E109 - (PA)The Reason You're Emotionally Exhausted & Keep Ruminating On Your Narcissistic Ex

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[00:00:00] If you are wondering why you are so emotionally exhausted and you keep ruminating on your narcissistic ex today, I am breaking it all down for you.

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Speaker: Welcome to Heartbreak to Wholeness, the podcast helping you heal from the mindfuck of narcissistic relationships and move towards the secure, peaceful woman you want to become. I am your host, Bre Wolta, Relationship Clarity Coach and EFT Certified Practitioner. Let's dive in.

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Hello and welcome back. Okay, so you have walked out of a relationship and your heart is trying to move on, but your mind, your mind is still like in the freaking parking lot doing the detective work with a magnifying glass that she wasn't even supposed to have. .

So you're, you're like waking up with this pit in your stomach and you are catching yourself wondering what he's doing. And you are replaying arguments like you're prepping for a fricking court case or you're deep diving down his new girlfriend's [00:01:00] Instagram.

And it is so confusing and maddening. So I see you and this episode is for you. Today, I'm really breaking it all down, like, what the hell is going on? Why your brain keeps looping on someone that you know is not good for you, what it all means, and how you can actually shift out of it.

Before you panic of like, does this mean that I want this person back? I want you to know that the rumination and the obsession, obsessive thinking around this person does not mean that you still want him back or that you still really love him. We are gonna talk all about it and be sure to stick around to the end of the episode where I'll pull an Oracle card that will offer you a message that you can use to stay more conscious in your healing this week.

So Let's take a deep breath and begin.

I wonder if you can relate to this. Waking up in the morning, rolling over and immediately having that heart drop moment where you just like sink into your stomach. You start to [00:02:00] feel anxiety and you immediately reach over to your phone to see if he texted you, even though you don't really want him to text you.

And while you're laying in this empty bed looking at the phone, that does not have a text message there, you feel this surge of loneliness. And you know you shouldn't go to Instagram, but you go to Instagram and when you open it, what is the first thing that you see a picture with your ex and his new girlfriend?

So of course you click on the woman and start scrolling and scrolling and scrolling through her entire life history to try to figure out who she is, why she's so special, how she got him to change and what she has that you don't have all the while. Feeling rage and jealousy and sadness, which altogether is a cocktail of emotions that feels confusing. And if that wasn't enough, you [00:03:00] all of a sudden have this like gut punch moment of realization of, I'm not enough.

That must be why

I am not enough. Which leads you then into replaying conversations from months ago trying to understand why he said that. Why he pulled away what you did wrong?

Just dissecting every single moment of the relationship that didn't make sense. I have a client right now who shared with me that while she was in the thick of it, when she got pulled super, super far down into the the Y rabbit hole, she actually called out of work several days because she could not.

Stop herself from combing through his social media, from combing through his girlfriend's social media, from reviewing her own journals, trying to make sense of what happened through what she was saying at that point in time. She was taking deep dives down the YouTube rabbit holes too, [00:04:00] and trying to understand trauma bonds and narcissism and codependency and attachment issues she was just searching and she spent several days missing work,

vacillating from Fuck Him to I miss him to, I wonder if he's missing me and what she did wrong and how she could change, and maybe she wants him back and it just took her down.

So I understand that feeling of like, you physically left and you thought that leaving the relationship would take the chaos with you, take it out of your mind. But there's, there's so many questions left unanswered that the chaos is still spinning in your brain and that constant scanning and analyzing and obsessing.

It's almost draining you more than the relationship actually did.

And I know that you are really like dedicated to your self-healing and you've probably tried journaling and maybe that hasn't shifted it. You've probably tried blocking him just to unblock [00:05:00] him because immediately you feel guilty about what he must think about you blocking him. And it feels just like a, like a mental war.

Like you feel guilty for still caring what he thinks, even though he has hurt you in ways that are unspeakable. You feel like a fraud because you feel so lost in him, so powerless in him. Even though people in other parts of your life at work or with your friends or in your family really look up to you, look, look to you for the answer, and you're over here spiraling downward because you can't figure what the fuck is going on inside your own brain.

You are probably wondering on some level, like, is something wrong with me? Where did that confident clear woman who handled shit, where did she go? And maybe you feel weak because you're thinking about somebody who really hurt you and you're probably asking yourself, why can't I just get over it? He was not good for me.

I know it was not good for me yet. [00:06:00] I can't stop going down these mental loops So there's a lot of like beating yourself up to put it very bluntly and simply. There's a lot of judgment happening in your brain. And on top of the judgment, on top of the rumination, it's hard to focus at work. It's hard to focus on your kids because your brain keeps drifting back to him. You keep getting swooped up in his tide.

You're exhausted all of the time. That emotional drain, that emotional exhaustion feels like it is just, you can never replenish. It doesn't matter how much sleep you get, it doesn't matter if you go for hikes. It doesn't matter if you try yoga. It is never replenishing. I like have this visual of a bathtub and you have the faucet on trying to fill the bathtub up, but the drain is open and water's draining out faster than the faucet can put it back in.

So you're just in this constant state of unease.

You might also be really feeling a lot of anxiety, [00:07:00] especially like looking at your phone like it's a landmine When a notification pops up and you get that full bo full body jolt, or maybe you like hold your breath, even your heart sinks, your stomach tenses, and you're like, is it him? Is it him either because you want it on some level to be him, or is it him because you're panicking that you actually did block him and he's found a way to come through.

It is so activating on so many levels, and when you are that activated all of the time, of course you're exhausted because your adrenals are like, what the fuck, man? We're not supposed to be pumping 24 hours a day. So many of your facilities are being used towards this person and making sense of it, and you really wanted to leave the relationship to get your piece back, and it feels even harder now that you're out of the relationship. It feels like there's even more chaos happening in your brain than maybe there was even in the relationship.

So to go back to that word, maddening. [00:08:00] It's maddening. It's maddening to feel that, and a lot of my clients are really confused as to why there's this period of time after the relationship often where they're feeling this. Why they're so stuck on figuring out why, figuring out him, seeking the answer from him,

and what I share with them, is the reason that you're trying to figure out the why is because you think that if you understand it, you'll finally be able to move on. Or if you can make sense of it, then you can finally not feel stupid for staying for so long. , or maybe if I don't keep analyzing and replaying and going over these notes to make sure I've learned my lesson, I'm going to fall for someone like him again. And what's happening here is that you have a part of you that is convinced that by focusing on him, albeit draining as fuck, and not really helpful for your whole system, focusing on him is the [00:09:00] solution to not feeling imprisoned, to finding clarity, to not feeling stupid, and to like stop feeling so terribly heartbroken.

This part of you has the solution. The solution is him. This part thinks that it's gonna come from him,

so if we can see that part of you that's focused on him and the why as a part that is trying to keep you safe, that's trying to like mitigate pain, even though her tactics are a little bit outdated and maybe not helpful. We know that the reason that you're obsessing, that you keep driving towards finding out why

it's not because you're still in love with the person, it's because your nervous system is trying to find safety,

which means that the answer is not figuring him out or figuring out his motives. It's calming you. The healing really starts when you stop trying to to solve this mystery of him and turn all of that energy [00:10:00] back inside to heal the wounds inside you. Because healing from these types of narcissistic relationships and the confusion and the gaslighting and the manipulation takes all of your resources.

So you're not able to actually do that if you're still projecting all of your energy outward on him. Moving on is not about seeking answers from external. It's about regulation, it's about grounding, it's about clarity and returning back home to yourself.

Which is why in my coaching programs, we really focus on four things that have nothing to do with him. The first is tending to your nervous system, to bringing calm back in your body from that constant stress and anxiety and hyper vigilance. The second is understanding your patterns, so really gaining clarity around your deeper beliefs and protective parts

so that you can see why you react the way you do.

The third thing we're doing is processing your pain, safely, feeling and [00:11:00] releasing these big, overwhelming emotions that you can no longer be stuck in rumination or rage or confusion. And the fourth thing we're doing is actually shifting.

Coming back to yourself and leading from that self-love place with the tools to manage these triggering emotions so that you can show up calm and confident and boundaried in all of your relationships.

So if you're in the place right now where you're like, I don't think healing from this is possible, I don't know how I'll ever stop thinking about him while I'll ever find freedom or let go of him, actually, I want you to know that there's hope. You can get to a place where he is no longer the first thing that you're thinking about when you wake up or all, all during the day, or the last thing you think about at night and the thing that you're dreaming about while you're asleep.

Like it doesn't have to be this all consuming voice that's rattling in your head.

So if you're here, if you're listening and you're like, Brie, I am so beyond exhausted, [00:12:00] totally and completely exhausted from this overthinking, from analyzing from ruminating, from trying to figure out why and frustrated that nothing is working to help you shift away from this consuming relationship that's already taken so many years of your life, you are not alone.

I specifically help women who have left these relationships break the mental cycle, break the rumination, stop the self blame, . And get out of that emotional overwhelm so that they can feel peace again.

I know that you are so ready for your brain to quiet down and your heart to stop feeling hijacked and your energy to come back. So I want you to go to the show notes and schedule your free intro session with me.

This is a time that we'll spend really diving into what it is that's happening for you, and I can share how I can help you actually shift your real life experience.

That link is in the show notes.

Okay. And to end for today, we'll pull an Oracle card. So I'm just tuning in [00:13:00] to ask what is the message that wants to come through for you today? And we got lay it down. So let me find, lay it down in the book and I will read to you what it says. You have been carrying your shit for too long. It's time to lay it down.

What started as a simple, generous act of carrying someone else's load has snowballed into the boulder that weighs you down. Maybe you are so used to it that you think you love it or that it connects you to your identity, or that it was always yours to hold. Allow yourself to remember that the burden you bear is no longer serving you.

Lay it down, let it roll away. You might even miss it. You might even miss it initially, or look around for it. Lay it down. Feel the relief as you step forward in lightness and freedom, knowing that you only need to carry what you are willing to hold. I can't, I can't pick these better than they come out by themselves.

I couldn't do it. So receive that. Receive that permission to lie it down to no longer [00:14:00] carry what is not yours to hold. Please schedule that intro session. I cannot wait to meet you and help you find some relief. So until I see you in the next episode, please remember that you are not alone.