The Date with Confidence Podcast - How to Self Care When You're Going Through a Breakup

Episode Date: September 25, 2023

EPISODE 03: How to Self Care When You’re Going Through a BreakupA relationship ending can be one of the most difficult experiences to go through. It can be especially hard to practise self-care when you’re in the process of healing from a breakup. However, it’s important to remember that taking care of yourself is one of the best things you can do to get yourself through the difficult time. In this episode of The Date with Confidence Podcast, I’m sharing how to self care when you’re going through a breakup, including the three layers you need to work on and my go to self care activities when I’m struggling.Discover:The difference between basic self care vs glamorous self careThe simplest ways to care for yourself mentally, physically and energetically when you’re struggling to get out of bed3 Powerful mindset tools to help you actively work on your mindset as you process the breakupPractical actions you can do to make yourself feel good againThe energy shifting activity that changed my life when I went through my last heartbreakHow to reconnect with yourself after a breakupWhy it’s ok to spend time grieving the end of a relationshipGet 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 BackAttract on the AppsThe 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The only way to fully process and heal from a heartbreak or from a breakup is to go through the pain. Welcome to the Date With Confidence podcast, a place to come for dating advice, support and stories that'll 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 lighthearted 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 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. This is probably one of my favourite topics because I'm a big self-care advocate anyway but I feel like we have to up the self-care a notch when we are experiencing a breakup or any crappy time so specifically when you're going through a breakup I feel like everything kind of falls to shit depending on the impact of the breakup the level of the breakup that you're going through but there were times for me where I didn't want to get out of bed I didn't want to wake up in the morning because I knew that as soon as I opened my eyes the reality of the relationship

being over would come to me and I just couldn't handle it so self-care was definitely something that I had to force myself to do I had to force myself to look after myself to eat to drink enough to do the basics and what I want to cover really is like the basic self-care that you need plus the glamorous self-care to do as well just to make yourself feel better in general so before we talk about self-care what I really want to say is that it's okay to be sad like give yourself permission to be sad like not just I feel a bit sad today but fully heartbroken emotional hysterical depressed like give yourself permission to let those feelings come out they're not fun feelings nobody likes experiencing them but if you don't let them out they will stay buried until some point things will just pile on top pile on top pile on top and then there will come a point where you will just explode

with emotion and that might be anger it might be being really upset it might be i don't know any anything but there will come a point if you don't let these feelings out that they will build up and the blowout will be so much worse than if you just experience them in the moment. I also want to say from my own experience the only way to fully process and heal from a heartbreak or from a breakup is to go through the pain the quicker you can allow yourself to feel the feelings to be sad to feel the emotions the quicker you'll be able to come out of the other side of it. And that's from two comparisons. So my first big breakup, which I've spoken about on the podcast before, but my first big breakup was when I was 21. And we were together for about three months. And it was a massive whirlwind.

But it was super intense. I was head over heels in love with him. We were looking at mortgages together, we were looking at buying houses, we've been on holiday we'd booked another holiday we're talking about marriage and kids and it was so intense and fast-paced and I genuinely thought he was the one and then when it was over I couldn't cope with the fact that it was over I couldn't come to terms with it and I ran like running away or distracting myself or trying to force myself to like hook up with other guys for example that was how I tried to I'd say a good three or four years to fully and even then I'm not sure I would say fully heal from the breakup because I took a lot of the fear and the way that I was made to feel in that breakup into my next relationships which negatively impacted them in a massive way but I didn't allow myself to just sit and be sad I was like no I'm not letting this happen to me I it was kind of the catalyst that

made me decide to travel the world on my own which was fantastic but the reason that I wanted to travel the world was because I wanted to run away from my ex so in doing that it took me a really long time to heal whereas when I went through my last breakup we'd been together for five years I'd known him for seven I'd been in love with him for about six and a half we'd been in a bit of a situation ship for like a year and a half before we became official we'd been through a lot together and instead of of like, this breakup was completely unexpected, it kind of happened in a similar way to my other, like the first big breakup, completely unexpected, happened overnight. Instead of running away, I mean, for a start,

I couldn't actually run away because three months later later or four months later, we went into lockdown. But I sat with the feelings, with the emotion, with the sadness. I spent weeks on the sofa when I needed to. There were times where I was like, nope, getting up, getting out. I think a week after the breakup, I signed six new clients. So I had to get up and get out which was amazing but then on the days where I just could not function because I was so heartbroken I just allowed myself to got my duvet snuggled up on the sofa put sex in the city on had my dog with me had tubs of ice cream and I allowed myself to process them I did lots of different exercises like writing letters to him and then obviously destroying them not sending them to him destroying them I did lots of different things to allow myself to feel those emotions and process those emotions and in allowing myself to feel those emotions I was able to heal from the breakup

in a much quicker time so I think the timeline was probably around the two year mark from where I felt like I'd say 95% healed there's still little bits of work to be done and I know that going into a new relationship there'll be new layers to heal because other things will come up as they always do from the past but allow yourself to be sad give yourself permission to be miserable just let it out cry watch things that you love sex in the city box sets my always go to like whenever I go for a breakup it's like get the box set out start from the beginning watch the whole lot in one go maybe not one go but over a couple of days um so that's that's the first thing that I wanted to say before we dive into the self care and then when it comes to the self-care kind of things you have the basic self-care and you

have the glamorous self-care glamorous self-care so the basic self-care and you have the glamorous self-care. So the basic self-care, and I want to look at this on three different layers. So I have a concept called the 90-90 mindset concept. And there are three core values of this concept. The first being that you only need to be 90% confident 90% of the time to get what you deserve in life. The second core principle is that you only need 90 seconds of confidence to make a decision or take an action that will change your life. And the third core principle is that there are three layers of confidence you need to work on to become 90% confident 90% of the time. But these three layers are also appropriate for the self

care stuff. So they're essentially three layers that you need to work on continually to feel good about yourself, to feel confident, to feel positive when it comes to self-care you want to be caring for your mindset so the thoughts that you're thinking changing your inner narrative becoming aware of any negative thinking that is impacting how you feel about yourself post-breakup. Then there is the act layer. So these are the practical actions that you can take for yourself to look after your physical self. And then there is the feel layer. And these are things that you can do to energetically feel better about yourself. So in terms of the basic self-care stuff, for the think layer you want to be doing things like just having awareness around the thoughts that are going on in your mind.

So what are you telling yourself about yourself because of this breakup? Are you telling yourself I'm not good enough, I'm not skinny enough, I'm not pretty enough, I'm not clever enough, I'm not fun enough. What are you telling yourself that you're not enough of? Are you saying that you are the problem in terms of this breakup? Have you made this breakup mean that you are less than in some way? And what you want to do is create awareness around that. So in any moment when you notice these thoughts are coming into your mind, acknowledge them. Don't shame yourself for them. Acknowledge them and say, oh that's not a very kind thought. And choose a kind kinder thought what can you say to yourself

in these moments that is kinder that's going to support you that's going to look after you that's going to stop you feeling bad about yourself what can you say so it might be simply something like I am enough I love myself no what. I know that I can get through this. I trust myself to handle anything. Anytime you start to say something negative, switch that thinking as often as you can. this is a continual process this isn't a sit down for 10 minutes think about your thoughts change your thoughts this is a continual create that awareness throughout the day so just slowly shift to kind of thoughts about yourself and this isn't about toxic positivity this isn't about trying to be positive and feel good and tell yourself you're amazing when you feel like shit. This is about acknowledging that you are saying negative things, allowing yourself to process these negative emotions, allowing yourself to feel them and also then choosing something that feels kinder to you that's going to support you in the healing process. Then when it comes to the act layer for the basic self-care, you want to do things that typically feel harder when we're going through something difficult.

So make sure you're brushing your teeth, you're washing your face, you're having a shower. Try and move your body in some way, whether you can do a yoga class or pilates or go to kickboxing or do a dance class do something to physically move your body and these are the really simple things that as I say we often can forget when we're really struggling mentally if all you do is get up and brush your teeth and put on a clean pair of pyjamas that day, that's okay. You've done something. But this is your basic self-care to make sure that you are still nourishing yourself and you are supporting yourself through this breakup. Then the feel layer. So this is how you want to feel in your body. Be mindful of the food that you're consuming. Now comfort food is often our go-to when we're struggling, when we're going through a breakup.

Yes you want the tubs of Haagen-Dazs, yes you want the chocolate, the crisps, the carbs and absolutely indulge in those. If you're having a day where everything is too much, absolutely indulge in those. Use those as treats. Use those to make yourself feel better. Comfort yourself. Soothe yourself with food. That's absolutely okay. But on the days where you feel a little bit better, opt for the healthier options so that you can nourish yourself internally because when you do that you'll also feel better mentally so if you can have some more fruit or some more vegetables or you can perhaps drink some orange juice i know it's got a lot of sugar in it but you still put your vitamin c in there like try and do something to feel better in your body something that will support you physically and if you can things like meditation

can really help you to just quieten your mind and just give you a few minutes of peace even if it's just five minutes a day you're getting that break from the sadness from the despair from the upset the hurt the anger and you're just having that five minutes of inner peace and that will dramatically change how you feel about yourself. So they're really like the basic, simple things that aren't going to take a lot of energy from you or a lot of effort. And I wanted to talk about the more glamorous things. So the things that most people think about when it comes to self-care, the exciting things, the things that we enjoy more. So again, the think layer, this is where you want to try and incorporate things like repeating affirmations. So instead of just changing your thoughts, you want to consciously repeat positive phrases to yourself. Like I am lovable, I am enough, I am deserving of a healthy relationship, I love myself unconditionally. I trust that I can get through

anything that life throws at me and repeat those regularly. You could even set a timer, you could record a voice note for like a voice memo and just play it back to yourself over and over again. You could write them out in your journal but this is the more intense mindset work and also what would come into this is things like journaling practices so answering certain journal prompts writing out empowerment lists such as 50 reasons I love myself or 30 things that I love about my body so that you're really dialing up the positive empowering thoughts in your mind these are kind of the fun practices if you like i've got a free resource called the confidence kit actually that's got different journal prompts in there so check that out in the show notes because if you're into journaling or

you're new to journaling that will help you just understand what journaling is it's not specific to breakups but there is also breakup resources there are also breakup resources in the show notes that can help you specifically heal from a breakup as well so check those out um but they're the kind of things affirmations journal prompts empowerment lists mindset monologues this is something that i talk about inside the confidence course typically when we're in a negative headspace we spiral into what ifs so what if I never find another partner what if he was the one what if they've met someone else and they've moved on really quickly and those negative spirals can fill our body with feelings

of anxiety they can stress us out they can make us feel panicky but a mindset monologue is the opposite so it's where you spiral upwards so you go into what if this is the decision that catapults me into the next stage of my life what if i meet someone who's a thousand times better than my ex what if the one is the next person that i meet what if the this breakup leads me to a relationship where I'm loved beyond what I could ever have imagined? Like you just spiral into really positive thoughts. Then the act layer. So this is where if you're feeling a little bit better, this is where you want to do things like do your hair and makeup. Go and get your hair done at the hairdressers.

Go and have your nails done. Have a massage. Go shopping. Treat yourself to things that make you feel good if you don't have the money to go to somewhere like boots and ask for a sample of foundation apply for free samples online like there's no shame in that do something buy yourself a little travel size um bubble bath or shower gel something that's going to make you feel really good that's going to help make you feel pampered wear your red lipstick do your makeup in a way that makes you feel amazing put on an outfit that

you love um have a long soak in a bubble bath with a magazine light some candles these are all practical actions you can do to make yourself feel good again and ways that you can take care of yourself it's about lifting your mood caring for yourself make sure that you go and see friends hang out with friends arrange for brunch or to go to the cinema or workout class take yourself on a date go out to the cinema take yourself for food do things that make you feel really good and then on the feel side of things the feel layer in terms of the glamorous kind of stuff, you want to get into more energetic practices. So massages can fall into this category, maybe go for a Reiki session, maybe go for a card reading or speak to counsellors or therapists, you could do things

like breathwork. Breathwork for me, changed the game game for me so when I went through my last big breakup in it was the end of 2019 but in at the end of 2019 or beginning of 2020 I started doing breathwork sessions and I went every single week for a year apart from twice I missed two classes I went every single week for an entire year and I mean it wasn't pretty it wasn't it wasn't like a fun like glamorous yoga session type thing it was emotional I sobbed my heart out every session for a good four months, not just like a little bit of crying, like sobbed, really snotty, ugly crying face, hysterically crying. But for me, it really helped me to process things. It helped me to get out all the emotion. It was like an hour a week for me to just be in that energy, be in that sadness. If I needed to

be in sadness, sometimes I'd come out feeling really empowered and really uplifted. But it gave me that time to just be with myself to process, to let out the emotions, to try and help myself move on. And breathwork is amazing because you don't like yes it's active so for 30 minutes of breathwork sessions I do I do breathwork sessions with someone called Marie Holden and I'll leave the link to her stuff in the show notes because she's amazing I've worked with her for since 2018 now she's a mindset coach and energy healer and she's just brilliant but the way she runs her breathwork sessions is for the first 30 minutes of the class you do something called active breathing so you do two breaths in through your mouth and then one breath out through your mouth and you breathe along to music and you can go at

your own pace and your own rhythm and then after the first 30 minutes you spend 30 minutes of just passive breathing so you just lay there basking in the energy that you've created for yourself and you just relax and kind of come down and it's a very it's quite a spiritual practice but it's a very calming practice and you don't have to do a lot but you also do but you're it's kind of like subconscious work so you'll get into all the stagnant energy that's in your body you'll get into the kind of subconscious stuff your body knows what it needs to release and it releases it through your breathing and i am a massive advocate for it so something like that can really help you to feel better. Also practices like EFT, where you tap on certain points of your body, and as you repeat what's called a script,

so that again, you can release things subconsciously and shift the energy around. So I'd highly recommend doing those things. And they're kind of the more glamorous types of self-care. But I think what's really important is to reconnect with yourself. So spend some time reconnecting with you, with who you are, with your values, with what you want to achieve from your life. Recreate your vision, come back to yourself and who you are without that person. That's really important. And the self-care practices are really what's what helps us to do that when you focus on self-care you're able to reconnect with yourself deeper once you've

reconnected with yourself i say once you've reconnected yourself that's kind of an ongoing practice but to help you with that you might want to create yourself a routine or a ritual that you can do every day it could be simply like a five minute morning routine, could be an hour long morning routine, could be a 10 minute nightly ritual. My evening ritual is really, really simple, but I do it every single night and it always makes me feel really good about myself. And that's what we want. And something else that's really important to mention is talking to friends and family. That can be self-care as well. I know for me, when I'm going through something really hard, I shut down.

I hibernate. I step back from everyone. I don't want to talk to anyone. I just want to be me on my own. But sometimes that's not completely healthy. It is to a certain extent. It's great to have time on your own, but you also need to connect with other people so they can support you. The people you love, your friends,

your family, your colleagues, the people who love you, they want to be there for you and to support you during the time of a breakup. So don't be afraid to go to them and just be like I am really really struggling and it can feel hard at first but the more you get used to asking for help the easier it will become so speak to your friends and family make time for them you might also want to find some new activities and hobbies so go to a dance class go to a kickboxing class meet people who go for regular walks you could go paddleboarding there's so many different activities or hobbies you could do you could go to art classes find something that you've always wanted to do and commit to doing that for yourself now that you're by yourself what you want to do is find something that lights you up that gets you out of the house

that reminds you that there is a life outside of your partner and this breakup you get to create a whole new life for yourself right now how exciting is that see this as an exciting opportunity of I can literally do anything I want to do now because I've got no one that I'm tied down to so find a. So find a new activity, find a new hobby and as I said before just give yourself permission to grieve for as long as possible. The grieving process varies from person to person, give yourself time to grieve. It might be a few weeks, it might be a few months, it might even be a few years and that's absolutely okay. There are five stages of grief that we experience, they are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance and this is something I talk about in my Breakup Bounce Back course. So we talk about how to work through each stage of the five stages of grief when it comes to a

breakup so it's not so much self-care practices but it's practical exercises that you can do to help you move through that stage of grief and then there's also other modules to help you rebuild your self-confidence, recreate your vision for your life moving forward and to help you release the past as well. So there's the four stages of that course. So it's get over your ex, release the past, rebuild your self-confidence and rewrite your future. So if you want to check that out you can do that and that's going to support you even more. So going through a breakup isn't easy, nobody said it would be, some might feel easier than others. Some might be harder than others. But you really want to prioritise your self-care because the more you care for yourself, the better you're going to feel. And the better you feel, the easier it's going to be for you to heal from that heartbreak and for you to come out the other side of that breakup much quicker so don't feel like you can't take care of yourself self-care isn't selfish look after yourself in as many ways as possible and coming up next in the next episode i've got

a bit of a topic that might just trigger some of you were they really your best friend it's going to be an interesting one i think i'm going to get i think i'm going to be a bit sassy on it because i've got a lot that i want to say about this but it might be a little bit difficult for some of you to swallow which is fine because that's the point i'm hoping that it will bring a whole new perspective to you to help you heal from your breakup and to help you move on make sure you check the show notes for helpful resources on bouncing back from breakups healing from heartbreak and rebuilding your self-confidence you'll also find links to the

other episodes in this season so if you need help overcoming a breakup getting over the guilt of ending a relationship or you want to feel confident after a breakup you can head to the episode of your choice there and i will 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.