The 4 Stages of Breakup
Breakup Stage 1:
The Fall - Drowning in the Ocean of Emotion
The Analogy
There was likely a time in your relationship with your partner where it felt like you were on the summit of a mountain.
But somewhere along the way, you’ve both been pushed to the edge of your capacity with one another.
If you’ve been left, your breakup can feel like being suddenly pushed off a cliff by your partner.
Whether you initiated the ending of the relationship or not, you experience the falling into what I call “the Ocean of Emotion 🌊”
Alone now after the breakup, you’re desperately trying to keep your head above the waters as you navigate the ongoing waves of hurt, longing, anger, anxiousness and panic.
It’s not uncommon to feel shock and disbelief that the breakup is even happening.
Common Thoughts
“It feels like my whole world is falling apart.”
“I don’t know how I can move on without them.”
“I’ve never experienced anything this painful.”
“How long is this feeling going to last for?”
My Story
When my partner said those terrifying words “I can’t do this anymore.” my whole body froze. I felt like I was emotionally paralyzed and had no understanding or ability to speak in that moment.
I remember going to my friends house and feeling utter terror and sadness, like a deep pit in my belly. I couldn’t stomach the reality of our relationship ending and not having her in my life anymore.
Most morning I woke up feeling anxious and empty. Prior to this, I hadn’t experience anxiousness on such a visceral level day to day.
I used to be excited to go to work but I could barely focus on carrying a conversation when I was there.
The little things that I used to enjoy, I have no motivation to do and had very little interest for after the breakup.
The feeling a being alone, particularly at night, was excruciating.
To help me cope, I spent time with my friends. At first, their company and soothing words, “everything will be fine” helped at the time.
But I could tell after re-telling the story again and again, that they were getting bothered that I wasn’t getting any better.
Hearing them say “You just need to move on,” hurt even more.
I felt like I wasn’t heard and that even my closest friends couldn’t understand what I was going through.
I saw them less out of respect for them and felt more alone than I began with.
Why Your Breakup is so Emotionally Painful?
When you enter into a relationship with someone, the two of you bond to become one physiological unit.
This means that by being in proximity and relationship to one another, you are influencing one another’s mental and emotional well being.
Research has shown that partner’s regulate each other’s blood pressure, heart rate, breathing and hormone levels.
Our ancestors before civilization were dependent on other people for their survival in the wild and thus, has evolved to become a part of our biological and emotional makeup as a human being.
Being in partnership with someone is a necessary attachment.
Therefore, it is to no surprise that when a relationship ends, the body signals the alarm bell in the form of anxious thoughts and physical panic - as a breakup to the body is a perceived threat to the safety and security you felt in your attachment to your partner.
And though, you’ll objectively survive this experience and life does go on “a breakup is perceived as a stressor by the body, and the body doesn’t distinguish whether that stressor comes in the form of a broken heart or a lion chasing you. The body will respond to both in the same way.” - Erika Martinez, Psy.D.,
A breakup can feel as if it were life or death.
Unfortunately, unlike the immediate fleeing from a lion, overcoming a breakup can take a long time.
The stress symptoms (tightening of the chest, restricted breathing, exhaustion, lack of focus) can carry on for long periods of time, unless you do something about it.
This is why this 1st Stage is called The Fall.
It is the experience of perpetually falling from the familiar and stable ground of a relationship and into the uncertainty of not knowing what to do, where to go, and when will it be over?
To add another ingredient to the soup, Susan Anderson, an expert on abandonment recovery says that “being left by someone we love can open up old wounds, stirring up insecurities and doubts that had been part of our emotional baggage since childhood.”
She continues to share that an abandonment is a primal fear - that of being left alone with no one to protect us. The ending of a relationship arouses this fear, which is embedded in the hardware of your brain.
Given the various ways that a breakup can affect someone, it is no wonder a breakup can feel so emotionally overwhelming and painful.
As difficult as it may be - like an apple falling from a tree, there is an opportunity to harvest life-changing fruit from this experience.
The choice here is between numbing and distracting this vulnerability with alcohol, shopping or work or courageously embracing the Journey of growth and change.
However, without guidance or community, it is easy to get swept away by the current of the “Ocean of Emotion 🌊,”
There is a way forward if you’re sincere and committed, but be weary of the gravitational pull of Stage 2 - where the cycle of stress can repeat itself. 👇
Breakup Stage 2:
Craving - Searching for Lost Love
The Analogy
The confusion and panic of this Stage is characterized as an uncontrollable yearning and craving for your ex.
The constant “Ocean of Emotion 🌊” is often too overbearing to endure and so the impulse is to try to climb back up the steep cliff to where we fell from.
This can come in the form of obsessive thoughts about your ex, constantly checking their social media to see how they’re doing or staying in touch through text.
These attempts typically result in more hurt and anxiousness when they don’t respond or you discover they’re with someone else already.
You slip off the side of the cliff again, back where you began.
Common Thoughts
“I’ll never find someone like them”
“I still love them and I can’t imagine myself with anyone else.”
“I wonder if they still miss me, or have they moved on and they’re happier now?”
“How could they move on so quickly, our relationship meant nothing to them”
“If I can show them I’ve changed, they’ll come back”
My Story
All throughout the day, I was thinking about my ex and cycling through all the events in the relationship. The thoughts were constant.
If my phone had a notifications, I quickly checked to see if it was her texting me.
She didn’t have much on her social media, but I recall checking it anyways - looking through her photos again.
We lived in the same neighbourhood and I secretly hoped we would bump into each other on the street. At the same time, I had the crushing fear of seeing her with someone else.
At my worse, when there were no signs of her coming back, I called her on the phone out of desperation.
I beg and pleaded to try to get back together.
I even managed to convince her to see a therapist together.
But after a couple sessions, she gave up and felt even more devastated after getting my hopes up that things could work out.
Before all of this, I was a decently calm and level-headed person.
But after the breakup, I really did feel like I was going “crazy.”
I just wanted to feel “normal” again and get back to living my life without all this confusion and stress.
Why You Feel Such Intense Emotional Craving for your Ex
(even when you know they’re not right for you)
This stage is incredibly painful as the searching for your lost love to return can consume your entire life.
You may find yourself dreaming about them, waking up with panic each night, mistaking others on the street as your ex or constantly thinking about the relationship.
Amir Levine and Rachel Heller describe in their book Attached why there’s this strong emotional attachment and need for them:
“when we breakup with someone, our attachment system goes into overdrive and we can think of nothing but getting back together with our loved one. The fact that one person can take away all our discomfort in a split second makes it very hard to resist the temptation to see him or her again. Just being in the same room is enough to entirely relieve the anxiety in a way that no other single friend or family member can. For this simple reason, many individuals find it hard to follow through on their wish to breakup, even after they’ve tried more than once to do it.”
Allow me to assure you, that your craving for your ex is common.
In fact, as previously mentions, it is biologically programmed in our bodies to try to “win them back.”
At the moment, you can’t imagine your future with anyone else as not too long ago, they were the ones you were physiologically attached to as a source of safety and security.
The mistake that so many make in this stage of Craving is that instead of forming new and empowered attachments with a community and receive professional support from people who understand this process, they continue to try climbing back up the cliff to what they know best.
Without a proper plan or accountability many resort to going back to their ex despite knowing they shouldn’t or drag the process of separating for way too long.
Even when there’s no contact with your partner, there are still emotional ties that keep you hooked to them, making it impossible to focus on your own life.
When you finally your ex isn’t going to return, you may find yourself internalizing the rejection as there being something wrong with you. “It must have been something you’ve done to have caused this breakup.”
Feeling powerless about the situation, you might doubt your belief in yourself and you notice your self-esteem slowly drain as time passes.
Many try to “move forward” and forget the relationship, but instead releasing the emotional attachment to their ex and create a genuine confidence in oneself from within, many tragically fall into the trap of Stage 3: The Hamster Wheel of Self Improvement 🎡
Understanding what’s happening in Stage 3 can save you many years of being desperately single, stumbling into a new relationship carrying the baggage from your breakup and repeating the same pattern again.
Breakup Stage 3
Redemption: The Hamster Wheel of Self Improvement
The Analogy
This is the turning point where you realize that you have to do something about your situation.
Drowning in the “Ocean of Emotion🌊” and trying to get support from your friends hasn’t gotten you anywhere.
Climbing back up the cliff and being consumed by the fixation around your ex is exhausting.
The powerlessness and failed attempts at reconciling the relationship has perhaps fuelled a frustration and anger within you that motivates you to make some change.
You turn to finding quick and easy escape routes that can pull you out of the “Ocean of Emotion🌊” as you’ve been sitting there too long.
This comes in the form of self-improvement: reading books and listening podcasts, changing careers, moving cities, getting fit, making more money, attracting a new relationship, traveling the world
A helicopter has thrown you a life-line for you pull yourself out. You experience a glimpse of hope and excitement at this potential change you’re immediately feeling.
But as you continue climbing up the rope towards the helicopter (reaching your goals & excelling in life), the line keeps extending and getting longer. You climb faster to catch up, but your arms are getting tired.
You hang on anyways, with the chance that maybe, if you work hard enough, you’ll eventually get to the top so that the helicopter can one day drop you back off - on the top of the mountain 🏔.
Common Thoughts
“I can’t believe I let them have power over me like that for so long.”
“I show them, when I have XYZ, they’ll realize what they missed out on.”
“I’m mad at myself for not doing anything at the time.”
“I’m better off without them now.”
“I’ve forgive them, they did the best they can. I need to focus on my life now”
My Story
I realized that my ex wasn’t going to come back. I’ve already run through my mind (and on paper) the number of reasons why she wasn’t the one for me.
It was time to move on and not feel like a victim to my emotions. I felt it all already and I was honestly tired of cycling through them again and again.
The best thing I knew to do was to improve my life and who I was so that I could be happy again, and eventually attract a better relationship.
I went to the gym almost everyday.
I went after my dream of becoming a carpenter and changed careers so I could build my own tiny house one day.
I moved into a nicer apartment in a hip part of town where all of the exciting things happened.
I joined a conscious community and started leading a weekly support group.
I travelled to Iceland and got to check off another item on my bucket list.
I eventually moved to an island by the ocean where I’ve always wanted to live and was entering into the second year of a new relationship.
Despite having everything I set myself out to achieve, it never felt like it was enough.
Things were better on paper, but underneath it all was a dissatisfaction and general numbness towards my life.
I couldn’t relax and just be happy with what I had.
I kept thinking: “When I have more money / more purpose in my job / more fun times in my relationship, I’ll start to feel good.”
By this point, I’d completely forgotten about my ex and I could honestly say that I didn’t have any negative feelings towards her either.
Why does it feel like nothing has really changed?
Why Improving Your Life Doesn’t Actually Make you Feel Better
If you’ve made similar changes like me, it’ll seem like you’ve turned a corner and that you’ve finally moved on.
What appears to be an “empowered” way out of the Ocean of Emotion 🌊 is actually the trap of the Hamster Wheel of Self-Improvement 🎡
It’s a Hamster Wheel because whatever it is you’re searching for, always feels like it’s within arm’s reach - as long as you work hard enough.
If you were a people-pleaser, you may have started to set boundaries and said “No” to people in order to honour your needs.
This may be the first time that you started to think about - “What do I want in life?” and have actually begun to go after it.
It’s not that chasing your dreams, having a new partner or earning a better income are bad things.
It’s that if you’re hoping these experiences will reduce your angst and help you feel more secure about who you are, then you’re setting yourself up to continually running around and around in the Hamster Wheel of Self Improvement to no end.
The mistake with setting goals is its done too early, and for the wrong reasons.
If you feel like the best revenge is success, then you’ll try use your sense of righteous and anger to fuel your actions. You might get a lot done, but it’s only masking the weakness and insecurity that’s beneath that has surfaced after the breakup. It’ll still be there if it’s not addressed.
Having a partner around your arm in case you see your ex or the boost of knowing you’re living a “better” life than them helps to bypass the feelings of being “not enough,” but if you’re aligning your goals in this way in order to boost your self-esteem, then you life is guided by your fear in relationship to your ex.
Instead, a vision for your life should be based what you want, but that requires becoming whole again in order to access what your truth is.
I spent many years delaying my recovery thinking that what I was doing was going to get me closer to the peace and fulfillment I was looking for, only to feel as empty as when I began.
I’m not suggesting that you sit on the couch and do nothing.
I’m suggesting to consider that before creating a grand vision for yourself and hustle away to get it, to address the emotional current underneath so that your desires aren’t motivated by insecurity, scarcity and resentment, but rather a genuine aspiration for change.
Self-improvement is a sneaky disguise for avoiding our emotions.
And even if you’ve forgotten about your ex, convinced yourself that you’ve forgiven them and that your life is better off without them, the impact of your breakups will still leave an emotional residue on your future relationships and your overall outlook on life.
If you’re not convinced, then Stage 4 will show you why your Breakup recovery is unavoidable, it’s just a matter of choosing when.
Breakup Stage 4
The Wall: Hitting your Limiting Belief
The Analogy
In front of you, you see a similar mountain, like the one that you and your ex were on before the breakup.
You climb the rope even faster to try to reach your goal of getting to the top.
For some, being at the top is being in another happy relationship, landing your dream job, or buying property in the country side.
Regardless of the goal, what most are ultimately aiming to experience is a sense of security, fulfilment and peace again.
But when you do arrive at your destination, what you hoped for isn’t exactly what you’re getting.
Initially, you experience a rush of excitement, but it quickly fades into a empty feeling - of “now what?”
You realize that even though you have what you always wanted, something is still missing.
At this point, some enter back into the Hamster Wheel of Self-Improvement🎡 trying to climb another mountain looking for contentment and satisfaction.
Others throw in the towel after working so hard and feel like they’ve gotten no where. They aimlessly wander the mountains, accepting their everyday existence as dull and boring and resigned themselves to living with mediocrity.
And finally there are those who get swept back into the Ocean of Emotion🌊 by another devastating life event (tsunami) like another heartbreak, a job loss or a serious health issues.
Common Thoughts
“I can’t believe I let them have power over me like that for so long.”
“I show them, when I have XYZ, they’ll realize what they missed out on.”
“I’m mad at myself for not doing anything at the time.”
“I’m better off without them now.”
“I’ve forgive them, they did the best they can. I need to focus on my life now”
My Story
We’re conditioned to seek validation through money, status and objects/experiences. They provide temporary relief and gratification, but once that wears off, you realize that it hasn’t fulfilled you in the way you expected it to.
The yearning for your ex you once had is simply displaced for the pursuit of improving your life. It is ultimately the same energy of grasping.
A breakup brings to the forefront the realization of lack, projected as the absence of a partner - but chances are this feeling was already there when you were in relationship.
Wisdom traditions, and even famous actors and billionaires can attest that we cannot fill this lack with things outside of ourselves. That even having your ex back, or another partner can resolve the emotional wound that the breakup has exposed.
This is why even after reading books, watching videos about breakups and receiving advice about how to move on doesn’t really amount to any lasting change.
A breakup is an emotional experience - not an intellectual (information)
I could continue to remind you that:
“You deserve someone who truly loves you.”
“You’re self-worth is not dependent on someone else loving you.”
“You are enough.”
But until it’s actually embodied through experience, it’s just information that goes in through one ear and out the other.
Emotional healing requires emotional tools - I was using a spoon to cut an apple.
The recovery from a breakup is also not a conditional one (if I have X, then I’ll feel Y)
“Once I buy a house and have property of my own, I’ll feel at home and be able to relax.”
“Once I’m happy with how my body looks, I’ll be able to attract someone who truly loves me.”
“Once I find my purpose and feel aligned with my work, I’ll be able to help people and feel good about where I’m at (plus make good money)”
After doing everything possible to redeem a sense of self, people eventually hit an “emotional wall.”
This can happen in a number of ways:
A life crisis such as another breakup, job loss, death or physical injury has you re-evaluate what you’re doing and where you’re going
You’ve accomplished a big goal - landing your dream career, buying a house, finding “the one” but a sense of emptiness and dissatisfaction remains after the initial high from achieving it has worn off.
The emotional highs and lows that you used to experience have settled now, but instead of feeling content and at peace, you experience your life as being dull and boring. You’re apathetic, numb and cynical towards everyday existence and you rarely feel alive or excited about anything anymore.
After a long period of hustling in the Hamster Wheel of Self-Improvement 🎡, you hit a point of exhaustion and resignation and realize it’s all pointless and it’s too difficult living life this way. You throw in the towel and simply give up.
When people hit the wall, it can be as devastating as the breakup they had months or years ago.
You realize that all the effort of improving yourself, chasing your dreams, getting into a new relationships, going to therapy hasn’t resulted in any real fundamental change and you don’t know what to do anymore.
You’re getting older and you feel like you’ve wasted so much time already.
Many experience the feeling of being “paralyzed” or trapped as there’s no clear route of what forward looks like, and is fearful of returning to the chaotic state of drowning in the Ocean of Emotion 🌊
At least in the earlier stages, there was motivation to do something about your experience. When you’ve arrived at this one, it’s easy to give up and accept life as it is: difficult, pointless, and mediocre.
You settle for what you have, or worse.
You may decide that being in a relationship that’s unsatisfying is better than being in none.
Or that having an unfulfilling job at least puts food on the table and pray you can get to retirement.
The body is aging anyways and it’s too much work to do anything about it.
What’s happening here is not that you didn’t work hard enough to get over this Wall.
The Wall is another face to face encounter with your limiting belief. It is likely the same one that you were confronted with during your breakup, and even earlier times in your life.
The concept of the Table Top will illustrate what this means:
A client of mine - Sarah, came to me and shared after her breakup that she believes that “no one cares about me.”
This was obvious evidence for her after her boyfriend left the relationship and later found out that he was cheating on her and is now dating this new person shortly after breaking up.
I helped her address and release all of the hurt, anger and sadness she felt surrounding that situation, which certainly helped her to feel more accepting what happened and let go so that she doesn’t have to continue living with the emotional pain of remembering the experience.
However, with limiting beliefs, they’re often imprinted from earlier experiences in life, and events such as breakups, are re-enactments of this theme.
When asked “When was another time you felt like no one cared about you?” Sarah remembered when she saw her 5th grade teacher fall asleep when she was reading her story out loud in front of the whole class and everyone laughed.
Even after many years, thinking about that experience, she still felt hurt and angry.
Sarah’s limiting belief (table top) that “no one cares about me,” still exists because of the emotionally unresolved events in her life (table legs) continue to hold up that belief for her.
Using the psycho-somatic tool - Emotional Freedom Techniques, we were able to