E054 - How To Cope With Loneliness After Heartbreak During The Holidays
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[00:00:00] Is it feeling impossible to be in grief and navigate the holidays? Today, we are talking about how you cope with loneliness during the holidays. When you have just experienced heartbreak.
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.
The most magical time of the year. It can feel like the hardest time of the year. If you have just gone through a breakup. So I wanted to bring some attention to how we can be with grief and heartbreak. And enjoy your holiday season all at the same time. So in this episode, you'll understand better.
Why pretending. That you're fine at holiday parties when you're just crying in your car five minutes ago is not helping you move on.
You're going to learn how to actually connect with loved ones despite being in heartbreak so that you can enjoy the [00:01:00] holiday season. And you're going to feel some inspiration to honor where you are while also envisioning a relationship that you desire in the future. And remember to stick around to the end of the episode, where I will pull an Oracle card that will offer you a specific message that you can use this week to stay more conscious in your healing.
It is officially the holiday season. Which to even say out loud, it feels insane because it feels like this year just flew right on by. And there have been different points in my life where I have been singled during holiday seasons.
And as I was thinking about what I wanted to share on the podcast, as we moved into this more challenging time. A journal entry that I had written came back to me and I was like, oh, I want to go back and read that because I remember that being really profound. I don't know if you've had that experience where you've written in a journal and then read it back later.
And you're like, who was that? That must have been my higher self that was writing for me. And the [00:02:00] theme of this journal entry was about loneliness during the holidays about the saying that we're in the most magical time of the year. And I remember coming out of my last toxic relationship and I was like, I'm in the most lonely time of the year. This is the time where it's really thrown in your face.
If you are not with a significant other at the holiday parties, you don't have a significant other to buy a gift for you don't have anybody sitting around the tree with you. And I wanted to really sit with that feeling of, is it the most magical or is it the most lonely?
So in this journal entry, I was really sitting with the pain. I was about six ish months out of my last toxic relationship. And had been going through absolute health for all of those six months in the post-separation abuse that was happening.
And I was really struggling to hold the beauty of the holidays with also this very [00:03:00] complicated and nuanced grief that I was feeling. That accompanies the end of these types of relationships.
The holidays surrounds you with all of these romcoms, all of these holiday movies. These gift buying guides for him or her.
These festive parties, including a plus one.
And then there was me. Sitting in this new house that I had just moved into because I had to leave the last one for my safety. Sitting snuggled up in a blanket, my Christmas tree sparkling next to me, a candle that in front of me, Just feeling sad.
Just feeling this loneliness in my heart.
So, if you were moving through this season, single and feeling really alone and concerned that you're going to be alone forever, and you're never going to find someone to spend the holidays with. And you feel this tug in your heart. I see you. I feel you. I was, you.
It is so hard to see couples, missile towing to, to see couples. [00:04:00] Supposedly happy. Right. We don't know how their actual relationships are, but outwardly. Kissing and enjoying each other and spending time together and doing fun wintery things together. It's hard to watch love actually, or the holiday. And not get pissed off that you are not Cameron Diaz and haven't found Juba. I'm found the love of your life.
And it's really hard to walk into that family gathering where maybe your family doesn't know about the separation. Maybe you're seeing like extended family and you get asked 700 different times what happened. Are you okay? It's intense.
And I remember writing in this journal entry. That even though it was intense, even though it was really painful that I had felt a rightness. I felt a rightness around leaving. That I knew that that was still the right decision to make, even though this heartbreak that I was in felt so unbearably [00:05:00] strong.
I knew that I had made the right decision that was in alignment with the woman that I wanted to be. With what I needed in order to allow myself to actually grow and flourish as a woman.
I knew that the decision to leave was forma highest invest, even though my current self was very much in distress and pain and suffering and confusion.
So again, I was having these real tug of war moments with myself where on one hand I knew what was right. The other hand, I was really alone. On one hand, I was having a hard time spending. I connected time with people who were coupled or with people who are happy or we're just people in general who are not going through grief, because I felt like I was in such a hard. Spot that nobody understood.
So how do I balance connection with being alone
and how do I look at people who are partnered while also wanting a loving connection while also being pissed that I don't have it while also being sad that it just ended.
And it was fucking hard. [00:06:00] It is so hard to try to find a duality in being able to give yourself permission, to feel both of those things, to feel your loneliness and to feel the joy.
But it was really empowering in those moments that I was able to hold both.
Because I noticed in myself that things became a lot harder when I was trying to avoid the loneliness. When I was trying to pretend that I was okay when I had gone to the holiday party, even though I was just crying in my car five seconds earlier. It was really hard for me to try to put on that fake ness and it wasn't until I. Allowed myself.
I gave myself permission to be sad during the holidays. That I could then find these moments of joy.
If you're familiar with Brenae brown, she has a very famous quote that says that
you can not numb the dark without also numbing the light.
So if you push away one, you're pushing away the other. If you're [00:07:00] limiting your capacity for loneliness, you're also limiting your capacity for joy.
' cause num is numb and we just stay at this baseline level of numb. I'm fine. Pretend land. And I didn't want to be there. I wanted really to allow myself to feel while also allowing myself to be in the joy and not make that wrong.
Numb was a state of being an emotion. Uh, state of emotion that I had that was very familiar, especially in my teens and in my twenties. Where I didn't understand. I didn't know how to process feelings. I didn't know how to be with my body. I didn't know how to understand these different ranges of experiences. And so I just numbed, I numbed with food.
I numbed with exercise. I numbed with men. I just numbed to a place where I was like, I'm fine. How can I help you? I'm fine. How can I rescue [00:08:00] you? And so I was very, very, very clear with myself that I didn't want to numb anymore.
I didn't want to be asleep in my life. I wanted to be awake to the pain and to the joy.
And that decision. Was a tough one because it opened space for me to feel things that I hadn't felt in 10 years. To be with feelings that I wasn't experienced being with. Recognizing the trauma from my last relationship, the trauma from childhood, my patterns, all of these things that were so hard to see also allowed me to then feel the euphoria and the excitement and the relief. That also came as part of this. Weird grieving experience that I was having at the end of this relationship.
It is not the easy option. It is not easy to be with our feelings, no matter what feelings we're having, no matter what guilt is coming up because of those feelings. But to be able to hold a magic and loneliness together in the [00:09:00] same holiday season. Is a gift.
And allows you to more accurately be with that question of, will I be alone forever? It allows you to hold space for the fear that you will. And for the possibility that you won't. And the more that we can become curious about these feelings, the more compassion we can show ourselves. Of, of course you feel like this is not possible for you.
Of course you feel like you're going to be alone forever. And I know we're going to be okay. I know that after every breakup in the past, I have found a next person. And I know that I'm so dedicated in my healing and have the right people around me that I'm going to make better, healthier choices for the next relationship that I'm in.
I understand myself different now, and we're able to have this dialogue with ourself. From our higher self that is reassuring. It's comforting. It's reparenting [00:10:00] herself in those moments of fear saying, sweetie, I understand that you're fucking terrified and we're going to be okay. And we're able to be with these feelings.
We have the coping skills to be with these feelings. It's such a game shifter when we're able to acknowledge and just be with what is instead of trying to push it away.
I know when I asked myself that question, will I be alone forever? I thought I would. I was like a hundred percent. Yes. On a hundred percent prepared, of that, because of the experience I had just come out of.
I had been through such terror. With my last relationship and through such pain that I was not really convinced that there were good men out there. And I was definitely not wanting to get into a relationship like I had just been in. So the answer to that question for me was yes. For a period of time during my healing, that was coming from fear. So fear that I was too much fear that I wasn't enough fear that I was never [00:11:00] gonna find a man who wasn't manipulative or narcissistic or otherwise psychotic that was going to hurt me again. It was coming from that place of, I need to protect and something is wrong with me. And as I moved to the healing journey, as I got more curious about myself, as I healed some of that trauma that had happened with my ex. As I came back into this, understanding this knowing of who I was at the very core,
Then the answer to that question became. Uh, yes. Because I want to. Will I be alone forever. It was, I really did think I was going to, and I had come to this place of acceptance. That I would rather be alone than to settle ever again. And when I made that shift and that has to be a natural shift, we can't just. Like strong arm, our way into that, knowing we have to move through all of the range. Of feelings around the last [00:12:00] relationship that we had to be able to come into that self-respect place. Of like I would rather be alone.
I am a strong fucking independent woman. Who's bad-ass that is not going to settle anymore. And once I hit that place, then I met John. And then I met my now partner. And as I'm filming this, I am eight months pregnant with our baby. Which is something I also never thought was going to happen. I had to come to the acceptance. That I was alone in that moment and would be okay being alone until whatever point that I was not settling. In order for that energy to shift for me.
So trust yourself. Trust your ability to be with these hard emotions. And to keep putting one foot in front of the other to keep moving forward during specifically this holiday season. Whenever triggers come up, being able to acknowledge and name them for yourself and not make them wrong. Meeting yourself with compassion. Compassion compassion.
[00:13:00] Compassion is what I tell my clients all of the time to the point of ad nauseum for them. But we have to meet ourselves with compassion in order to move forward in the healing. So I want you to hold onto and think about. What is the magic that's available for you? This holiday season?
How can you honor your loneliness and connection with people that are safe and that you love this holiday?
How can you give yourself the space to feel the freedom? And the lightness and the relief that came from the ending of your last relationship while also embracing the sadness and the grief. Around letting go of how you had envisioned it turning out to be.
And how can you walk down the street and see that couple sharing, that disgusting cup of hot chocolate and kissing in the snow. Without freaking out. And instead, knowing that that is possible for you at some point in the future, too. So taking some time in journaling on these things, thinking about these [00:14:00] things, meditating in these things. . We'll help you be with where you are and therefore help you see what is possible in your future. I believe in you. Do you, that is the real question. To end these episodes. I always pull an Oracle card and we're just going to ask the deck today. What is the message that the audience needs to hear? And one just came out very clearly flew out of the deck. It is called look up precious. And if you're not watching the video, it looks like a woman like her face with tears coming down, her eyes.
So, let me find the message in the book. And here's what it says. Look up precious shame. Doesn't live here. Raise your eyes and stand tall. Others may have hurt you or sent you messages that you are not enough. They were wrong. You are enough. You are lovable. You are whole look up precious reminds you that you are worthy.
No need to [00:15:00] cast your gaze down any longer. Raise your eyes and find your balance. Be courageous and people'd look around you and see your place. Look up precious gives you the ability to spin and dance with a 360 degree view of this world. Where you are perfectly placed and perfectly whole. Such a beautiful message to complete. The longer message in this episode. A reminder to you that it is okay. I hope this episode leaves you with a sense of permission. To feel both the magic and the loneliness in this holiday. To be able to sit with all of the feelings that you're feeling. Honor the feelings that you're feeling. And reach out for connection and support with those who love you, who want to be there with you. And to just allow yourself to be exactly where you are in this holiday. To meet yourself with that question of will I be alone forever? To think about what that [00:16:00] really means to you to think about if your answer is coming from. The place of fear like mine was, or the place of empowerment, like minded.
This time of year gets to be both the most magical and the most lonely.
And that is okay. We are complex human beings that can hold duality. We can hold a range of emotions.
And if you are fresh off of a breakup, and this really is resonating for you,
I want you to go back to episode 25, it's called what to do after the breakup four steps to help you heal. I'm going to link that in the show notes below,
that will give you some really actionable items to help you. Just start to move through and be with the grief that you're in.
I'm wishing you such a beautiful holiday. Even if it is just one tiny moment of being able to feel the magic within your loneliness. This holiday season. As always this podcast is for you and you are not alone. I will see you in the next episode.
[00:17:00]