00:00:00Give me the worst and best ways that people get over breakups.
00:00:06I mean, the worst way is to just immediately dive into another relationship without any pause.
00:00:12You're an advocate of a breathing period?
00:00:14Yeah, or if you're going to, you know, if you're going to do the best way to get over someone is to get under someone,
00:00:19if you're going to do that, like, see it for what it is and say it.
00:00:23Like, really be candid that that's what you're doing.
00:00:26Like, don't lead people on, don't mislead, and certainly don't lie to yourself.
00:00:30The most dangerous lies are the ones we tell ourselves.
00:00:32So I think, you know, just jumping into another relationship very quickly and a very serious relationship,
00:00:38I think is a terrible way to get over a breakup.
00:00:42Why?
00:00:44Because I think you, A, you're still processing a tremendous amount of grief and trauma and loss.
00:00:50I think that you have to move through the stages of grief.
00:00:53I actually think, like, you could look at, like, Elizabeth Kübler-Ross's stages of death and dying and grief,
00:00:58and you could apply those to, because all that's happened is a marriage has ended, a relationship has died.
00:01:02So you have to treat it like a death.
00:01:03We have to have the bargaining, the sadness.
00:01:06We have to have the anger.
00:01:07We have to have each of those stages before we can reach acceptance.
00:01:10You don't just get to skip.
00:01:11So I think you have to process those emotions.
00:01:13And I think that takes a little bit of time.
00:01:15I also don't think your divorce, you don't start to recover from your divorce until your divorce is done.
00:01:20So a lot of people are like, "Oh, we moved out months ago," or, "Oh, we've been going through this for ages."
00:01:24So no, when it's actually done and you get the piece of paper that says you're officially divorced, that's when it's done.
00:01:29The start line begins.
00:01:30That's when you buried the dead body.
00:01:33Like saying that, "Oh, no, this person died last week, and the funeral's next week, but I'm over, like, they're dead."
00:01:37No, okay.
00:01:38When you see them lowered into the ground, now we've started the grieving process.
00:01:43So I think that's a piece of it.
00:01:45I think the best way, I mean, I believe that the people that A, have some body practice is really important.
00:01:54I know that's going to sound really bro-ish, but I really do think that there is tremendous value in—
00:01:58Body practice can be yoga, Pilates, running—
00:02:01Listen, I trained martial arts from the time I was seven until I was in my twenties.
00:02:06I trained Okinawan Goju-Ryu karate and Muay Thai kickboxing, and I gave it up.
00:02:10I stopped.
00:02:10I started running marathons.
00:02:12I focused on that.
00:02:13It was more friendly to the, you know, raising kids and things like that.
00:02:16When I got divorced, I went back to martial arts.
00:02:19That's when I took up Brazilian jiu-jitsu because I actually took up—
00:02:23Well, you know, Craig Jones actually said in an interview recently, like, he was sort of slagging on somebody.
00:02:28It might've been Gordon.
00:02:29And he said, like, "Guys, like, come on, like, this is, this is like, you know, cardio for divorce dads."
00:02:35Like, and I thought, you know what?
00:02:36Thank you for saying that out loud.
00:02:38It's true.
00:02:38That's exactly what it was.
00:02:39You're listening to Creed, you're drinking White Monster and you're going to go and try and do octopus runs.
00:02:43And you're going to do struggle cuddles with a bunch of men that is essentially the minute you've sent a six-minute round with somebody,
00:02:50you're now sitting next to them with your arm around them and you guys are best friends for life.
00:02:53Right.
00:02:54Because there's this feeling of physical—what physical intimacy do men have who aren't homosexual with other men that you break that physical boundary,
00:03:04you spent up—there's tremendous trust in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
00:03:08I am trusting that when I tap, you will stop and not snap my arm or you will let go of my carotid arteries so I don't die.
00:03:17Like, there is something really lovely about a stranger that I believe that promise and you can believe my promise to that.
00:03:24Yeah, it's a microculture that's very interesting.
00:03:26So I think there's tremendous value in a physical practice or returning to some spiritual practice,
00:03:32whether it was meditation or some religious thing I've seen people go back to.
00:03:35I think that, again, they're really the same thing,
00:03:40which is to say reconnecting to another person while you are navigating a breakup I think is ill-advised,
00:03:48whereas connecting to aspects of self that you may have let go of in the pain of your difficult relationship that you're exiting or becoming a beginner at something,
00:04:00or like if there was a sport you enjoyed reconnecting to that sport.
00:04:04I think, A, there's tremendous value in having a physical practice.
00:04:07I think that there's tremendous value in sweating and going through all of that and overcoming physical adversity,
00:04:13maintaining a strong instrument and being physically healthy.
00:04:16A lot of my clients, you know, they drink more than they should because they're going through something stressful.
00:04:20So finding healthy outlets for that I think is really important.
00:04:23And also to just improving that, that it creates a sense of community.
00:04:26I think you start to feel really alone when you're in a bad relationship.
00:04:31And then when you're ending that relationship, it's like, okay, well now I'm ending this relationship
00:04:35and I feel really alone because I'm actually alone.
00:04:39And so there were times when, I mean, all my kids were five and seven when I got divorced.
00:04:43And I remember when they were there, it was the most joyous, lovely feeling because now I had them there,
00:04:49but I didn't have the uncomfortable feeling of, oh, I'm with this person who I'm not really in love with.
00:04:54And like I have to sort of pretend I'm happy, but I'm not really happy.
00:04:58Suddenly I could just be happy.
00:04:59I was with my kids and I was having, and then they would leave.
00:05:04And the silence was deafening.
00:05:06I mean, it was a three-year-old and a five-year-old, like little kids, like little kids.
00:05:11They're so loud.
00:05:12They're boys.
00:05:13They were, and then they were just gone.
00:05:15And it was just this feeling of like, oh, like it's so quiet, you know, and they'll be back.
00:05:21But God, it's so quiet.
00:05:23And the greatest thing I did for myself, and I don't know what pushed me to do it, is I just started to create like routines.
00:05:33Like we live in a world of symbols.
00:05:35And what I would do is they would leave and I would make a point of doing all of the laundry of their clothes and washing their sheets.
00:05:43And then I would make their rooms.
00:05:45Like I would put their beds back just right and I'd put their clothes in the drawers and it was ready.
00:05:51It was ready for when they were back.
00:05:54And something about reconnecting, like caregiving in that way, and then reconnecting to, no, no, the stage is set and they'll be back.
00:06:03And then I gave myself permission to go, okay, now they're not here.
00:06:07You go be you now.
00:06:08You go figure out what that is, who that man is, because that's someone they're going to be watching and going, hey, who is that man?
00:06:14What does he do, you know?
00:06:15And so that gave me a tremendous strength and it really helped me navigate that challenge.
00:06:21And I think that that is the kind of thing that people can do.
00:06:25And again, this is not exclusively male.
00:06:27I think women can do the exact same thing.
00:06:29I think that, you know, when your children go back to the co-parent or when, again, even if you don't have children, if you, you know, if you return or get a pet, like having a pet, having some, I think my mother used to say to me, you need someplace to go, something to do and something to love.
00:06:44And if you're missing any of those three things, you're going to have unhappiness, right?
00:06:48So I think that having something to love is really, really important.
00:06:52If it's children, great.
00:06:53You have your children.
00:06:54If you don't have children, you have a pet.
00:06:56If you don't have pet, have friends like, but, but connection.
00:06:59I think, I think we're social creatures and I think we just have to find that connection because what is divorce, but a deep disconnection, you know, and it's a disconnection that may have happened over a long timeline.
00:07:10Like we fall in love so fast, so fast that it's so powerful and amazing.
00:07:17And then we fall out of love, like the way we go bankrupt very slowly and then all at once.
00:07:22And, and, and, and it ha when it goes, like it, it, there is this part of us that sees it happening and just goes, oh no, is this really happening?
00:07:32And this one time that comes to mind for me, where I actually remember this deceleration, it felt like falling off the edge of a roller coaster and it was very slowly.
00:07:40And then, oh, fuck.
00:07:45Yeah. And falling feels like flying for a little while and then you hit the fucking ground until you hit the ground and then it's a real wake up call.
00:07:52And, and, but again, like I see, I, and again, I think it's a function of age.
00:08:00I look back on the loves of my life and I look back on even like the great pains of my life, you know, losing my mom to cancer, you know, all of, all of the hard things.
00:08:13And I, I realized like just how much was in there, like emotionally, like how much material was in there.
00:08:20And, and I, I have to tell you, like the, the journey of that is I've learned so much from all of those things and I feel like they were all so formative of me.
00:08:31And I also just, I, I, I don't know, I, I love stories that, that have that full range of human emotion.
00:08:38And there's something about, you know, the, the, there is a saying that, you know, only unfulfilled love can be truly romantic.
00:08:48Like that there's something about riding the whole spectrum of connection and then disconnection and then, but you know, it's very funny.
00:08:57I, I, I've been in therapy for many years and sometimes, you know, you're in therapy, it's cause your life's on fire, you know, like your marriage is ending, your mom is dying, whatever it might be.
00:09:06And then there's times where you're in therapy where you're like, Hey, this is about just like trying to see my blind spots, trying to get better at being me, seeing connections I might not have seen.
00:09:16And I have to say like that, that there is in, in my view, like tremendous value in, I had to switch therapists.
00:09:28I'd been with a therapist for like 15 years and he retired.
00:09:31So I had to find a new therapist and the funniest moment was in that early, cause having the same therapist for 15 years, like they've seen you through a lot of things.
00:09:39They, you don't have to fill in the blanks.
00:09:41They know your whole history.
00:09:43And all of a sudden there's a stranger across from me and I'm about to talk to them about me and I'm like, they have no context.
00:09:49So you find yourself sort of giving like the Wikipedia page of your life.
00:09:54And as I was doing it, I remember thinking like, Oh, there are things that felt like epic tales that are now three sentences.
00:10:04Yeah.
00:10:04I married my college sweetheart and we were married for about 10 years and we had two kids and then we got divorced and it was relatively friendly.
00:10:11That's it.
00:10:12That's all that was.
00:10:13But when it was going on, the world was ending.
00:10:18Were my kids going to be okay?
00:10:20Was I going to be okay?
00:10:21Was she going to be okay?
00:10:22Like what, what was this going to do?
00:10:24Like who were going to be our friends and who weren't, who was going to be team her and team me, even though there weren't teams.
00:10:29And how would we explain that to people?
00:10:31And now you look at it and you go like, Oh, it was just a thing.
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00:11:33Thank you very much for tuning in.
00:11:35Oh, a tasty morsel of a clip there for you.
00:11:38Well, the full episode is available right here.
00:11:44That's it.