The Date with Confidence Podcast - Closure & New Beginnings: Am I Delusional?! Part 2

Episode Date: October 23, 2023

EPISODE 14: Closure & New Beginnings: Am I Delusional?! Part 2When something ends quicker than you expected, how do you handle it?What actions do you take to prevent these patterns repeating themselves?How do you release the trauma so it doesn’t impact you in the future?In this episode of The Date with Confidence Podcast - a follow up to the "Am I Delusional?!" episode that was released two weeks ago - I’m giving you an insight into the coaching session I had after a recent dating experience came to an end quicker than I expected it to. I’m taking you behind the scenes of the trauma work we did together, how I got closure for myself and discoveries I made about myself thanks to this experience.  Here are the key topics covered:1. Personal Healing Session: I discuss my session with Marie Houlden, a mindset coach and energy healer, who uses various modalities like breathwork, EFT, hypnosis, and trauma-informed techniques. For more on her work, go here*.2. Emotional Turmoil: I openly share my emotional rollercoaster, including feelings of confusion, self-doubt, anger, and hurt after the breakup.3. Seeking Closure: Find out whether I sent a final message to get closure or whether I chose to leave things with the first, angry message I sent him.4. Reconnecting with Myself: Learn about the transformative, energy clearing technique that helps me gain clarity around what to do, release any past trauma and allows me to heal my heart. 5. Reflection on the Relationship: I reflect on the dating experience and my emotional needs, as well as the fear of jumping into a full-blown commitment at this point in my life.6. Moving Forward: I discuss what I did to further cement the closure for myself and how I'm open to new dating experiences, reaffirming my sense of self and purpose.Join me on this journey of healing and self-discovery, demonstrating how moments of emotional turmoil can lead to growth and transformation.Get Involved!You can contribute your stories to the Date with Confidence Podcast here. Share your best or worst dating stories, your biggest icks, dating tips you think everyone should know or ask me anything about my dating life or a burning question you need an answer for.  ResourcesThe Breakup Bounce BackThe Confidence KitThe Confidence CourseGet weekly-ish updates, exclusive offers and access behind the scenes gossip when you become a podcast insider.Visit The Date with Confidence website here.Follow The Date with Confidence Podcast on Instagram + follow your host Rebecca Hawkes here.*affiliate link Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Okay my friend, we are following up with the Am I Delusional episode, so if you haven't listened to that one yet, I want to encourage you to listen to that first because this is not going to make any sense to you at all until you listen to that episode. So go and listen to that and then come back to this and if you've already listened to it then let's dive straight in. Welcome to the Date With Confidence podcast, a place to come for dating advice, support and stories that will either fill you with hope or relief that your dating experience wasn't as bad as it could have been. With practical episodes that will provide you with easy to implement tips to help you feel confident AF on your next date, alongside light-hearted catch-ups where your host

Rebecca, that's me by the way, shares her own experience dating after four years of the single life. You are guaranteed to end each episode feeling less alone in your dating Rebecca, that's me by the way, shares her own experience dating after four years of the single life. You are guaranteed to end each episode feeling less alone in your dating struggles, empowered to never settle again and confident that the best is yet to come. And if it all falls to shit, there's a special first season dedicated to breakups. You are welcome my friend. Subscribe, review and share with your single friends. as i explained in the in the episode at the end of the episode i was having a session with my mindset coach and energy healer to help me process all of the shit that came to the surface from dating this guy that i really liked and we had that session on a tuesday I suppose I probably share what we did in

the session really. So Marie knows lots of different modalities, like lots of different healing modalities, so she's trauma informed, she's trauma trained, she is a breathwork coach, EFT facilitator and when I messaged her I said that I think breath work would probably be helpful so actually do you know what let's let's just be really real about what happened let's be really honest in this in this episode so I this is what I said when I booked my session with Marie I wanted to and I booked this so I got the message from him on the Wednesday and I booked the session with Marie on the Friday for the following Tuesday and I was like when I booked the session I was in a really low headspace. I was just feeling all the feelings around it. And I knew that by Tuesday, I'd likely be feeling much better.

So when I booked the session with Marie, I was like, this is how I'm feeling. And I just brain dumped everything so that by the time Tuesday came around, when I would inevitably forget what I was feeling about the situation she would be able to remind me. So this is what I said to Marie. After four dates with a fifth one planned for a few days later I got a lengthy message explaining he didn't think we should keep seeing each other etc etc. In case I forget by Tuesday this is how i'm feeling one like a complete and utter moron i got excited about it i told my family and friends it felt too good to be true two like history has repeated itself yet again i get fed all the stuff i want to hear get my hopes up that

something good will come out of it and then in brackets i put wasn't expecting love and marriage but was looking forward to seeing where it went and then they ripped the rug out from under me. Three, like I can't trust myself at all, how could I not have seen this coming? Four, confused as fuck and really disappointed. Five, frustrated at myself that I'm having such a big reaction to someone I'd known for three weeks. Six, hurt, rejected, discarded. Seven, was I living in a delusional world? There's been a couple of things since that seem like alarm bells and I'm like, how could I have missed this? And then what are we on? Eight, seven, eight. I'm angry at him that he essentially decided how I'd perceive things in the future and made a decision on my behalf.

It feels like my power was taken away and then nine or ten or wherever we're at also I feel like I've dodged a bullet and this is all happening for a good reason but it just sucks then I said he also hasn't read my response which has left me feeling completely disrespected and made me question my own judgment entirely not sure how to address it all but breathwork normally works well for me though hypnosis does too. I just don't want this shit stuck in my body. I want it processed, dealt with and released so it doesn't take over my world and set me back four years. So that's what I said to Marie. So I get on my call with Marie at 1.30 and it's like an hour and a half we've got although it ends up being nearly two hours and I explain from the beginning everything that

happened so the whole story what was going on what happened on the fourth date the fact that he'd said about us being exclusive or not he hadn't said about us being exclusive he'd said he wasn't going to date anyone else and I'd said I wasn't going to date anyone else so in my mind that wasn't us being exclusive that was just us choosing not to date anyone else. Explaining all this. And then we essentially talk for a really long time. And as we're talking, different thoughts and patterns and realizations come to light. One of them being that I didn't want or don't feel like at this point in time I actually want a full-blown relationship because she'd said to me what would you have done if in a few weeks time he was like be my girlfriend and I was like I would have freaked out because I don't like I've just started dating again I don't want to be in a full-blown committed relationship right now because there is a part of me that's terrified of commitment

and also there's a part of me that's like I spent the majority of my 20s thinking about compromising, listening to, crying over, planning my life around a boy or multiple boys at multiple stages but the majority of my 20s was consumed with someone that I was dating and I don't want that for the start of my 30s, like my relationship ended when I was, I think 28, yeah I was 28, just before I turned 29, so that was, that was most of my 20s, and although I've been single for a couple of years, we had the pandemic in that way, I needed a few years off to really heal from the past relationship, I don't want to go straight into my forever relationship. Like, yes, I'm open to meeting someone. Yes, I'm open to dating. I'm open to seeing someone. But if I was to meet the one that I'm supposed to spend the rest of my life with now, it makes me feel a bit panicky it makes me feel a bit

scared to be honest because I'm like I'm only 32 like let's say I live to 90 or 80 50 years with the same person is a fucking long time I that doesn't that doesn't fill me with excitement that makes me feel trapped and claustrophobic and and a bit panicky because that feels too intense like I don't I don't know if I want to spend 50 years of my life with someone I don't I mean maybe at some stage I will but it feels like my life would be consumed by a guy again and I I kind of want my 30s, or at least the beginning part of my 30s to have some more fun, because I also don't feel like I've had fun for the last couple of years in terms of the dating scene. So I would have, I didn't want to be in like a long term committed relationship. And this kind of came up in the coaching session. And one of the

things that came up was, is that how I'm'm actually feeling or is that because I would have accepted that from this guy would I have just settled for not being in a relationship but it feeling like a relationship and how I honestly feel is yes like what I would have actually loved although we did talk about a lot of deep stuff we talked about relationships we talked about what we like in a relationship how to handle conflict we talked about marriage and whether we wanted kids and lots of deep and personal stuff which I think those conversations are important because if you start dating someone you don't necessarily date someone with the intention of this is going to be my forever person but you also want to know whether you are on the same page with those things

in case they become your forever person so we'd had we'd had a lot of those deep intense conversations and marie was just like um what was she saying she was like would you have settled for less that no what was i gonna say what i would have really liked was for us to carry on doing what we were doing so having the fun dates and then taking the intimacy and the sex up a notch like moving into a physical relationship but without the commitment or the label of we are boyfriend and girlfriend because I don't want that I don't think that's necessarily what he wanted I was happy for us to just see each other for a few months or until it dwindled away or whatever um and I feel like I'm kind of annoyed that that got taken away I was annoyed I'm not really I'm pretty neutral about the whole situation now

because of all the stuff that I've done with Marie but that was that was something that came to light and I thought that was really interesting because I part of me had thought oh I do like want a relationship but I don't not right now it's just not it's uh yeah it's just not where I wanted to be and then we talked about the message that he'd sent and about what I was telling myself his message meant and there were three specific stories that came up that I was telling myself so the first one being when I when I initially got the message from him my first thought was he's self-sabotaging he is feeling the way that I'm feeling he's freaked out and he is self-sabotaged that was my gut instinct because I was feeling the same like it was freaking me out how much I felt like I liked

him and he had said that he felt the same he'd said it to me a message we discussed it in person like it was weird it was a bit scary and he'd also shared with me that he has a pattern of self-sabotaging in the past so I was like he's fucking self-sabotaging in the past. So I was like, he's fucking self-sabotaging, brilliant. So that was the first story. The second story, I shared some personal, intimate details about my life with him on the fourth date. So the second story that I was telling myself was that he'd heard those stories that I'd shared he changed his opinion of me and felt disgusted by what I'd shared with him and therefore he didn't want to see me anymore and the third story that I was telling myself was that he's just a fuck boy he's not like what I thought he was at all

I ignored all the red flags and I'm a fucking idiot for not seeing what was right in front of me and Marie was like each of these three stories have nothing to do with you every single one of these stories are about him his perception his behavior and I was like oh yeah like that's very true so that was helpful to look at things from that perspective and then before we got into the breath work we did some trauma work now I don't know anything about this kind of trauma work so I can't tell you what we did why we did it um I can tell you I can tell you what we did but I can't tell you why we did it like this I can't tell you how it works I can't tell you any of that because I don't I don't know but we did some trauma stuff so I had to close my eyes take some deep breaths

and focus on my body and where the pain was and I got this real pain around my eyes now I've done this sort of trauma work with Marie several times because I've worked with her one-to-one last year and normally like I'd get pains like in my knee or in my chest or in my shoulder or my jaw but I'd never had pain behind my eyes before and it was so intense and so uncomfortable and she was like what's coming up like what what are you thinking and I was like blind like literally all the all that were coming in my head was blind blindsided I'm blind blind to something the word blind was all the thing that I came up, that was the only word that was coming up for me, and it was this, we like worked through it and talked

it through, and it was this idea of, like it was this feeling of being blindsided again, so it was the past pattern that has repeatedly happened to me, where I felt like I've been blindsided so with my two biggest breakups like my two catastrophic breakups I've spoken about on the pod before I was blindsided when those happened and I felt exactly the same way when this happened completely blindsided didn't see it coming wasn't expecting it and it left me feeling shocked and I felt like terror and panic and that was coming up in my body which was a really horrific feeling to have to go through um and it was also coming up around when I lost my dog at the start of the year that was a massive shock and I felt completely blindsided about that as well so there was a lot of like trauma stuck in my body so we talked through that and I said one of the things that

the blindsiding did it whenever it happened in the past whenever I felt like I was blindsided in the past I felt like I never got closure because in my mind especially with those two big breakups we weren't done in my mind we hadn't our story hadn't finished its course we weren't finished my because I had created this whole life in my mind with them in it when that was taken away from me I didn't get the closure I wanted and when it happened with the first boyfriend after it happened he literally cut me off so we'd been like communicating all day every day for three months we'd had this we were looking at mortgages and talking marriage and booked holidays and all this stuff it was really really intense but then as

soon as he changed his mind all about with his ex he cut cut all ties cut me off completely so I never got the closure and I felt like I never got to speak my like to say my piece and to talk about how it made me feel or to share that I was hurt or anything like that like I didn't get closure and the same happened with my last boyfriend when our relationship ended I still feel like I never got closure completely and so we discussed like how I could get the closure and one of those ways was me sending a message and I'm sure that I spoke about in the am I delusional part one I really wanted to message him because I sent an initial message to I sent an initial response to his first message that was pretty blunt it was I was hurt I was

angry I was upset so it wasn't a like polite message it wasn't a okay then no worries like I wish you an amazing life it was a wow I'm wasn't expecting that I'm disappointed it feels like this like it was pretty pretty blunt and it was very much coming from that hurt place which I still stand by because I've never stuck up for myself like that before with anyone so I'm pleased that I sent that it took him a few days to read it and I've obviously never had a response but after that there was just this burning desire in me to message him again and it was like keeping me up and all my friends were like do not message him again you don't owe him anything, like get rid of him, forget about him, you deserve so much better, sack him off, delete his number, cut all type, like all this stuff and

I'm like but there's something in me that needs to message him and I said to Marie when I was talking to her, I was like the thing is I know that if I were to send him a message, no matter what the outcome, if he replied to me, great. If he didn't reply to me, great. If he never read the message, great. I know that no matter what the outcome is, me sending the message is not about him. It's about me and needing to say my piece so that I can get closure for me on this moment so I'm still during this session with Marie I'm still going back and forth and back and forth and I'm like I don't know whether to send it I don't know what to say am I just sending it because I want to keep the channel open is it a way to like cling on to him but also I feel like that's not true like I feel like I won't be satisfied until I've sent a message to end things

in the way that I want to end things kind of thing and then I went and did the breathwork so we've we talked for about an hour and a half and then I did a 40 minute breathwork session and breathwork has been a game changer of a of a activity for me it is the exercise that helps me more than any other modality on this earth that I've ever tried so far when I went through my last breakup I think it was a year after actually I think it was a year after that Marie started doing breathwork sessions and I went every single day for an entire year oh no every single week for an entire year apart from two sessions so I did 50 weeks in a year of breathwork sessions and those sessions transformed me in a way that I can't put into words they are something else so I knew that the breathwork would help and I when I went into

the breathwork session Marie's like set your intentions you set an intention and my intention was to get clarity around do I send a message or not, what do I need to know, this is what I want, I want to come out of the session and know for certain whether it's yes send a message, no don't send a message. So I'm in the session, I'm breathing away and I get the clear message of send the message. You have to send a message, this is what you're going to say but as soon as you send the message you have to send a message this is what you're going to say but as soon as you sent the message you have to do a cord cutting meditation so cord cutting meditations like where you um you do a meditation and you visualize the you visualize cords connecting you energetically to another person and during the meditation you visualize yourself cutting the cords so that you're severing any energetic ties that you may have with that person so I come out of the

breathwork session feeling incredible I've disappeared off to a land far far away I come back from the session I'm talking to Maria and I'm like I'm gonna send the message I know that this is what I need to do I'm going to send this message is there any anything else that you think I should do is there any other aftercare like what would you suggest and she was like I really feel like once you've sent the message you need to do a cold cold meditation and I started laughing she was like why are you laughing I was like that's the exact guidance I got during the the breathwork session um so we talk a little bit more and she she's like tapped into my energy and um I can't remember more and she she's like tapped into my energy and um

I can't remember what the outcome was but she tapped into my energy explained what she had picked up during the session and then I finished my session with her and was like right I'm gonna send this message now and I'd already been drafting something in my notes app because the night before I couldn't sleep and I was like, I just need to get this out of my head. So I'd already drafted something, but then I spent a little bit of time drafting the message in the way that I wanted it to come across. It was very authentic to me. It was honest. It was open. There were things that I wanted to say to him that I felt were very important to get out. I don't want to read you the whole message because it's quite, like it's quite personal, but there were a couple of things that I put in there. Things like, thank you for showing me that

dating can be fun. You've helped me to figure out what I actually want I think you're also like I genuinely think you're an awesome person just some nice things uh that I felt were necessary that I felt like I needed to say to him just based on the way that we'd connected I felt like I felt like they had to come out of me it was just important that I shared these things and as I said like this was so that I could get closure it's like I finally got to use my voice I finally got to express my feelings and regardless of whether he reads it or not like that's not that that doesn't matter I sent the message for me for closure for me and it's the first time that I've ever been in a situation with a guy where I've had that closure for myself without it being like when I've been in relationships before where the relationships run its course I've been done with a relationship and

I'm like yeah no I'm out like the closure of that was me ending it with them and getting out. So I had my closure in those relationships, but in a blindsided, blindsiding scenario where I was a bit in shock, I've never had closure before. And I felt like I got that. And I think in some ways having the closure with this guy has helped me to process some of what was left from previous relationships so it's almost like I got my voice out this time and I did the cord cutting meditation um the next day actually I did it the next day and when I woke up the next morning I was like I did the I did the cord cutting meditation it was like five in the morning I think I'd got up to the toilet and then came back to bed I was like okay I'm just gonna put this on while I'm kind of drowsy and then I got up and as I was getting

ready for the day I was like do you know what I'd put in the message um like if he'd be open to hanging out again like I'd be open to just hanging out as friends because I genuinely would like he was fun to hang out with and I don't have a lot of guy friends I hang out with anymore um my like one guy friend lives in Stratford-upon-Avon which is like far um and I love male company like I enjoy hanging out with guys I was always a like guys girl growing up all my friends all my friends were boys when I was younger I lived with boys in uh when I lived in Thailand even in even in Australia actually all my friends were boys when I was younger, I lived with boys in, when I lived in Thailand, even in, even in Australia, actually, all my friends were predominantly guys, like, I'm a guys girl,

so yeah, I was, like, open to hanging out, but then the next day, I was, like, do you know what, I don't even know if I want to see him, and I go back and forth with this now, because I'm, like, if he messaged me to be, like, yeah, let's hang out, I think I would, because I, as I said, like, we had fun, we had fun, we had good conversation, it's so rare to have conversations like that with someone, that I would happily hang out with him again, but there's also the part of me, like, if I don't ever see him again, like, it's fine, it is what it is. So yeah, since that, since the closure, it's been a week now since I've had that session and in that time I went on another date which you will, I don't know if this is up yet or not but it is, the date was a shocker, it was a shocker of a

date and unfortunately I'd organised this date, well I hadn't organised it, he'd asked me out on a date, and I'd got straight back on the apps after this scenario so that I could go on more dates, and I'd been asked out on this date, so it was a week after I'd received this message, saying, I don't think we should see each other anymore, I'd gone on this date with this guy, and I was like, do you know what, this is going to be great, like, I feel really good about myself, this date is going to remind me that there's plenty more fish in the sea but unfortunately it was a shocker of a date and that did lead to me temporarily missing delusional guy because I was like fuck I had so much fun with him on each of our dates I really enjoyed his company there was nothing I didn't enjoy because the chat was there the flirtation like the flirtiness was there the tactile-ness the like I don't know it was just they were really good dates and then I went on this date

and it was just a shocker so temporarily all I could think about was this other guy and I got home and was just a bit like fuck I'm really disappointed because now I'm having shit dates but in that moment I got straight back on the apps and started chatting to different people again and my need or my desire in that moment to have that flirtatious communication was met by a different guy which is fun and games um and in that moment I also just reminded myself of the reasons we wouldn't have worked it out so instead of romanticizing the amazing time we had together which I'm guilty of all the time I tried to anchor into the reasons that we wouldn't have worked out in the long time in the long run the things that maybe I weren't I the things that maybe I wasn't

overly enamored with I tried to really anchor onto those um they weren't even red flags like beige flags um to to help and yeah that's I suppose that's kind of the the follow-up really I'm doing really well he hasn't read my message I sent him the message I mean I've archived the chat now so it's what it is but at last check he hadn't actually read the message which is frustrating purely because I said some really nice things to him and they're things that I really think he would benefit from hearing. I think they'd be nice, nice for him to hear. But yeah, that's it. So I'm on to the next one. I'm sure this won't be the only scenario that this happens. I'm sure there'll be another occasion where the same patterns happen again. I mean, maybe won't maybe that's why this guy came into my life

just to help me kind of end that like break that pattern once for once and for all maybe he came into my life to help me get the closure that I'd never really had with other relationships I feel like I learned so many different lessons just in that brief like in just in those like three weeks I learned a lot and I also learned that there are people out there that find me attractive there are people out there that I can fancy again like the sexual side of me has well and truly been awakened which I was getting a bit worried for a while that it was dead and gone because it's been four years and for I mean I've always been quite a sexual person when I was younger I was always a very sexual person and then I feel like that whole part of me just disappeared

um over the last few years and I'm like now it's definitely been reawakened and I can thank him for that it's just unfortunate that we didn't get to the sex bit because it would have been really really good you know when you just know you know when you just know someone the way that your body reacts to someone the way that you that the chemistry is you just know that the sex is going to be really good that's how I felt with this guy and I'm disappointed that we didn't actually get there but it is what it is there is better sex out there for me I'm sure and on that note before we dive into my sex life I'm gonna leave this episode for here don't forget to check the show note for resources if you've got a story that you want to share with me if

you've got any questions that you want to ask me about this experience. Any questions that you want to ask me about an experience you're going through. Any red flags you want to share. Anything at all. Like share away. Go to datewithconfidencepodcast.com slash contribute. I would really love to hear from you. If you haven't rated us on wherever you listen to your podcast yet. Please do rate and review

it would mean the world to me and I'll see you in the next one thanks so much for listening to the date with confidence podcast I hope you've enjoyed this episode subscribe rate and review and share it with your single friends Thank you. you