How to Navigate Heartbreak after a Break Up?

Hello everyone, welcome to the Said in Therapy Podcast. Have you ever considered going to therapy and you ended up not going? My question is why? In my humble opinion, I believe everyone can benefit from therapy. In fact, I believe everybody should go at least once in their life.

My name is Iman Tohami and I'm a psychologist. This podcast tells you all about everyday cases with everyday people who have everyday problems and difficulties and sometimes they carry around really deep wounds. These are their stories.

Hi everyone, how are you? How is everything? So before I start, firstly, Ramadan Mubarak, if you are observing, I hope you have a wonderful month ahead and that it brings you everything you're hoping for and that you can use it for a time of reflection and healing.

And if you are not observing Ramadan, I wish the same to you. So I want to address the longer stretches of disappearance, if you will. As you sure know, or I don't know if you know, but the last few years, including the pandemic, have been incredibly challenging for a lot of therapists worldwide.

And I think as many in my field have underestimated the effects it could have on someone who is a professional in the field. And I'm sort of paying the price for that right now. I underestimated my energy levels, I underestimated my health, I underestimated how much more care I need to take of myself.

And this is basically because, well, sometimes you are just not very connected to your own emotions. Yes, even as a therapist. So yeah, I hope that this is an explanation that you can live with. That said, I'm really working on you know creating more content and bringing it back to the basics, which is basic podcasts that I'm still very passionate about.

So I'm trying to use my time to focus on that. So this is the intro. I want to tell you something more about the guest that I'm having today. It's a breakup coach. Her name is Nora. She has been working for a while now for uh as a breakup coach.

And I thought bringing her on the podcast would be so beneficial for so many people, especially those who are experiencing breakup or heartbreak at the moment, and she has a lot of useful things to share. And I will link everything about her in the description, her handles and her website, should you be interested in reaching out to her and maybe starting working with her.

As you sure know, I'm always very careful about inviting coaches or opening the conversation about life coaching in general. It's always um about the person. I see the merit in coaching, I just want to make this perfectly clear.

I just don't like the blurry lines that yeah, that still exist between therapy and coaching, and I like her transparency. I like the way she brings her message across and basically how transparent she is about everything she does.

So I really hope you enjoy the conversation and let's start.

So hi Nora, I'm very happy that you're here. And I'm very happy discussing breakups and breakup recovery with you because I think this is a relevant topic. So why don't you just introduce yourself in your own words?

Yes, thank you so much, Iman, for having me on your podcast. I'm really excited to be here as well. And yeah, let me introduce myself. My name is Nora, and I have been practicing as a breakup recovery coach for the last two years, and it's been a very, very rewarding journey.

And um, I mostly work with women, and I try to get them from a place of crisis after their breakup and to a place of feeling like they can recover and then they can definitely move on from this and not have this be, you know, the defining uh moment of their lives.

So you know, when I was preparing for this podcast and for this episode specifically, we know each other, so this is not the first time we speak and we have some history together. Um, I was just very interested how you actually started this journey because it's a very specific niche, you know.

You're a we are you're a coach, we will discuss this later, um, a little bit in depth too. But you're a coach, so how did you decide on this specific niche? And what inspired you, if you will?

Yeah, so actually what inspired me is more other people around me, because I felt that a lot of people, you know, naturally gravitated towards me to talk to me about breakups or relationship problems. And you know, a lot of times after they would talk to me, they would tell me, you know, we felt very comfortable with you, or like you're the first person I ever open up to like this, etc.

And I think that I had the kind of right personality traits to be that kind of coach. And then some people who I've really helped, like in an informal capacity, some of my friends or even friends of friends, because it became, you know, even my friends would tell their friends, like, hey, you should talk to my friend Nora.

So um yeah, it kind of uh became something I'm known for in my friend circles that I'm someone that people can talk to and ask for advice regarding specifically breakups and relationship problems, etc. So then um actually a couple of my friends like encouraged me to pursue it more seriously and told me, you know, you're really good at this.

Why don't you uh do this as you're living? And at that time I was very disillusioned also with my corporate job, and you know, I really felt like that wasn't a good fit for me. Um, I had a different different kinds of corporate jobs, and it never felt right for me.

It never felt like I was doing my purpose or I was doing what I was best at or serving uh in in the best way. So when they made the suggestion, I decided to take it seriously, and I you know invested in a life coaching uh training, and um yeah, I started uh practice.

So you you did a life coaching training. Um just to put it out there, you're not a therapist, you are a coach and specifically a coach for breakups, or do you also do other things?

So I mainly do breakups, but sometimes people contact me if you know they find me on on Instagram or social media and they like my style, they like my ideas, they might contact me for to help them with another kind of problem, maybe like a relationship problem.

Sometimes I've had couples also come to me because they want to discuss uh an issue they're having together. Um, so I do get these kind of custom requests sometimes, but my main thing, yes, is breakups and how to help you navigate them.

Yeah, I like your style too. And I've been following you from the very beginning, I think. And I also love how honest you are about being a life coach, you know, because there are so many people out there who are life coaches, but at a therapist, but from the very beginning, you were actually making sure that the people know the distinction between going to a therapist and going to a life coach and what to expect.

So I really respected that and really loved that about the way you actually approach the whole topic. You were very honest, and um, I think you believe uh I I I believe you offer a lot of um good advice that people can follow when they go through a breakup.

So let's start about breakups because this is why we are here today. So tell me, how would you define a breakup?

So a breakup is basically a rupture in a relationship that means it's ending and it can be romantic, but it can also be platonic, it can be familial. It just signifies the end of a relationship in whatever way.

Sometimes that end is you know decided by both parties or one of the parties, or sometimes there's no discussion had, and someone just ghosts. Um, so it takes a while to for you to even figure out that okay, that was a breakup.

But yeah, I mean, it's just a simple way of saying, you know, the end of a relationship.

You know, when people come to my practice going through a breakup, I often hear them say that they want some kind of explanation to get closure in order to, you know, package the whole experience and put it in a specific box.

Do you believe that that kind of closure is actually important?

Um, I think honestly, that it helps to have it and it makes the breakup process easier for you to know, you know, why it ended. But I also think it doesn't necessarily stop the pain. Um and also I think that when we are in pain, even if we get an explanation, we end up opening a Pandora's box of questions anyway.

You know, sometimes the reason is very clear, like your partner will tell you, you know, I'm breaking up because you know, you want kids and I don't. And that's the reason. It's very clear. But then because we're in pain, we create a lot of other questions around this explanation, like, okay, but why does he want kids with me?

Or is it personal? Is it that they think I'm not gonna be a good parent? You know, if I tried this or that, could I have changed their mind? Like there, I think when we're in pain, it's very natural to just like fall into a rabbit hole of questions.

And I think there's in pain and in breakup, there's always gonna be some element of confusion and lack of clarity, even if the explanation is very clear, you know. Um, but sometimes we don't have an explanation at all.

And I think that is very hard because um, you know, we fill the gaps of that story with our deepest fears and insecurities. Um, and we just don't even know where to start processing it. And but I this is very important.

I don't think it's impossible to get through your breakup, even if you don't have closure or resolution or an explanation. It makes it a little bit harder, but it also I think once once you pass through that experience and you kind of realize, okay, I don't need closure, I can make my own closure, it actually makes you much stronger as a person and very independent and much more like self-reliant emotionally.

Um, on your Instagram account, you speak a lot about um recovery and how to approach recovery. But one thing that you always mention is that it is important to limit interaction with the other person as much as possible.

Can you explain a little bit more why that is necessary?

Yeah, I think this is controversial because not everyone agrees with this. And I know some other breakup coaches, they don't, you know, have a very strict uh kind of position on this. For me, I think it's important, regardless of whether the relationship was toxic or not, if the breakup was messy or not.

I think it is useful and important to have limited contact with the ex in the beginning stages, um, to just kind of let yourself absorb and reorient yourself to the fact that, you know, now this relationship is severed and I need to relearn how to be alone uh by myself.

That's one reason. And for me, the most important reason is that I think when you continue talking to your ex fresh out of a breakup, you can get triggered really easily. And I think that being constantly triggered is like really um detrimental to breakup recovery because to maximize recovery, I think to be in a calm state of mind is best.

And if you're being triggered by, you know, your ex saying something confusing or saying something potentially hurtful or seeing a picture of them on social media that you might overthink like this is really gonna hinder your recovery. At the end of the day, like we're all human, we're all gonna like contact our ex or look at the social media or whatever, you know.

So, like I also have so much compassion and sympathy for people who, you know, want to do this but find themselves failing to do that all the time. And I've definitely been in that position many times, you know, but it's definitely something I think it definitely helps so much to have that container around yourself at least the first, you know, few months.

So you have mentioned now recovery a couple of times. Obviously, we all have an idea what recovery means and what it means to recover from a breakup, but you know, there is always this one breakup that is sort of sort of the threshold of all breakups where you really understand, okay, this is something different.

I never felt like that. And can you explain a little bit more what do you mean when you say recovering from a breakup? If is this something that you see um possible? Because in many ways, I believe that breakups also resemble some kind of death, obviously not in the same sense, but it's also the ending of something, the ending of a chapter.

So, how would you approach this type of grief?

I think there's a distinction between breakup and heartbreak. Not every breakup is a heartbreak. Sometimes we we break up with people and you know it doesn't affect us that much, or we get broken up with, and it's like, okay, we're a little bit upset, you know, maybe for a couple of months, but it doesn't feel like an earth-shattering, soul-destroying kind of experience.

Um, and I think that's what's so interesting about heartbreak. And I think as as a as a breakup coach, most of the time I deal with people who are going through heartbreak, not just a breakup. And I would define heartbreak as a loss that is so monumental that it's actually several losses in one.

It's not only the loss of your ex, but it's also a loss of, you know, a certain vision that you had for your life, maybe a version of yourself, maybe a community that you had with your ex. Maybe it was, you know, very interwoven lives, or maybe it's just an idea, you know, because sometimes I think heartbreak can even happen in like a very short relationship or situationship, because the the wound can be more about rejection

or abandonment. You know, those kind of wounds can get triggered. So I would say heartbreak is a much deeper experience. Um, breakup is the action, heartbreak is the experience that we have, not with every breakup, but that's the experience I would say most people would seek a breakup recovery coach for.

And the second part of your question, which is like, what is recovery? Um, I agree with you. I think a lot of times, you know, we have exes or relationships that end that we're always gonna like somehow have that pain with us, you know, and um we're gonna always have a memory of that person, or we're gonna think about them once in a while.

So I don't really believe in recovery being like, I'm never gonna think about that person again, or they're never gonna cross my mind, or I'm literally gonna forget them. Like, I don't think that's realistic. I think it just means that it's not gonna, you know, consume you any longer.

I don't think recovery or getting over someone is like a simple binary of like, I'm not over them, or I'm over them. You know, it's more about like not letting that grief that could last forever, like consume you or drive your decision making in the future.

And you can just kind of be at peace with maybe a small part of that sadness or a small memory of that person, like being always with you, but you know, you you can still continue your life without it, and you can fall in love and you can do other things, you know.

I think one specific thing that many people who just broke up with someone or who who got rejected or you know went through a relationship and ended in some type of way, they always come with the question, is it even possible to stay friends with this person?

What is your take on this?

I think definitely like it is possible because um human relationships are so creative. Like, I'm always uh amazed at how us humans like manage to infuse our relationships with creativity. Um, I think it's definitely possible, especially if the relationship, you know, was mostly healthy and enough time has passed.

And I think a good litmus test is like, would you be okay with your ex like being with someone else, you know, and maybe hang out with them and their partner or like know about this and not feel triggered or not feel like super upset.

I think when you reach that stage, like, yeah, why not have a friendship, you know, if you can. I think um also like having those kind of friendships in in real life, like it's best to not be like super best friends, you know, like it's just like another kind of friend, an acquaintance or someone you catch up with once in a while.

Like, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I just think that when people are fresh out of breakup, sometimes they resort to thinking, you know, maybe we can just be friends as a way to avoid processing that loss when it's really not in their best interest to do so, and it I can actually make things more complicated and more painful.

So tell me, if I'm now a person who recently or I'm going through a breakup and I want to work with you, what would working with you look like for me? And what is um what what can I expect from working with you?

Sure. So uh people can contact me on my social media. I have an Instagram and I have a Facebook that um, yeah, you can find, I guess, in the description of the podcast. And basically, I would first ask the person, you know, what is their situation and learn a little bit about their situation.

And then I would ask them also like what are their goals, like their short-term and long-term goals. So short-term goals of like, let's say in one month, you know, where do you want to be emotionally? And then in three months, where do you want to be emotionally?

And you would be surprised that it really looks very different for everyone because uh people's breakup experiences are very different. So some people would be like, you know, my goal is to um get out get back out there and date again.

And someone might be like, My goal is to not have this bitterness in my heart anymore, or my goal is like to fill the breakup void with some other passion or hobby, or someone's like, my goal is I want to uh learn how to co-parent, for example, with my ex without feeling um, you know, very triggered about this.

So everyone's goals are really different, and everyone's situation is very different. It's not like a one solution fits all. So the first step is actually understanding the other person's situation and like what recovery looks like for them. And then I have a three-month program where I coach people through breakup recovery, and I like to work with people for around three months, and then after that, you know, usually they're in a much better place than when we

started and they're and we're able to end our work there. But sometimes we also extend um if the person feels like they need that support.

What would you do if someone came to you with a clear vision that they want this um relationship back or that they want to, you know, fight for the relationship? Um, how would you approach something like that?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's very specific to that situation, but I would say I really believe that the path to breakup recovery and if you want your ex back, there's so much overlap between these two paths. Because in both cases, you need to be able to get to a good emotional state so that you can reflect accurately about whether you want this relationship back or not.

Because sometimes we want this relationship back because we're in pain, not necessarily because it's in our best interest. So that's how I would handle that. I would first make sure that they are um get them to a place where they're a little bit stable so that they can evaluate this question neutrally, not out of a place of pain.

And then I think, you know, working on yourself or developing certain relationship skills, uh, because you maybe that was the reason for the breakup in the first place, it also overlaps with like finding a new relationship and working on yourself.

Do you get what I mean? So a lot of times, like the path is the same, but also I would say I would caution my client to be like, you should focus on things that are in your control and not something out of outside of your control.

And me as a breakup coach, I cannot promise someone. That, you know, I can get their ex back or something like that, you know? Um, and I wouldn't encourage them to focus on something that's so outside of their control, but like I think it's okay to want that.

You know what I mean? And I think it's very human to want that, especially if you didn't want the breakup. I just would want them to understand that, you know, uh they would still be getting some a lot out of recovery, even if they didn't get their ex back.

You know, I often encounter people who have a hard time accessing their emotions or understanding their emotions, even so they would rather suppress them and do a lot of things to, you know, distract themselves. Uh, some of it could be maybe beneficial, but most times it's really not.

Then they um confide, if you will, in alcohol or other substances to make sure that they don't feel the intensity of their emotions. Um, obviously, I'm not asking you for um any kind of advice when it comes to that, but how would you help someone understand their emotions better and maybe allowing them to feel what they feel without judging themselves too much?

Yeah. I think something very important that I do as a breakup coach is kind of normalize what going through a breakup looks like and feels like. Because I think a lot of people don't know how messy and chaotic and painful it is.

And a lot of times they think that something's wrong with them, they're sick, they are broken, you know, when it's like, no, you're not, this is just it really be that bad, you know, it really be that intense.

And, you know, so just letting them know that, you know, you're gonna feel a lot of chaotic emotions over this next few weeks. And this is how this experience looks like. So just kind of preparing them for what's coming ahead so they're not shocked, you know, and that they don't feel like, okay, the way I'm experiencing this breakup is very intense and it's outside of the scope of the normal breakup experience.

Like, I can guarantee you that most of the time, like, this is not true, and whatever crazy feelings and intense emotions someone's having after breakup, it's it's very much like the standard response. But everyone thinks that you know they're having such an extreme reaction and like something is wrong, you know, and I don't find that to be true, like literally 99.99% of the time.

I also think it's like it's it's okay to not want to feel all your emotions like all at once. I think you know, especially people who are not used to being uh very emotionally open or you know, have kind of had protection mechanisms within themselves to not process all their emotions all at once.

Like, I think it's very important with those kind of people to take it very slow and to kind of let them be open to that experience little by little and not all at once, and not to push them.

And I think also our brains protect us, like sometimes your brain suppresses something and then you know it unsuppresses it like a few months or a few weeks later when you are ready. And I think when that happens, that's when we should trust ourselves and trust that okay, I'm ready to now to experience another layer of this heartbreak.

And I would be guiding them through that experience.

One thing that makes makes me personally curious: do you believe that women and men experience heartbreak differently?

I think emotionally, no. I think you know, we we are all wired quite similarly, but I think like the meaning that we give to the breakup and mentally the way that we process it could be different. Like I find, for example, with a lot of men, they if they don't get closure, they're kind of more okay with being accepting towards that, you know.

They might still be in pain, but they're like, halas, it doesn't matter, you know, it's over, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter what the reason was, it's over, and like that's what matters, you know? And they're still in a lot of pain, but mentally they kind of shut down this part that might spiral into questioning, you know, but why did it happen this way?

Why did I do wrong? Why did, you know, um, why did they say this in that way? And I think with women, they have tendency um a lot of times to to fall into that rabbit hole of questioning.

And this is very cultural as well, because um, you know, I think uh societally women are always kind of seen as very emotional, or they could be the problem, or the goalposts of how to be a good partner for a woman, they're always changing.

So a lot of people, a lot of women internalize those messages and automatically think that they are the problem, even if they're not. Even if I listen to that relationship and so clear, you know, the other party was like the one who was causing harm or in the wrong or was being toxic, blah, blah, blah.

Like a lot of women internalize that. Um, and I think with men, they they don't do that as much. But I don't think pain-wise, it's different or the emotional experience is different. I think maybe just the meaning around it can change slightly.

I I don't really subscribe into feeling like women and men are so different because we are all so different.

What advice would you give someone who is still in a relationship and they have a hard time getting out of it? Whether it is because it's a toxic relationship, obviously that's a very specific case, but let's say it's a very toxic relationship, or on the other hand, if they are in a relationship and they are afraid that they couldn't do any better and so they just stick around.

I think the first step, which is very important, is having self-compassion, especially in a toxic situation, because I think in a toxic situation, a lot of times we tend to internalize the blame, the guilt, thinking that we are the problem, etc.

So when you start to exercise a little bit of self-compassion and putting your reactions into context and seeking other perspectives outside of your own, this is very important. And for someone who doesn't believe that there's better out there, uh, I totally understand that feeling, and I've been there a lot of times, but I think for that person, they have to start experimenting with the idea that life can be very fulfilling, even if alone, you know, and

even it's it can be so rich and so good. You can build such a nice life alone, and it would be so much better than being in a situation that you're not happy in, and also having an abundance mindset because I think a lot of women, especially, they have a scarcity mindset, like there's like five good guys on on planet earth, and that's it, you know.

And maybe you had like five relationships or even ten relationships, but that's still like such a tiny sample size, you know. I think that it's really just a numbers game, you know. You gotta just go through it. They a lot of people see who's cool and see who, you know, and and not take those experiences so personally, because 99.99% of the people that you're gonna date are not gonna be the the best person for you, you

know? Um so I would start working with them on how to develop an abundance mindset around dating and to see rejection not as um rejection, but as like this was not a good fit for me.

So um, do you believe that heartbreak is, you know, or only occurs in romantic relationships, or is this something that you can see also when friendships end, or even if you break off a relationship with a family member?

So would you define this as would you define this as breakup, or is this a different type of heartbreak?

I think that that it's still a heartbreak experience. Um, and I think we should start normalizing using the word heartbreak for non-romantic situations because it definitely happens in friendships, it definitely happens when you cut off a family member.

Um, and it can be really painful and even sometimes more painful because we don't have much framework around it. Um and I've seen you know people who have been through a friend breakup that was so intense and they just didn't have the tools to deal with it or didn't find the right resources that talk about how painful it can be, that they got their wires crossed and they thought that maybe I was in love with my

friend, you know, because for them, heartbreak only existed in a romantic context, you know what I mean? So they automatically would think maybe I had romantic feelings for my friend or something like that, but maybe not. Like maybe it was just a friend heartbreak, it was a different kind of heartbreak.

But the only language that we have to talk about heartbreak is usually romantic, and I think we should change that, you know. And um, I've definitely experienced like a friend heartbreak that I still carry with me, like today sometimes, like in small parts, and I think I will, you know, for the rest of my life.

And that was probably one of my biggest heartbreaks in in my life, you know, it was with a friend, not with a partner, not with a romantic partner. So I definitely think uh heartbreaks and breakups can exist in many different forms outside of romance.

Yeah, I agree with that. Nora, I love what you have had to share with us. If you want, you can share your Instagram handle, your Facebook, but I will also link everything in the description so can so people can find you if they would like to reach out to you.

But tell me a little bit more what your three-month program looks like. You told me before that it's like a whole package that people have a lot of access to you, um, they can talk to you a lot.

And even if you know they find themselves struggling within, you know, the day, maybe during the night. I don't know. Just explain to me what you do and how that would look like if I decided, for example, I want to reach out to you and work with you.

Sure. So yeah, I have a three-month package. Um, sometimes I talk to people and I don't feel like they need that long. Maybe they need a shorter time. But my standard package is three months and it's basically designed for someone who is fresh out of a breakup.

And um yeah, we would have uh 12 sessions, weekly sessions. Every week we would talk and check in with each other, but also between sessions, and this is something I think quite special, and not a lot of breakup coaches have this, is that you can talk to me in between sessions.

And I think this is especially useful for someone who is fresh out of a breakup and you know might have moments of crisis or moments where I don't know, something happens, their ex reaches out, they don't know what to do.

So I would be available also between sessions. And another thing that I offer is I would create, you know, a lot of exercises specifically for my client's situation. So a lot of like journal prompts and exercises that they can do on their own that are not generic stuff, but things that are tailored for their own situation.

And a lot of times I design like from scratch custom uh exercises or journal prompts for my clients according to their situation. And you guys can find me through my website, which is breakupcoachnora.com. I spell my name N-O-R-A.

So breakupcoachnora.com. I have uh the same name on Instagram and on Facebook as well. You can find me uh by my name. So my name is Nora N-O-R-A, and my last name on Facebook is Drehlati, so R-I-H-L-A-T-I. And yeah, you guys can find all my links on my websites, which is breakupcoachnora.com.

Uh, I understand that the first intake, if you will, or the first conversation that you have with a potential client is for free. Is that still the case for you? Okay, perfect.

Exactly. So if people are interested, we can set up like what I call an inquiry call, and that's where I learn about your situation. If I determine if I can help you, and usually people find a lot of value even in this first conversation.

Perfect. Thank you so much, Nora. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and your insight. And yeah, I'm very excited to see you grow and to see where your journey is taking you. And I really, really love what you do.

As I said, I'm very curious, but also very careful when it comes to coaches. But I think you do something amazing, and I really hope it takes off the way you want.

Thank you so much, Iman, for having me today.