Girls Gotta Eat - Breakup Bootcamp feat. "Heart Hacker" Amy Chan

Episode Date: October 28, 2019

Spoiler alert: This episode may change your life. We have Amy Chan, founder of Renew Breakup Bootcamp, join us to map out the path from heartbroken to happy. We discuss actions to take in the first weeks post-breakup when you feel like you're gonna die, recognizing your dating patterns and changing them, how to stop toxic relationship fantasizing, and more. And aside from Amy's incredible advice, we share some embarrassing texts-gone-wrong, and introduce a new (and soon-to-be-favorite) segment How I Knew It WASN'T Real. We hope you enjoy! Follow Amy on Instagram at @MissAmyChan and check out her website and Renew Breakup Bootcamp. Follow us @GirlsGottaEatPodcast, Rayna @Rayna.Greenberg, and Ashley @AshHess. Check our website for tour dates and merch. Thank you to our partners for this episode: StitchFix: Go to stitchfix.com/gge for a complimentary styling fee and an extra 25% off when you keep everything in the box. FabFitFun: Get $10 off your first box at fabfitfun.com with code GGE. ThirdLove: Go to thirdlove.com/gge for 15% off your first order. Bioclarity: Take 15% off everything at bioclarity.com when you use code GGE at checkout. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Everything clicked and I shifted and reframed my relationship with what had happened. And I went from being a victim to being empowered. I'd love to tell you guys the story of how that happened. Girl, DeFlor is yours. This is my favorite episode. I knew you love her. Welcome back to another episode of Girls Got to eat. Welcome back.

It's 55 degrees in windy. Ashley walked with wind. She's like, it's crazy out there. I'm like, oh, we'll get the weather report. That's great. Don't worry. We'll get to talk about it. I was a light sprinkle on my way over here today.

The wind, though. God damn. My hat blew off. Speaking of, like I was in an old-timey movie. Like a black and white film. My hat. My hat. It just blew into a homeless person, though.

You're like, um, can I get that maybe bagged in a puddle of pee? They're like, it's mine now. All right. Got a great episode today. Oh, man. Introduced Ashley to her new favorite person. You guys, as usual, this has just been kind of the routine lately is we're recording

we record when we can with these guests and then we go back in and do the intro as close to the episode release date as possible. So we did record with her yesterday. Are you okay? Amy Chan. She's wonderful. She's so good. I feel totally comfortable hyping this episode in this intro

because it is that good. It will live up to any expectations you may have. I'm so, so excited. She was talking. I was just staring at her in awe. Both of us were in tears, choked up. So if you guys were longtime fans, We did an episode a long time ago called How to Get Over a Breakup Now. And it's still one of my favorite episodes we've ever done. We talked about our terrible breakups and how we sort of recovered from them.

But that was just about like you and me and how we came back from that. Amy Chan has this whole business called Breakup Boot Camp. And she really comes from like a really like clinical background of how to deal with breakups and what's going on in your body. And I love the way she spoke about it. And so that's what she's going to do on our episode today. Yeah. You guys. Just I know y'all are going to be crying in your car.

Because I was, or wherever you are. We started to tear up. And when she was talking, we were like, this is my, I'm like, this is my story. This is Raina story. I'm not, not, you know, detail by detail, not the same. But like, this is how I felt. This is how Raina felt. This is how we know everybody that's listening has failed at some point.

If you've dealt with a breakup or heartbreak and it is, okay. It's a beautiful episode. I'm going to start, stop hyping it. But we can't wait to get to her. So we're going to talk about some other stuff first. And then we will get into it with her. And a brand new game also brought on by one of you guys as well. Okay. We are, we were, last week, if you're listening to us on the 28th, we were away last week for live shows in Charleston, Atlanta and Charlotte. So thank you guys for coming. We will do an intro and talk about those shows next week. Yeah, we're recording this right before we leave. So we'll tell you everything that happened when next week. Yeah. All right. You know what I forgot to talk about on last week's episode is that I tattooed the name of our business on my body. And I was just like, nope, nothing else to talk about.

Yes, you got tatted up. You're inked up. You've been inked up. This is my eighth tattoo. Eight. It's my favorite of all of them. The girl who designed. That would be really weird if it wasn't.

What if you just now? We're like, it's my third favorite. My back tat that sort of looks like a bull's eye is my favorite. Oh, my God. I went with Andrew Collin, who's been the most repeat guest on this show ever. He got one that said jackpot and continuously yelled jackpot in my face the rest of the day. Sounds like a dream. I got out of my upper left arm.

My most embarrassing tattoo is a giant crown on my thigh. Yeah. It's really humiliating. My name means queen in a lot of languages. So I was like, oh, I'll just get a crown, but I'll get it when I'm drunk at 2 o'clock in the morning. You guys, what Raina is trying to say is that she was saying yes, queen before anyone else was. How old were you 19? Boring out of my box.

Please, I wish I was night. It was like two years ago. Raina. Yeah. No, it wasn't. Yeah, it was. Like the face that she's making right now. Oh, my God.

I didn't know that. Yeah, it was like four years ago. It was before I met you. So I'll just address the elephant in the room. I did not get a tattoo. People keep asking me. Yeah. And so it's just, I don't have tattoos.

If I even had one mistake of a tattoo that I got when I was 18, I would have got the tattoo with you. I just, it's like I've come this far with no tattoos. It almost feels like, I don't want to say an accomplishment, but I'm just like, I don't know. I just, I'm good. I'm not a tattoo guy. I don't know a lot of people that wake up in their 30s and start getting

tattoos. Like, I started the day I turned 18. Well, except Andrew Collin. How old is he 39? He got his first tattoo. He doesn't care about his body. What's he doing with that thing? It's kind of funny that he's just started getting tattoos at his age. He's always not cared. Yeah, but he's the opposite now. He's like past the point where

he cares about that body. He's like, whatever we want to do it. I don't know, though. Andrew had like a glow up. Are you going to Andrew now? No, but from when I met him to now. Yeah, he does look good. Yeah, he looks great. But yeah, a lot of people ask me if you got the same tattoo and I'm not mad that you didn't. I never expected you to well you're supposed to get with my brother so I had to tell him had to break the news to him. I don't know. It's still, I'm not saying it's completely off the table. I love the way yours looks.

I don't know if I would get it there. I've always thought if I was going to get something it would be on my ribs like red under where your bra or your bikini is. Well that inventory is taken up on both sides of my body already. Okay. I got both wrists. I got both rib cages. Yeah. I don't know. It's not off the table. But yeah, I just, I, the reason is just because I just don't have tattoos. Yeah, and I'm not mad about it. I don't care. I didn't even bother to go with you. So, Rating got a tattoo. Yes. What else are you talking about? Oh, probably, let's just talk about some doorman dick. I can't stop smiling thinking about your dormant. I like walk in here and I'm like, hey, what's up? I know all their names. I was like flirting with your guy yesterday and I was like,

I heard that you guys had to start wearing uniforms, but like you're breaking the mold. Hi, you're in like your sweater vest. He is so hot. Okay. He's hot. And we got a new one that you flirted with. I be like, this is a funny story. I came over here yesterday morning and you were like running late and so I decided I was gonna we had a we spoke at a panel discussion which is great I was wearing flats I wanted to change in heels I wore really high heels like not 10 a.m. heels for sure so I put those shoes on in the lobby and he looks to me and goes oh those some last night shoes I was like I'm sorry excuse me and he was like he's like those are some high shoes he's like those look good I was like does the rest of my outfit look good and he was like he's nagging you I think he's a thing for you

He's, that guy is kind of hot too. We are flirting off a storm while you're upstairs. Well, the funny thing is I feel like you have two that you flirt with and they are different than the one I flirt with. This is great. This is perfect. One of them is half black, right? The one that I really like.

He's mixed. The two, I feel like that you flirt with are like beautiful caramel skin. I keep wanting to say his name and I can't. I just don't want to say his name. He's such a sexy brother. Yeah. I'm sorry. There's a difference between women and girls.

that have dated black men and girls that haven't, and the ones that haven't talked like you. Anyway. You know, I just like that Middle Eastern dick. That's where you like, you like them because they're like brown. I love brown, basically. I'm really into facial hair.

The guy I made out with yesterday has great facial hair. I'm really into dark facial hair. The thick facial hair. A guy made out with we talked about last week. Okay. You know, we're going to get into this now, guys. He did the most offensive thing. I cannot believe it.

I'm still shook by it. Raina sent me this text exchange between them. and he asked you to come do a tough mutter with him. Raina, I knew you for five minutes on the beach of Aruba, and I knew that you didn't do tough mutters. How did you spend an evening with this guy, and he thinks that's an acceptable question to ask you? Also, how many times in this podcast

have you slammed guys that do tough mutter? That last week. I literally said last week on the dating app thing, we were talking about if you exercise a lot, you should put that forward. And I was like, I'm not swiping on merit. marathon finish line guy. And you were like, what did you say?

You were like, guys are in a crossman. I was like, tough mutters. If you do tough mutters, we're not dating. You have said those exact words more than once. Recently. I was just telling right now, I'm like, there's three levels of tough mutter guy. There's, hey, I do tough mutters. And you're like, cool, knowing deep down, I don't give a shit.

Maybe you're not for me. Second level. Hey, I got this tough mutter. You should come hang. That's level two. Top level. Level three. Come do it with me?

How can he think you would ever do something like that? I don't know. He only hug out of me one time and then later also. But I think you show who you are up front. Like I can't imagine you were giving off tough mudd or vibes. Okay, explain to me what tough mud vibes are. I don't really know. There's mud and it's everything you wouldn't want.

It's not even just a regular race. It is like in the mud crawling under barbed wire, fucking climbing over walls, like army shit. Here's the thing. I can understand if he was like, hey, I'm doing this 5K this. weekend. You should come. That's acceptable. You would still be like, no, I'm not. I don't do that. But a tub mutter is a whole different level of fitness. And dirt. Like, there's a picture of Corey from Corey's done a few or she did one or whatever. It was, there was a picture. I think it was her sister on

the front page of like the Delaware State News with a mouthful of mud crawling under a barbed wire. I'm not mouthful of mud girl. I'm not wet barbed wire girl. Army crawling under barbed wire. Also, let me ask you what you think about this, because this is something I'm so, I find such an aversion to. I know other girls, I would never, in the beginning of a relationship, go on an exercise date.

I know some girls are different. It's not for me. Yeah. I need to live in an illusion land with you for at least a month where you think I just look like this all the time. I know. I don't want to be sweaty and panting,

no makeup, all nasty and greasy in front of somebody who I want to fuck later. If you want to do it, great. Well, I'm now thinking back because you guys remember Dewey's dad, the guy that carried Dewey down a flight of steps. You all went and stalked that Instagram. We went on, we went and did yoga together and never heard from him again.

That's what I'm saying. Never heard from him again. He was like, oh, wow, she is sweaty. How's that working out? I'm agreeing with you, bitch. You don't need to roast me. I just think it's not for me. I have a girlfriend who like exclusively goes on first dates.

Fitness stuff. Always. Because it's such a big part of her life. She works out every single day. And so she's like, yeah, I'm here. I have like cute workout stuff. I have cute workout hair. this is a big part of my life.

But it's like a big part of your life. I had a guy that we did not work out and he really was so into me doing that stuff. We talked about him. He was a rock climbing guy. And he wanted you to rock climbing. Yes. I don't hate that.

No. Like go to the rock climbing gym. And I was like, I just don't want to go. I just don't want to go. You look defeated. I hate, I don't want to go. We can have the reason why I feel like my parents' marriage works. They have separate hobbies.

My dad skis all ski season long. My mom does not go. Like, I just don't want to go to your dumb rock climbing gym. I think I don't want to either. I mean, I don't want to. I'm trying to think of a scenario where I'd like enjoy it. And then we did a race. We did do one race together.

I did the half marathon. He did the full marathon. But wow, we didn't run it together. He was like trying to do it for speed. Like we started it together. And then he like ran off. And I was like, this is stupid. Why am I here?

We didn't need to be on this journey together. It's not for me. So I'm glad of you roasted me about this because he asked me while we were out there and he asked me again today. Like, I really want you to do it with me. And I was like, motherfucker, no. Yeah. Where do you do a tough mudder in New York? Is it like close to New York?

Probably, I don't know. New Jersey. Upstate, maybe. Yeah, that's a good call. I'll hang out with you after the tough mutter. After you shower. After you shan got the mud out of your crevices. Well, I'm not touching any crevices just yet.

That's true. Wow, we'll say. By Saturday. It's still early in the week. It starts today. Oh, you're still going to hate him by Sunday. Yeah, I'll hate him by Sunday. I forgot about that.

The tough mutter is probably on Sunday. It's on Saturday. So he'll do something terrible after the time. He'll fuck somebody else at the tough mutter. He'll fuck the girl that went with him. The one that actually agreed to go with him. That is such a dude move, like a terrible New York City dude. He's like, you don't want to go.

I tried to hang out with you. I tried to hang out with you and make you do this thing that you have an aversion to and you didn't want to go. So I fuck somebody else. You somehow. burns it around on you completely. You're over here crying like, I should have done that stuff. In the Facebook group, I don't know if you read this about this girl who like,

this guy made these like half-ass plans with her like twice. It's in our Facebook group. This girl posted the screenshot. Yeah. It was something like he had like asked her to have plans, but it was like, hey, like I'll be around later. I'll be out. And I'll let you know.

Anyways, she was like, hey, like I'm trying to hang out with you. And he's like, but I keep trying to hang out with you and you won't commit to it. It's like, no, you didn't. Yeah. It's so crazy. Men are like, put I try. The other day, we were talking with this guy that did that to Raina, like last year, and he's kind of, like, been absent again.

And I was like, Raina, you cannot fall for this again. And she goes, I know, I know. And I'm like, but you realize this happened so many times. And she was like, fool me once. And I'm like, bitch, fool you once was a year ago. It has been full, full you seven times. I really let him crawl back in a lot of times. But you said, fool me once.

Like, you knew you're lying to yourself. I thought I was being honest with myself. I was like, you know, he did this once, full me once. This is the second time he's done it. And you were like, are we forgetting the last year and a half of you guys? All right.

So this is Raina's embarrassment hour. So let's keep it going. But you have something funny to share and then I'm going to share a similar, similar-ish story. I'm enjoying, I don't care. I'll always be about the joke. I woke up Saturday morning.

I don't know what even happened. I've never FaceTime anybody. I'm, you're my best friend for years. I do not FaceTime. I'm hung over. I'm walking around my apartment. I don't know how my phone and my hand betrayed me so terribly. Oh my God.

I opened up FaceTime and FaceTime to the guy that I dated this summer. And I let it ring three full times. Just, I didn't know how to turn it off. It just kept ringing. I've never used FaceTime except for it with him. And I was like, I text outshund was like, I have to move. Well, I was walking the dogs with my family on our farm. and I got a text that says, I'm going to kill myself.

And every stop, I was like, Mom, hold on. And of course my mom knows your story. And I was like, told her what happened. And even she was like, oh. It is so embarrassing. And you're like, how do I recover from this? You're like, do I acknowledge it? Do I text the person?

Don't read into this. Do I just hope that they don't read into this? Thank God, this wasn't midnight. Like, there's plausible deniability. 11 am on a Saturday. This is not on purpose. That is so true. Because you, if you had done that,

anything after 10 p.m. And tried to walk it back and say it was an accident. He wouldn't have believed you. He would have been like she was drunk. Absolutely. And she misses me. And there was no other explanation he would have had. Absolutely.

I was like, how do I walk through? I acknowledge it. So he texted me. But like hours later, right? A lot of hours later. This is like 11. and I think of 5 o'clock.

Well, you said the funniest thing to me. What? You said, I'm going to die if he writes, if he texts me back and writes, hey, I saw your missed call. I really don't think we should be talking. It was my worst nightmare.

That he would like say that. Because he would say something like that. Because he's like so serious and angsty. I could definitely see him hitting me with the like, I think it's just unhealthy. I'm seeing somebody now. Rain, I'm seeing somebody now.

As if I would care. Can you would imagine? You text me later and I was like, hey, I saw you called like what's going on. And I was like, you know, I just missed you.

No. I ran through so many funny things. Oh, like the funniest thing. Yes. So it was 11 a.m. our time. So 9 a.m. his time. Like, can you imagine if he saw that in real time?

He's like, what the fuck? I know. He probably did see it. And he was like, I'm not answering this shit. He's probably in bed with his new girlfriend. He definitely does. I don't know. I'm more so.

I didn't mean that to sound snarky. I know you don't care. What about him? Yeah. Oh, I don't care. I just would be hilarious. But yeah, he hit me with, thank God. He's a nice guy.

I've roast him, but he's a nice guy. Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. He's fine. He was just like, hey, what's up? I signed this your call. And I wrote back, totally an accident while the app was open,

Hobal is well. Perfect. And I said, Hobal's all with an exclamation point because I just, I don't want to open up a conversation. I wanted to be clear. This wasn't like a, so how are you?

Girl, Hope all as well is the conversation ender. Right? It's my favorite thing to say. It's the might drop, right? Yeah. Has anyone in the history of Hope All as well ever been like, I am well.

So anyway, I'm so glad you asked. So things have been, anyways. But you did this thing what is so funny. I can't believe it even happened. I don't even how. Like, this is plausible that this happened to me by accident. Like my thumbs got all fumbled.

You had to like, will you tell your story? This story, this happened one time the accident that happened on the iPhone, which I'll get to. I've never done this since, never did it before. I can't believe this happened in this moment. And again, in the moment, I was like so mortified and like, oh, my God, but it's hilarious. It was hilarious also in the moment. It was whatever.

The story is just, I had the situation. with an ex of mine, and we had been talking, and things just kind of went badly. I told this whole story on the episode, so you got blindsided if you listened or if you care to go back and listen. Whatever. We kind of had this thing. It ended kind of badly. I felt a little bit burned, a little bit hurt by the whole thing. Nothing devastating. Like we'd been broken up. But we had this final conversation in which I was like, I just don't think it's a good idea that we talk. This was over text message. He said some things. I said some things. And that was it. And about two weeks later, I was debating whether I wanted to email him and write this email, and I was writing out

this email, whether to send it or not. And I went back to the text to reference the conversation. Like, there was something I wanted to like be clear that I was writing in the email. And the text that I was looking for was this text from him that said something along lines if I didn't intend to hurt you or I didn't mean for it to turn out like this. Basically, I didn't mean to hurt you along those lines. And somehow I thumbs downed it. from weeks ago. Weeks, weeks,

buried in there from weeks ago. Yeah, luckily it was our last conversation like I hadn't had to scroll back that far, but 10 days,

I think 10 days to two weeks later after we had ended our communication, thumbs down. I didn't mean to hurt you. Thumbs down. It's like you were sitting at your apartment thinking, how can I neg this person

in the funniest way possible? And I can't even believe it. And I froze. immediately. I was like, oh my God. And the two people I think to tell immediately this too are you, obviously, and Bobby Corey, second impression, Bobby. But before I did that, before I told you guys, I took it back immediately. Because you unsend that? So my thought was just, I think it would show up maybe on your computer, on your, your eye messages, but I don't know. I don't know. I really don't know. I don't have the answer. We could test it out. It doesn't matter because whether it works or not,

he must have out his phone in his hand because he responded immediately. If you want to talk, we can talk. What? Because that is the normal response to it. He's like this bitch. He's like this instigative little bitch. I never meant to hurry you. Thumbs down.

Two weeks later. I of all the things you could have thumbs down. I was thinking all the things I could have thumbs down. And also I'm thinking of the other reactions, which would have been funny. Like maybe thumbs down was the best. Like what if it was thumbs up? So funny. heart. Is there what else is there? The exclamation point or the question mark would have been so

snarky. Did you though? But you did. The heart would have said would have been crazy. I love this two weeks later. I love that you said that. You know, I just wanted to rehash something we put to bed two weeks ago. And then I just like was I our relationship was so funny. Like I wanted to be funny but I was upset and still mad and hurt, you know, at the situation. So I just wanted to be like, God damn it. And I think I said something along the lines of I fucking hate my iPhone and myself. Like, I did not mean to do that. And I may be sending you an email or not. Like, I don't know. And he was like, cool. And that was it. And that was the last time we spoke ever. So I just, I mean, I called you. I mean, I was laughing about it within the minutes. I mean, it's so far.

You have that moment like where you stand there, stare at your iPhone just screaming. It's just like nothing you can do. It's so embarrassing. And then you've just got to laugh about it with your friends. You have to laugh about it. And also, like, who cares if he thought, whatever he thought. Like, that person, like, fuck that person. Yeah. And I, you know what? I'm just wondering if I bet he still is like, she did that on purpose. It seems like he did it on purpose. Because of the thing that you chose, do you know what I mean? Any other line that you chose plausibly not something you did on purpose. That line, on purpose. If you want to talk, we can talk. I don't promise. I should have thumbs down that too. Oh, my God.

That is so funny. So I don't know. I think that if you do this by accident, just be nice. Because I wanted to be like, total accident, don't read into this. Yeah.

But like that's bitchy and sounds crazy. Well, and you guys ended, well, I don't know, there was the whole email situation, but you just don't have any bad blood toward the sky.

At all. But it's totally fine to be like a cop ball as well. Yeah. I don't want to talk to him. I don't want to open up the doors for a conversation, but I don't hate the person. Um,

guys, do not DM us about times you've done this. But if you do have a hilarious story, feel free to email us. If we get enough, this could be a funny segment. We're not sure yet because I don't know if the stories will translate well enough, but don't flood our DMs because, again, we're just trying to keep them manageable. But if you have this hilarious story along these lines and you want to email a hello at Girl's gutty podcast.com. Oh, that's funny. I like that. If you guys have anything, by the way,

like, is this weird, Psycho or PowerMove, always, always email us so that we can put them in folders and track them. Yes. And this intro is running long. We know you guys want to get to get the interview with Amy. Stupid Live shows.com.com. Girls Got Eat Podcast.com. Hopefully new shows, hopefully on the West Coast announced next week. I don't know. We'll work on it. At this point, we just don't know exactly what we have for sale.

I'm going to assume still New Orleans. Please come to New Orleans. Check the website. Yeah. New York City for the 19th has a couple of scattered, like one-off seats. Boston should have a couple tickets left for Boston night too. Maybe the second show in D.C. I just, we're recording this kind of far out.

So we just don't know. but stupid live shows.com and within the next couple weeks, West Coast announcements. California. Yay. All right, guys. Well, let's jump in. So without further or Dewey, somebody very special with us in the house studio,

with us and Dewey, she reached out to us. I got on the phone with her. I couldn't stop listening to her talk. She is a relationship columnist for the last over a decade for publications like the Huffington Post. She is the chief heart hacker of her own company that she started, called The Breakup Boob Camp, which we will tell you guys about.

She also has the best hair of anybody who's ever sat on this couch. Sorry, Ashley. Oh, wow. Yikes. It's a flex. I don't see that coming. I was like, how is she going to take this? Welcome to the studio, Amy Chan.

Hi, thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. We are so excited. I'll take the compliment on the hair. Your hair is incredible. But I do want you to talk a little about what you do because speaking with you, you're very clinical about the way that you speak about love and relationships. You've researched this.

I mean, I thought you were a psychiatrist when I was talking to you on the phone, and you're not. So how did you, like, amass this type of, how did you become you? Talk about who you are. Yeah. So ever since I was a little girl, I was able to master everything. Friendships, career. Yeah, the high achieving Asian. But the one thing I couldn't figure out was love.

And so I set out to do what every, you know, high achieving Asian does, which is I'm going to study the shit out of this. Okay. And so I did. I became a relationship columnist at the age of 25. And I just dived into the science and psychology of relationships because heartache after heartache, I couldn't figure it out. So you started writing about dating and relationships. And then your story is really, should we talk about her story first? Yeah, I'm dying to hear it. Again, I think Raina, and I just gave me the briefing. And I mean, I'd heard, I'd heard of you before we talked to you. But I don't know the full story. I obviously haven't heard it from you. I am dying to hear your heartbreak story, Amy. Yeah. And the catalyst for how you built this incredible business.

Totally. So I always had the mentality of date, date to marry. I mean, I would think I was dating to marry from the age of like 12. And then I finally thought my dreams were coming true. I fell madly in love with a guy living in Vancouver. And we had our life set. we were going to eventually have children together. He was a business guy. We even talked about the fact that when we had kids, I would just write as a hobby. So everything was set out for me.

And this plan and this dream that had vied for since I was a little girl was finally coming true. And then one day that reality of mine came crashing down and through infidelity, our relationship broke apart. And when the relationship fell apart, I completely fell apart. I was so young-minded at the time that I put pretty much all of my identity in him and in us. And when I didn't have that, I didn't know who I was. And not only was I mourning the loss of our relationship, I was mourning the loss of the future and this plan that I held on to for dear life. And it was bad.

I fell into depression. I had panic attacks. I had thoughts of suicide. And I thought I was going absolutely crazy. Yeah. I feel really choking. I'm just getting really emotional because I just feel like you're. story is so many people's story. Okay. Keep going. Ashley and I are fully crying. I know. I know. I see the tears.

And, you know, I'm also just thinking of our listeners, like, there's girls listening to this in their car that are like, oh my God, that's my story. Yeah. I just had a panic attack last night. You know what I mean? Totally. And it's, how old were you at this time? I was 29 when it happened. Which is like, right. You're like, oh, I'm about to be 30. Like, my life, I'm going to marry this guy and then we're going to have a family. And then, And of course. And conversely, like, I can't believe have to start over at this age. Right.

Girls are like, I'm so old to start over. You're not, by the way. But, like, yeah, when my fiancé left me at 28, that was my thought. Anyways, please. Yeah. And, yeah, this idea that I wasted my time, my prime on you,

how unjust, unfair the universe was. I remember, like, in a fit of another panic attack crying and asking God or universe or whoever was out there. I'm like, how unfair this is. Like, I volunteer. I donate to charity.

Wise is happening to me. And what I thought was the worst thing that ever happened to me, I can now look back in retrospect, and that was the best thing that has ever happened to me. It took me quite a while to get back on my feet. And I tried everything, therapy, yoga retreats, meditation, psychics. And it wasn't until about a year and a half later where kind of everything clicked. And I shifted and reframed my relationship with,

what had happened, and I went from being a victim to being empowered. I'd love to tell you guys the story of how that happened. Girl, the floor is yours. This is my favorite episode. I knew you love her. I was like, Ashley, you've got off the phone with this girl's be our best episode. So, I mean, so yeah, after a period of time, the media intense emotions started to subside. If you look at research, this usually takes around the eight-week mark is when those crazy

physical emotions start to subside. Like you feel in your body. Totally. Like I'm personally when I'm in that place I couldn't even like work out because my heart would start racing. I'd be like I'm going to have panic attack on a spin bike. Like this is bad. I could only do yoga.

But like I always talk of it as like what's feeling literally in your body when people are like heart break. It feels like a hole in your heart. Yeah. And you're flooded with cortisol and stress hormones and adrenaline. And so your body is out of whack. So basically if they did it, fMR, I study on your scan on your brain, they would see that the same part of your brain is

activated as a drug user feeding for the next fix. You're physically in withdrawal. And so it's super important for people to understand what's happening during this time because you're actually not going crazy. Your body is used to getting your doses of dopamine and oxytocin from this person, from the text messages, from the hugs, from the makeup sex. And then you don't get it anymore. And your body's in shock. And it's like, what the fuck's going on? Go and get it. Go scroll their Instagram, look at your text messages. Show up at their house. Show up at their house.

Maybe burn it down. Show up at their house with the text messages and the Instagram. Keep telling the story over and over again. All these things is your body's way of trying to hang on and get that sort of a dose. And so eventually if you stop contact, if you stop scrolling their feet, if you start showing up at their house, the neural pathways start to prune away. and that's when you start to kind of be able to get back into your body. And so that's what happened to me, but I was still one angry bitch.

I was really horrible to date. I was super closed for business. And this went on for about a year and a half where even though I was over the initial angst and anger, I was very resentful. And one day a year and half later, I was telling a friend of mine who hadn't seen for a long time and I was telling the story of the betrayal, how awful and how in just everything. thing was. And he just stopped me and he's like, so Amy, does this story serve you? And I'm like, uh, no. He's like, okay, can you tell me some other times when he was loving and he was trustworthy?

And tell me some examples. And so I did. I was like, oh, well, there was this time. And there was this time I started smiling and laughing. And it was right then I realized that in my tunnel vision of making him the villain, all I could see was the darkness and the anger and the pain because that's all I was looking for. And we, human beings are very great at finding evidence to prove whatever it is that you want to find. And so I realized that I wasn't able to change the events of my history, but I could choose to change the story I was going to attach to those events. And I went home that day and I wrote him a letter of accountability of my part, of the facts of what happened, not my interpretation, of what I learned, of what I was letting go, of what

I forgave and what I was grateful for because because of that breakup and enabled me to stop and say, whose dream was I trying to create? Was this just my parents' dream of getting married by this age to the entrepreneur or was it my own? And I was like, wow, I have a blank canvas. How am going to paint this? And it ended up moving out of my hometown. I now fast forward, have my own company helping people with breakups. So it's amazing what can happen when your original plan. falls out of place because sometimes the breakup is the shakeup you need to redirect your life. I mean, that's what happened. I mean, I moved here. We started this podcast. I have my breakup to thank for my entire career in my life. Raina. I mean, she ended in engagement. What would

have happened if she just like married this dude? Yeah. And the first day we met actually, we talked about us on last week's episode two weeks ago. I'm about the date that we met and like we had dinner and then we went inside. We were with like a couple other women and we just stayed up all night long talking about relationships. It's like what connected us. It's like these painful situations, but like it grew a whole business for us. But then here we are these women that were thriving in our careers and sitting on the beach in Aruba talking about this stuff. You know, like something went right here for us to be here and doing this. I feel like I have so many questions about just your story. So, okay, the two months of this like body pain and all this stuff, people are asking like,

well, I can't stop. Like I'm a crazy person. Like are you of the mindset of you, okay, just deal, just go through it. Time will fix your crazy. Or do you feel like there are tools and tips for women to stop the crazy behavior? Or do you think you're just going to have to go through this, sis? Yeah, great question. So there's a few levels to this answer. Time doesn't heal the wounds that were buried beneath the original trauma, right? So when I look back at my breakup and how I fell apart into million pieces, it wasn't because of that person. It was a Band-Aid that got. It was a Band-Aid that ripped off of all of the wounds I never dealt with since childhood and the compound trauma. And so suddenly I had to deal with it and I pointed the finger that, oh, it's all your fault.

It's your fault that I don't feel enough. It's your fault that I put my identity in us and it fell apart. It's your fault that my house completely crumbled down because you didn't love me enough or you didn't behave the way I wanted you to. And that's what we deal with at breakup boot camp. The women who come think they're coming to heal from their ex. They're not. It's recycled pain. We recreate the emotional experiences of how we were wounded as children. And so if we don't figure out what is a subconscious foundation of the wounds, the patterns, and the belief systems, we will create the same emotional experience just with different people. And so I think at a time of a breakup, there's a few things. When you are feeling the feels of the crazy,

there's a tool that can help you with this and it gets better through time. And what you need to do first is you have an overactivated nervous system. So if you think about, say, a gazelle in the wild, when they see something that could be possibly dangerous, they freeze. And what's happening is they're being flooded with stress hormones. What they'll do is they'll eventually start shaking and then they'll just completely gallivant off as nothing happen. Human beings are wired the same way. When we feel a threat and separation is a threat, that shitty Instagram pick that they've taken with some, you know, other person is a threat. We feel this surge of angst in us, which is like your survival is at stake.

You're flooded with cortisol and adrenaline. What you need to do is you need to let that get out of your body. Right. So the very first thing you want to do is do a state change. The quickest way to do this is excuse yourself to the bathroom and just shake. Shake, shake, shake, shake for a couple of minutes. And what that's going to do is it's going to help your body rid the excess stress hormones. after that is when you can do something to start calming down.

And very simply, the next thing to do is to take deep breaths. What I recommend is a 3, 5, 7 breath. You breathe in for 3, you hold for 5, you breathe out for 7. If it's hard for you to remember that, just breathe out longer than it is than you breathe in. What that does, it starts to calm your nervous system down. So it's a two-part hack, which is really helpful because when you're feeling a surge of anxiety, it's pretty hard to just meditate your way out of it. You need to actually change your state.

Well, you want to act on it. You want to send the text or do the, or get in the car, or do the crazy thing. So I think where people go wrong, I've been there, is just going, just doing it. Like no deep breath, no shake, no get it out of your body. Because that's what Kelly would say to me. She's like, actually going to get this out of your body

for long term. It's like yoga and things like that. But just like, I think people are like, I can't. I'm going to do it. You don't need so many girls who are like, I'm just going to send the text. I don't even care what the response is.

I just need to get it out there. Because you're on drugs. Absolutely. Yeah, you're in like a crazy mode. So many friends of mine have like written that email and sent it. And they're like, I don't even care what the response is. I just needed to get it out in the world. And then when you calm down the next day, you're like, oh.

Fuck. You feel worse. You were talking about actual steps you can take. Is there something else after your three, five, seven breaths? Totally. So another thing, once you are back to a more rational state of mind, hopefully this changing your state and then deep breathing will help you, is to remember this, 90 seconds. 90 seconds is the amount of time that it takes for an emotion to actually move

through your body. Anything extra is the stories that you're attaching to that emotion. 90 seconds. So what happens is when you feel that first emotion, whether that's anger or anxiety or the panic, we then go, oh my gosh, why is there that person in the Instagram? Oh my gosh, what does this mean? Oh my gosh, they're living best life and I'm not. And then it keeps building and building. And that thing turns into a huge mountain. And so what you need to do is understand that the emotional wave will pass. You just have to let it. And most of us are not trained to do so. We are trained to act on whatever that we're feeling. Right. And so part of learning this whole process of emotional regulation, which is going to be so helpful, whether it's about relationships

or just life in general, is understanding the art of the pause. And in the beginning, it is very hard. But the more you practice, the better you get. And my suggestion is, before you send that text, that email, that anything, hold on to it. You can do free form writing and write it all out to get it out of your system and make a pact to yourself to not send any communication when you are in low vise. I love that you said this, and something happened to me recently that I haven't talked about on the podcast because we were so in it. But I went through this breakup with this guy. Ashley and I talked about on this great episode because you're not the one. And I had emailed him to basically end things. And he didn't write me back for four weeks. And he wrote me back the morning we recorded the episode. And so I never talked about, you know, how I felt. And he, I get this email and immediately I opened it up, but it's four pages. And like my immediate response was because the whole thing was about how he felt bad. And I start ferociously writing.

And I'm like explaining my thoughts and my opinions and everything I said. It was like a four-page email back to it. And then I was like, okay, let me wait an hour or to see how I feel. And in my mind, I was like, well, I'm not going to change how I feel. This is just how I feel. I let 12 hours go by. And then I was fucking pissed. Then I was like, I cannot believe you waited four weeks to write me back.

Take your feelings and shove them up your ass. I was so mad. So then I wrote that email. And I was like, I'm not going to change my mind. Like, this is exactly how I'm going to feel about this forever. but I didn't send the email. And then the next morning, I swear to God, 24 hours went by because I was like, let me just wait.

24 hours went by, I woke up the next morning and I was like, I don't care about this. Like, I'm not mad at this person anymore. I don't care about this person anymore. Like, let's just turn the page and be done with it. And I ended up just writing back, water under the bridge, enjoy your trip. Water under the bridge, enjoy your trip.

And like, I'm so glad that I waited because like all those thoughts and feelings I went through were not how I was going to end up feeling. I haven't thought about this person since. Like, I just genuinely don't kiss on. I love what you said about waiting, because how I felt in the moment was not how I long-term feel, if that makes sense.

Well, and I'm, I've tried to explain this not so eloquently on the podcast, so I'm so glad you're here. I think people may be hearing this for the first time, which I had to learn for myself a few years back, of like, it is what you're feeling at that moment is not your real, what is it, you're thinking all the different part of your brain even,

like the frontal lobe or something when these things are happening. So it's actually not how you're going to feel in, I don't know, 90 seconds to 24 hours, I guess. Yeah, remembering that your feelings aren't facts. Right. Right. It's so simple, but like, oh, shit, it's true. And one of the exercises we do at Renew is we have the women tell their stories, and I teach them how to tell their stories without re-traumatizing themselves.

And they start off with their original story. And their story is filled with interpretations and assumptions and how dare you? You took four weeks. you must have been an asshole, like all those things we fill in the blanks. And then we have them actually simplify the story with just the facts. And then you take out all those assumptions and the interpretations and the emotional charge gets smaller and smaller and smaller.

So it's just, yeah, another thing to remind yourself to take the pause, to understand our feelings aren't facts. You're not wrong for feeling them, but it doesn't mean that that is a fact of the situation. Okay. Are those your main steps? I think, yeah, there's that. And I think the best thing, too, after,

there's no ifs, ands or a butts about it. Avoid contact if you can. Basically, you have neural pathways that have been wired together for months, decades, years, and you need time for your neural pathways to start to prune away to create new ones. So you need a new reality without your partner in it. And if you're constantly going back to this person

having makeup sex or even rehashing old arguments, you're not allowing those neural pathways. pathways to prune away. And so as much as you can, and sometimes you can, because you have children or shared pets or whatnot, what I would suggest then is just try to keep your interactions limited to whatever the logistics are, but don't add emotional charge to it. When you have great news, don't go to them. When you have bad news, don't go to them. Yep, we did, I mean, a lot of it's stuff we've talked about, you always share these memes with them. Don't do it. Send it to your friend. You always watch the show together. Stop watching it or find someone else to watch it with. I

think people get wrapped up in like we had these things or these habits and traditions. How do I stop doing them? You just do. You're going to have to. They're broken up. I think people obviously have, this will obviously come up when you have a lot to drink, you know, and you're like, what's the, what's the big deal? I'll just send the text.

And I've actually, I'm so proud of me. I'm so proud of drunk me in the last like six months. Because when I sent that guy, that email and I didn't hear back for weeks, Ashley and I went on a vacation and then I wanted another vacation with my family. And I was like, I'm going to be drinking continuously. I'm not hearing back and I'm furious. And I had to look myself in the mirror and be like, do not communicate with this person while you were drinking.

Like, you will not be happy with it when you wake up. And like, I feel like when I'm drunk now, I'm like, I remember having that talk was sober me almost and just being like, you will not be happy when you wake up that you did this. And when you're drunk, like, you think like, what's the big deal? But like, I don't know. It's a weird exercise, but I just looked in the mirror and I was like, don't do this. And you're going to wake up and not appreciate this.

Also, guys, move away. I moved to New York, because that's what I did. I have just one quick question for you that might be, I don't know if it's too personal. The infidelity, was this a one-off thing or an affair? It was a one-off thing. Okay. Which, someone I knew. Which, okay.

Well, that's brutal. But I think for me, this is a different topic, but I just, I think if it was a long-term affair and you came home and lied to me every single day for however long, I don't know if I'd ever be able to get past the anger. I don't know. I mean, that's probably a different type of thing. You know, like I think you were able to reflect and be like just because he did this thing,

he's not a terrible person. I mean, is that something that you tell yourself now? We're actually really good friends now. Oh, okay. Any jokes you should have shares in my company. He's probably listening to this right now. Shout out. Yeah, I have a very different view on infidelity now.

Back then, it was the worst thing you could ever do and you're horrible and the relationship is over. I now have witnessed couples who have become stronger working through the infidelity because infidelity brought up issues that were in the relationship that weren't discussed. Of course, I don't condone infidelity. I think if you have a commitment to a type of partnership and monogamy, I believe in honoring that. If I was to be cheated on in my current relationship, I don't think I would say it's completely over. but it would be, it would totally depend.

Do you think you guys would be friends today if he had had like a full-blown like months affair, other woman sidepiece coming home and like looking you in the face and being dishonest every day? Yes. You think? Okay. It wasn't the magnitude of what happened,

which is why I have a different way of seeing my, my relationship with my ex. I have come to a place of complete gratitude because if that did, didn't happen the entire thing, I would not be where I am today. And so I just have gratitude when I think about what had happened between us, which might be, might be crazy. But I mean, no, I think about that all the time. It's like this wouldn't, we wouldn't have this if it wasn't for our exes. Absolutely. My ex, he sleeps at night wonderfully thinking that, well, I saw him recently

and he was like, I just, I know it did you favor by leaving you? And I'm like, well, if that helps you sleep at night, buddy, whatever. But, but. But, Yeah, I love that. And I think it's also like an interesting message, which is like you can get through trauma and if you want, still have the person be a part of your life. It's not for everybody. But you can heal and forgive somebody for something that they've done to you. And I like that message a lot. And so I love what you're saying about short term in the short term. Here's eight weeks. Here's what you can do to feel better. But I also would love to talk about like long term. Like let's redefine your life. Let's figure out how to move on with yourself or with another partner. If you want to talk. about that a little bit. Yeah. The quicker you can reframe your past relationship from a place of victimization to a place of empowerment is the quicker you're going to get rid of the suffering and move on to create a healthier life. And so the people come to break up boot camp. We encourage them to actually become like scientists. And our exes reveal really important information on what's happening on a subconscious level.

As I mentioned before, the emotional experience is going to keep repeating until you figure out what is that subconscious belief that's causing you to create these same scenarios. In my case, I grew up in a household where there was chaos all the time. My father was never around. He was a busy entrepreneur.

I was trying to always earn his love and affection. If I got good grades, sometimes I would get that. and it was very inconsistent. And so that became what I was familiar with. That was my model of love. And so it's not any coincidence that every single person that I felt attracted to and chemistry with were people who were wounding me in the exact same way. And so I really encourage anyone who's going through a breakup or if you just are not happy

with your relationship outcomes is to just assess what is the pattern, what is the emotion, and what is the emotional experience that keeps repeating? Are you resentful? Are you overgiving? Are you playing the hero and trying to save someone? Are you trying to change someone? Because chances are there's a belief system that's causing that behavior and that's causing that outcome to repeat.

I'm shocked by everything you say. How do you do this? I mean, obviously, break a boot camp and I think in therapy, right? Yeah. So, of course, there's so many different healing modalities. so from therapy to hypnotherapy to psychedelics, and you'll need to figure out what is the most helpful for you. But I think just to start before you get into all the professional services

is really just taking stock of your relationship history. Right, like what did you do? Yeah. So if your relationship history hasn't been very healthy, it's possible that your chemistry compasses, broken. So your chemistry compass is something I've coined that really points you into the direction of who you are drawn to. And so if you grew up with an unhealthy model of what love feels like, you are going to likely, as an adult, keep going for people who mirror that same type of model

of love as a child. So for example, if it's chaotic when you're young and you equated chaos with love, then it's likely you're going to get into relationships that are very chaotic. Or if you're in something healthy, you might self-sabotage. Or you'll think healthy mates are very boring. And so I knew that my chemistry compass was broken. And the way that this happened was just person after person, I was having the same experience over and over again. And it was really frustrated. And one day, I had a guy friend of mine reach out to me on Facebook chat and said, hey, Amy, I know we've been friends for a bit and, you know, it seems like we should have very common values and a shared life vision of what we want in the future. And would you be open to exploring something on a more

romantic sense? And I remember I was in the office and I had a physical reaction. I was like, oh my God. And my team was like, oh my God, are you okay? Was this a negative? I can't tell it was negative or positive physical reactions. It was repulsed. I could feel that. I could feel the repulsion. I could feel it. He really spoke like that? This isn't your current boyfriend. No, it's not.

Oh my God. She's like, and that's my boyfriend. I was like, I'm not going to insult this dude if this is your boyfriend. Who, I mean, who talks like that? I know.

And you know what? He's an amazing guy. I know guys that talk like that. Like, they're nice guys. You know, we're used to guys, not all, but being an asshole.

So he was like, I'm going to be nice and respectful and share the way I feel about this. And we're like, oh, my God. Why are you so obsessed with me? Why are you so obsessed with me? Right.

So here's a guy who's intentionally wanting to date me, super respectful, articulate, and I feel disgust. That's not normal. It's a very abnormal reaction. To the point where my team members are like, are you okay? They thought something wrong.

It's not someone died. And I'm like, if I'm reacting to this, to this good looking, successful, nice guy, there's something really wrong here. And so I did what every relationship columnist does, and I did an experiment on myself, and I set out to rewire my chemistry compass.

So what I did was I said, okay, I am going to be open to going out on dates with any guy that intentionally wants to date me is healthy and like of the nice kind. And that's what I did. I went on probably, I met seven different guys and I went on multiple dates. And it wasn't working. And seven months went by.

I was like, this experiment sucks. Like, it's not working. Really? And then one day... These guys are boring. I'm like, it's so boring. There's no chemistry growing. Fuck.

One day I was having dinner with this guy. And early on in the beginning, I had communicated like, look, I'm not. attracted to you, but, like, I'm open to hanging out as homies if you want to keep hanging. And he's like, no pressure. Like, you're an awesome human. I just want you in my life. So I was like, okay, no pressure. That's so far.

I just, hey, I'm not attracted to you, but if you want to hang as homies, he's like, God damn it. That's like the biggest boner killer I've ever. But he was like, I'll wear her down. I'll stick around and wear it down. This is your boyfriend, of course, is probably. I will. It is. And we're married.

Yeah. And so basically, we would just hang out. out as friends. And it was about eight months after this initial conversation. We were having dinner. And it was probably the seventh time I hung out with him. We were having dinner. And I remember this distinct moment when I looked across a table

and I was like, I'm never going to suck your dick. Raina. I think it's going to be the exact opposite. I'm on the edge of my seat. Amy, continue. So I looked across the table. And I just remember, I was like, you look hot. Oh, my God. I knew it.

Nailed it. And I'm like, what the fuck? And I felt attracted to him. And what I realized was that through time, I started to develop feelings for this person, not because of all the superficial stuff or the intensity in the high, high, low lows that I was used to. It was because of his character and his soul

and how he consistently showed up and he was a good guy. And I didn't feel any pressure when I was with him because he was totally accepting that we were friends. and we dated for a bit and we didn't end up getting into a relationship and we're still friends to this day. But that was the beginning of me being able to rewire my chemistry. Now, would that have happened if those seven guys before him didn't? No, because what was happening is I started to become more familiar with what healthy felt like. Human beings like what is familiar.

And so I wasn't going to go from super toxic dysfunctional attraction. towards the bad boy, towards a person who was always unavailable to super healthy. It's just not going to happen that way. Degree by degree, my chemistry compass started to shift. And since then, the people I've been dating have been super healthy. And I'm now in a really healthy relationship with an awesome human. So we actually were talking about us in the car this morning, Ashley and I on the way to this event, about like,

can you love somebody so passionately and fight with somebody so passionately and have a super, I guess, quote-unquote unhealthy relationship? up and then you meet the next person and you feel like it's boring because it's quote unquote healthy like we're not fighting there isn't that I don't know like do you think people I guess my question is like do you feel like people confuse drama and fighting with passion and love and so when they find a relationship that's very even keeled they think it's boring totally and i think this comes back to chemistry compass where and there's other terms for it there's limerence there's love addiction. We all have a degree of love addiction when we're in the throes of, you know,

the beginning parts of love, which is obsession over the person, the feeling of high dopamine rushes. When the affection is returned, you feel amazing and when it's not, you feel horrible. Some degree of this is normal. However, if you are on the other side of the spectrum and you're always chasing the high, or you're always obsessive over someone. and you're creating make-believe by putting fantasy in between because you're actually not in relationship. You're not creating intimacy if you're in relationship with a fantasy. This is unhealthy and this is dysfunctional.

And it's hard because our love songs, our Disney movies, all of this stuff is telling you that the Romeo and Juliet story is what love is. High, low, intense, do you like me, do you not love me? We're torn because our families can't stand each other. there's conflict. That is not what love is. And so if you equate an activated nervous system with love and you don't create awareness that that is dysfunctional, you are going to continuously have the same loop over and over again. Yeah. And I like to use the word homeostasis earlier, which I just,

I love that of like, did you, was your normal growing up chaos and trauma and dysfunction? And I mean, I was in a relationship with somebody that that was their past. And it wasn't with me and I went to therapy and I feel like she was she was trying to get out of me like do you subconsciously like the highs and the lows? And I was like, I do not. I hate this. Like I did not grow up fighting with people. I have never yelled like this in my life. Like I come from stability. I want stability. I miss the beginning when we dated and we were normal and not fighting, you know? And I just, I think a lot of people, that's not the case. They're like, yeah, this is my normal. And this is my, this is what I grew up.

up feeling comfortable in. And I mean, that's a whole other topic of how you rewire that, right? I mean, I guess that's what you just explained that you did. But I think some people have it worse, you know. And I mean, how do they find a quote unquote, normal, stable relationship, which is kind of just the rewiring. I think, you know, and I think a good tip for people that you can just even start reflecting on now is if you have a history of unhealthy,

relationships, take stock of what does healthy look like? Because if you don't know how it feels like, the very first step is to understand what is healthy on a cerebral level. So eventually you can create the experience and feel it on an embodied level. And so what I mean is by this, look at the past relationships that didn't work out and start to write down a list of what is unhealthy. Unhealthy is obsessive. Unhealthy is chaotic. Unhealthy is angstridden. Unhealthy is wondering, do they like me? Do they not like me? All these things are characteristics of unhealthy. And then write a list of what does healthy look like? You might not have a romantic example, but I'm sure you can find an example from friends or family and start writing down how that is

because healthy love is the same, whether you're getting it from friends or family. It's, you know, like the less and the romance of it is just one form of the same thing, which is love. And healthy love is supportive. Healthy love is consistent. Healthy love is peaceful. It's calm. It's giving and receiving. It's generous.

It doesn't give you this kind of crazy, you know, spiral. Do you think that there are just people, though, that are incapable of that type of state? So, like, you know, you can look for all these things, like healthy love versus unhealthy, but there's always going to be men that just inherently, they don't want to be monogamous. They enjoy having a girlfriend and they enjoy cheating on their girlfriend. Like, there are people that just, do you think there's people that can just never give you that? I think that there's going to be people that, I think you'll never be able to change someone else. And I think that the person who wants to not ever be monogamous and keep playing, like, there's nothing wrong with that either, right?

Like, it might not be my right, but it's also not wrong. And so hopefully they can play with people who share the same relationship model. So, yeah, I think it's the most important thing is identifying of what is unhealthy so that before you take 100 steps with that person who's showing the red flags of not being monogamous when you want monogamy, of being inconsistent, and you feel the chemistry, because you're going to still feel the chemistry. It's not like suddenly you'll stop feeling it. I still feel chemistry with unavailable hot DJs,

which was my thing in all of my 20s. But what's different now is with awareness, I choose to not go down a black hole with that person. It's a choice. It starts with one date or like one experience. I love that you said that. Like don't go on the one, don't have the one experience.

Just don't do it. Yeah, if you know the past, I mean, I don't think I'll ever, the guys that I've dated in the past that felt toxic and had these bad patterns. I feel like I can see them from a mile away now. I'm not going to do, I'm not, that's not what I want. I want somebody that's done the work. You know, I'm not trying to save and fix somebody at this point in my life.

I think I'll help me mean something different for other people. And like, you and I talk about this, like that feeling when you're at work and you can't listen in a meeting, when you're with your girlfriends and you can't focus or be present. Like, I think people are like, they mistake that for some kind of like drama and chemistry. But like, like, that's a terrible feeling. And if you're feeling that and if you're sitting through like a work meeting, you can't check in because every second you're like, are they going to text me? What's going to go on next? You know, when is the other shoe going to drop?

That's a terrible unhealthy thing, I think. Yeah, I think, and that's a combination of the partner selection and also with your own anxiety, right? And so I'm not going to go into attachment theory much, but basically we are, we have an attachment system that's developed by the age of two years old. and if you're constantly preoccupied with thoughts of your relationship and you fear abandonment or rejection, it's characteristic of someone has an anxious attachment style. And so there are ways and therapy to actually become more secure.

And I'm sure you guys are going to get into that in another podcast. I know. Sorry, guys. It could be a whole episode on its own, which we do plan on doing hopefully with the guy that wrote the book. But, I mean, attachment theory, we've touched on a little bit. We talked about it with Carrie Bradshaw and Mr. Big, you know, this iconic relationship of why they did this dance for a decade. We hate that relationship, by the way, just so we're clear. But what she has the, what is it called when you have the anxious, right?

And then what's, what would- He's an avoidant. Right. That's, yep, there it is. We did an episode called Fuck You, Carrie Bradshaw. It's one of our favorites. And we are going to do episodes about that, also toxic relationships. So we're going to talk about all that stuff.

I think it's really interesting. We all talked about this offline before we started. But like, there's so many. women in like every city, but I was thinking like New York City, that are so successful in every other aspect of their lives. And they're like, why can't I make this work? This one thing. This really, because I can, I can do friendships. I can do exercise. I could do my job. But I can't do this one thing. And I'd love it if you like talked a little bit about that because I think it's just like a deep dark death hole that we go down. Yeah. I mean, I think I, that was me exactly. Like I was able to

kill it in my career and my friend groups. And what happened was as a child, I developed a root belief system that I am not enough. And so I was always trying to earn the love and approval from my parents. And so this coping mechanism to earn validation was great for getting good grades in school, for having multiple jobs, for being an entrepreneur, but not so much translating well into love. And so a lot of these coping mechanisms that successful people have worked very well to get you successful in achieving. But again, it goes down to what is the root belief system.

And so I think it's really important whether you're a trailblazing CEO or a stay-at-home mom or an artist or young or old is to just examine what is a possible belief systems that's causing these emotional experiences to repeat over and over again. And what are your coping mechanisms? Because it could be very tricky. You could say, oh, fuck guys. I like living best life. I don't need a partner. I don't need anything. Is that really truly where you're at?

And if that is amazing, or is that a coping mechanism because at some point you got so hurt and so disappointed that you're like, I can't even be bothered. So your heart is close. And I know that was for me. I was like, oh, like, I'm just living the life

and I'm like dating all these guys. And life's amazing. My career's going off. But if I, and I even said to myself, like, I'm open for a relationship. but my heart was closed. I was so afraid that that same breaking down that happened seven years ago would happen again that even though I said I was open-minded to be in a relationship, I wasn't because I was constantly going on dates trying to filter people out. Like, oh, no, not you. No,

three dates in. I'm like, oh, notice that, not you. And I thought, I'm like, no, no, I'm just so selective now. I'm so woke. But really, it was my way of guarding against, you know, creating true intimacy. And the time this changed was I was having a conversation with a friend of mine who got into a relationship. And he, I was like, wow, like you really jumped into this relationship after being a bachelor for so long. What's going on? And he's like, I just decided I'm going to jump in and love her with reckless abandon. And this friend of mine...

Sounds like a thing that men do. Well, they just decide. They just turned the cablight on. She got in. What's different with this guy, though, is he's someone who's done so much self-work. He meditates every day. He's just such a, he has such a strong foundation. And so even if this relationship didn't work out, his house wouldn't fall apart.

He would still be standing. So he could love with reckless abandon. And I looked at that with admiration. I said, I can do that too. Because now with all the tools that I have, with having built my foundation where it's so strong and solid that if I open up my heart and I get hurt or disappointed, I know I can get back up and I can get back up pretty quickly. So I made the decision to open up my heart and the first guy I did this with, I got hurt. And I remember this quote that I say to the woman at breakup boot camp,

our greatest lesson in this lifetime is to practice opening our hearts even when it hurts, especially when it hurts. And I just remember I was so fucking sad. And I was like, I'm going to listen to that. I'm going to open my heart, which means I'm going to have compassion for him and compassion for myself. And I'm going to get back up.

And then I met the guy that I'm with now. Can we hear about that? Yeah. I'm sure people are curious. How long have you been together? How did you meet? Yeah. Just kind of the basics.

Totally. It's pretty new. But I had been single for five years before, before this wonderful human being. And I think what was really different was, I don't know if he was responding to my energy, I was responding to his, but we just both went in with a really open heart.

And after our first date, he deleted his dating apps. I followed Sue like a couple weeks afterwards. And I could feel my old tendencies kind of creeping in the tendencies to act a little aloof. Or maybe I should just go in another day, date with this person just to hedge and I don't put all my energy. All the shit that those books teach you, why men marry bitches, all that stuff? And I was like, why would I do that? Why would I punish this guy who is showing up, who's consistent, who's in his action and his words showing me that he's

interested in pursuing a relationship? I'm not going to do that. And because of that, it's been really healthy and supportive and secure. And our first date, it really developed throughout the entire eight hours we were together. When I first met him, I was like, oh, my God, I want to rip your clothes off. I was like, oh, this is interesting and fun. And he's like, oh, do you want to grab a bite? I'm like, sure. We had had dinner.

I'm like, oh, this is fun. Okay, cool. You want to go to the next place? Sure, let's go. And that eight-hour date ended up over, you know, midnight pizza and a steamy makeup. session. And I was like, oh my God, like, I like, I like this guy. And so what I really encourage people out there is be open-minded. You know, healthy may not have this crazy intensity in the very beginning. Sometimes things take time to grow. Maybe it's in the course of one day or the

course of one week, but just have an open mind that love can be sparked in different ways. I agree. We say this all the time. This has been my head. history with multiple people that I've dated that at first I was like no absolutely not for whatever reason whether it was something that was on paper or something with looks whatever and they I hate to say grew on me but it the chemistry developed not months later I wouldn't wait that out but not day one and it just I think all I knew with these past partners was I just want to see them again like I just want to hang out with them that's the only thing I don't feel obligated I just feel excited to see them again for whatever reason they made me laugh. They felt comfortable with me. None of the people

that I had long-term successful relationships with were tear your clothes off minute one. So that's been my track record. And now we try to, you know, if you know, if you're like, absolutely not. I do not want to see that person again, then don't see them again. But I think that the litmus test for me is like, do I, am I excited to hang out again? Am I excited to go get that slice of pizza at midnight after, you know, I just think that's just as simple as that. I also do. there's nothing wrong with saying, like, there's two things in the world I want a partner and they're not going to do one of those things,

then I'm going to walk away from this. I don't think it's, there's nothing wrong with being at a certain age and being like, you know what? I've been through enough relationships. I understand what is a serious deal breaker for me. And also walking away. But like, I love your limit's test. I'm excited to show back up again.

So I want to get into a little bit more of what you guys do at breakup boot camp. And it sounds to me, and tell me if I'm, correct me if I'm wrong, but that after the initial, and kind of reframing the relationship and what was facts and what was feelings. For you and for us, it is like build this life that build your foundation and your career and whatever it is outside of a partner.

So your whole, for lack of a better word, when the person comes along, again, for lack of a better word. But that's what I think. You get over the heartbreak, you reframe the relationship. And then it is let me make my life great for me and outside of a partner. Yeah. So a lot of the people who come to Renew Breakup Boot Camp, they have an anxious attachment style. So they have put a lot of their identity into the validation from their partner. Find my identity. That's what I was trying to get to with all those bumble. I'm like a bumbling

identity. Find your identity. Whatever it may be. Can you talk about what breakup? I feel like we'd talk about what is breakup boot camp. So Renew Breakup Boot Camp, we take a scientific and spiritual approach to healing and rewiring the heart. I bring in a team of 14 experts ranging from psychologists, hypnotists, hypnotists, energy healers. I even bring in a dominatrix with a PhD from Berkeley who specializes in the psychology of power dynamics. We're going to have them on the podcast.

And can I just say what I'm picturing where, and you tell me if I'm wrong, what is the couples retreat? Have you seen that movie? Like, why am I picturing you guys all? Like, I'm picturing that episode of girls. if she goes into the woods with her mom. Okay, we're picturing two different things. I'm picturing couples retreat and everybody's at this island

and like Paul Rudd is teaching you how to serve. Like, I just... It's fun, but it's definitely more scientific. And it's only women. Well, as it should be, yeah. And do you do them at different locations or is the same location all the time? It's like a spa retreat, right? Yeah, so it's a private estate in upstate New York and Hudson

and I'm going to be expanding into California. Yeah, congratulations. Oh, awesome. Oh, yeah, that's a totally west coast thing. Yeah. They'll eat it up. And how many, how many have you done at this? So I have done 11 retreats now.

Okay. And it's pretty intense. It's four days, 8.30 to 12 o'clock midnight. You're in programming hour after hour. And we design it this way to really over-stimulate you because we're trying to really create a shake-up of the decades of patterns that people have so that we can actually create an opening for new seats to implant in. I mean, I don't even want to ask.

When's your next one? All these girls are going to sign up like right immediately. I know. You should do a couple more. Just add, how did you find this? So you're like, okay, I'm going to do this retreat. Like, how do I find 14 people to speak? Like, how did you do that? I'm so curious.

Yeah, I mean, it started off with me just realizing there's a need because when I went through my breakup, I went to yoga retreats, which were great. But by the second I got back into my apartment, I was still dealing with the same thing. Totally. And there was nothing that was targeted to the type of pain that I was going through and the type of healing that I needed. And so I decided that I wanted to create a safe space in nature where everyone's sleeping under one roof,

where there's a nostalgia of being at home when you were young. And you have the best of the best experts teaching you about what's going on in the mind, the body, the soul. So we even have an on-site chef and nutritionist who cooks all of our meals because everything is interconnected. For sure. Stay hydrated, ladies. Stay hydrated through those breakups.

And hydrated. Don't get dehydrated. Yeah, and like the way... Is there drinking? There's no drinking. It's completely alcohol and drug-free. Got it. And digital-free, actually.

Okay, so no phones, no alcohol, no mail. Yeah, we actually even have a bucket for people to put their phones in and they get rewarded with extra cake if they do it. Okay. We're going free cake, of course. And how many people will be in one retreat? 20 participants, 14 facilitators. Is it all women?

All women. All women. I love that you said that because I, and nothing against yoga retreats. That's incredible. But yeah, you come back and you're like, well, all I know how to do is yoga. So I'm just going to do yoga.

Like I love that like someone would come back from this retreat and they know how to think differently. I know that feeling. When you walk in the door and you hear that door click and you are alone. It is the worst feeling because you're like, I did this thing and I should feel great. But the door just shut and I'm alone.

And I have no new tools to do like this at all. Yeah. And then there's a community. that forms because the women get really, really close. And they end up going on vacations together. I had one retreat where they left and they got tattoos together. And there's a WhatsApp group where they're constantly on it. Like someone's going on a new date.

They're like, okay, I'm trying a date with this like really nice guy. And like she's on date three and it's going really well. We're so happy for her. To like today, like someone's going through anxiety because her ex is, you know, dating someone else. And everyone kind of jumps in and helps. And then we have monthly meet up. where we have an ongoing conversation about healthy relationships. Can we come talk?

Yeah. Can we speak there? I don't know if you have speakers, but I'm just going to bite myself. I'm just going to bite myself. Actually, I just want to hang out with you. That's what I'm trying to get at. I want to go back to finding your identity. And I think for some people, it can be starting to break up boot camp or starting a podcast.

Like, you know, that's our story. Yeah. And I say it all the time. Like when my ex left me, my fiance left me, all I ever is, my job was fine. My life was fine. I never traveled anywhere. I had no hobbies. But my life was fine. He left me. Before that, all I, my identity was to be a wife and a mother. Like, we were going to get married. I was going to have children. That was my life. I was going to have like a normal nine to five. And he took that away from May. And all of a sudden I was like, what do I, I have nothing left? Like, who am I? What am I? What have I done?

And so, yeah, like, how do you redefine that identity? Yeah, great question. I think. we kind of all have a very similar story where this plan that we thought we were going to have suddenly is like ripped out from underneath us. And in the beginning, it's super scary because you're like, well, that's the only plan I knew. But I think if you look back at other times when a plan didn't work out, whether you got laid off from a job and you got a better job or a breakup led you to a better relationships, we have a history of things not working out for something better, a better fit to come along. And so there's a little bit of trust in the process. I've now had so many times where something didn't go right because something better came along that I just now

know like, oh, this didn't work out. I know something better is coming. I've just reframed my relationship with perceived disappointment. And second, I think just what lesson were you supposed to learn? Most of the women who come to renew, they say something very similar and they say, I feel like the rug has been ripped out from underneath me. The question is, why, what was this person the foundation and the floor that you were standing on? Why that rug? Yeah. Exactly.

And so the boot camp is really about getting to the bottom of that and those belief systems that is causing your foundation to be so shaky. And the goal is that we give them enough tools and start helping them reframe their subconscious beliefs so that when they leave, they actually can start practicing another way of being so that they can build a healthier relationship with themselves. And then as a bonus,

then they can have healthier relationships with other people. But it's about building your own foundation. So it's not going to be ripped out from underneath you because you got laid off or because this guy dumped you. Right. And is Renew Breakup Boot Camp? Is that just the official name? Yes.

Because we've said both things. Okay. Just making sure. Do you help people try to figure that out? Or is that just you kind of get them started on that? Yeah. Are you like, what do you want to do with your life? We also have life coaches there.

Okay. So there's a bunch of different private sessions that people can sign up for depending on what area they want to work on. So whether it's life coach, whether it's sexual education with a tantra coach, whether it's learning about power with the dominatrix, whether it's a psychic medium, we have different private sessions for them.

Okay. Wow. Is it like sign up for different things? Yeah, sorry. And everybody's different. I mean, we've beat this to death on all of our other episodes. For me, it was like I moved to New York City and I knew I knew I wanted to do more comedy

and eventually start this podcast. Raina went to culinary school and she took up photography and she just started pursuing these things that you traveled a lot. Yeah, I think it's different. All the things that I just like wasn't doing. I was like, what do I have left?

Absolutely. Like actually changed her whole life. She moved to a new city and yeah, I don't need to repeat. And solidifying, I guess, relationships too. And I moved closer to my family, but I've never been closer with my family. Like they are just the most important thing in my life. And you've said, you know, when you were with your ex-fiancee, you lost touch with a lot of friends. I mean, you have more girlfriends than anybody I know, aside for me.

And I just think it's a part of it's that too, right? Yeah. I let the relationship just be my whole life. And there's something, fine, do that if you want to do that. But like, I didn't foster friendships. I didn't make an effort to go out to dinner with other girlfriends when he would be, when he would be late at work or something. I just stayed at home.

He didn't really have the money to travel. I didn't travel. He didn't have the money to like take hobbies up and take classes. I just didn't take classes. And I just let that be okay. And like, that's fine. I was young. Nobody told me to build a life I was proud of, you know?

Right. Nobody told me. Like, society just tells you to be a wife and a mother. Right. And my mother never told me to be. My mother, my parents divorced when I was four years old. And I had very loving supportive parents like Ashley, but they were not together in my home.

So my mom said, like, God forbid a man leaves you, have a job you can fall back on. But that's all. That's what I grew up on. Have money, but not like, my mom wasn't like to make sure you go to Columbia and Peru. You know, nobody told me that. Yeah. Not college Columbia. I know.

I was like, what? No. You're not getting in Ivy League. No offense. Neither am I. No. I barely got in Indiana. I think you raised a great point is we like, so one of the exercises we do is looking at your pie.

And it sounds like your pie was filled with relationship, relationship relationship. So if you look at a pie and like you divide that up into different slices of how much energy, and time you're spending on relationship, on self-care, on play, on education, on work. Often I know with the women at Renew, that pie is very skewed. The slice of the pie reserved for relationship is usually 60%, maybe even 70%. And that happens often slowly. You can start off with, I'm an independent empowered woman, and then you're like, well, he travels a lot for work, so I just have to leave my weekends open in case he's free.

Decision after decision, limit after limit that you breach. Like, I just won't see my friends this weekend because. And then you get to a point where suddenly it's just all relationship. And that pie went from you being independent women who's doing soul cycle and like doing like women's brunches to like 70% me and him. Yeah. And you're like, how the fuck did I get here? Why do I feel so disempowered? And so I think a great exercise for anyone listening is write down your pie.

How does that look like right now? Is it balanced? Is it, you know, 70% relationship? Is it no relationship at all? And then write another pie, draw another pie. And what is a more balanced, healthy pie that you can strive for? And if you're in a relationship now, just making sure you look at it to like remind yourself like, oh, you know what, I got to add more self-care.

I have to add more community. Or if you have a tendency to be codependent and wanting to merge with your partner, creating a pie and reminding yourself to not do that because you want to keep a balance. Well, and nobody wants a partner that they're the whole pie. I mean, maybe some controlling men, but I think for the most part, healthy partners don't want to be your whole pie. And I think that's we think that people can pick up on that. And that's not just specific to women. I don't want someone that's super needy.

And I don't want to feel like I'm someone's whole world. And if we break up, their life's going to be over. So I think it's for that too. It's just to attract the right type of partner. And I think if you back yourself into that corner, you're set up. in a situation where like you have to accept everything that person's doing because what do you have left? What would you do without it?

Yeah. We had another guest on Lindsay, Lindsey Metzler from a podcast called We Metta Acme. Yeah, I was on it. Oh, you are. And she just said when you think about if you broke up with this person, what would you have if it's nothing? That ain't good.

Yeah, mic drop. Yeah, exactly. Anything else that you feel like we don't want you to give away your whole breakup boo camp. we want people to go, but any other just unique tools about getting through breakups that you want to share, whether they're related to renew or not? Yeah. So I think one thing that could be very helpful for anyone who's trying to let something go is actually creating a ritual and a right of passage around it. When you're going through a breakup, there's a part that's dying, right?

There's this old relationship that's dying and you're making space for the new. And so honor that, have respect in the ritual of that. And what we do at Renew is on one of the nights, we have them write a letter. And it's that same letter that I wrote to my ex many, many years ago. And in that letter, write down what happened. The facts of what happened, not your interpretation. Then write down your own accountability in what happened because it takes two people to be in a relationship. and it's not all he's an asshole, she's a bitch, it's not all that.

And then take a look and see what is it that you learned? What did you learn about yourself? There's such great lessons that our relationships teach us that pain teaches us. Find those lessons. And then write down what you're letting go, write down what you are forgiving, and then write down what you're grateful for. Maybe that was the push you needed to leave your hometown to start investing. into your friendships again to realize that too much of your identity was wrapped up in one other

person and feel the gratitude of that and thank that person for helping you learn all of that. And after that, take that letter and burn it. And if you need to repeat this process multiple times, I've had women at Renew who, after the boot camp had done it multiple times, go and do that, but it's very cathartic. Absolutely. Or do stand-up comedy. I can't recommend it enough. Absolutely.

every fucked up, just get on, get on stage. Ashley said this thing. We have another one of our best episodes was about how to get over a break up like right now. And Ashley said like, just make the pros and cons list, like physically sit down. And like, if the only thing in the cons columns, he didn't love me the way that I deserve to be loved. And I just like love that you said that. And it still like resonates with me like 50 episodes ago. If that's the only thing in the cons column, like do that, write that list and like look at that all the time.

And so, I mean, you say light it on fire. You don't have to let it on fire. Yes. And I think the pros and the cons list is a little different. Yours is more like reflecting the relationship and the good that came out of it. But I think the pros and the cons list is before that. It's just like in the moment, get this on writing, this was not the person for me. And this is how they made me feel.

And this is why they weren't the person for me. And I just have to say, I don't know a woman out here. I mean, most of my friends are really loved their lives and they're successful and they're where they want to be. No one has ever like, I still. wish I was with my ex or the breakup was still the worst thing that ever happened to me. We have all been through terrible breakups, me and all of my girlfriends

and I think everybody reflects on it as like, yeah, that was supposed to happen and I'm so glad it did. And I can imagine being with that person and here's what it taught me and here's what it did for my life overall. Yeah. I mean, you only don't get to that realization when you just keep trying to hang onto the relationship

by hanging onto the pain and not accepting reality. Right. And it's, It's easier said than done, but if that person doesn't want to be with you, you shouldn't want to be with them. Yeah. You deserve somebody that wants to be with you. That's what a relationship is. Yeah. Two people choosing to be in it.

Yeah. Well, this was amazing. Really, I'm thrilled with this episode. I know. Thank you so much. I mean, we, any other closing remarks? I want her to, like, tell me where they can find her. I do have one thing.

Okay. All right. So the last. So the last thing I want to leave you with is sometimes we create a relationship in our heads. And so what this means is you might go on a few dates with someone and it starts off pretty level. They like you. I like them. And then you start daydreaming about the person and they said they wanted to retire in Bali one day.

And you wanted to retire in Bali one day. And you're like, your soulmate bell start ringing. And so in between you're creating this fantasy, you're replaying the fantasy and it feels so good. And your body actually can't tell the difference between what's happened in the past, the present, and the future. So that's why when you keep telling the same retramatizing story of what happened with a past breakup and catching invidality, you can be flooded with tears because your body's actually creating stress hormones. Well, the same thing's happening when you are creating a fantasy about someone. I coined this future tripping.

And so it's creating all these feelings of the chemicals of dopamine and all these feel-good chemicals. And suddenly what's happening is your feelings skyrocket for that person. And then you might go on a few more dates and suddenly something feels off. The power dynamic is a bit off. And then you're clamoring for their attention. You want more. You might feel needy.

And then it falls apart. And then you're like completely heartbroken. This is a very common thing that happens at Renew with the women who tell their stories where they were in these relationships. And in their head, they were married and had children and retired in Bali like five times already. Whereas in the head of the person they were dating, they went on a few dates, had some good sex, and that was that. And so if you have a tendency to do this and if you have a tendency to meet someone, get really excited and suddenly you're feeling sky. rocket, what I would suggest to you is to do what's called the stop sign exercise. And what this is, is whether you're ruminating about the past and creating anxiety or your future tripping about

a future that hasn't happened, um, imagine, close your eyes, imagine a big red stop sign and then say the word stop. And then look around you and just start to look for everything you're grateful for and just be like, oh, I'm grateful for the beautiful sky right now. I'm beautiful for the rain. I'm beautiful, I'm grateful for this cute dog and just keep going because what that's going to do is it's going to distract your mind from the original thought. And eventually, if you keep practicing this, the first few times it might be hard, you'd be like, this doesn't work, but eventually what happens is you're able to train your mind to actually just go off into this whole gratitude thing, which makes you present, and then you forget the original thought. And it stops you from creating

these fantasy relationships with people in your head. I love that you said that. I also think sometimes it's you need something else going on in your life. Like I have found that when I wasn't as busy and I wasn't trying to run a business, I would have more time to fantasize and make up these scenarios in my head and imagine this life with this person. And when you are busy and fulfilled and killing it in life and doing other things and you have hobbies and workouts and you have a schedule in your really living life, you just don't have the time and energy to do that. I think.

I love that you said visualization. for one. Like people are like, what? Visualize a stop sign. I'm like, yeah, it's the thing. Like, visualize it and focus on like gratitude and something else. But even on a bigger schedule, like, do you have just a lot of time in your hands to sit around and fantasize? I mean, that's what they do in The Bachelor. So they put all these girls in a house and they take away all their phones and their magazines and the books and there's no TV. And then they all are fantasizing about this one man and these women go crazy. They put them in this bubble basically and it's designed to do that exact same thing.

And that's why you see these women act absolutely bat shit insane. Every single woman in that house, you know, exception with the few, think that's their soulmate. Right. And he's all that they have. And then all they do is sit around all week with nothing

but each other to talk about this man and then he picks them for one date and then they go on this fantasy date and then they're like, of course that's my future husband. Right. And so it's, I almost tie it back into that. Like they just didn't have enough to do. Right.

Pick up a book. Like seriously, if you're just, If you're picturing your life with this guy you went on three dates with, pick up a fucking book. Put on Lizzo. Just do something else. I like your gratitude exercise, but or anything else. You know?

I just know this because I used to do this. I talk about a guy that I dated when I was, thought I was super in love with when I was 25, and I had this low-paying job in PR. I was like, whatever. And I'll probably just like marry this guy. I love him and we're great. And that's that.

And it's just like, No. Thank God we broke up. But I would sit around and do this thing of like, well, his job is perfect. And I'm just going to move to Charleston and we're going to do this thing. And it's like, this guy's not thinking about me like this. That's so true, though. Like, you don't realize that in your mind you've lived out the whole relationship and that person has literally just been on a couple dates with you.

They have no clue. Like, you're like, we're dating, we dated. Like, they literally have no idea that you are in a marriage with them. I know. It's fun sometimes. to sit around and fantasize, but put the cabbash on it. As I would pick up a book. Ashley cannot stress this enough.

Please pick up a book. Guys, we have friends. They have a great podcast called Bad on Paper. Lots of book recommendations. Grace Atwood and Becca Freeman. We want to shout them out. Listen to their podcast. Get some book recommendations.

Do literally anything else. Come to our shows. Yes. Can't recommend going to comedy enough. Go out and see a comedy show. See Ashley. Do stand up. Come see me, guys.

come see me tell jokes about all of my exes. It's cathartic. It's my therapy. Okay. I don't want you to believe us with that. I love you. Yeah, thank you for interjecting that. That's really beautiful.

We want people to be able to find you and find Renew and Brigh up boot camp. So where can they find your website, your Instagram? Yeah. Send you DMs. You're going to get so many DMs. Stay as long as you want. Just keep talking.

Okay. You want to live here with us. You live here now. Do you like Dewey? Are you vibing with him? Because you're his new roommate. So my way. website is renew, breakup bootcamp.com. And my relationship blog is just my type.com, because I'm a

Canadian. And on Instagram, you can find me at Miss Amy Chan, M-I-S-S-M-Y-C-H-A-N. And my book is coming out next year. Okay. Amazing. Also, Amy, what's your sign? I'm an Aquarius. Okay. I know. I feel like I don't know a lot about them. Do you feel like you're an Aquarius? I don't know a lot about them either. I got, I gotta stop. I'm just like, please stay. Talk to us. What are your thoughts on God? Amy, so tell me, what was it like the day you were born? Let's start there. Let's just start there. What are your political beliefs? Yeah. What was the sun and the moon? And like when you're, you're in Aquarius, but what is your rising sign? Okay. So we got, we are going to say goodbye to Amy. This has been so incredible. You guys stick around. We're going to do a short little segment,

just, just the two of us. And it's a fun one. It's a new one. So, um, See you in a few. Thanks, guys. Thanks. Okay, we're back with Raina's new favorite segment. I want to do a whole bonus episode only about this. It's so hard for me to just contain it to a small segment. Anyways, we did this beautiful segment called How I Knew It Was Real.

We've done it with friendship and with romantic relationships. And you guys have sent us the sweetest, most wonderful stories. So anyways, because this is an episode about healing from a breakup, one of you sent us this thing that said, I want to read it. yeah, you should read it. One of you should do an episode, a segment about how I knew it wasn't real. Did you send us one? Yes. I want to give her credit. So give me one sec. Okay. Ashley's going to find it. In the meantime, you guys flooded us with the funniest stuff I've ever heard

in my life. Just really funny anecdotes like one-liners. So, okay, I found the DM. We have a DM. I think her name's Lee. And she said, can we, she says we? Can we do a segment? Can we do a segment called I knew he wasn't the one when, let me start. All caps. I knew he wasn't the one when he called etymami lima beans. Fucking lima beans in your pokey bowl. Really? Sorry, I'm tipsy thinking about all my failed relationships.

So thank you, Lee. We mixed it up a little. We're going to just call it how I knew it wasn't real. Right. As just like the opposite of the old episode. I can't talk today. I'm too excited. So you guys emailed us.

You responded to our Instagram story. What do you want to start with? You want to hit me with an email? you want me to hit you some of the Instagram stories. Oh yeah. So Raida's reading the short ones you guys put on our Instagram story. I'm going to read a few of the emails. You can start with one.

He asked me if I'd be down for a threesome with him and his sister. No. Yep. They had a family kink or some shit. No. Yep. All right. Well, I have a family one too.

Oh, God. This one is insane, Rana. They're all insane. It's my favorite. I knew it wasn't real when he confronted me after taking secret audio recordings when my dad visited our apartment saying it sounded like we were having an incestuous relationship. What? Cherry on the cake.

There's a lot to unpack here. Cherry on the cake, which that's something you would say. That is not the right term. Cherry on the cake. The cherry on the cake, or icing on the cake, if you guys have heard of that saying is he said it was okay if we were. he just wanted the truth. What? I've never ran so fast.

Lease broken. They lived together. Also, they're there in Vancouver. Missy Vancouver. We love you. Let me unpack this. He was filming her unknowingly. And then while her dad was there,

accused her of wanting to fuck her own dad. I mean, what? What? That is wild. I, we are- What would you do with somebody secretly recording you? What does that even mean?

That happened to me. Where did you? What? I'm not going to tell the story. I had an ex of mine that were, like, was like recorded us like when we were having a fight one time because he just wanted to be like you're the reason we fight. It's wild. Oh, you did. Oh, you told me that. Yeah. Secretly recording conversations with you and your family. It's crazy. I mean, I can see myself

doing that fighting with my mom and like recording her and being like, this is what you sound like. Right. But okay, what were her and her dad talking about? Like I listen, I know there's two sides to every story and I'm, you're so right. Like I just maybe like I'm sure this dude this dude isn't the wrong also this is this is crazy But hey girl just are you in your dad close we just want to know why did he feel inclined to do this I mean my dad I talk every day there's nothing they can be misconstrued as me wanted to fuck my dad You think she was calling him daddy? I call my dad daddy sometimes oh my god it's so crazy okay thank you okay I'm too back to back

We want to come back to Vancouver we love the city so much so uh hey girl we'll get we'll get you up on stage to tell the whole story please, more questions. Okay, two back-to-back, really funny short ones. First one, he said he was British and showed up on the date

he was from Iowa. How are you out here telling somebody a fact about yourselves they're going to know within 10 seconds in meeting you? Here's the thing. Kate was born in England.

She's dual citizenship. Okay. She isn't telling people she's British because she has no accent and she is American. Kate is technically British, born in the United.

the UK. He's from Iowa. I feel like that's what that guy meant. I'm sure maybe that's his story, but it's like it doesn't matter, dude. If you don't have an accent, don't say you're British, because I'm expecting something different. Right. You grew up on a cornfield. Just be open about it. And then this guy is also probably from Iowa when he pulled out his Bible and started reading it to us out loud, I love you Jesus, but not that much. Oh my God. Reading excerpts from the Bible. Bye. Bye. Okay. We went to the movies and there was a trailer for the new Terminator movie with two female leads and this man turned to me and said, they're only making this movie to promote lesbians. Promote lesbians. I don't know. How about promoting women in movie leads? No, that guy also,

you said this about somebody else the other day and made me laugh so hard. That guy also was like, being gay isn't real? Being gay is a choice. That is crazy. I feel like I would just know in that moment like you're not my person. Oh my God. We don't think about the world the same way, buddy. Yeah. I'm... Do you want to go? Mm-hmm. Okay. My ex and I were grocery shopping for my apartment,

and I went with my go-to Dave's killer wheat bread. He literally flipped out about how expensive it was and how it was a waste of money and that I won't be allowed to buy that when we eventually live together. He says it's the same as the 99-cent Wonder Bread. Instantly, I thought, well, this is never going to fucking work and I will never live with you.

This is now on the, this is now the going inside joke with my mom and my aunt until the day I die. Can you imagine a guy bread shaming you? I'm sorry. The type of bread that I were, that good wheat bread is not the same as Wonder Bread. I would, I know that, I don't know if everybody's going to think this is funny, but this is a real thing. Like, on a serious level, if I was with a guy and I was like buying a nice bread and he was like,

you're not going to buy that shit. When we would live together, we're buying 99 cent Wonder Bread. I'd be like, peace. I'm not building my sandwiches. What are they saying in the office? Sandwich or the, bread is the paper that you write your sandwiches on. Sounds like a Joey from Friends thing. It's in the office.

That's, yeah, we don't shop the same way. Sorry, bye. Okay, he sat up in bed and asked for his wawa. She wrote, goodbye. Like water? Yeah, like he's baby-talking her. How do you feel about baby talk? How do I feel about baby talk?

I dare got a baby talk in my presence. Are you kidding me? That is a boner, a killer. Like, no. I'm just going to, like, speed read through these four for you. Hold on. I think there's a, if you're cute with some of your dating, like, pet names and stuff, but like, can I have my Wawa also? Like, I read that as Wawa, like, my favorite.

I know you did. You got excited. It's not that. I also feel like this behavior just would never last with me because I'll roast you so hard. You never do it again. Okay, I'm just going to hit you a four in a row because these all just made me laugh because they're all so ridiculous and I love it. Go for it. Yeah. He said he doesn't like leftovers. He brought pajamas to sleep over. He said to me, I hate all Christmas decorations. Didn't like charcutory boards. Oh.

My God. Listen, I'll date a guy that can't pronounce charcutory board, but not a guy that doesn't like him. Do you remember Marie Fawston, Charcoutre? Charcoutre is the cutest word I've ever heard. I love her. She kept saying charcutry.

I was like, I love you. What kind of pajamas? Are they like matching? No. I never had a guy. One time I had a guy bring clothing to sleep in because we plan to have like a shit bag Sunday where we're just going to sit on the couch all day

and get drunk and he was going to sleep over. So he brought a bag. Right. But otherwise like why are we packing a bag? You should be naked. We should go to sleep naked. I know. I mean, I don't know.

You're coming from work. You're wearing jeans or your work outfit. You want to have your lounge clothes. I don't hate it. It depends how far into the relationship you are. If it's assumed you're coming over and you're sleeping here. I don't think it's that crazy.

I have a guy that stole a sweatshirt in my one time. I never got it back. No, I never got it back because Matt gave me like an old sweatshirt of his. It says Delaware was it 3X. Didn't fit him too small. And an ex mine wore it. Think about that, just sweatshry every day. Now I know how guys feel when we steal our clothes.

I know. It stings. It was three X. Well, my brother was three X tall. It wasn't tall. All right, guys. Well, welcome to your first two hour episode. Ashley's like, over my dead body will be two hours.

This is more my favorite episodes of all time. I'm just going to say it now. Thank you guys so much. We wish this game could have been longer, but we have so many more to read. We'll do next week or something. We still have foods over dudes to do. Don't worry if you've submitted your foods over dudes.

We'll get to them. We have so much fun game content coming soon. I hope you guys like this episode. It's one of my favorites. I hope you guys love it. Tell your friends. Please tell all your friends about our show. Yeah.

The way your face is like, you better fucking bitches. But like be the friend that shows the other friends It's cool stuff to do. Yeah. Subscribe, rate review, Girls Got Eat Podcast.com or Stupid Live shows for our stupid live shows. Girls Got Eat Podcasts and Instagram, newly verified.

Raina. Dot Greenberg on Instagram, Ash Hess on Instagram and Girls underscore Gotti Eat on Twitter. And we'll see you next week. Have a good week, guys. Bye.