Life Uncut - Your brain on a break up & loving the f*ck out of yourself - Uncut with Alexis Fernandez

Episode Date: August 8, 2022

Hey Lifers!Joining us today is Alexis Fernandez, neuroscience whiz and host of the podcast Do You F***ing Mind? Alexis tackles a lot of brain related stuff on her podcast and so today we took a deep dive on what the heck happens to our brains when we go through things like a break up.We talk about:  How the body physiologically responds to the pain of a break up  How our brains respond to toxic relationships Why we feel drawn towards certain people  How we can all improve our self love and treat ourselves better You can find out more about Alexishere: https://www.instagram.com/alexispredez/?hl=enAnd check out her great podcast here: https://www.dyfmpod.com/If you are a big lover of Life Uncut and simply can't get enough, please go pre-order our book which is coming out in October, we will give you a puppy if you do* https://booktopia.kh4ffx.net/QOLNrMIf you know someone who you think might get a little bit o' something out of this ep, send it their way. You know the drill, tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because we love love xx*sorry we are out of stock on puppies. But we will give you our love instead.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A Life Uncut podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders, past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today. This episode is recorded on Gadigal land of the Aurora Nation. Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura. And I'm Brittany.

Sorry, I went rogue. I tried to look different. Wow, I know. Well, because I was just, I don't know, sometimes I do that. Sometimes I get a bit bored of like my own name. But then when you do it, you always freak out afterwards. That's like the standard. anytime we deviate we're creatures of habit and that's the problem usually it's you usually you

get thrown nah i know my wheelhouse i stick to i do the same i have the same coffee every day i have the same breakfast i do the same intro i'm a woman of routine remember when i used to have the same coffee every day that you bought me but it was the wrong coffee yeah but now you drink it anyway now i drink whatever's given to me now i'm like give me anyone's left right and center i will have any coffee i will take a stranger's coffee off the street at this point in time do you know happened to me last night was it about coffee no this is what I this is this is what I'm coming into this record we're recording early in the morning last night uh Marley who is three years old she now comes into our bed every single night and like secretly I really like it I know you're

not supposed to admit that when you're like a mom I feel like most moms like oh my god it's so annoying when your child comes into bed why do you like it because doesn't it keep you up a bit more yeah or you just like to be needed yeah I like to be needed there's some underlying trauma okay obviously it's annoying getting woken up by like a foot in the back but like I quite like the cuddle like I quite like her being like mommy and then having cuddle in the middle of the night I'm like oh that's cute you're the best okay so there's parts of it that I love one part of it I don't love is when I wake up at 4 30 in the morning so she wakes me up because she starts crying she was like like and not even really crying just like complaining whinging and I was

like fuck I gotta go back to sleep this is annoying she had peed so she still wears a nappy She had peed through her nappy, through the bedsheets, through the mattress, through my pyjamas. Through your soul. And we were all just cuddling, covered in pee. But isn't this, this is my question, right? You say that you love her coming in every night. Isn't this a standard part of a three-year-old?

They went to bed. Yeah, but she wears a nappy. So like this doesn't happen very often. It's very rare that I wake up covered in another person's urine, involuntarily. That's not maths, after a night out. That's like a small child. But you know what? Okay, we have a freaking great episode for you guys today.

We are interviewing a master's of neuroscience. Her name is Alexis Fernandez. You guys might know her. She's from the podcast, Do You Fucking Mind? Which is a great name for a podcast. And we're going to get into what it is, but it's all around how the brain reacts from a breakup, but also how if you're going through a really bad and shitty time in life, how you can increase your self-worth and self-love without it being like frou-frou, hoo-ha, woo-hoo.

And this has sort of come off the back of, it's not new news. actually this is funny it is new news to some people I was gonna say it's not new news to most of you that I went through a breakup Jordan and I broke up but I got some messages on the weekend actually that said hang on did I miss something followers did I did I miss something are you are you and Jordan not together anymore and I was like wow some people still no I feel like most people know that that's someone who has like not been on Instagram for a really long time all ever listened to any podcast episode so like literally they just started following you and we're like and I think I read an article like no so believe it or not Laura and I do actually have conversations

that are not recorded they're not very rarely very rarely what we try and do is never speak to each other unless the microphones are on because like who sometimes we try to and we're like well hold it god forbid losing the gold of the content but we it came off the back of you know I did go through the breakup this year and it's been I mean whoa we're seven months into the year so the year's really getting away from us it's not like it happened yesterday and the conversation was just around how I still have days where I feel really really sad and I and I'm really down and we had these really honest conversations about what am I doing wrong why am I still feeling like this after so long because I'm getting back out there I'm doing everything for myself to make

myself feel better I'm so busy filling myself with like I've gone through the checklist you know and I've tried to put myself in a really good place where I'm completely moved on but and I think like the big thing that we came to was like this is something a lot of people go through you know I think that we think that there should be this formula x amount of time goes past and then you are over it you're supposed to just move on but obviously we know heartbreak is not linear and it doesn't work like that there is no linear recovery or healing process in a breakup and we all also know conversely to that we know that you can fall in love some people take some six months to fall in love with a partner some people take some 10 minutes i think you are more of like a 10 minute

person laura but hands on the person but the whole idea was we're like this is actually so interesting because there are physiological reasons there are chemical reasons there's a lot going on in our brain and we thought we are just not smart enough to deliver this on our own so we wanted to get someone that had studied neuroscience that really knows the depths of the brain what happens what chemical reactions happen what does happen when we fall in love what happens when we break up why does it take some people longer well also on that i guess because when we talk about our feelings when we talk about being in this like you know trauma response or being in pain or being hurt by someone being heartbroken, we usually talk about it from a feeling perspective. It's like

a guttural thing. Like how does that make me feel? Very rarely do we look at it from like the science of why do you feel that way? Not just like what has been done to you, but like what the fuck is happening in your brain that makes you feel binded to someone that makes you feel like you had that chemistry with someone. So we unpack everything from, you know, what you're feeling at the start of a relationship, what happens during when the honeymoon phase ends, and then what chemically is shooting around in the neurons in your brain when you're actually going through heartbreak and what are some healthy things that you can put into place to kind of overcome that so that is all coming up but before we get any further in the episode we want to say a very big

thank you to today's sponsor which is smith's oven baked chips now we have a bowl right here and i have literally said to brit you cannot eat this whilst we record because no one wants to listen to us munch down chips it's quite aggressive you literally took the packet from me it's like they are my salt and vinegar smith's oven baked chips they're 50 less fat they're absolutely delicious and believe it or not again laura and i are actually going to have we've decided because we we all went away on holidays together we didn't spend any time together we often don't a little bit of time together but we don't spend quality time because we're always so manic we're here for work we're business partners so we've decided to say yes to a little me time we're going to sit

back after this record we're going to put we've got face masks we've got the bowl of chips ready we've got netflix ready we're actually just going to watch a movie and chill out no it's going to be amazing i'll probably be on my emails we're both will be on area okay anyway do you know what i read an article just recently and this is something i wanted to talk about i feel like it's very important very scientific actually it is the article it came from i fucking love science dot com it's all about fucking in this episode today isn't it do you fucking mind i fucking love science there's a lot of fucking love and neuroscience stuff isn't there well yes i was very fuck kitty fuck i'll put some bleeps on that okay so a very important study that recently took

place and it's all about how disturbing it is that some people do not change their bed sheets frequently enough now i want to change yours okay once a week except i will definitely change them tonight after they've been pissed on i could hope so once every single night i reckon once a week once a week wash hot wash three hour I reckon I go longer but only slightly and let me explain my reasoning no one comes into my bed you have a dog she doesn't come into the bed if she's at Keisha's house she is all over Keisha's bed I have a strict rule that Keisha doesn't follow that the dog doesn't go to bed if Delilah goes onto my bed for a random one night sleep cuddle which I can count the number of times yes I'm gonna wash my sheets but as a general rule of thumb no one else

comes into my bed no one i sleep no one i love how specific you make this i am alone always it is only my own shedding of skin in my own bed i don't like a lot of people in my space but i sleep in no exaggeration i could have a double king bed and i will sleep so i'm touching the edge of the bed and i take up literally the width of my body then i see i don't move i don't roll around the bed i don't sleep in the middle so this one little corner of my sheet is all i sleep on so my sheets aren't really dirty i don't think that it works like that i think yeah it does like are you like are you moving are you like moving from like one bit of the bed to the next bit of the bed the next night like you you evenly distributing yourself across the bed or is just that one bit that you

sleep on dirty i'll go to the other side so it can last two weeks if i wanted to because one side for a week and then i can roll over to the other side i'll change pillowcases 100 but like unless it's really dirty i will go i reckon at average nine okay well i i'm gonna put it out there i say i'm I'm a once a week are, but that's also because I have children, Matt, and you know, you're right. A lot of animals. Okay. So more than once per week. So people who are washing their sheets multiple times a week, only 3% of people are washing their sheets more than once a week, once a week, 35% of people. That's your sweet spot, baby. Every three weeks, 8% of people, every four weeks, 10% of people, which means that there is still 6% of people. They fall into what

they've called the filthy core group who are washing their sheets every seven weeks or more and I'm pretty sure that I dated that six percent of people when I was at university well I mean that means they're only changing their sheets six times a year I have definitely gone home to a guy's house before and been like these sheets have never been washed oh I mean I feel like especially when you're at university a guy at university they're definitely in the filthy group also when you know that a mattress is on the floor they're probably not someone who's washing sheets either didn't you date someone that had a mattress on the floor and like slept on a pile of clothes and like you were like hello are you in here he's like i'm under the clothes he didn't know he didn't have

a clove nest but yes he had a mattress he had a mattress on the floor and often didn't use a sheet which is just a whole other level of like you have been raised to be a man child and somebody needs to come in and teach you how to be an adult well because you know pillows not the pillow cases but the actual pillows and mattresses are one of the filthiest things in your room can i just tell you this research study like I'm not making this shit up this is a you gov poll like the government has gone out of their way in the UK to actually poll the population to find out who's washing their sheets what an absolute waste of resources one might add I was about to say I love that this is where the people's money is going okay I have another question how often do you wash if you say

your pillows how often do you wash your pillowcases and then also change your pillows pillowcases I wash all the time I would wash once a week or I will I've got like 25 pillows in my bed so I'll just cycle through them pillows my mum works at a pillow shop so I'm really good with that so I know that pillows are fucking rank and that you should be replacing them so I've got like an excessive amount of pillows but how often do you change yours I have a filthy absolutely filthy confession to make um we just recently bought all brand new pillows ergonomic ones really nice real thick oh lovely uh do you know how old my old pillows were I'm gonna guess like 15 years the expiration date they had an expiration stamped on them which I didn't know until I

changed until I changed them 2017 was the expiration oh so you probably had they expired in 2017 these pillows were like please don't fucking use me anymore and I've been I've been holding on strong they were best before five years ago they were best before you met Matt you've you've taken them into the relationship you really held on tight to those bad boys I'm pretty sure they were from Kmart like 10 bucks okay can I just add something to this conversation because this I fucking love science article actually went really deep did you know that we shed 3.9 kilograms of skin cells over the course of a year and most of it ends up in your bed 3.9 kilos of skin actually I'm a very vigorous exfoliator I think most of mine goes down the

drain are you yeah love and over exfoliation that's why I usually have periorodomatitis it's probably from your dirty pillow your face is on a pillow that's 25 years old that actually makes sense my my parallel dermatitis has gone away and i did get new pillows i'm not kidding this is a thing they say if you do have bad skin and breakouts and things like that or it's constantly dirty wash your fucking pillows wash your pillows and your pillowcases because that's your face is on that for half of well i mean some people half of their life but you don't get that much sleep for four hours a day for 20 minutes a day your face is on that That's probably why your skin has gotten better.

Well, I'm really glad. And so, you know what? I think that this is a little take home message we can all take from this, which is one, wash your sheets and two, also wash your fucking bras while we're at it. There's just like, okay, there's too many things. We all know that nobody washes their bras anywhere new frequent enough. And if you say you do, you're probably lying. I don't even wear a bra anymore.

Wash your shirts then. Anyway, before we get into speaking to Alexis and unpacking all of what happens in the brain during breakups and during trauma i think it's time for our favorite part of every episode and that is accidentally unfiltered okay i'm gonna go first i was sleeping with a guy who i really liked and unfortunately however i had already slept with his housemate that is unfortunate so are you in bondo i went to his house one night and there were a bunch of boys around including his housemate who i once upon a time fucked and they were all messing around talking shit and i was desperate to show that i was the cool chick one of the boys called the housemate a freak and

without thinking i blurted out yeah freaking the sheets this was followed by dead silence because they all knew that we had had a one-night stand i was beyond mortified safe to say things did not work out with the guy i was seeing he wasn't even a freak in the sheets it literally just came out so in front of the guy she's seeing she talked about how freaky the flatmate is in front of the whole friend yeah freaking the shit I would fire you too girl it's also so dumb like it's just like such a lame thing to say you know when you're trying to be really cool especially in front of like I mean I've spent my life trying to be cool you're trying to be really cool on a national but like in front of a new group of people especially the guy you like there's also you're

a bit awkward because the other guy that you've slept with is there I think that that wouldn't have even she didn't even thought about mouth was moving the brain wasn't processing especially Because she's like, he wasn't even good in bed. She's like, I lied. I lost my current partner and I lied. What a waste. I got nothing. Okay, what is your accidentally unfiltered?

Okay. So I went on a date with this guy in Brisbane. Now I'm English and this was the very first Aussie guy I had ever dated. The date was good and afterwards we went back to his place to watch a movie. After watching the entire movie, what the fuck, why didn't he make a move? He finally made the move. We went to his room. we were getting down to business and I said wait do you have a condom and he said yeah uh somewhere

in this room and I said oh like it's okay don't worry about looking for it I've just got one in my bag let's make it easy I grabbed the condom out of my bag and I passed it over to him he ripped it open he ripped it open and goes what the fuck is this and I said uh I don't know what rock you're living under it's a condom and he said nope nope pretty sure this is a teabag it was one of those twining teabags that comes in a little packet we were absolutely dying okay this is better if she's british and then it's just the most english thing that anyone has ever done he goes to her this is the most english thing that you could have hello please please take my tea also it really redefines the whole um sex terminology of

teabagging doesn't it hang on they had sex and then she made the lemon and ginger tea you don't want to put anything to waste bloody love it all right well let's get into the chat with alexis joining us today is alexis fernandez neuroscience whiz and host of the podcast do you fucking mind alexis tackles a lot of brain related stuff on her podcast and how neuroscience and our behavior are intertwined and today we are tackling something that pretty much every single one of us has struggled with at some point in our life. And that is self-love and also respect. Alexis, welcome to Life Uncut. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Alexis, I just want to kickstart with great name for the podcast. Do you fucking mind? Because I have only just, I don't know if I should

admit this or not. Did you just put that together, the pun together? I only just got that there was a pun. Like the mind part is the mind because you're a neuroscientist. Do you fucking mind? I always just thought it was like, I just thought it was like, don't give a fuck, like just be chill. and then it was only right now when I was listening to you guys talk that I got that there was a very clever pun put in there. Welcome to the party. For someone that loves a pun as you all know I was slow to the mark on that one. It is yes that was actually like props to my cousin that came up with that because I was like I'm starting a podcast I'm thinking mind mind something mind and we were kind of along those lines and then she just spat it out after like 10 minutes

of brainstorming and I'm like that's the one. It took so long for me to get approved on Apple because I didn't say it was explicit title and I'm like, why are they rejecting me? And it's because I had to go on this whole thing that it was explicit this. I'm like, it sounds like it's this hectic podcast, but it's just the word fuck, you know. Alexis, we start every episode or every interview by asking pretty much their deepest, darkest, most horrific experience. We want to know what is your most embarrassing story? Well, so I had this story and it's kind of like a mix between a wild story and a bit embarrassing and it happened when I was with my one of my best friends Lucy we were traveling overseas we were in Colombia at the time well we actually went on

like it was this hectic trip we went on this boat this rogue boat with 14 people on it sailing from Panama to Colombia the San Blas Islands the San Blas Islands yeah yep I did the same rogue boat it's rogue isn't it like this shit is just it's hectic and it was Lucy and myself and then 12 other German travelers as well and they absolutely hated Lucy loved me hated Lucy and we did this whole trip we get to Cartagena and we're there and we decide that we're all going to go out and that was the first night that everyone decided that they actually really liked Lucy they're like oh you're actually not that bad you just really speak your mind and we found that abrasive anyway so we're all hanging out in the square and whatever and Lucy and I

just sitting there trying to organize what we're doing and one of the German guys who was getting cash up from an ATM sprints up to us like his eyes are like peeled back and he sprints up and he's like the police are checking everyone for cocaine they're checking everyone for cocaine we're like we don't have anything we're fine and I think because I don't know what it was I don't know if it was our body language or the guy sprinting towards us across the thing when he saw the police Lucy and I were like anyway let's just like not be weird about it if they're checking everyone okay be cool bro just be cool be cool way to draw attention to yourself like relax and if also if you don't have anything on you calm down and if you do don't be so obvious so anyway

we stood up because we wanted to go to the atm we start crossing and in a matter of like three seconds we had two motorcycles like pull up from different directions in this public square with no cars and this is like 1am where it's full of people then we have like two other officers approach us and they're like screaming at us and I can speak Spanish but I purposely was like I'm not I'm not gonna let them know because I want to know what they're saying so we're there they're like screaming at us screaming at us and it's so funny because I'm like this will blow over it's fine because we don't have anything on us but so I'm standing there and when I'm really stressed I go very calm with a poker face I'm standing there really really calm I glance over and Lucy's

like hyperventilating, like shaking her arms up and down. And I'm like, babe, you look like a criminal right now. Like, just stop looking so guilty. We're fine. Anyway, then this guy comes up and he was friends with the captain on the boat and he comes up to us and he's like, do you guys know what's happening? They think you've got cocaine. They need to search you. They need to do this. And everyone in the square is staring at us. We're like, fuck, this is so awkward. This is so embarrassing and we're like we don't have anything like it's we're good and they're like no no and then the captain's friend turns to lucy and he says the police saw you put the cocaine in your pussy what and we're like what no no and we're standing in the middle of the square we're

like what do you mean and i think she might like we think she was adjusting her shorts or something when she stood up i mean you could have been pulling a wedgie out no so then we're like oh my god how do we get out of this situation because we're being like like screamed at like this is getting worse and worse they took us to this back laneway like an alleyway and i'm like fuck and i'm like what is going to happen here and then they start and this is when i knew i had an in because then the lady grabs my passport this female officer she grabs my passport and she just shook it and i'm like this bitch is looking for money she just shook the password didn't look at my name didn't take our ids down i'm like we're good and i'm like i've got 40 that's all i've got just

leave us alone like that's all I've got they took the bribe they took the 40 bucks because they knew they knew yeah they took the 40 bucks and that was it I don't think that everyone would assume that bribery was the way to go and like of course in Australia if you were like I'll give you 40 bucks to leave me alone you'd be in a worse situation can you imagine can you imagine but it's funny because it's like even in Sydney it doesn't matter where you are you could be in your car just cruising along you see the police drive past and you're like cool nothing to see here like, slow down, look out the window. You're like, what am I doing wrong? What could I possibly be fine for? Yeah. You're doing nothing wrong, but you get that real anxiety attack. Well, Alexis,

let's get into, now you are, you have a master's in neuroscience and you talk a lot about self-love. You talk about like, not only our relationships with those around us and those we care about, but how those relationships impact us and how we are responsible for the way that we interact with other people the boundaries we set in place all the good self-help shit all the self-love stuff all the self-love stuff what is it that about this topic as someone who comes from a neuroscience background what was it that made you want to get into this field of work so I started getting into neuroscience because it was actually just like a out of chance because I wanted to be an actor when I was like a teenager so the natural progression was obviously neuroscience yeah

just neuroscience obviously because I always have to be stimulated all the time and I didn't just want to just sit around and wait for an audition and this and that so I thought I'll just sign up for a degree it'll be fun and so I started psychology originally and this lecturer came in and he was a guest lecturer all on neuroanatomy and neurochemicals and I was like that is insane so I remember at the end of the lecture running down and being like what I only want to do that like that's that's the interesting thing and he's like change your major get into cognitive neuroscience so I did and did my undergrad and then just kind of traveled the world for a few years I lived in Paris LA and I was teaching Pilates and went through some really intense

breakups like traumatizing breakups that rocked me to the point where I was like rock bottom so sad and could not get over it and I was so they became so curious about this healing journey and moving to the other side of the world and then I decided that I would go back to my master's because I kept like I was still so curious about the brain then when I started the master's it kind of everything just fell into place like I had done so much healing I was learning and understanding so much more about like how our thoughts and chemicals just dictate so much about our life and how we feel about ourselves and other people and then I just loved talking about it so I started the podcast as an outlet just to talk about what I loved and then it just kind of took off and that

was now we're here. Okay believe it or not I did neuroscience I think for almost a year because I did a degree in medical science but I actually failed neuroscience the first time around. And now we have a podcast where we also talk about self-help except we're completely unqualified. Well it was okay look in my defense it was bloody hard as you know you've got a whole degree in it but I blame this and this is pretty funny and very fitting I blame the fact that I failed that year on the fact that I was going through a really bad breakup at the time and my brain couldn't concentrate on anything else besides the breakup so that's I'm like I mean hey that's what I'm blaming it on it's so hard yeah but interesting why is it so important for us to have some

reflection and realize okay I am probably a little bit more in control of my feelings that I'm aware of yes this has happened but it's how I deal with it from here on in that is important why is it that we do that and what can we do that's a little bit better to take a little bit more reflection on ourselves to deal with these situations better? I think it's a mix of things. I think unless you're willing to become really accountable and look at yourself and do all this work, it's very hard to say I'm responsible for the way that I'm feeling. You're not responsible for other people's actions, but you are responsible with what you then do after the fact, you know? So it's really taking that accountability and saying, where is my ownership in this and

where is yours? And a lot of people really struggle to do that, especially in a breakup when you feel so hurt, it's very natural and instinctive to think the only reason I'm feeling this way is because you did this. So it must be your fault. And to an extent, yeah, you can look at it that way. But the problem when you do that is that you are always a victim to your circumstances. If you're always saying the reason I'm upset is because you did this, the reason why I'm not succeeding is because you blocked me in my career, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You're always a victim. And then why then try to get out of it? If it's not in your control at all, you're never going to try. Why try if it's not in your control? So we get stuck in this cycle of

victim mentality. And the benefit of that is that you never have to be vulnerable enough to put yourself out there and change and potentially get hurt in the process of changing. But then the downside is that you never change because you're always putting it on someone else. So I think the reason it's this lack of learning how to be accountable. And I think that most of us don't learn that an easy way. We don't learn that through childhood or at school or whatever. You learn it the very hard way when you've hit rock bottom and you think, well, I can't do this anymore.

This is just too painful. There has to be another way. And that's normally when people become a bit more self-aware. It's really hard to break out of victim mentality, especially when you have experienced something which makes you truly a victim. If someone has experienced something that has been done to them and they are a victim of that situation, it is incredibly difficult to get to a point of self-growth and self-development where you're like, I know that this has happened to me, but I don't need to be a product of what

happened to me. I can now take some responsibility and ownership of my life and the direction in which it goes. Yeah. And we are so attached to our pain because our pain, it's one of like the strongest emotions you can feel. I think love is a stronger emotion, but pain is so strong that when we feel it, we identify so heavily. And it's so hard for us to say, while that was so painful, I can move on. It's like, no, that was a part of me. That's who I am. This is what happened to me. This is why I'm suffering so much. So we make it part of our story so heavily. And then when it comes time to, okay, now I need to let go of that. A lot of people can't, and obviously they don't want to suffer but there's this weird comfort in our pain because we know it so well and it really

forms who we are and it helps us it helps us create our image our pain weirdly and we hold on to that do you think when you say that that it actually then becomes part of depending on what it is that's happened or what it is that someone has gone through that it becomes part of their identity and what actually is part of the building blocks of who they are yeah massively massively and then you layer all this stuff onto it like oh that's just me my walls are up like you've got to earn my trust like those phrases then get intertwined into who you are so you think you know i'm just not a trusting person off you know i've been burnt so if and this continues on and you think the reason i have these narratives that i repeat again and again and again is because of

my pain you know if you could find a way to look at your pain and think that's not who i am but it's something that has happened to me and i can learn from it but i don't have to make this a repeating cycle in my life then you can really form your identity pretty much however you want to form it as long as you can detach yourself from this identifying with your pain. Alexis I'm going to ask you a little bit of a personal question here you mentioned before that you went through some pretty horrific very traumatic life-altering breakups often it's really hard to take your own advice so do you as a neuroscientist do you know how to take your own advice or are you like us other civilian plebs that don't have the neuroscience degree and you struggle sometimes

to take your own advice so the first big breakup I had absolutely not I just suffered so hard like so long I can't explain it to you it was like I was embarrassed to admit that I was still suffering because it just went on forever and I couldn't let go and it was just awful and I was a broken record and I hated the sound of me telling the story again but I couldn't I couldn't stop myself for retelling the story and my poor friends and family were probably like shut up but that's how I was the first time the second time I had done so much growth and learning and all of that and the second breakup was like on paper so much worse like it was so much more chaotic there was cheating there was like it was just really intense like the man was awful but I it wasn't seamless there

were definitely I had like definite like dips where it was so painful but the second time I was so much more aware of what I had gone through the first time and I thought I can't I can't go back there again like I can't do that whole one year to 18 month saga to get over somebody so I really started applying all these things and I noticed that as I would apply them it was so beneficial so I was learning as I was going the second time the first time was just an absolute flop it was the biggest disaster but the second time I applied so much of what I know now I feel that I mean knock on wood I hope Tyrone and I never break up when he's the best but if I was to ever go through a breakup again I feel like I'd be so equipped emotionally I'd suffer it'd

be a lot of pain but I would be really equipped to not let it be this chaotic thing that ruins my life you know something that we wanted to touch on with you knowing that you have this incredible insight into how the brain affects the way that we respond not just to breakups but to love and to everything when we first meet someone or when we had that chemistry or that attraction to someone what is happening in our brains that actually makes us go you you are the person and what are the endorphins and the the intensity that then follows from that where you just feel this like incredible attachment to someone that defies understanding you know it's just like I don't know why but you're meant to be in my life that sort of feeling yeah so there's there's probably

like three points on it like there's all these different neurochemicals but the main ones when you're talking about the initial stages of dating the butterflies the that like the honeymoon period like when they message you and you get so excited all of that that is dopamine you have also a feel good neurotransmitter where it's this calm enjoyment and that's serotonin and then you've got your bonding chemical which is oxytocin so you've got these three that are at play the bonding one can be released at any time and one of the best ways to well the biggest oxytocin release a human will ever have is childbirth the mother with the child that's like crazy and it's to bond but if you want to feel a rush of it you just hug someone for like 30 seconds or so like a really

good hug and you start to feel this warm feeling and it's like a stress like an instant stress reliever for cortisol in your brain the effects of these hormones actually counter what cortisol is doing. So you can do that. But initially what's happening is you're actually addicted to a behavior and that is dopamine. It's anticipation of reward. So when you meet someone that you click with, where there's chemistry, where this chemistry is basically where you think you're exciting enough that I'm anticipating our next encounter, that I'm anticipating the next thing that's going to happen with you, like you've got me interested. When someone's like that and you're physically attracted to them as well that's where you get this initial attraction and the first stages of

dating it's this when they send a message you're like when you're about to see them you get the butterflies you get all those feelings that is all dopamine and that's why that feeling does not last for a prolonged period of time because you get to know that person you get used to that person that no matter how amazing they are you're not nervous it's not nerves anymore it's not this weight reward weight reward it's now i get you when i want you we're in this comfortable relationship so I'm now not anticipating the next hit I've now got you so are you interesting enough for me to keep is basically the next question you know I guess like the interesting part of this is when you say that kind of in a normal relationship would fade it's not weight reward in toxic

relationships and I think that that's why people can feel this like intense binding over and over is because it doesn't follow the typical pattern and you are getting that you're having the toxicity of the extreme fights, but then the reward is the makeup. So you are actually getting that continuous dopamine hit in those experiences. A hundred percent. It's that it's in a toxic relationship. I always look at a toxic relationship similar to gambling. It's this intermittent reinforcement. So if you're with someone who's really just a legend, a really good person, you're not wondering how this encounter is going to go. You feel very comfortable with them. You feel very safe, emotionally safe and protected by that person that you are just

open. It's fine. But then the downside, if you want to call it a downside at all, is that you're not getting this like highs and lows, highs and lows of excitement. When you gamble, when you use a poker machine, like a pokey machine, it's this like, no, no, no. Yes, it's a win. No, no, no. Yes, it's a win. So it's this like, when's it going to happen? When's it going to happen? And if you're with someone toxic and one day they're blowing up at you for something, one day they're angry because they saw you message a friend and they didn't like it and then the next day they come and they sweep you off your feed and they say, I'm going to do this for you,

I'm going to take you out on a date, get changed, let's go. It's like, oh, my God, like it's bad, bad, bad. It's really good, it's bad, bad, bad. And that is kind of like this gambling mentality. You're gambling with your emotions every day. You don't know what you're going to get. So when it's good, it's this surge of like relief and excitement and reward versus someone who's in a healthy relationship

that doesn't need that. well that is why the makeup sex is so good right that's why you have this big explosive fight and then you have really great sex and then afterwards you say oh i can't leave because we have really great sex but you're only having really great sex because you're having that explosive fight and this is all a bit of a vicious cycle because you're fighting and exactly and you're getting that high only because you've had all these lows you wouldn't have to experience this like relief if you didn't have all this pain in between it's so interesting talking about love from a perspective that is science related because obviously when we think about emotions we think about them as a

feeling like it's something that happens to us it's not something that we have control over and I think that is hugely plays into a part of why during breakups or during relationships that we can feel out of control because it's like the feelings aren't something that we purposely manufacture they happen or they don't happen for a lot of people but when you think about it in terms of like what is actually going on it gives you a lot of insight into the ways in which you can have control and into the ways in which that you can kind of dictate a situation or dictate a reaction to a breakup or to a relationship you're not just a passive participant in that we've spoken about in terms of like the initial stages of a relationship and that the rush of these three

different hormones what happens in a healthy normal relationship when you transition past that honeymoon phase into the comfort and stability of a long-term relationship. Yeah. So that's where you're getting less excitement, less butterflies. And on a side note, if someone's saying, oh, but the butterflies continue for years, there's a chance your relationship is toxic, by the way. That's awful. Red flag if you feel butterflies years in. Not for everyone, but most people that's a red flag. But that's going to like die off. So what you actually start to feel more of is appreciation. And this is more serotonin. So serotonin I look at as like a gratitude neurohormone, neurochemical, neurotransmitter. It's like more of a gratitude

feeling versus the excitement of something. So they're both happy chemicals, but they're very, they're different. They're completely different. One is I hope I get this. And the other one is I'm so happy that this is my reality, or I'm so happy and grateful that I have this in my life. and if you're someone that's always practicing gratitude for the person that you're with you're going to have a much more successful long-term relationship because you are in constant state of this release of gratitude and serotonin you're feeling really comfortable and then coupled with that you're hopefully also doing things that are creating more of a bond that release oxytocin so you know you're always you hold hands when you walk or you you don't have

to do that but like or you hug each other when you say goodbye you're always you know it's these little things where you're always letting each other know and this is where understanding your partner's love language comes in really handy because that's where you can really start to keep that nice release of serotonin all the time feeling really like I really appreciate you so now every time I think of you I feel good I don't feel resentful you know and that's what in a healthy relationship happens when the honeymoon period is over in an unhealthy relationship you basically get the opposite you get over them you resent them you're annoyed and then you break up but at the end of the day I think this is what you're trying to drive home this is a normal

progression in a relationship you're supposed to get to that place where you feel comfortable and safe and it's not always going to be incredibly amazing and exciting you're going to bring those things obviously to the relationship together but the fact that you're in a relationship that you do feel so safe and calm and cool and collected I think that we all need to realize that that's a pretty fucking good thing it's a good thing but do you know the interesting thing is that everybody everybody needs some sort of excitement and spontaneity in their lives the problem is if your life is not interesting enough or it's not like there's not enough spark in your personal life you blame your relationship saying oh well i'm not there's

nothing there's not enough that's exciting in my life my relationship is boring but if you're someone that's always keeping it exciting personally with yourself and that's the most important thing you should be doing. You have to keep it spicy for yourself. Then you're actually really grateful to be in this stable relationship where you're like, you're my rock. We have a ball together. We can make it fun when we want to make it fun. But if it's not this exciting thing, we're still just so good together. You feel so much more comfortable that way. And you create the excitement in whatever other areas you want. But if you think you're not making it exciting for me, then that's when it starts feeling really bland and boring because you're waiting for them

to do something that's exciting you either I believe that most excitement in your life has to come from yourself and what you create for yourself in and out of your relationships it's combined I think that this is so important because I hate the idea of normalizing that boring relationships are normal like I don't think it's healthy to say that oh well because you're in a long-term relationship it's normal to be bored I don't think it's normal to be bored but I truly believe that you only get out of a relationship what you put into it so if you're not creating or like trying to create a relationship that still has some spice you know of course you're not going to get that initial butterflies when you have sex or like you know it's very difficult

to keep that level of intensity but if you're not putting in the effort to stay interested in your partner in the things that they're doing in their day in like how you guys are growing your relationship then yeah it's going to get fucking boring that doesn't have to be a normal progression of a long-term relationship though no and the really interesting thing is statistically couples that I think people think, oh, if we can share through all the hard times together, we're going to succeed. Couples that share through their joy more so than their pain last longer. So if you share happy moments with your partner all the time, and they're your source of, you're the first person I want to tell when something happened. And then it's like, look at this,

how beautiful is this? If you're sharing all the good things with your partner, you are more likely to have a long-term successful relationship than if all you ever do is share your pain. And I think people think it's the other way around. I think, because of course your partner has to be there for you for the hard times but I think people think they're only there for me when it's the hard times but all my excitement or whatever like you have to remember that if if they are your happy person and you share in the happy moments and you put in the effort when they're happy to be involved in their excitement you're going to have a much better time and that's what determines the success okay so I agree with everything that everyone has said completely but

I just want to make a little addition here all right what are you coming with really healthy well it's just it's something we always speak about and I think it's really important to note down for ourselves in our relationships is we can't expect our partner to be everything and to bring everything and to do everything for us in a relationship and by that we mean we can't expect them to be our lover and our best friend and our safe place and our confidant and to bring the excitement and to bring the chemistry we can't go to them and put all that pressure on them for everything. The fact is, yes, we do need our partners to be stepping up to the plate. We do need them to be booking some date nights and bringing a level of excitement, but it is up to

you to create that excitement for yourself in your own life. You need to be filling your cup elsewhere that things that do really drive you and make you feel alive so that all that pressure is not just on your partner. Yeah, 100%. But it's exactly right what you're saying because your happiness is your own responsibility. And your partner, obviously a good partner, should aim to help you whenever possible and be there for you and be supportive of you. But it is not their responsibility to make you happy because they can't make you happy. And if you're someone that says, well, I was miserable until I met this person and now I'm happy, firstly, how long is that going to last? And secondly, you're being pacified. You are pacifying your discomfort if

Every time you enter a relationship, you feel happy. No, you're distracted. It's just putting a Band-Aid on it, isn't it? Yeah, totally. And then when it falls apart, you think, well, I was happy when I met you and now things went bad and now I'm unhappy. So you're now responsible for my unhappiness. And then that's this cycle instead of you thinking, well, my happiness is completely

up to me. It's something that I have to work on my whole life always. And that's the thing. It's like we have to work on our relationships with ourselves our whole lives. We have to work on that with our partner our whole lives. It's not like, oh, we're good. Let's just relax. you've always got to work on it and the same goes for yourself if you feel really happy within

yourself you can't just think that's enough i'm just going to cruise you still have to be doing things all the time because that too can fade you know for so many people breakups are kind of what make or break you right and you've spoken talked about your own personal experience with breakups where you can either wallow in it and you can allow that to define you or you can use really fucking terrible feelings of heartbreak of like personal trauma truly some breakups can be the worst experience that some people go through, but there are also these opportunities for incredible growth and revelations and your life takes a new trajectory and shit that you hadn't planned falls into place. It can be a real gift at the same time. What happens to us when we say that

we have like, and I don't want to say it's an addiction to someone, but like when someone is so ingrained in your life where your relationship becomes part of your identity, what happens to your brain when you go through a breakup? So it's like an emotional addiction. It's definitely not as one on a chemical and a neurological standpoint it's not as intense quote unquote as a well it's just not as intense as a drug withdrawal for example a chemical withdrawal but it is a withdrawal of a habit a pattern an emotion a chemical you're not getting these neurotransmitters that you normally get you're feeling a lot of pain and also the same area in your brain that fires when you experience physical pain is the area that fires when you experience emotional

pain. Like it's, it is this pain signal that's being sent out. Like, you know, when people say like my body's actually aching, it's true. You're actually experiencing a lot of pain. And in addition to that, you're very, very stressed as well, because you just, you're overthinking all the worst things you're thinking they've left me. I'm not going to recover. I'm not this, I'm not that. So you're getting so much cortisol relates through your body when you experience a heart as well. So you've got lack of dopamine, less serotonin, less oxytocin, you've got your pain centers firing and then you've got all this um all this cortisol floating through your body and that's then causing you not to sleep properly not to like if everything's

fucked you know like you're trying to it's a shit show it's a shit show it's a chemical shit show in your brain so it's not just like think a happy thought and you'll be fine like it's a process because you can't just overwrite all these awful thoughts with one positive thought you know so when people say just like oh just tell yourself like i'm all for affirmations but within reason it all ties into toxic positivity right there's only so much gratitude that you can show or like affirmations of positive thinking when you're truly going through something that's fucked like thinking happy thoughts always it's great you know it's great but it's also very important when you're in that process and in that moment it's okay to not be okay and that's

something that i think we worry to allow yeah and you have to feel validated you have to feel validated so if you're telling yourself just be happy and laugh right now you're saying this isn't important enough for me to give my attention to i'm not really like i'm not letting myself fall into this and really experience it and grieve it so that way i can move on it is important to grieve something because you give it the attention it needs to get and this is where the difference between pain and suffering comes in you have to experience your pain but then if you relive it again then suffering is a choice you know you're choosing to go over and over and over but pain is inevitable and you have to you have to live through it because that's where you grow that's

where you learn pain is your biggest teacher and i i'm really grateful for the pain that i have had and the heartbreaks that i have had because while they were like so awful you should have seen me crying on my bed like every night for a year it was tragedy tragic but if you are willing to say i'm not gonna try and put a band-aid on this i'm gonna really look at what's going on and i'm gonna to really feel why I feel this way? Am I feeling abandoned? Am I feeling that I'm not good enough? Am I feeling that I'm never going to get someone as good as that? And that's why I'm in so much pain. What am I feeling? And really identify the actual feeling beneath that. You know, a lot of people, a lot of the time it comes down to feeling that why you experience so much pain

is because you are not satisfied with your life where it is right now or where you thought it was going to be. You're attached to this idea you have for your future and now you're grieving that idea or that you don't feel that you're good enough to ever get something like what you had and you think it's just never possible if someone says oh it's not like I I feel good about myself but I just feel like that love's not possible again that's self-love problem if you say to yourself I'll never experience a love like that again that's a self-love problem that's saying I'm not worthy of this when in reality love like that comes in as much as you want to allow it it's just a matter of timing you know with a lot of things but that shit is everywhere

what do you think like when we do go through this and I love that you've said that it comes back to a self-love problem because for so many people when you go through a really bad breakup that is one of those moments in life where your self-love and your sense of worthiness can be incredibly rocked yeah and you've spoken a lot on your podcast and in the things that you teach in terms of like how important it is to have a really high and I know that self-love is like a very wishy-washy like there's lots of different ways in which people talk about self-love but it's more than just like putting on a face mask and having an Epsom bath salt on a Sunday. A hundred percent. Yeah. Or steaming your vagina like Laurie did.

Yes. I had, I had a vagina steam. I do not recommend going and having a vagina ozonizer in Bali. Don't do that. It's a terrible idea. It's not what you think it is. That's a whole other story. Listen to last week's podcast. If you don't know what we're talking about. No, but I mean, talking about self-love and I think it's easy to say this is a self-love problem you need to have more self-love how does one increase their self-love and that's a broad question to ask but I've heard you speak about the three different things that we can do to better have a foundation for self-love can you talk us through what those three things are so the first step is value and you've got to look at value as increasing value to yourself but increasing the

value that you can give in your life and it doesn't have to be to one specific person or other people it could be to your craft, your purpose, whatever it is that you do, but this idea of value. And I think that it feels when someone breaks up with you, for example, you obviously are going to feel really shit about yourself because the person that you loved probably the most in your life has just said, I don't want to be with you. And you're not good enough for me to fight for you. So goodbye, for whatever reason, they might have a great reason or a bad reason, but that feels that's very painful because you're thinking like, well, my idea of myself is now rocked because the person that I valued the most doesn't think that about me. So when that happens,

and when that person exits your life, you have to look then and there after you've obviously done a bit of pain and grieving, you have to look then and there at where am I finding value in my life, because is my only sense of feeling valuable in the eyes of other people? Because if that's the case, then this can happen again and again and again. And I'm going to keep feeling shit about myself because my value is coming from this one main source okay so how can i find value in other areas of my life and i look at there's so many things that i do but for me the really important things are you always have to be doing something towards your growth you always have to be growing in some way like always learning something even if it's like the shittest most basic skill you'll

be amazed at how much you change the the chemical release in your brain when you're learning little things and i always use the example of like a rubik's cube like if you're going through a tough time try and solve the rubik's cube try and solve a puzzle it's so basic but you get this little achievement every time you crack something or you succeed in something little or you see progress in how you're learning a language or playing the guitar or whatever it is ideally with no emotion attached that's why i say there's random tasks because you're not attaching emotion to it but it's little things that you start to actually change the chemical release patterns in your brain where you start to feel a sense of achievement you start to feel a sense of like

I can do this I'm so capable this is actually really cool two days ago I wasn't able to now I can little things like that so you start feeling capable you start feeling that you're learning that you're growing that you're in a different place to where you were a few days ago and then you can like make that as big or as little as you want but that's one of the ways to add value is through growth and learning always like seeking I think this is really interesting because this also plays back into something you said a little bit earlier where you were saying when someone talks about how they were only happy when they're in a relationship and then they're unhappy when they're not in a relationship without having other things that bring you a source of happiness

you are more inclined to very eagerly and readily get into another relationship even if they're not the right person for you just because your value comes from being loved by someone and I know personally for me I went through a big phase in my 20s and I've spoken about it quite a bit where I jumped from relationship to relationship to relationship no break in between sometimes even with an overlap because my purpose and my value and how I saw myself came from being in a relationship. I was never happy unless I was being loved by someone else. And it was exactly the way you describe it. It was a bandaid for all the other shit that I needed to work through. But how you just said before, when you said there were times where it was even an overlap,

that's really actually common for a lot of people who were in that position that you were in this idea that if they're not happy an overlap is almost more common because they think well i can't jump ship even though i'm unhappy because this is where i'm getting my sense of ultimate like purpose and happiness that i'm at least i'm being loved and then they can't leave until there's another option so it's this also comes down to how you're feeling so obviously not promoting affairs or anything like that but that's what happens that's what happens a lot of people think well i'm gonna have to start expanding my horizon with options and then it's like a monkey I'm not going to hold on to the next. I'm not going to let go of one thing until I can hold

on to the next one. Totally. And it gives you that safety net as well. And it's a shit thing to do to another person. There's no denying in that. And I don't look back on that time in my life, all those relationships. And I don't feel like I would never do that now. And I feel terrible that I did do that then, but it was not a reflection of the other person and it didn't make me a bad person necessarily, but I was not in a good place for myself. And that's where this whole concept and conversation around self-love really for me tied into it what would you say apart from adding value and getting a sense of purpose from other things outside of your relationships what would be the second part of this the second part would be and this is so

important it's to it's give a shit okay it's this idea of knowing where and give a shit at what is important and it's knowing where to put your energy and where not to put your energy because we all give a shit but often it's about like stupid things or things that are just like not beneficial to us whatsoever and we end up putting so much of our energy into these whatever it is like oh my own breakup or the or gossiping about this or this drama that's not important to my self-love and then not putting attention to things that are important so when it comes to when I say give a shit a really good thing you can do is to do something selfless and that's one of the best ways to start feeling good about yourself it's one of the best instant

ways to feel good about yourself is to do something selfless. Now, within reason, because you might be in an emotional state where you feel very emotionally drained and the action that you're thinking about doing is going to drain you further. So it's not saying go and empty your cup and give it to everyone else. But to do something for someone that you know is really going to help them, especially somebody that you love, it really starts to feel like I care, like I'm invested in this. I'm not so, my head's not so wrapped up in my breakup and my life. And I feel like my life is over right now I realize that if I'm investing my energy into something that I care about or someone that I care about someone else and I can help I can be of service and of value I start to

feel a lot better about myself so go and help your cousin who's struggling with you know the child that needs babysitting while she needs to do something go and take some time at the dog pound you know what I mean like there's shit that you can do that you show like I'm really starting to feel a lot better even if you want to do it for selfish reasons give a shit about someone else for selfish reasons. Do you know what I mean? But that starts to feel, you feel valuable when you do that. And I think as well, like we live in a society at the moment where so much of the, there's so much fodder around, like, don't give a shit, like, fuck it. It doesn't matter. Like you need to care less. And in a lot of ways and for a lot of things, we probably do need to care

less, but that means that that's not saying don't care. It's saying, choose the things that you care about and choose those things wisely. We spoke to Mark Manson, who's the author of the subtle art of not giving a fuck and he really drove that home he made me look at that differently because he's like don't not give a fuck like give a fuck but choose what you give a fuck about like really be specific about what you're letting bother you and what you're letting consume your thoughts so really it's a really really good take home yeah I agree I agree and he's right he's right and that's like it's a great book I love that book I mean he only sold 30 million copies or something you guys probably haven't heard of it and the third thing that you've spoken about Alexis is

this idea about respecting your body and your mind can you unpack that a little bit more for us in terms of like how if we're looking at self-worth as a bigger picture what we can do for ourself but not just emotionally but also physically that can help to improve our self-worth yeah so when you do if you look at the way I look at it is everything you do physically is going to have some sort of an impact on your emotional state and I like they're just everything's so intertwined the body the mind the brain it's so intertwined so every time you do something for yourself physically um that you can you know where it's something healthy or relaxing or healing you're going to help your emotional state it's just it is going to make a difference and we're

really good at wanting to help our friends and our family and offering all this advice and we're just really shit at applying it for ourselves so we'll sit there and just let everything pass us by and we start feeling shitter and shitter and shitter because we're letting ourselves kind of waste away it's like a plant that you decided not to water and you're watching it shrivel and you're like why are you shriveling why like you're not watering it you're not doing anything for this plant you know you you have to treat yourself like that you have to think well i'm already going through a shit time i need to start doing certain things to heal myself you know if you saw an animal that was sick or a friend that was sick or a plant that was sick

you would do things in the meantime to think what's the best thing for you right now what can i do and we don't do that with ourselves when we're suffering because it's the last thing you want to do you don't have any motivation you don't have any initiative so that's why you've got to be really aware of these things and you've got to pretty much force yourself to do these things and you want to break it down into different categories you want to do things for your body you want to do things for your mind and you know and like emotionally and also in a stimulating way like in an entertaining way or you know or feeling connected with somebody something that's fun you always want to be doing things or instead of doing things removing things that are not helpful for

you identify what's not helpful and remove it i'm sitting here waiting for laura to attack me because we're looking at a big plant that she always gives me a hard time about because i can't keep it alive she's slowly dying i'm like i can't keep anything in my life brit's exact response to this plant which is right here she goes look she's like it's not really dying but it's not really living either and I was like it's just but isn't that a fucking like quote for how a lot of people get through life like and that's what I said it's just surviving when she said it I was like mate that's how a lot of people feel like I'm not dying of my life I'm not thriving but I'm just existing and that's what that plan is doing but I think when you go through a breakup a lot of

people can feel like that or when you're going through a period where your self-worth is like absolutely shot to shit you're definitely not dying but you're not thriving you're just existing and like how do you break that cycle my biggest advice to someone who's going through that is create as much change as possible as much change as possible when you're going through a breakup whether it be and change is different for everyone and so what one person considers change is like oh that's not for me but i'm changing this so it could be a career change it could be moving houses it could be changing the arrangement of your furniture in your bedroom it could be changing And hair is a huge one, especially for a lot of young women in the 90s at least.

We just all chop our hair off after a breakup. And there's actually a science behind that. It's like you're creating a line in the sand. You're saying, that was my past. This is my new life, okay? You've got to create as many things as possible to say, this is my new life. And there's no memories. That's what, you know, color your hair blue.

There's no memories of me with my ex with blue hair. So this is new memories. I'm forging new memories. If you went to a holiday to a destination that you loved with your ex, go back with your best friends and have a ball there. Rewrite those memories. Start to rewrite memories. If you sit there and all you have after the breakup is memories of your ex and no fresh memories or fresh experiences since, it's going to be a really difficult time for you. Harder than if you start to fill up that gap between the breakup and where you are now with experiences,

changes in where you live or work or what you do, whatever it is. The more change you can create, the better and you've got to have this chase change mentality you don't have you don't want to wait till change chases you and you're like oh I didn't want it to change you know it's happened to me now I'm a victim always chase change in your life always be that person being like what can I change what's going to benefit me what's going to throw me into the deep end so I'm going to learn or thrive or something good is going to come from this that's probably why I had 25 hair colors in the last year I've had long hair short hair blonde hair black hair brown hair orange hair It's the hallmark of a midlife crisis or an early life crisis.

Oh, let's not put me in the midlife category, Laura. It's a quarter life crisis. I don't know if it's a quarter. I don't think you're going to like 120, Bryd. I mean, dream big, dream big. Listen, anything's possible. Something as well. And I think that like, if we're looking at this just in breakouts, but when we're in

any bad time in life, I think a lot of people, when, and I'm specifically talking about how we treat our bodies, we can go, fuck it. I'm going to go out. I'm in a party or I'm going to go out drinking. And like, yes, it can be super fun to go and do that with your girlfriends, but also what effect does that then have on you the next day or how you feel about yourself the following week? And it can be for a lot of people, a really unhelpful way to deal with trauma or to deal with heartbreak is to be like, fuck it. I'm going to go out and have wines with my girlfriends. And I think that we really have to be conscious of that because it

can be a real default for a lot of people well you also text your ex often too yeah don't drink and text your ex i didn't know that long ago that night i think at your house that i got really drunk i text my ex you shouldn't do it don't do it that's what happens and it happens you're feeling vulnerable in that state and you're like this is the time this is the time and so you're just like you feel emotionally vulnerable but you also feel like you've got that blanket of alcohol protection when you're like i can just it's fine it's fine and then you feel remorse the next day or you feel like you've got no energy because you're hung over and all like I'm all for having a good night out I'm all for it but if you're in like a bad state you can slip into the

habit of doing it too often another thing that I really recommend is that if you're someone because a lot of people like I'm getting my revenge body I'm going to go and get really hot at the gym I'm going to be the fittest person look I've done that one too I have tried we've done it all I have done the like eat myself silly I've done the drinking I've done the party for the ex I was like I'm going to get fit I've done every recovery mechanism I'm all for exercising exercise is one of the best way to release endorphins, dopamine, everything. It's the best. So you should be exercising regardless for your happiness. But if you've got this underlying thing, because a lot of people think I'm just going to get really, really hot. And then it's the revenge body,

all this stuff that you should never, like never do something hoping to get revenge from your ex, because then you've always got a purpose and the purpose is your ex. So you're never doing anything actually productive to move on from that. A lot of people think, well, they're going to think I'm really hot. But if you're training the whole time to get a reaction, then you're always trying to get a reaction. It's like, I need to do something that's purely for me. So do something that's, you know, go and do a yin yoga class, go and do a deep foam rolling class, go and do something where you feel like, wow, I've really healed my body. I feel, go to a healer if you want. Do things that make you think I've really cared for my body today. And when you do something

to care for your body, you feel respected by you. You think I just respected myself enough to spend one hour not talking to anyone, not on any device, just for my body. Like I must care to an extent if I'm willing to do that. And the more you do that, the more you feel respected by you. And that's the best feeling you can have. Because if you can respect yourself, it doesn't matter what's going around. I mean, to an extent it does, but you're looking at like the bigger picture of when it comes to breakups or what someone says to you online, or if someone trolls you or whatever you think, well, that sucks, but I'm good. You know, I've got my back. If shit hits the fan, I respect myself enough that I'm there to pick up the pieces. I'm not relying on other

people to do that. Alexis, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for being a part of the podcast. For anybody who is looking for more, you can go and find Do You Fucking Mind on all good podcast apps. And Alexis, can you let everyone know where they can find you on Instagram or all of the fun stuff you can find me on instagram at at alexis predes p-e-r-d-e-z and also a little plug i've got a book coming out next month called the neuroscience of self-love so that will be in all bookstores as well i'll send you guys a copy congratulations as two people that just wrote a book congratulations it's a big oh my god yeah yeah it is isn't it thank you for having me thank you so much all right guys you know that we never finish an episode without our suck and our sweet

our highlight and our low light of each and every week. Brittany Hockley you can kick it off what was your suck this week? My suck was this week my shower. Oh yes I know the shower. My sister Sherry my sister-in-law Stacey I mean I have a two-bedroom apartment but it's not huge but they came down to stay from Queensland and my shower snapped off like the whole shower had snapped off which is you couldn't write a worse time and not that it's anyone's fault and I'm not blaming anyone but it was Patricia Keisha that broke the shower head but also in her defense she was washing Delilah she had been babysitting her she so like there's no one's to blame but it was very unfortunate timing and I paid $180 to have the shower head fixed which is not a big deal really no it's not

but if I actually took the time to look at it the guy was like oh this is we just got this from the shop and it was a two second screw on he was here for two minutes he walked in screwed on he's like $180 and I it was it was literally the call out for he didn't even charge her for the actual thing it was just the $180 for the fuck plumbers get paid well don't they they we yeah marry a plumber that's what my mom always said so that was for sure my suck except that they spend all day covered in shit yeah there's that but you do too and your mom true true my sweets also Delilah related. This is such a ridiculous suite, but it was a real moment. If you've followed my Instagram for a while, you know, probably like six months ago, I bought Delilah a kennel, a very big,

beautiful kennel. It has windows, it's white, has a pointy roof. And I did an Instagram reel of, I had to build this thing. I didn't, I thought I'd just buy it, right? And it would turn up on a truck. It's a big kennel. It even has a little balcony on it. It didn't turn up built. So I had to take all this time to build it it was very expensive and not once has she used it so this was like this sent me back a lot of money took me a lot of time she's never used it anyway this week she took herself outside on her own i looked out and for the very first time she was in a kennel and it was like i felt like my child was graduating i was it was a real moment for me this kennel can i tell you brit like she said she fucking made it it is like it's like a scandi expensive i can't

even it's like a designer dog kennel and it's so obnoxious and it's been here for an entire year and she's never been inside it is a fucking like it's a I would sleep in that I can fit in there we fit in there together I would put my children to bed in that that's how nice this scandy dog house is and it's not good enough for Delilah who has air fried salmon well maybe it is now because she had her first night in there oh well did she spend a whole night it was a nap about in the daylight okay so my second suite for the week my suck this week this is super trivial I've had a very good week, but I went this morning and I got coffees for the team, for Britt, for Keish, for Sherry, everyone's here. There was four coffees. Had a big night last night, not doing

anything other than just like not sleeping. I had a major. I certainly didn't. I just had very little sleep. And I walked in to the studio, i.e. Brittany's lounge room, and I had already just gone and got the coffee. So I had walked from my car to the coffee shop, picked up the coffees. Like there is like a lot of public exposure during this point in time. You cut some laps on the street. Yeah. Walked inside. I had monumentally misbuttoned up my jacket, which doesn't sound like a big deal.

But when you're like two buttons out and you look like. And it's a pretty big coat. I just looked really stupid, which is fine. I'm okay with looking stupid. I wear rainbow colored Crocs around. But what I didn't know, and because my jacket is like so big and fleecy, and it's one of those teddy bear jackets, that I had spilt one of the coffees all the way down the front of myself

and had just been walking around Bondi looking like a fucking idiot for a good 25 minutes and that's my morning. Walked past lots of people and I was like, oh, feeling myself. Why are people looking at me? My jacket's so nice. Didn't even look down to think people are looking at me because I'm covered in coffee. Well, you did once upon a time in the early days walk to our recording studio

down the main street with your skirt tucked up into your undies and your G-string and your whole butt was on display. So you've come forward in leaps and bounds, Laura. I don't really want to get my butt out these days. It's very flat now. I've got mum bum. It's a thing. You have a small butt but it's great.

that can also be my suck no what happens is like your suck is your mum bum yeah my suck is also my mum bum like the hormones your bum goes flat it just happens all right what's your sweet all right my sweet for the week is that marley has just come through the other side of a leap if you're a mum you know what a leap is they suck but the other side is like it's like the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow she has been like really challenging three is hard challenging is such a diplomatic word isn't it well like I mean I'd heard the term three-nager and like little shit no like a three-nager she's a three-nager like she's like a little temperament don't call my child a little shit no I thought that was the word you were trying to look for she's been acting like a

little shit and I guess like I had been calling her that but didn't really understand the full magnitude of what a three-nager is and it's like really full-on it's like the step after terrible twos three-nagers twos easy fine threes anyway but she's just come out the other side of like a very stressful period and it's really interesting because like when kids go through these leaps and then they come out the other side of it not only are they no longer just like horrendous to be around because they're not tantruming and screaming at you they're also like a little bit smarter they're a little bit more developed like something literally you can you can tell by talking to them and to her but like something just like clicks in their brain and you're like oh

you're at the next stage now welcome it's nice to meet you and they're just a different little human that has like new things that they've learned like molly now knows monday to sunday and she understands that, like, Friday's the day that she goes and hangs out. It's fucking cute. I'm having a mum moment. I love my kids. They're my sweet.

All right, anyway, that is it from us, guys. No one cares. Let's wrap this up. If you want to, we would like, even if you don't want to, we'd like you to, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. If you've never left us a review but you've listened to all these episodes. If you have been listening to this podcast, you cheeky little devil, and you have not left us a review yet, I am cross.

And this is a you. And you don't want Laura Cross. I will wave my finger and I will say, I will smack your bottom but never actually do it. Please don't forget to tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friends and share the love because we love love!