Why You Need to do Inner Work During Your Breakup (And Where to Start)
Today I want to talk about how personal development AKA inner work will help you radically feel better as you go through your breakup. As a breakup coach, I’m not here to tell you what to do as there are millions of blog articles, YouTube videos, and unsolicited (and well-intentioned) friend advice for that.
No, I want to show you how to do the inner work yourself so you don’t need to seek that advice. Don’t get me wrong—there’s a time and place to process things with your friends and peers, but a huge part of the breakup experience is learning about yourself with…yourself.
Whether you’re new to inner work actually (my definition below), or you’re a seasoned inner-work junkie, this article will meet you exactly where you are today.
I’m touching on:
What your limiting beliefs are about yourself when it comes to relationships (and how this is the key to moving on)
A simple (and scientifically-backed) way of seeing your emotions and thoughts that gives you a ton of relief (and how it’s not about distracting yourself at all!)
How to listen to your intuition for guidance during a breakup (instead of seeking advice that just goes in one ear and out the other)
How to stop overthinking and analyzing your ex and your breakup (even when it seems like that’s all you do now-a-days)
I’ll show you how to take the “inner work” approach to your questions and current dilemmas when it comes to your breakup. These are tried-and-tested by yours truly, and have helped so many of my clients.
So, for those of you who just discovered you can do “inner work” during your breakup—what does that actually mean?
For me, it’s getting to know myself in a way that helps me show up better for my friends, family, clients and peers. It’s about having a growth mindset as opposed to a fixed “that’s just who I am” mindset. It’s about better understanding my emotions so that I can make healthy decisions outside of the “heat of the moment.” I’m no longer a victim of my circumstances—I have personal power the more I get to know yourself. I no longer need to be validated by others in order to feel good about myself.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. A big part of personal development work is actually about unlearning the things we were taught at a very young age. Most of us don’t realize how almost every single thing we feel and think is actually a product of our childhood experiences. We learn it young, and it gets ingrained into how we move through the world and in our relationships.
In the simplest of terms, we show up in our adult romantic relationships based on how we were cared for by our parents or caregivers.
Yes, this is based on relationship science (Attachment theory) and I go into this in detail in my free audio training here. Again, we don’t know this consciously a lot of the time, but through consistent therapy or coaching, you can begin to see that what you’re experiencing comes from a deeper place. I want to get you started in seeing how this plays out for you as you move through your breakup.
This article is going to highlight the shifts you can start making today to do your own inner work and start feeling relief.
Start looking into your relationship beliefs
As mentioned, we all show up in relationships based on how we were cared for by our caregivers. The negative thoughts we carry about our partners, ourselves, and the world tell us a lot about the unhealthy beliefs we’ve adopted (and can unlearn).
These beliefs look like actual truths about people, ourselves, and the world—but they’re not. They’re related to your core beliefs and they have patterns you can identify just by looking further into them.
Let me give you multiple examples because you might be here thinking, “I don’t have “beliefs;” many of my friends feel and think the same way I do.”
Here are some of the beliefs you might carry that I hear often as a coach:
“Relationships aren’t perfect”
“You need to compromise in a relationship”
“Men just care about sex. They inherently don’t believe in monogamy”
“Pretty women can get whatever and whoever they want”
“You shouldn't ask for so much in a relationship”
“Most guys now-a-days have commitmentphobia”
And the list goes on. You probably read that list being like, “well, yeah, I do think a lot of those” or, “yeah, I’ve seen that play out in my life.”
So here’s the thing about limiting beliefs—we ALL have them, and by investigating them, we get to free ourselves from them. By doing that, you will start attracting partners who are right for you, and simultaneous start letting go of your ex.
Let’s get real for a second; chances are, you still want to be with your ex, but how much of that is because you’re afraid you won’t get someone better (even if they weren’t all that suited or great for you)?
How much of wanting your ex back is because you think dating these days is just too scary and you’re too old to “restart?”
How much of wanting your ex back is because you don’t think your dream partner actually exists?
If you answered yes to even one of those, then you’ve got beliefs about yourself that say—to some extent—that you’re not worthy of a loving, healthy, committed, and abundant relationship.
The best gift we can give ourselves during our breakups is to investigate these beliefs and let them go.
Here’s how to get started. Grab a pen and paper and draw a line down the middle of the page. On the left-hand column, write down your beliefs about your ex, dating, and relationships in general. They’ll sound very truthful and undeniable to you. They’ll also sound fairly “negative” although I am not a huge fan of that word, but am sharing it for the sake of the exercise.
Was your ex a narcissist? Do you find you give a lot more than you take? Are relationships always hard work? Write anything that comes to mind.
Then, on the right-hand column, right what the deeper belief might be that has you seeing your ex or relationships that way.
If you wrote down, “all men just want to have their cake and eat it too” that could mean maybe you feel it’s emotionally unsafe to be in a relationship. It could mean you feel ignored when you’re in relationships. Write down what feels right for YOU. You’ll notice something clicks when you start to notice patterns in the people you date and how you feel in your relationships.
Don’t worry if this is a little tough in the beginning. If you’re new to this work, you might not get epiphanies right away. Inner work is about the slow unfolding of deeper insights.
When I was single and healing from my last relationship, I used to have so many hidden beliefs and never thought I’d find my dream guy. But within 8 months of doing the deep work and uncovering my limiting beliefs (and being patient with myself), I found my loving fiancé. If you’re curious to learn more about your own beliefs and want to do a private session, book me here.
Stop doing and start being
Whenever I would feel any form of sadness or loneliness during my breakup in 2016 after 2.5 years together with my ex, I’d reach for Netflix, or the phone, or I’d just ruminate trying to figure out “what happened.”
I’d feel desperate to find something to do in order to relieve my emotional pain. After all, I’ve been taught that there’s something wrong with how I feel if I’m not feeling good. As a breakup coach, I can tell you many of my clients think the same way.
This is where the big misunderstanding about our emotions hides. This is why when you google “things to do during a breakup” millions of articles pop up with hundreds of suggestions—most of which you’ve either done or don’t want to do. No matter how many suggestions, it’s not really “fixing” the pain. You then begin to feel helpless.
You see, you’re trying to fix your emotional state by doing something, right? You’re seeking a solution. You think if you distract yourself or do a bunch of things, you’ll just get over your ex. But this isn’t the case.
It’s not about what you do.
It’s about how you’re being. Or specifically, how you’re not letting yourself be. (pause for that to sink in.)
What if I were to tell you that feeling crappy, and lonely, and sad, isn’t bad at all? What if that’s just how you feel and it’s neither good nor bad? It sounds crazy, because we’re all made to believe that we need to fix how we feel.
The solution to getting “rid” of our emotions is to actually let them be. Don’t worry, I’ll explain.
Our society is still seriously emotion-phobic and that’s why we are so antsy to find a way to stop feeling bad—no one teaches us that it’s normal to hurt, and even to take a personal day off work when you’re going through a breakup.
Society tells us we’re letting ourselves “go” or we “don’t have our sh*t together” or we’re “weak” the moment we start feeling hurt. And most of us are victims of this, and my job as a breakup coach is to get you to see this too.
Emotions are perfectly normal and healthy, and when you accept that it’s OKAY to feel like sh*t, your emotions will pass.
It’s time to reprogram how you see your emotions and what they mean.
So, next time you start feeling emotional in a way that makes you uncomfortable, don’t immediately throw on Netflix. Pause for a second, check in to see how you feel, and then say to yourself, “I accept how I feel in this moment.”
Accept that you are a human being with emotions, and right now you’re feeling.
I know you’re probably thinking. “that would never work for me,” or “that’s what I’ve been doing” but unless you’re talking to yourself and accepting your own feelings and experiences, then you haven’t tried it this way.
Being head-down, productive, inspired, and happy is an unrealistic way to live your life, yet that’s what society tells us to be all the time directly and indirectly.
It’s time to give yourself permission and space to be yourself in the moments you’re hurting.
This concept of actually accepting how you feel versus trying to change (or distract) it is scientifically-backed as well; check out this Tedtalk on how acknowledging without judging/changing/distracting cigarette cravings helped smokers quit smoking twice as effectively as other methods.
I apply this to my life constantly, and it WORKS. When I just accept whatever is going on in the moment, without judging it as “bad” or “good,” the emotion passes. It’s that simple.
Let yourself be in the moment, and stop trying to fix it. You’ll be so surprised that when you do let yourself be…you’ll notice within 5 minutes you’ll have moved on to something else that completely breaks your rumination or sadness.
Hey, don’t knock it til you try it.
Stop listening to what you “should” do and wait for the call
Many clients reach out and ask me what they should do in any given situation during their breakups.
“Should I text my ex or wait for them to text me?”
“Should I block them?”
“Should I just move on and date other people?”
My response is often, “what are you DRAWN” to do. Clients typically take a second to realize that wasn’t exactly a response they’d gotten before when seeking advice. Like I said, friends are often quick to give you advice on what they’d to in your shoes, but that rarely helps you to look within. In fact, sometimes it just perpetuates the belief that you can’t make decisions on your own (or that your inner wisdom can’t be trusted). I go in depth with this in my coaching.
What are you drawn to do?
What does your intuition tell you to do?
So simple, yet so overlooked.
Society is often conditioning us to seek “expert” advice and to turn to people who are older, wiser, and have more experience—but we are the experts of our own experiences and it’s time to start giving yourself permission to trust your own inner guidance.
If you can’t tell what you “should” do and have been thinking about the possible outcomes for a while, but are constantly being told WHAT to do, then wait for further guidance from your inner self.
I just had a call with a client who asked me if and when they should reach out to their ex about a conversation they need to have eventually. I simply said to them, “reach out when you feel called” and let me tell you — it resonated with them. I could tell he had been so caught up (like many of us) in doing the “right” thing that he forgot about what was important, relevant, and meaningful to them to actually take action and make a decision.
You see, we all have an inner guidance system, be it God, inspiration, the Universe, or your higher-self. Most times, we don’t wait for the cue to make a decision; we jump to “doing” something prematurely.
So, instead of overthinking what you “should” do based on what you’ve read and heard, wait for the added piece of your answer to reveal itself. Trust me when I tell you that analyzing the situation and draining yourself will not get you the right answer.
Just because it’s on your mind doesn’t mean you need to make a decision or take action. You will KNOW when you feel called to take action.
Take the pressure off yourself by accepting that you don’t know what to do in this moment, and that’s perfectly okay. Trust that the piece you need to make that decision is well on its way to you. Your only job is to be patient with yourself, and let the insight drop into your head at the right moment.
Wait for the call.
I’ve completely adopted this thinking and use it in EVERY area of my life—sometimes multiple times a day for multiple situations. Whenever I find myself getting caught up in what I “should” do about something (because it’s been lingering in my mind), I step back and realize that I don’t have what I need to make a decision that’s authentic to me. And, when I don’t do what’s authentic to me, then the people involved don’t get the FULL Nancy.
Sometimes, taking action prematurely doesn’t yield the results you want. In fact, many times it adds to the chaos of the initial issue you’re analyzing. I realized that by waiting for the piece that’s missing to make a decision has revealed that other things need to fall into place that are going on for the other person.
So, if you want to call your ex and talk about something, wait til you feel drawn to do it, and not just because you’re annoyed and need an answer today. Sometimes, we do have time constraints, but most times, we have innocently created the timeline ourselves.
Give yourself permission to wait for the decision to be made without you forcing it.
Stop overthinking and start trusting
Doing inner work or personal development work requires that you have full trust in the process.
So many of us get so stuck in overthinking the mistakes, the pain, the memories, that we don’t allow ourselves to enjoy this new chapter, or see its wisdom for our future.
Yes, there is wisdom in your breakup, and it’s available to you the moment you decide that you don’t want to drive yourself to the ground overthinking every last detail.
I was stuck in the “overthinking” stage for over a year after my relationship ended. I had no idea there was another way to see it.
I didn’t know that I could trust that maybe this breakup was a good thing.
That maybe this breakup wasn’t happening TO me, but FOR me.
Now, that’s one hell of a paradigm shift, and it’s always been faithful to me. You might feel triggered reading this, so let me explain my personal situation.
Instead of always trying to analyze what I did wrong, or how I can further punish myself for my past, I could see that there was actually a plan for this madness. I thought I was going to marry my ex, and even how we met was fairytale-like. I held onto that for so long that during my breakup I kept this idea alive and it stopped me from fully living my life, and from finding someone great for me.
When I started to believe this breakup was part of a bigger plan outside of my control, I stopped trying to figure things out myself. I stopped carrying the burdens and the need to fix things.
Nothing was wrong. Nothing was broken. I needed to accept that, and my first step was seeing that my breakup was happening for me.
From this space, I was able to give myself more love, compassion, and freedom to be present.
By learning that I can choose to give up always overanalyzing, I was able to invite more peace into my life.
It’s crazy to think that by doing and thinking less, we are actually doing the best thing for us, and we are in fact figuring it out much faster than by consciously focusing on it.
Rarely can we make healthy decisions when we are emotionally fatigued from overthinking and ruminating. I know you know the feeling well.
We actually heal when we take breaks from processing.
We heal when we can trust in a plan greater than our own.
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So, if you made it to the end of this article, you’re probably feeling and sensing a lot. That’s part of the shifting process.
Let this article sink in, or book an appointment to talk further, and then put your laptop or phone down and let your mind and body process things on its own. You’ll be analyzed how much insight you gain from trusting all of this will sort itself out on its own.
With all my love,
Nancy Ruth Deen
Hey there, I’m Nancy! I’m a Conscious Breakup Coach dedicated to giving you conscious breakup advice during, well—one of the hardest times of your life. Let me know if this blog resonated for you by leaving a comment!
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