On Purpose with Jay Shetty - If You Can't Stop Thinking About Your Ex, Do This (The Path To Real Closure)

Episode Date: June 26, 2026

Some endings hurt because they leave us with unanswered questions. After a breakup, it’s natural to search for reasons, replay memories, and hope for one final conversation that will make everything make sense. In this episode, Jay explores why closure is often misunderstood and how the answers we seek from someone else rarely bring the peace we’re hoping for. True healing begins when we stop waiting for another person to explain our pain and start turning inward instead. Jay shares a powerful perspective on heartbreak: closure is not something we receive, it’s something we create. Through acceptance, self-reflection, and intentional healing, we can transform loss into growth. Rather than centering our lives around what ended, we learn to rebuild around who we are becoming. The goal isn’t to erase the past, it’s to emerge from it with greater self-awareness, stronger boundaries, and a deeper trust in ourselves. In this episode you'll learn: How to Heal Through No Contact How to Rebuild Yourself After Heartbreak How to Separate Facts From Feelings How to Stop Romanticizing Your Ex How to Turn Heartbreak Into Growth How to Measure Healing the Right Way Heartbreak has a way of convincing us that healing is somewhere in the future, waiting behind the perfect explanation, apology, or final conversation. But growth often begins the moment we stop chasing what we cannot control and start caring for what we can. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty JAY’S DAILY WISDOM DELIVERED STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX Join 900,000+ readers discovering how small daily shifts create big life change with my free newsletter. Subscribe here: https://news.jayshetty.me/subscribe  Check out our Apple subscription to unlock bonus content of On Purpose! https://lnk.to/JayShettyPodcast  What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 01:46 Why More Answers Create More Questions 05:52 The Power of No Contact After a Breakup 08:44 Why Real Closure Comes From Within 15:17 The Best Way to Find Closure 18:45 The Biggest Mistake People Make After a Breakup 20:55 It's Okay to Hold Contradictory Feelings 23:56 Measure Healing in a New WaySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast guaranteed human. You all know that feeling after a breakup, where you're sitting in confusion, hurt and heartbreak. And all you want is some sort of explanation that helps the pain make sense. You replay conversations, re-read old texts, stalk their social media, and drive yourself crazy searching for the perfect answer that might make the breakup hurt even just a little bit less. Eventually, you convince yourself that what you actually need is one more conversation with your ex. I know you've done this. I think almost everyone has been there

at some point because one of the hardest parts of heartbreak is how badly the mind wants resolution. When a significant relationship in your life ends without the clarity you need, your brain can get stuck, spiraling over and over trying to understand why your heart and your nervous system are so deregulated. Wanting a sense of closure is natural, because right now you think closure is finally hearing the explanation that makes the reason for the breakup click into place. You'd think if your ex could just admit they handle things the wrong way, you'd finally feel free enough to let You might even think your ex doesn't realize how badly they've hurt you and you tell yourself, if only they could know, things would be different.

But the reality is, real closure does not come from another person. And the journey to true, genuine closure begins the moment you stop expecting the person who hurt you to be the one who heals you. I've coached a lot of people through breakups and close your conversations. And one of the ways that it's not been helpful is we think more information leads to more healing. But more often than not, more information leads to more questions. So when you go through a breakup, you think if I had all the answers, I'd be satisfied. Whereas what happens when you get the answers is you just have loads more questions.

Your brain needs to fix the loop. It needs to end the cycle. but the problem is more information just perpetuates more questions. Here's the thing. Heartbreak already creates enough emotional turmoil as it is. And I know that coupling that with uncertainty about why you've been left heartbroken can feel almost unbearable. In fact, brain imaging studies have found that romantic rejection actually activates many of the same neural pathways associated with physical pain, craving and addiction withdrawal. That's part of why heartbreak can feel so obsessive. Your mind keeps trying to

return to the source of the attachment looking for relief, even though returning to it is really just making the healing time slower. They've actually talked about how heartbreak can feel like your heart is actually breaking, like you're detoxing from a drug. It's a hard cycle to escape. You replay conversations, trying to figure out what you missed. You reread old texts looking for hidden meaning. You stalked social media, ask mutual friends for updates and decide reaching out to them is the only way you ever feel better. But instead of helping you heal,

all of these behaviors are actually just keeping you emotionally attached to a relationship that's over. You're staying stuck because the thing you want to change isn't changing. You don't need further analysis. you need the harder thing, acceptance. The trap of a closure conversation is that it makes you think closure will come from an external source when really true closure comes from focusing on healing internally. The heartbreak actually begins to lessen when you turn the focus back toward yourself.

The hard part is your brain is not going to naturally want to look inward and prioritize your own healing right after a breakup. The human brain hates unresolved endings. Psychologists who study the need for cognitive closure have found that people inherently seek certainty and we struggle when we feel stuck in ambiguity or unanswered questions. The brain wants a conclusion it can make sense of as a means of releasing constant tension. When something important feels unresolved, your mind will keep returning to it over and over trying to reduce that discomfort.

That's part of why breakups can feel so mentally all-consuming, especially when an ending feels confusing or incomplete. But what your brain doesn't realize is that you may never get the explanation that finally feels satisfying enough, which means we can't allow our healing to depend on eventually receiving this form of closure. Your ex won't give you what you truly need. Sometimes they genuinely do not understand themselves well enough to explain their behavior clearly.

Sometimes they avoid difficult conversations because they're emotionally immature. Sometimes they've already told you the truth, but it just hurts too much for you to accept. I know that might sound harsh, but it actually should be empowering, because the truth is, you hold all the power for your own healing. Even if they give you an explanation, your deeper emotional wound will remain open because what you're really searching for is emotional safety, reassurance, and self-worth. And those things cannot permanently come from another person. They have to come from within you. So where do you start? Even though I know it can be incredibly painful, the journey to acceptance begins with going no

contact with your former partner. It's not punishment, it's not manipulation, it's not a strategy to make them miss you. It's truly just giving yourself the space you need for your nervous system to begin to regulate again. and only from there will you be able to mentally begin processing the relationships end. And when I say no contact, I don't just mean not texting them or calling them. Don't check their social media. Don't ask their friends how they are. Don't try and figure out how they're doing at work. I know how uncomfortable silence feels after heartbreak.

This person has been woven into your daily routine. They're a part of your lifestyle. Losing contact with them can genuinely feel deep. destabilizing. Heartbreak suddenly shrinks your world. Your routines revolved around one person, your thoughts revolved around one person, your nervous system revolved around one person, and suddenly when they're gone, there's this massive emptiness where your attention used to go. The foundation of your life will temporarily upend. Research on attachment theory shows that close relationships become deeply integrated into our emotional regulation systems,

which means losing that connection can disrupt everything about your sense of emotional stability. That's why healing requires rebuilding structure internally. Wake up at the same time every day and do something that makes you feel good. Move your body, make your favorite coffee, check in with friends. This is the time to pour into yourself with the energy your ex was taking. Because even though it's hard, what that separation and silence eventually does is forced to sit with yourself again.

You start confronting the deeper questions underneath the grief. And that's where closure can actually begin. Ask yourself, where did I lose myself in this relationship? What toxic patterns was I repeating? What about this relationship was actually never working? What emotional baggage did it expose in me that existed long before this person entered my life? life. It's uncomfortable. It's hard. But this is the work that actually changes you for the better. Instead of wondering, what are they thinking about me? You need to start asking, what did this relationship

reveal about me? Where did you abandon your own needs? Where did you depend on another person for validation, reassurance or emotional stability? What fears were you operating from? One of the most useful things you can do after a breakup is write down every moment in the relationship where you felt emotionally dismissed, anxious, unheard or disconnected. Heartbreak has a way of romanticizing people once they're gone. Your brain starts replaying the highs and forgetting all the moments that were hard or even hurtful. Writing things down helps interrupt that distortion so you can finally begin seeing things more clearly. Look, a lot of us unconsciously use the search for external closure as a way of avoiding doing this deeper self-work. Analyzing another person is easier than confronting yourself,

but the breakups that change you for the better are the ones that force you to be more honest with where you're at. Acceptance that closure is internal stops you from endlessly negotiating with what you should do, what you should say, how you should act right now, You just need to be. It's vital that you take this time after a relationship ends to give yourself space to process. Psychologists studying self-compassion have found that people who practice being supportive toward oneself when experiencing suffering tend to recover more resiliently than people who approach themselves with harsh self-criticism. This period of pain, heartbreak and confusion will pass. So you need to look out for yourself during it. Stop yourself for yourself for

falling back into toxic patterns, negative behaviors, or any coping mechanisms that are just keeping you emotionally stuck. Real closure is behavioral, and that's in your control. Right now, you don't actually need the perfect explanation from your ex. You need to behave as someone who takes care of themselves differently than they did in this partnership. Do the work now, and you'll protect yourself the next time life puts you in a similar situation. And I think this is important distinction because people often imagine healing as this emotional finish line where they suddenly stop caring, hurting or thinking about the relationship. And all those things are true in a sense because eventually this dark, painful period will pass. But on a deeper level,

you don't know you've actually healed until life presents you with the future emotional trigger. And you no longer react the same way you used to. Look at it this way. Relationships are cycles of connection, rupture and repair. In healthy relationships, conflict or rupture eventually leads back to understanding and reconnection. But when relationships end abruptly or painfully, you can get emotionally stranded in a place of rupture with no way to get back to a phase of connection. People spend years trying to emotionally understand the original relationship, looking for that repair in a partnership that's gone. They want the other person to finally understand them correctly, validate their growth, acknowledge their hurt, or mirror back the emotional progress they've made.

But the truth is, that repair you're seeking won't come from a partner that's gone. It will show up when a new relationship reflects back the same insecurities, fears, attachment wounds, communication patterns, or abandonment triggers. And this time, it doesn't end in rupture. Because this time you've learned to work through these cycles in a way that's healthy, consistent and emotional. protects yourself. That's closure. Close your eyes. And you can hear the entire world come alive. 2026 FIFA World Cup is on. And you can stream it all live on TSN Radio.

From the opening kickoff to the final celebration. Every match, every moment. Listen to FIFA World Cup on TSN Radio. It's Canada to the lift off. on I Heart Radio. Joy is essential, and it's also elusive. You can't order it, you can't borrow it, or simply hope it into life, but now, there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence, Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, Hoda Kotby.

Together, guys, we'll have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people, entertainment legends, sports icons, wellness experts, and everyday people will share how they find, allow, and experience joy. And I'll offer some of my own tips and takes on seeking a more balanced and harmonious life. If you're craving inspiration, support, and useful tools to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on-air chats. Joy after a breakup, joy as an empty nester, joy after a loss. Joy as a caretaker. This new podcast will speak to you. Listen to Joy 101 on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Maybe in your last relationship you ignored red flags because you were afraid of losing the person.

Closure happens when someone new shows you the same warning signs. And this time, you walk away early instead of negotiating yourself out of your intuition. Maybe your old relationship made you anxious because you constantly needed reassurance in order to feel secure. closure. Closure happens when you learn how to regulate your own emotions instead of making another person fully responsible for stabilizing your nervous system. Maybe you used to confuse nerves with passion, emotional volatility with chemistry or obsession with love. Closure happens when someone enters your life who triggers those butterflies and anxious attachment styles, but you now recognize that as inconsistency and not attraction. Research is studying

post-traumatic growth have found that difficult life experiences can often lead to deeper self-awareness, stronger relationships, increased emotional resilience, and greater clarity around personal values. That doesn't mean heartbreak is good or that suffering is something to seek, but it does mean pain can become transformative in powerful, life-altering ways. I remember when I lived in New York and I was four months away from being broke. We had four months for rent and groceries and I I was under immense stress and pressure because we had 30 days before my visa ran out and I'd have to leave the country. I have never dug that deep. One of my mentors said to me that when you're in pain, you'll realize your potential. That moment is one I look back on to realize how much emotional

resilience I have, to remember how much depth I have, to remember how much courage I have, because I can't believe I got through it. When you reflect on how you move through difficult times, you get more energy to move through new challenges today. We have to look back at moments when we did hard things in order to do new hard things in the future. By focusing on yourself and your growth during a stressful, painful time, you can save yourself years of heartbreak down the road.

Real closure is not this cinematic moment where your ex finally says exactly what you need to hear and you run into their arms and everything feels perfect for another fleeting moment. It's months of hard work, internal analysis and getting honest with yourself about the baggage you've been carrying in past relationships. What's beautiful is that losing someone

does not mean losing yourself. It's actually quite the opposite. Closure is coming back to yourself, remembering you've got your own back, you can trust yourself, and you're capable of changing your own life for the better. Closure is about who you become moving forward, in a way that aligns with the journey to your highest potential,

and that's something your ex-partner can never give you. Eventually, the moment you once thought would heal you, the final text, the final conversation, the final answer, stops mattering to you, because your life is no longer emotionally centered around the relationship anymore. It's centered around a better version of yourself. The number one way to get closure after a breakup is to accept that you may never get the apology that you deserve. When you keep wishing, wanting and waiting for an apology, it keeps you attached to the relationship.

The moment you release that desire is the moment you are truly free. The second thing is to separate facts from interpretations. When you think about your memory, your memory has all these ideas. and interpretations, and the goal is to look at your memory and really think about the facts. Not just a story, not just the narrative, but the actual fact. What happened? What was going on? What's the closest thing you can get to the truth? When you look at the facts versus just a story and narrative, you actually get a sense of what you actually went through. As I said before, the brain has this tendency during a breakup to romanticize the relationship.

You look back at a picture and you only see the smiles in the photo, but not the mindset or the argument that you had just before. You think about all the incredible places you went to, but not about how much you didn't like planning it together. You think about all the incredible times you had, but you forget all the arguments to and from the event at night or the birthday party of your friend. It's really fascinating how the brain only serves you up, the best memories, and takes away all the hard ones, and that's why it's important that you focus on the facts,

not just the interpretations. This is probably the most important advice I can give you on closure. Say the unsaid, even if they'll never hear it. A lot of us feel that we wish we could have one more conversation with that person. We wish they could hear our pain.

We wish we could tell them how we felt, and many of us may never get that chance. But say the unsaid, write a letter Share what hurt you experienced Share the pain you went through Share the dreams you had Share the grief you're experiencing

Share everything Write it down Leave it on the page It's so important to get out of your head And onto paper Because otherwise your mind will just spiral And crash out And so many of us get lost

In that overthinking an over-evaluation, maybe even thinking that we'll run into them one day, but you have the ability to get it out on the page. You can then burn it, you can throw it in the trash, you can even send it to them energetically to realize that you've passed it on. It's so important to feel that transfer from your energy to theirs, from your heart to theirs, from your mind to theirs, and to not limit it by physical proximity. You may never see this person again. You may never get to have this conversation, but that doesn't mean you don't get to feel the emotions when you put them onto paper. And actually, when you do that, that's the process that helps you feel and heal.

That's why it's important. It's not important because we somehow believe through some fluffy version that they're going to feel the impact of this. They won't. But what we do know is that you get to feel and experience the emotion of saying it to them, which for you and your heart and mind is so, so important. One of the biggest mistakes we make after a breakup is that we keep opening up old wounds for new evidence. We read our old messages hoping to find new answers. We read old cards in order to discover new red flags.

We look back at pictures and our camera roll and our WhatsApp thread in order to hope that we can find a new narrative. All that does is keep you stuck in that relationship even when it no longer exists. It's like being embedded into something that is no longer real, but being so immersed in it that it feels that's all that's real. The more time you spend gathering more information, the more stuck you feel, the more lost you are. And with that, we also imagine different endings, different things we could have said. What if? What if they said that?

What if I did this? Why didn't we do this? All fair questions. Worth asking. But important to realize that they don't have impact. They don't change the reality. And it's that lack of control that affects us so deeply. We want things to go a certain way.

That's how we all are as humans, me included. And when things don't go to our plan, we wish they would change. And that's pain. Pain is the difference between your plan and reality. That is what pain is. That is what you're experiencing. And all we have to do is realize that it was beautiful we had a plan.

It's amazing that you have dreams. There's nothing wrong with that. But we have to come back down to reality in this situation. There's a famous quote by Steve Mariboli that says, when people show you their true colors, don't try to repaint them. A lot of us spend a lot of our time after a breakup trying to repaint someone another way,

who we thought they could be, the potential they had, the incredible journey we could have had with them, but they have shown us what they want in reality, and that's what we have to learn to accept. When you're going through a breakup, I want you to allow yourself to have contradictory feelings. Often we're trying to find one narrative.

They were bad, I was good. They wasted my time. I was naive. The reality is, some days you're going to think, you know what, it was all their fault. And some days you think it was all my fault. Some days you'll probably think, I wish they had done this. And some days you'll probably think, I wish I had done that. It's okay to hold both truths at once.

I think that's actually what's going to make closure more possible. closure's impossible when we're just trying to find one answer one lane but then we keep debating ourselves whereas when we accept i miss them but actually i realized they weren't good for me i loved them but we weren't right for each other i deeply respect and admire them but they weren't my person accepting both truths frees us from this binary prison that has no solution ask yourself what What did that person create in your life? Was it comfort? Was it adventure?

Was it regulation? What was it? And then go and find the thing that does that for you. See, what a person did is they played a role in your life. And the role they played is what you're missing. It may not feel like that right now, but that's really what's going on. And I'd like you to go and find a place. I'd like you to go and find a community.

I'd like you to go and find a hobby, if that's what it is, that makes you feel that energy that makes you realize that you can still have adventure in your life, you can still have joy in your life, you can still have excitement in your life, you can still have support in your life. This is really one of those moments that you realize who your real friends are. When you go through a breakup, you realize which friends you ignored and which friends stayed. Because there were some people that you stopped talking to because you were too busy with your partner and there were some people that stood by your side even when they felt neglected. Don't neglect them now.

Don't ignore them now. Don't put them off. Re-prioritize them. This is the best piece of advice I can give you after a breakup. Measure progress differently. We think that progress after a breakup is that we're over it and we've moved on. It might be that you just think about it less. It might be that you now see the truth.

It might be that you now see the truth. It might be that you don't cry every day anymore just once a week. It's noticing this small, tiny progress and acknowledging it so that you know you're moving forward when it feels like you're just stuck. That makes all the difference. If you're going through this right now or you have a friend who is, please share this with them. I hope you'll discuss it together.

And remember, I'm forever in your corner and I'm always rooting for you. If you love this episode, you're going to love my conversation with Matthew Hussie on how to get over your ex and find true love in your relationships. Make a list of the things that are truly important for you to find in a partner and then be that list. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.