're both single, so it just felt nice and comforting. And yes, we still have respect for each other, but it's just not going to help you in the healing process.

It's not going to help you detach. You're not gonna detach from someone completely unless you're fully ready to move on. And if you're constantly in contact with your ex, this is like ex-specific, I feel like. Just going no contact is super important, at least in the beginning, so you can give yourself the amount of time

to heal that you need. Removing them from Instagram, blocking them if you need to. Blocking them sounds harsh to some people. I had to block my ex on everything because I didn't want to see what it was doing. Why do I want to see that you're out with the boys, you know, picking up girls? I just don't want to see it and I don't even know if he was doing that, but I didn't care enough to see it, so I blocked him on everything. And it was for my mental health and my peace and to protect my energy. It wasn't because I hated him,

it wasn't because I was mad. I just wanted to protect my peace and I didn't want to see his stuff, which is fine. And that's helpful to a lot of people. And I think it's very helpful if you're trying to detach and let go. Now, another thing that I love that I've made another episode about, how to manifest your soulmate, if you're in a stage of life right now where you're trying to detach from someone

that you know is not good for you and you know you're not going to be together but you're just struggling so fucking hard to let go, but you knew it was super toxic. You need to trust that there's going to be someone out there that's so much more amazing and right for you and you will meet that person once you heal and you let go completely. And the episode I have about manifesting your soulmate, it's called how to manifest your soulmate, and talks about this letter technique. And the letter technique is writing a letter to the universe basically as if your person already exists.

This can also, you could also do this for any type of manifesting. If you want to manifest, you know, any situation that you want, you're writing a letter as if it's already happened to your future self. Or you can write a letter to this fantasy person that you want in order to attract them. If you're not really sure what I'm talking about, go listen to that episode. So doing these things where you're writing a letter to the universe, I actually buy cards and I write out a card talking to my future self. And it helps your brain rewire itself to think better thoughts

about your future. And I think it's just super effective. And it's a great way to heal in the healing process. And it helped me have a little glimmer of hope when I was super depressed. And now I look back at all these things that I've written and the letters and whatever. And they've all come true. They've all come true. It didn't happen overnight, but they all happened. So for that, I think it's a really good way of learning how to detach. Now the last topic, I guess, or the last piece of advice I have to detach that has helped

me, is to plan a trip. Now I understand for financial reasons and logistical reasons and family reasons, there's certain things that might prevent you from doing something like this. So if you cannot do this, I always say just try to reframe your mindset by doing a new activity in your area, changing up your routine, your workout routine, hire a personal trainer for a week. Just do something different that you haven't done before. Take a horseback riding class. I don't know, just something.

I just recommend you doing something a little bit outside of your comfort zone that you never did with the person you were seeing, that you never have experience with the person that you in a relationship with. Because stepping outside of your comfort zone and trying new things is going to reprogram your brain to form a new healthier identity for itself. Read a good self-help book, okay? The mastery of love, I spoke about this book on the stop being desperate and needy in love episode great book for healing for learning what true love is about for understanding your needs in a relationship. It's an amazing book go order it

And of course listening to my podcast always helps if you take yourself to dinner when I turn on my podcast You don't need to talk to anyone if you're not in the mood to talk to anyone, you don't have to. Listen to a good self-help podcast. I'm not plugging my own podcast right now, but I think if you're listening to this podcast, you already know to listen to the podcast. So these are all just different ways that you can really help yourself heal,

help yourself to touch, help yourself let go. And maybe I'll give you some examples really quick before I wrap up the episode of things that have happened to me where I had to learn the art of detachment. So this one's a little funny because this is a really long time ago, but my first boyfriend, okay, we were super in love, my first love ever, we dated in high school up until college. We dated in high school up until college. And he broke up with me. Okay, he broke up with me. And the first week of school, he didn't want a girlfriend anymore.

The first week we went to college together. So he didn't want a girlfriend in college. He was ready to live a totally different life. And he had broken up with me a few times before that. And it was just always this on and off cycle. I was kind of getting sick of it. I was kind of getting sick always this on and off cycle. I was kind of getting sick of it. I was kind of getting sick of the on and off cycle because if someone breaks up with you once, it's really painful. If someone breaks up with you twice, it's still really

painful. If someone fucking does a three or more times, you're like, all right, enough is enough. Like get your fucking shit together. And I kind of was push past my breaking point. And also we were super young, okay. I'm not gonna say, he was an amazing person. He was amazing person, he was amazing heart, not shitting on his character, but we were young. He didn't know what he wanted, blah, blah, blah. So he breaks up with me,

and that's when I learned the art of detachment from a very young age. I was a mess. Every time he broke very young age. I was a mess. Every time he broke up with me, I was a mess. But I remember every time I started to move on, that's when he came back. There was one time where his best friend started talking to me. And his best friend was pretty attractive. And I had a little crush on him, but I wasn't going to act on it ever, because whatever. But I was 15 when this happened. So don't judge me here. It was very young. I don't

recommend doing this, but I started talking to his best friend. And he found out, and what happened? He had a full-blown panic attack. He was like, I love you. I need to get back together with you. I'm so sorry, blah, blah, blah. And of course, I took him back because I actually truly loved him. I wasn't ever gonna act on that with his best friend, but it was just more like, yes, it was a little immature in games, whatever. I was 15, but the point was I detached from the breakup. And I was like, okay, if you're not gonna love me

and value me the way that I need to be valued, I'm just gonna go on to your best friend. No. love me and value me the way that I need to be valued. I'm just gonna go on to your best friend. Pfft. Now, does this mean you're gonna go and flirt with all of your ex's best friends? You could, but I don't recommend that. I think it's, I think it's a little bit, you know, savage. But the point is, doing that when I was talking

to his best friend, it just reminded me that I still, I still was valuable to other people. My point is, if someone that you loved isn't seeing your worth, there will be someone else that will. And you don't need to live in this fear of lack, like you're never going to find anyone else that's going to love you the same, because that's not true. And then after that whole situation, we did end up back together and we still, you know, dated for a very long time after that.

But I just remember, like, I don't think I truly knew my value also because I was so young. But that was the first experience I have with detachment because every time I would let go and say, you know what, forget about this. You would come back, you would call me, it would text me. And then we would end up back together. Now another way I've detached is from a guy I used to see. And I always felt him constantly pulling away from me when we would text. We hung out a few times. It was a really good conversation. Went on a few dates. It was really, really good. But then he would disappear after the dates, like we wouldn't talk for a day or two after the date happened.

And he would pull back a little bit and disappear. And then I was like, this is really confusing. And it was kind of triggering me because it was triggering my insecurities. I was like, does he like me? Like I don't understand why he's not reaching out after we had this amazing five hour date. Like we were laughing the whole time, it was great. And I felt like in person, he really liked me.

And then we would leave and like it would be silence. So I'm like, does he? Like what the fuck? So for me, that was triggering because I kind of wanted to trust that the connection was there, but then I was like, he's not really doing what I would normally expect after a date. He's not like texting me a lot and he's not being consistent.

So it just kind of threw my brain for a loop and it triggered me a lot. And I realized that I was just being super insecure because it was so early on in the dating situation. It wasn't like we were dating for six months and this was going on still. I had met him a couple of weeks ago, okay? So it was like I was expecting so, so, so much to the point where like I just don't think it was fair

for me to expect so much, because I also wasn't initiating anything. Like, I was just expecting him to do absolutely everything. And I was kind of scared to put myself out there and I was closing myself off and I was super vulnerable. So I wasn't like allowing myself to like communicate anything. I was just like sitting back and hoping that he would take full control at all times. And I realized that I was just super insecure.

So it was reflecting in the relationship between us. Because when you feel a certain way, that's going to reflect in the situation that you're in. Regardless, like if you're super insecure and someone's not up your ass, it's going to make you feel insecure because you're like, oh my God, like if they don't text me, then I'm not worthy of anything. But that's not the case at all. You don't know what's going through that person's head two weeks into a dating situation. And I just started to look in words and write down all the things that

were bothering me. And then once I wrote down everything that was bothering me, I just said, I know that the universe is always going to protect just said I know that the universe is always going to protect me. I know that the universe wants what's best for me and I know that whatever higher power is watching over me is protecting me at all times. And that's all I need to know in trusting and opening myself up to this person. So if it's meant to be, it will be just let it happen. Stop worrying if they're blowing up your phone or not. Stop worrying about the dynamics right now. It's so early on, just trust.

After that, I swear to God, everything shifted. I detached from the outcome. I detached from the expectations I had on this person. I detached from everything I thought I knew about dating. Like, oh, if he doesn't text me, every five minutes he hates me, which is ridiculous, okay? That's absolutely ridiculous. I detached from all of that.

And then once I detached, everything just started getting so much better. Like the communication was so much better. Everything was flowing easily. Like I just was more open to receiving. I was less worried about the outcome and I was able to just be my true authentic self and let go of all that anxiety and worry.

So you have to remind yourself too that everyone operates differently. They have their own way of handling situations when it comes to dating. So just because someone isn't replying at the time that you're expecting them to reply, you know, or saying, not saying exactly what you need to hear, it's important to sometimes silence those panicked voices inside your head. And understand that nothing is really that big of a deal. Now, this is applying in the early stages of dating. I wanna make a point in a note of really saying that. If you're talking to someone for a year and they text you back once a week, that's a problem, okay.

They don't like you, sorry. But I'm talking about in the early stages, because it's easy to get anxious and in your head about things. Just trust, just trust. And if that person isn't gonna be your person, that's okay. You will find someone that will be your person. Everything's gonna be fine.

There's nothing to worry about. You're gonna be totally fine. You were fine before you met them. You'll be fine after. Everything will be good, okay? So that's what detachment is all about. Just trusting and realizing most of what other people do and how they choose to act towards you has nothing to do with you at all. You can't control how someone else feels about you. You can put on a good impression and put on a good front, but you can't control the end of the day

how someone feels about you. You could be the best person in the world with the best heart, but if the connection isn't there for the other person, it's just not, and you can't control that. So just trying not to take everything so personally and understanding that what's meant to be will be, you're not gonna be able to force someone

into a relationship with you if they don't wanna be there. So you might as well not stress about it and live your best life, and if it happens, it happens. That's when the best things happen when you truly are just attached from them. Being yourself, just letting go, trusting that what's meant to be will be, and understanding that there's nothing that you need to actually worry about because everything is just thoughts inside your head. And once you reprogram those thoughts and you think better thoughts, everything just around you starts to improve. It's like magic. And I think that concludes today's episode. So thank you so much for listening to date yourself

instead. As always, I love you. Thanks for everything so far, for all the feedback, for all the love on the podcast. If you haven't already, be sure to rate it on Spotify and Apple, and I will talk to you guys next Monday.