72: How to Get Over Your Ex & Advice for Grieving Your Relationship with Break Up Coach Dorothy

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Aug 9

This week I have a special guest, Dorothy Johnson, a Breakup Coach and host of the How to Get Over Your Ex podcast. Dorothy shares her own relationship experiences and why she knows it is possible to heal and get over an ex. We also discuss why time isn’t always the answer when healing from a break up, and why self-love is so important when healing from an ex.

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We also answer listener questions, including how to move on, when to set boundaries, why the length of grieving is different for everyone, and what to do when your ex moves on and you find yourself missing them.

Journal Prompts 🖋️

Similar Episodes 🎙️

Book Recommendation 📚

The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm

Timestamps ⏱️

0:00: Introduction to Episode
1:58: Intro with Dorothy Johnson
23:25: Listener Question 1
33:48: Listener Question 2

Learn More About Dorothy Johnson (Breakup Coach Dorothy):

Coaching Philosophy - Getting over your ex has nothing to do with "time" or "taking it day by day." Dorothy teaches her clients how to get over their exes and build a life BETTER than the one they had with their exes in 3 months or less by addressing the root cause instead of heartbreak symptoms. She uses a simple 3 step process to heal your heart, create closure, and get excited about your future again.

How to Work with Dorothy - Listen in to the How to Get Over Your Ex podcast or sign up for the signature Get Over Your Ex in 3 months or less program.

Connect with Dorothy Johnson:

Podcast: How to Get Over Your Ex podcast
Instagram: @breakupcoachdorothy
Or check out her website: https://dorothyabjohnson.com/

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This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool called Otter. Please forgive any typos or errors.
Amanda Durocher [Intro] 0:00
Welcome to New View Advice. I'm your host, Amanda Durocher. And I invite you to join me here each week as I offer advice on how to move through whatever problem or trauma is holding you back from living life to the fullest. Let's get started. Hey, beautiful souls. My name is Amanda Durocher. And this is new view advice. If you're new here, this is a healing centered advice podcast where I offer guidance for the healing journey. I don't believe I have all the answers you seek. I believe you have all the answers, you just may need a little help and a new view along the way. Thank you for joining me for today's episode. Today we are talking about how to get over an ex and how to heal from a breakup. I'm really excited for this episode because today I am speaking with Dorothy Johnson, who is going to help me answer listener questions about how to get over an ex and what may be stopping us from fully moving on from past relationships. So I found Dorothy through her amazing podcast how to get over an ex where she offers so many useful tips, tricks and advice for getting over an ex. So if you haven't listened to definitely go check out her podcast. A little bit about Dorothy is that she is a breakup coach. And her coaching philosophy is that getting over your ex has nothing to do with time or taking it day by day. She teaches her clients how to get over your ex and build a life better than the one you had with your ex in three months or less by addressing the root cause instead of heartbreak symptoms. She uses a simple three step process to heal your heart create closure and get excited about your future again. And she offers a signature course called Get over your ex in three months or less. So today we are discussing all things breakup. And we're answering one listener question from someone who has been feeling lost for six months since the end of the relationship. And another question from somebody who got a divorce a year ago. But now that their ex is with somebody new, they're finding that they feel jealous, and they feel like they may want their ex back and they're looking for advice. So with that, let's jump on into today's episode.
Hey, Dorothy, thanks so much for coming on the podcast.
Dorothy Johnson [Intro with Dorothy] 2:01
Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
Amanda Durocher 2:04
We're so excited to have you here. I'm so excited to talk all things break up and how to get over an ex. I was hoping that you could start by telling us a bit about why you're so passionate about helping people get over their exes. And how you came to be a breakup coach.
Dorothy Johnson 2:17
I've been I've been doing this for five years. And you think that I would have a very like simple elevator pitch to this and I don't, it's going to be a little bit longer. So I do just pre apologize. But I mean, the simplest, easiest way for me to say this is that I got passionate about breakups and getting over an ex because I went through a very traumatic breakup that took me forever to get over. And I feel like I've tried all of the like advice that was out in the world and on Google's and none of it worked. So when I really found what did work, I just felt like that was my calling. That's my mission. I'm clearly here for a reason. So I'll just kind of walk through my very high level experience of what happened for me. But in 2016, I had been dating a guy for about seven years. We met in undergrad and I genuinely thought that he was going to be my person, right? Like my husband, we were gonna get married, have children do life together. And around summer time of 2016 he had to finish school and I was already in like my big girl job, like my first job out of grad school, right. And we moved back to Florida, we got a house together. And I had to go to Chicago for work one day, like a couple of days one week, and he broke up with me on the phone. And I'm a stubborn person, y'all I am a Taurus through and through. So when that happened, I was so angry that I moved into an apartment with my suitcase, I decided I wasn't going to come get my stuff until I wasn't he wasn't going to be at the house. So about a month later, I came back to the house to pick up my things. And I had found out that he hadn't had a girl staying there every night since I left. And so not only was I just completely devastated and feeling so much loss and grief and sadness about losing my best friend, the person I thought I was to spend the rest of my life with, I had so much anger and resentment about this new person who just like seemingly moved in and took everything like I had worked so hard for the last seven years, I felt like she came in. And she got it with no effort at all. And I was just so angry, so resentful. But in that moment, I really got to this place of I am not going to live a life that is less than the one that I had with him like I was just so determined because he had opened up my eyes to a new way of life. And I really wanted that for myself. But I was terrified how I was going to create that without him in my life. And so from that point on I was Googling how to get over your rocks, how to forgive and let go how to move on when your ex moved on quickly. And I was trying to find podcasts. I just scoured everything. And I didn't just have His orbit and not do anything with it. I was doing all the things. I was meditating I was working out I got in the best shape of my life. I started new kind of career paths. I started dating, I was journaling. I was doing all the things. But about a year and a half later, I found myself in a new relationship and a lot of repeat patterns were occurring. I found myself still making decisions trying to get my ex's attention. I was still stalking his social media or his new girlfriend, social media. I was constantly thinking about him comparing my new partner to him, and also almost like blaming my new partner for things that he had never done or participated in. But it was like leftover residue from the relationship previously. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, so when that was happening, and I noticed that I was like, clearly, I'm not over my axe and like something is wrong here. And I was searching down different podcast episodes, I learned about coaching through Jensen cero, you are a badass. And then I found on the through different podcasts I called the I found this podcast called a Life Coach School with Brooke Castillo. And I had learned that thoughts created feelings. And in that moment, just I have a psychology background. I have a master's in industrial organizational psychology. And never once was I told so directly, that thoughts create feelings. And when I learned emotional maturity, and all about, quote, unquote, thought work, I realized that that was like the missing piece from everything that I was doing in terms of healing my heartbreak, I had made my breakup lon, he never loved me, like how could you move on so quickly, like clearly, you never loved me if you move quickly, which is simply not true. He totally could have loved me at the same time as he was moving into that new relationship. He was with me for seven years absolutely loved me. But that story was like this compound pain and suffering that I was attaching and making this breakup experience so much worse. And also with anger and resentment, I kept feeling like if I let go of that anger, resentment, it would invalidate the experience like people would forget that it happened. In the breakup, police wouldn't eventually write him a ticket. You know what I mean? Yeah, so I going through coaching and learning all these coaching tools, it just blew my mind changed everything and getting over my ex happened in a moment. And that is, when I realized most of what's provided on Google, like, healing just takes time, or you have to go no contact, all of it was really just addressing breakup symptoms, instead of addressing the root cause. And that doesn't mean that those tools don't necessarily work or put a bandaid or temporarily help you. And they're all helpful in their own way. But for me, they were very disempowering, because they were always short term solutions, instead of like a long term solution. So then that's when I really realized like, this is what I'm meant to do. This is the work I'm meant to share in my life. And I want to completely change the way that we learn how to heal heartbreak, so that the relationships that we have in the future are unbelievably unparalleled to any relationship that we've had. And we can start also teaching our children how to heal properly when heartbreak happens, because it is going to, and it's going to happen multiple times in our lifetime. So we might as well learn a new way of addressing the root cause instead of symptoms of it. Does that make sense?
Amanda Durocher 8:29
That makes total sense. I love that so much. And it was one of the reasons I reached out to you is because in one of the episodes I listened to you talked about how it's not time, like time is not the solution. And I feel like with heartbreak, that's what I heard throughout my whole life was it just takes time to move on. But I found like you were saying that time can be a bandaid, you know, you can end up just shoving things down with time rather than dealing with it. And it comes back up later to be looked at.
Dorothy Johnson 8:56
Yeah, and because time is so passive, that doesn't mean that you don't allow yourself space and time to heal. It just means that time is passive, and you're the active force within that time. So it depends on how much practice you put yourself through how much experience and reflection you put yourself through within that time. Because I also talk about it in terms of like triggers. I never want people trying to manipulate the world around them so that they don't get triggered. I want them to learn how to allow those triggers to happen and learn how to respond to them differently versus constantly trying to control the things that we don't have control over from the outside. And that's what I see a lot of breakup advice doing. And again, it works short term like in the beginning of a breakup, maybe going No Contact is helpful for you. Amazing allow that but eventually I hope that most people can get to a place where they run into their acts. And it doesn't completely just debilitate them and take them all the way back to stage one. I want you to get the practice of being able To be in an environment with a trigger and then not be triggered by IT. And especially because not all of us can manipulate all of our situations, I have a lot of people who co parent with their axes, they have to work with their acts, they see their acts in the same friend groups, like I want to continue to remain to be friends with my friends. And that doesn't mean I surround myself with them all the time. But if you have to completely cut them out of your life, because of your axe, it's just like, is that really necessary? It's not. You can totally do it if it works for you. But it's not something that's required for you to get over your axe.
Amanda Durocher 10:34
Yes, I totally agree with that. I actually had a listener asked on Instagram this morning, they asked how long is the necessary grieving time to get over an axe? Or does it vary?
Dorothy Johnson 10:47
Yeah, I mean, it definitely varies, right? Because it determines it's like, what do you do within that time? Are you avoiding and pushing around me and reacting to your emotions? Or are you learning to process that grief and move through that sadness and that devastation and learn how to feel the discomfort? And we haven't really talked about this yet? But are you learning how to reduce desire for your ex and attachment to your I mean, that's a whole other separate conversation. But I would say that the time varies because it, it depends primarily on what are you doing within that time. And so for my clients, right, they they do three months or less, but that doesn't mean that that's your journey. And no, there's no journey that's right or wrong, or good or bad. I also want to make sure that if you've been grieving and mourning in Acts for a year or two, and hasn't learned how to move through that completely yet don't, don't beat yourself up or participate in negative self talk, it's just there might be a different way to do it and make it a little bit smoother and faster.
Amanda Durocher 11:44
Yeah, I love that. I completely agree. I think grieving will be different for everyone. But it's like you said, Are you an active participant in it? Or are you just trying to ride the wave of time? Yeah, another question I received is that I think many people have either experienced or know someone who has experienced an ex who, quote unquote, won't go away. And the question I received was, what do you do if you're fearful of closing the door on an ex who's with someone new, but reaches out every now and then
Dorothy Johnson 12:11
if they're with someone new, and they're still reaching out every now and then, I mean, my best advice would be to place that boundary, and just saying, Please don't reach out to me well, and let's be clear about what a boundary is. Because a boundary is more about what you do. It's not about telling what someone else to do. So it's like, it's like saying, Hey, if you're still with someone, and you continue to reach out to me, I'm just gonna let you know that I'm blocking you, because that's not the kind of relationship I'm pursuing at the moment. Or it also kind of depends on like, if your friends are like, Are you friends with them, and and the new partner knows that he or she is reaching out to you. Because if that's the case, I think that's very different. And then it doesn't have to be a problem. But the way that the question was phrased was it didn't sound like the new partner knows about it. And if that's the case, I mean, personally, I just wouldn't participate in it. And I just wouldn't respond and or I would set a boundary.
Amanda Durocher 13:05
Yeah, I think that's great advice. And I also love the way you put boundary about how like boundaries are for you. They're not like telling somebody else like what they need to do. Because I think that's a very common misconception when it comes to boundaries that people think you're telling somebody what to do. And we can't control other people, right? So boundaries are more about what we need, not what other people should do.
Dorothy Johnson 13:28
Right. Exactly, exactly. And I think because a lot of times we feel like a boundary would be to tell someone to do and kind of in even the way that I said it, right? It's like, don't reach out to me. But the real boundary is if you reach out to me, I will block you, because then that roommate that keeps the power on your end that keeps the control on your head, like that's what you do have control over and don't make a boundary where you don't have the control. If you just said do not reach out to me you cannot reach out to me and set that as a quote unquote, boundary. There's no way you have control over this person reaching out to you or
Amanda Durocher 14:02
Yes, exactly.
Dorothy Johnson 14:05
So there's no way to enforce the boundary. And y'all if you don't enforce a boundary in assembly, you just requesting something.
Amanda Durocher 14:13
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Before we jump into the listener questions, the last question I wanted to ask you was that I loved your episode about how to love yourself after a breakup and how you discuss love being an art and how we need to practice love. So I was just wondering if you could talk a bit about how self love is important when healing and getting over an ex?
Dorothy Johnson 14:34
Oh my gosh, I love this question. I feel like this topic or area is from a book called The Art of loving by a psychoanalyst named Erich Fromm. And Erich Fromm talks about the art of loving and kind of like the art of medicine, right? We have theory about medicine, and we have, you know, the practice of medicine. And a lot of times in the world. We talk about love, but we're too Talking about it from this theory. And we're never really looking at the practice of love, whether that is in correlation to loving yourself or loving other relationships. And I really got into this book of his, because I'm a very action oriented person I love next steps. So when I talk about getting over your ex on the podcast, I always will have here are your next steps. Here's to apply what I'm talking about. And I think love is an interesting one, because we talk about self love a lot. We talk about self care a lot, but what is the actual practice of it. And it's so important during a breakup because of two things. A lot of times when we come up with a breakup, we've taken on a lot of the beliefs of our partner. And sometimes I hear my Braveheart saying, I've lost myself, I don't even know who I am anymore. I just like want to go back to the version I was, before I met this person, because I was doing great before they do. Can I just erase this person from my brain, please, and go back to that version of me. And I learned that for them in the fact that they know that they've done their before they done in a good spot before. But let's go to this next of like evolution of you. And I think Self Love is the practice of you getting there. So if you don't mind, I would love to share like the four practices of love. Because love equates to giving. Which means there are four forms of giving. There's care, which all of us know self care, right? Caring for something laboring for something, mother's labor for their children, without expecting anything in return. And that is like, do we labor for ourselves in that way? Sometimes we do. Sometimes we don't. Right? Then there is knowledge, right? The form of giving knowledge to ourselves, do we know ourselves inside out and backwards. A lot of times when people come to me, they're like, I know my exes favorite food and their favorite color and their favorite song. But I don't even know what those things are. For me anymore. I thought it was this. But now I'm so shaken and so beat down that I'm not even sure what I like or what I dislike. So getting to know yourself not from a place of like picking yourself apart. But from a curious compassionate, loving, I want to get to know you and understand you place, then there's respect, respecting oneself is a form of giving a form of loving. And I don't think we do this, I just straight up see so much negative self talk so much shame, so much beating yourself up. Versus respect comes from the root word rest up here, which means to see, and to see someone as they are and let them unfold for their sake, not your own. How often do you do that for yourself? Right? And how amazing of an experience would it be to come off of a breakup where you just want to be seen by your ex, and see yourself and let yourself unfold for your sake and not his. And when we can give that you know, the form of knowledge, the form of respect, it's really easy to the last form of giving, which is responding to our basic needs, responding to ourselves, what are the needs, that you've been really giving up to other people that you could be answering for yourself, and that you could take back for yourself. And the beauty of learning that process while you're going through a breakup is that if you can build that and cultivate that with yourself and practice it with you. The next relationship you have, whether it's with a new person, or you end up back together with your ex is going to be very different because you're going to know how to practice love in a very tangible way. And you've shown up for yourself in that way. So it's gonna be easier and more understanding and how to show up for someone else in that way.
Amanda Durocher 18:48
I love that so much. I had never heard it explained like that before. And I think it's such a tangible way to understand love. And I also loved in your episode when you said that this is one of the reasons why you can feel unloved in your life in your relationship. But somebody can be saying, I love you. I love you. I love you. But you're inside you're like, but I don't feel loved. And I think that the way you described it makes so much sense for why people can use the words I love you. But it still doesn't necessarily reach that part of your heart that's looking to feel love.
Dorothy Johnson 19:20
Yeah, right. And that's also because thoughts create feelings, right? So if you don't have loving thoughts towards yourself, it doesn't really matter what other people say because you're not going to feel it.
Amanda Durocher 19:31
Yeah, yeah, I love that. Do you have anything else you'd like to add? Before we jump into the questions, anything else you'd like to say?
Dorothy Johnson 19:38
Oh, I think the only thing that I would really like to say is that anyone who's listening is trying to get over an X. Be really clear with yourself. I'm in Dini and arrayexpress and y'all so I really like measuring data. Be really clear with yourself today about what it means to you to get over an X because it's going to look different for everyone. And when you start this journey I don't think anyone wants really goes to, this is what it means to be over my axe. And so therefore, you could be working towards getting over your axe for a really long time and never feel like you've gotten over your axe because you've never actually defined what that means in a tangible way. So for example, people who come work with me, we do have check in and the very first check in is getting clear about what does it mean to you to be over your x? And how do you know you will have arrived, and then we start measuring it in a very data driven way. So for someone it might mean, I have zero desire for my x, and I have zero attachment to my x. Right now, I have a level 10 desire, meaning I desire this person all the time, and I feel a level of 10 of attachment, I feel so attached to them for my future. And then you can check at midpoint to see did those numbers go down? Right? And then at the very end, are they where you want them to be? And then same thing with maybe it's like thoughts of your ex maybe being over your ex too young, and you're not constantly thinking about that person? And so right now, what's the percentage of time that you spend thinking about that person? Is it 10% A day? Do you think about them 10 times a day, like, get a very measurable way to look at that, so that you can look back and be like, I have made progress, I am making progress. Because I don't think that's like a natural thing for us to do. And I wish I would have done that in 2016 when I was really going through it, because there was a lot of progress that I was making. But I didn't really know what over my axe truly meant. And I just think it's so helpful when you're in kind of like the midst of it to define that for yourself. And be confident that that's what it means for you. That makes sense.
Amanda Durocher 21:45
Yeah, that definitely makes sense. And I think that is a really helpful practice. And I love how you say that, it's gonna be a different answer for everybody. Right? I think everybody's always looking for that one size fits all. And it's going to look different. Everybody's journey is different. What everybody's desiring is different, somebody might desire to ever think about their x, somebody may desire to be in a totally new relationship, you know, it's going to be individual. So I think it's important for everybody to define that for themselves.
Dorothy Johnson 22:09
Yeah. And like, let yourself want what you want. I love that you brought up the new relationship thing, because let yourself want to be a new relationship. If that's truly like an authentic desire for you don't say you shouldn't want that you should be okay, single, it's like, we can work on getting to be like God in single and you're like doing all of that amazing this on your own. And at the same time, you can want a new relationship and also be working towards that it's not black or white, or good or bad, or all or nothing thinking it's like, it can be an app. And that's okay.
Amanda Durocher 22:41
Yes, I love that. Thank you for saying that too. Because I think sometimes with self help information, it can feel like we have to be really independent and be able to do everything on our own. And we're humans, we need other humans. And it's important to learn how to depend on other people. And it's okay to desire love and relationships. It's actually very healthy.
Dorothy Johnson 22:58
Yeah, right. And you can, like, yes, you can be independent and be able to do all of that on your own. And you can say, hey, and I want to partnership who shows that 50/50 with me or like is really good at taking care of me. That's amazing. Allow yourself to want that.
Amanda Durocher [listener question] 23:12
Yes, exactly. Yes. And you know, you can have, you can have it all in that sense. Yeah. So good. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Let's jump into question one.
My boyfriend of three years broke up with me. After the breakup, I would text and call him trying to work it out. But he eventually cut all contact with me. I think it's because he started seeing someone else. I'm devastated, heartbroken and angry. It's been six months, but I still replaced so much of our relationship in my head trying to figure out what I did wrong. How do I get past this? I feel like I'm feeling my feelings. But I still have so many of them. Should I try to contact him again? I was thinking of writing him a letter? Or do I just let him go? And if so, how? Thank you so much for this question. I'm so sorry that you're struggling with your breakup. I think this is a great question that so many people can relate to. And I think Dorothy is a great person to help me answer this. So Dorothy, I'd love for you to start, what is your advice for this listener.
Dorothy Johnson 24:10
So I think the biggest thing that I just want to call out right away, and I know it's going to come as kind of a shock when I say this, so like, just sit with it for a little bit. I believe that your ex cutting contact is probably one of the best gifts that he could have given you. And I only say that from experience, from the story that I told everyone at the beginning of this episode, he ended up cutting contact and going no contact and blocked me on all of the things. And that was like the biggest gift I could have ever had. Because it really took a lot of effort than for me to try to figure out how to go stalk him on social media. There was no like, pondering, should I say this? Or should I not say this or should I text them or should I not text them? And then like moving on so quickly was also one of the biggest gifts because I think I would have been one hung up on us getting back together for much longer. And I would have like, held me back from moving forward because I wouldn't have thought I had to him going no contact and moving on so quickly with the highest good tea could have ever given me because it was like, Okay, I'm moving on, I'm going to do things differently, I'm going to figure out how to create the life that we had. And you know what I'm going to figure out how to create it even better, like I want something even better. And that really set me into motion and to be in very committed and determined to figure it out. So I want to just offer to you that it might be worth looking at it in that way of like this is a best parting gift. Because now you get to really focus on you dive deep in you now feeling feelings. Huge thing, right. And I think we talk about feeling feelings a lot. And there's a lot of tangible practices in terms of feeling feelings, I highly recommend episode 22 on the how to get a podcast called The grief bubble. It gives you a very tangible practice on how to do that. But there's also more steps that you can be moving through while also feeling feelings. The second step would be building that really solid foundation with yourself, figuring out who you are building that relationship with you, knowing that you've got your own back and looking at what are you making the breakup mean about you? And is that really true. So that would be the second step. The third step that I work with my clients on is creating closure, rewriting your breakup story, we have a closure formula that we work through again, that's also on the podcast, you can literally look it up. But I highly recommend creating closure and rewriting your breakup story in a way that like propels you forward and leaves you empowered. So then that way, if someone comes up to you and asks you what happened, you have a way of stating it out loud into reality in a way that's very empowering and uplifting and not like victim me, because every time you tell that story, and you I again, I only know this from firsthand experience, I would literally tell strangers about my entire breakup story out of just like the wounded mass that was. So the moment when you're saying that over and over and over again, you're reinforcing those feelings into your body over and over and over again, your body can't even tell that it's not happening anymore that it happened six months ago. It thinks it's happening again right now. So I want you to work on recreating a story that feels like very uplifting, and that doesn't mean you take away the pain. You just finished the story in a different way. Like yes, it was painful. Yes, it was hard, but I'm learning from it. I'm growing from it. And I'm really excited to see what this next chapter has for me, right. And then the last step is we have to get really excited about your future again, like that is looking at any disempowering stories you have about your future, getting excited about the possibility of what there is out there, like my life could actually be even better than the one that I had with him. And I, what would that even look like? Can you explore that while at the same time you're feeling your feelings, like none of this is linear, but all four of those steps need to happen. And all at the same time, you can be working to reduce desire and attachment. And I'll just give you a very quick analogy on what I mean when I'm talking about reducing desire and attachment. Many people don't realize that desire and attachment are created through the thoughts that you think and all of your thoughts are optional. So I use a lot of ice cream analogy, it's and ice cream. So I create a lot of ice cream when I tell you that ice cream is my favorite food. It's illegally and not to my mouth. I love the caramel, the chocolate chunks, the peanut butter. It's like my favorite food. It's so good. Both of us are sitting here you have like a lot of desire. Some people talk about their exes like that. They're like he's the most amazing person, like everything I've ever wanted. He's my favorite person keys my world. And then you create desire between the two of us like when my clients come to me and they just I'm like, yeah, yeah, I have a lot of desire. Can I go to your ex like, right? Like, it feels like very desirable. However, when I tell you that ice cream is simply milk and sugar a lot less desirable. Not as it's equally as true. But when I'm learning to reduce desire for my x, I'm learning to reduce desire for ice cream because I don't want to be eating ice cream every night. It's super helpful to remind myself of your whole truth. Right? So my ex was really amazing, but he wasn't there emotionally. He was my world but he's not anymore and I'm creating a new one right it's like showing all of the truth and really like getting clear about what are the what's the hold true not just that rose colored glasses are not just that good things from the relationship.
Amanda Durocher 29:36
Yes, I love that so much because I received so many questions from people who are like my ex broke up with me he was my soulmate my ex broke up with me he was my world I'm can't see myself without him. He was amazing like that that desire is written to in so many questions that I think that's such a great way to view it. And also yes to look at the full truth Love it. Because if the relationship ended, my guess is the relationship wasn't perfect. And also no relationship is perfect. I think as we become adults and learn how to be in mature relationships, you learn that no relationship is ever perfect. Yeah, yeah. I also wanted to add into this question that I know you said you're feeling your feelings. And I think it's important to feel your feelings to, but I invite you to really, when those feelings come up, what are they communicating with you, I find that feelings usually have a message, specifically anger. I think anger is always communicating with us. Sometimes it's communicating a boundary that needs to be set, sometimes it's communicating a boundary that was broken. But anger has a message for you. So to me, if it keeps arising, it's because you haven't gotten that message yet. So I would start to pay attention to your thoughts and what you're telling yourself when specifically that anger is arising because for me, at least, anger has the clearest message that wants to come through. If I'm willing to sit with the anger, but anger is so uncomfortable. So many of us are trying to run from it, numb it, check out from it. But if you allow yourself to just be in that anger, continue to ask yourself, Why am I so angry, and you'll likely get to a belief or maybe a memory or something that wants to change your view of the situation? And let
Dorothy Johnson 31:20
that so important. Anger is funny, isn't it? Because I just remember thinking that like, the longer I stay angry, the more my ex is suffering. Yeah. And he was clearly off living his own life, having a great time with his new girlfriend, not feeling my anger, because my feelings don't create other people's feelings, his thoughts created his feelings. So you're holding on to anger also isn't creating any suffering for your ex, it's just only creating suffering for you. And that's not to like shame you because anger is totally valid. And like you said, Amanda, it's probably there's a message there, if you're realizing that you're holding on holding on to it, because it might like, hurt your axe. It's not working.
Amanda Durocher 32:01
Yeah, I related to that, too, with what you said in the intro about how you're holding on to this anger and resentment. Because if you let it go, what would it mean? You know, I've felt that so many times in my life through the experiences that I've had and the abuse I've experienced, where if I let this go, if I truly let the scope does that negate the entire experience, but the truth is the only one who's suffering is you.
Dorothy Johnson 32:26
Yeah, and I just like you guys, there's I wish, I wish there were breakup police out there for you. I really do. I just remember, I was like, clearly my axe did this so wrong, and like, you should get a ticket for this. And it should be posted somewhere in the world. So everyone can see what in a while he is. Why does no one else see that? And I remember like a month after the breakup, they switched their profile photos on Facebook of them too. And it was just like, why is anyone saying congratulations on like, Does no one else realize that we were any long, seven year relationship a month before? And that's when I like really wish that they were breakup police to write your exit ticket. So like, if you are in that, like, oh, just mad and angry and spiteful place like just know that you're not alone. There's so many of us that are out there in the world and holding on to it isn't helping you, but just know that you're seeing and that you're hurt, and yeah, it's not okay. And we're here for it.
Amanda Durocher 33:24
I completely agree with that. I think it it's so common, and I love that about the breakup, please. I feel like I'm gonna say that moving forward, because it's true. Do you have anything else for this listener before we move on to the next question?
Dorothy Johnson 33:37
No I'm ready for the next question. Let's do it.
Amanda Durocher [listener question] 33:39
Awesome. Thank you so much for this question. Now let's move on to question two.
For several years, I was in an unhappy marriage with my wife. I told her that I was thinking about splitting up because things weren't working. But she promised that everything would change. After six months of no change. I cheated on her with a younger woman who provided me with admiration, love, appreciation and sex that I wasn't getting from my wife. My wife found out and filed for divorce, which I don't blame her for how I handled the situation. After one year of us ending our relationship, I discovered that my ex wife has a new relationship and it totally devastated me. I knew it would happen, but I'm not taking it well. Although I am in a relationship. I feel jealous and hurt. I believe that my ex still has many of the behaviors I disliked but I don't know why a part of me wants her back. My therapist says it is my bruised ego, which I totally believe. However, I don't know how to clarify if I really want her back or how to heal myself and reduce my ego to accept the situation. Any advice will be appreciated. Thank you so much for this question. I'm sorry, you're struggling with the feelings of jealousy and hurt. These are not easy feelings to feel. And I thank you for your honesty with this question, because I think it's a very honest question. And I'm sure it wasn't easy to admit some of those things. But I think so many people can relate to this question. And I'm grateful that we can have this conversation so Dorothy I'll let you start again. What advice do you have for this person?
Dorothy Johnson 35:03
Yeah. So first off, I think that what you just experienced when you saw her new relationship was a grief bubble. Again, Episode 22 of the halligan podcast. That grief bubble is just a bubbling up of emotions that were stored in the body. And it's the way that I like to describe it is. Four years after my big breakup, I watched him get married, to the person that he left me for. And when they got married, like, I would have considered myself over my axe, but I had this overwhelming grief bubble pop up. And it was truly just like the 26 year old version of me, that version of me thought she was going to be marrying him. I just believed that it was me and mourning and grieving that experience. And so then, at the time, that 30 year old version of me just got to stand there and be like, Girl, I see you, I'm so sorry. Like, I totally know the feeling, I can realize that you thought that that was going to be you. So I think a part of you, like your therapist had the bruised ego, I just think it's a nicer way of saying, that's the version of you who thought maybe your marriage would have worked, right? There was there is a version of you internally that really did want that to work and did want things to change and did want admiration and love and intimacy between you and your your ex wife and thought maybe that could happen, and maybe that could work. And so that's that version of you, who's mourning and grieving that process. I don't think based off of what the information I honestly don't know you personally, but I don't think that you actually want her back. I think it was just you grieving. You know, the idea that was that the version of you that was hoping that eventually it would maybe work and be okay. I do agree that she probably has a lot of the characteristics and the things that you might not want. And maybe she does it, who knows. But what I do also want to say is that the life that you want, the partner that you want, is not tied to her, you can have that in your life, no matter what you did mention that you are already in a new relationship. And so something that I see for for people, when they tell me like, all of a sudden, I thought I was over my ex but all of a sudden, I started thinking about my ex again, and my desire has increased my attachment has increased again after it had already gone down to zero. A lot of times when I see that I'm seeing a spectrum between desire and resistance. And the resistance is when there's resistance to something in your current life or there's something in your current life that you're like displeased with or not happy with or disgruntled with, or it's disappointed with maybe. And when that happens, your brains chewing to way of you know, chewing on the X suit, like thinking about that person again, desiring that person again, it's like an easy to toy that if you visioned your brain as like a dog, it's easy for them to go get that phone, if they didn't bury it far away, they get rid of it, the bone still there, they pick it up. And so I have a feeling that that is the case that what's happening is like, oh, maybe I'm like displeased with something else in my life. And so the easiest thing to do is ruminate about my past with my x. And I was given information from the outside world that she now in her new relationship. I had this grief bubble, it was like the perfect combination of events that created this experience. That would be like what comes to mind. What about you, Amanda?
Amanda Durocher 38:24
Yes, I'm like, You hit the nail on the head. Those were the things I was thinking. Because I also picked up on I think it's the grief that you mentioned, I've never heard group bubble before. But I really liked that expression. Because I think that especially when people jump from one relationship to the next, so this person said that they were in a marriage, and then they cheated in the relationship. And now they're either in a new relationship or with that person that they cheated with. You probably didn't process the entire relationship, right, your marriage ended, that's a huge thing. You know, your marriage was you probably had a lot of expectations for that marriage. When you married your wife, you probably thought you'd be together forever. And so I think it makes sense that if you didn't give yourself the time to fully grieve that, that that will just continue to come up in waves. And that's how grief works. It comes in waves it comes and goes it's not that we just sit for three months, grief and then like can move on with our life. It's that maybe you do take some time, but it doesn't mean it won't continue to come up again and again. So I think that allowing yourself to feel that grief is probably a part of this process for you because I agree that I don't think you necessarily want your wife back. I think that it's the grief and as you mentioned, maybe the resistance in the relationship
Dorothy Johnson 39:34
so good. I'll say one other thing about grief that I learned recently I had a miscarriage back in November and it's been an interesting thing going through that when I like teach people how to get over their acts and I'm reading all these resources about miscarriages in so many of the resources say you'll never get over a miscarriage man like oh my god, I hate that. Like I have a full body no to that idea. So I'm not subscribing to that idea. However, there's a bunch of different theories about grief. Right. And one of the theories that they have about grief that reminded me of what you were kind of just saying, Amanda is that when something first happens, grief feels really big. And you can almost imagine your life as this box in grief takes in the circle within that box and say, that circle feels like it takes up the whole box right now. It's not that the grief Sring. But it's that the box gets bigger, AKA your life. And you start having more experiences and like things grow around the grief. And the grief never shrinks. It's just that your life gets bigger and like your experiences get bigger. And I really like like that in the terms of the miscarriage. But I also think it can apply to big heartbreak in your life. Even if this feels all consuming. Now, it doesn't mean that it's going to feel all consuming for the rest of your life. The more life you live, the bigger your life gets, it will be like a little look and feel smaller, some weak silence.
Amanda Durocher 40:56
Yeah, that doesn't make sense. I love that visual. Because I think that maybe when some people are saying like it takes time to heal, they might be thinking of that, but with what you're saying it's that if you create that bigger life, right, so if you take that active role over time, and you don't allow the grief to consume you forever, and you choose to take some steps forward, your life will continue to get bigger, but it doesn't mean that you won't still feel that grief or it won't still be present with
Dorothy Johnson 41:23
you. Yeah. And speaking of why it reminds me because like time, as time passes, we have more experiences. And I think a lot of times when we believe that time is what heals, what's really happening is that we're choosing to believe new things as time goes on. And as we gain new experience, and we see some stuff from the outside. And what I asked people to do is to believe new things before they see the evidence of it, because we've had so much evidence in the past. So for example, if you don't get the first job that you applied for, but then you get this job that was like 10 times better, way more aligned, like pays you 10 like way, way better. You then believe like, once you get that new job, you're like, oh, that happened for a reason, instead of just being like, I didn't get the job, and I'm gonna choose to believe Wow, that was I wasn't meant for the job. This is happening for a reason now. Because that makes me feel better in that present moment. Now, knowing that in the future, something better is going to happen or take place because that's what you get to choose to believe. Because it doesn't matter over time, you're going to eventually say that. It's like you could either just say it now and feel better, or say it in the future and feel better, but feel miserable on the way. And it's just like a difference of one of my clients said to me, my internal beliefs are stronger than my external observations now, after she worked with me, and that really resonated of like, I get to believe my internal beliefs more than I get to believe the external observations and then it turns the external observations into your internal beliefs. I know this is super meta, you guys, I totally got off on a tangent, and I apologize. But it just felt relevant to what you were saying. Love that. And
Amanda Durocher 43:09
I think it goes a bit with the other thing I was thinking for this question was, I think it's so easy for us to romanticize the past. I think with this person, this listener, they're romanticizing the best parts of their relationship. And it's important to remember that there were hard moments and there were mundane moments. So often we romanticize relationships by theme that goes with what you're saying, because I think people are so likely to go to the past rather than sitting with the present, choosing the reality they want to see. They're trying to remember the good where you can actually create the good in the present. So good. Well, thank you so much for helping me answer these questions. And for coming on the podcast. I really enjoyed talking with you and getting your perspective on how to get over an ex and healing from breakups. I was wondering if you could share with everyone how they could connect with you moving forward.
Dorothy Johnson 43:58
Yeah, so we've got that how to get over your ex podcast on Spotify and Apple iTunes, you're welcome to join us there. Love all of those action packed very impactful powerful, they're short to the point episodes. My also hanging out on Instagram, Africa, coach, Dorothy and I used to hang out there a lot and then hanging out there a lot less now. But you can still find me there. And then my website is Dorothy A is an apple B as in boy johnson.com. And you can find any kind of upcoming events, things like that. They're awesome. Thank
Amanda Durocher 44:33
you. And for anybody listening, I will also share all those resources in the show notes at New View advice.com/ 72. So if you want to follow Dorothy, I'll have all that information there as well.
Dorothy Johnson 44:46
Thank you so much, Amanda, for having me. It's so fun. And thank you to those who submitted questions. I love answering your questions and providing value and helping you out in any way and like Amanda said earlier just thanks for being vulnerable and open and sharing Your experience. It's all our it's all welcomed. And I'm so grateful to be here with you today and no thank you.
Amanda Durocher 45:06
And thank you so much for coming on the podcast and thank you for everything you do. I think it's so important for people to be able to find people like you who can help them through some of these hard situations. I think when we were growing up, nobody learned how to move through breakups. So we learned how to grieve. Nobody learned how to feel their feelings. So I think people like you are so important.
Dorothy Johnson 45:25
And Thank you I appreciate that.
Amanda Durocher 45:33
Thanks again for joining us for today's episode. I hope you enjoyed our conversation about breakups and how to get over an ex. A reminder that if you are interested in connecting with Dorothy or connecting with me, you can visit my website at newviewadvice.com/72. And I'll have all the resources mentioned in today's episode. And if you are interested in free resources, you can check out my website where I have many journal prompts and meditations to assist you on your healing journey. Thanks again for joining us for today's episode. I hope we were able to offer you a new view on whatever you may be going through sending you all my love. See you next time
Transcribed by https://otter.ai