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Grieving Relationships · Gay Men Going Deeper

• 0:00
  Speaker A: You welcome to Gaiman Going Deeper, a podcast by the Gaiman's Brotherhood that showcases raw and real conversations about personal development, mental health and sexuality from an unapologetically gay perspective. I'm your host, Matt Lansdell and joining me today is my fabulous co host, Michael DiIorio. Today we are continuing our conversation about grief. We're going to be talking about grieving the loss of relationships. We're going to be exploring a couple questions. How has grief over the loss of relationships shown up for you? And what are some ways you've moved through the grief over losing a relationship? What we want you to get out of today's episode is just a greater understanding of the impacts of losing relationships. And that means a lot. Relationships that mean a lot to us and how you can process these losses in healthy relationships ways. If you are new here, please subscribe to the channel on YouTube. And if you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, please subscribe and leave us a review which helps us get into the ears of the people who need us. And this podcast and YouTube channel are listener and viewer supported. So if you enjoy what we're creating, you can support us and our community by making a donation to the show using the link in the show notes or you can tap the thanks button on YouTube. We also have early access on Apple option. You can listen ad free and gain early access to all episodes. All your support helps us to continue making content for you supporting our community. So we do thank you in advance for your support. All right. You might be thinking just listening to the the title grieving your relationships, you might people are often going to assume like a breakup, right? Very, very, very true. And that's probably what we're going to be talking a lot about today too is breakups. But I want to open up this conversation to friendships. The loss of friendships, the loss of romantic partnerships, the loss of family. So family estrangement, the loss of our beloved pets is a big one. And even community ties, right? So when we, you know, maybe lose resonance with, with the community and we have to move or leaving a church or a group or something like that can be also can bring up grief. So all of these, the loss of all of these types of relationships can bring up a grief. So things like going through breakups, losing important friendships to distance or even conflict, losing a pet to death, losing community due to a lack of resonance, having to cut someone out, a toxic family member out of your life and then just death in general. I think this conversation is going to be less about Death again, there's the episode that Addison and Callan did, if you want to learn more about that. But it will be part of this conversation today. I think it's. It's still very important because when we lose someone to death, we are losing that relationship. That's what we're actually grieving. We're grieving the loss of a relationship. So it's very applicable for today's conversation. Conversation as well. So we'll see where that conversation takes us. There's something important to note when it comes to grief, and I'm not sure if Addison and Callan talked about this, but I'll talk about it anyway. There's. There's an acronym called dab, da da, B, D, A. And it's basically a process that people go through with grief. Okay. And this is a model that was used to describe the grief of loss of a loved one to death. But it can be applicable through all. So the stages of grief are characterized by denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. So dabda. I just use that as an acronym to remember it. They're not linear. You don't necessarily go, like, stage one's complete, and then you go to the next one and the next one. It's like, you can bounce around, but it just gives a general idea of the stages that people need to go through in order to grieve. So denial being the first one. Oftentimes when we lose a loved one or a relationship, there might be denial around maybe the impact that it has on us, or we might be denying that it even happened. Happened, these sorts of things. And then once we start moving away from denial, we are likely going to meet anger. Most human beings tend to feel. It feels easier to be in anger than it does to be in grief or sadness. So a lot of people will cover it up with anger. And then once the anger starts to subside, we enter the stage of bargaining, which is like, if I would have done this, this would have happened, or if I wouldn't have said this, maybe we wouldn't have broken up or whatever it might be. Okay. And then once the bargaining subsides, we enter a depression. Right? And that depression is when we actually get to connect with the grief. We slow down, we connect with the sadness and the hurt, the pain, the loss, all of these sorts of things. And then that stage is when we do a lot of the healing and we are able to move towards the last stage, which is acceptance. And we're going to be actually having a whole episode on radical acceptance and how to move through grief using that model. So stay tuned for that one. But I wanted to just bring voice to that because it is a pretty prominent model in the grief space and it might help people characterize their own grief. So. All right, well, let's move into the first question. So how has grief over the loss of relationships shown up for you? Michael?
• 5:07
  Speaker B: Great intro, Matt. Thank you for that. I love that you talked about all the different types of relationships. I think that's really, really important. So, so glad you mentioned that. I will be coming at this from the aspect of a loss of romantic relationship. However, what's interesting about my breakup is that I'm still friends with Star. If you listen to this podcast, you guys know Star. He's been on the show. We've talked about our breakup before. So it's not spilling the tea here. So I'm going to come at it from that because it's the most recent. It's the most applicable to me right now. So him and I broke up at this point now it's been a year and a half. So it's been a while. And for those of you who don't know, it was a mutual breakup and we are still friends now, you might think that makes it less painful, but it doesn't. The grief is still very much there. It was there. And, you know, I've mostly healed from it. But there are times, even as I was thinking about this episode, I got, you know, a little teary eyed thinking about it. If I let myself go there, I, I can, but it still hurts to let go. And I have had breakups that were cold turkey. We are not friends. We don't talk to each other. I don't even know where or what this person's doing. And we are also together for the same amount of time, three years. And I can't say that one was better than the other. They hurt equally in different ways. And there are benefits and drawbacks to actually having him in my life still, which, you know, I guess I didn't see that coming, but here we are. So let me talk a little bit about how. Let me answer the question. It was how has grief shown or how has grief over the loss of relationships shown up for you? There are so many ways. I think the first one for me that still hurts is grieving what could have been. I still get that. You know, the idea of the idea was when we got together that we were each other's IT person forever and ever and ever and ever. That was. That was the idea. And so I still grieve that. I still grieve that, you know, sometimes, like, what. What am I doing? I wasn't supposed to be single right now. This wasn't in the plan. And all that comes with it, right? So the shared trips, vacations, traditions, growing old together. Like, I really do still grieve that because I don't have someone else right now. So there's a part of me going back to our last episode about grieving the past that grieves that. The past part of it, but also the future part of it, of what could have been. That's probably the number one that's still coming up for me, even these days. But at the time, and I think the hardest part of. Of any kind of breakup that I've been in there, any kind of grief over a relationship, I guess, even if it's a friend, this. This holds true, is the time together. Because for me, quality time is my love language. So it hurts when I have that. It hurts doubly hard when I lose that time, that quality time. So for me, that was, you know, family dinners without him, road trips to the cottage. We would host parties here all the time. He lived here. He lived with me. And our place was always banging with people, and it was a fun time. Even just the little tiny things, honestly, like making dinner together on a random Tuesday and watching TV together on the sofa, like, you know, cleaning the house together. Like these silly little things that are arguing about which song we're gonna play next. Because he'd want his music to dance to and clean to, and I'd want mine. So all of these things I get. I get very, as you can see, nostalgic thinking about it now. But, you know, that was the hardest part for me. Right now. I'm at a place where that's okay. I can look at it with a happy memory. But that really took. Took a lot. It took a lot for me. Like, it took a long time for me to finally get to this place now. That part really lingered with me. There's more, but I'll leave it there for now. I want to hear from you, Matt.
• 8:50
  Speaker A: I want to ask you a question because you said you think about it because you don't have somebody now, right? So it almost makes it a bit more pronounced. Yeah, does. So my question is, and maybe it's just like a general question, but how much of grief subsides when we replace the thing we've lost with something else?
• 9:12
  Speaker B: I think so. For me, yeah, I can say that because even in my previous Relationships, the times where that subsides is when I actually have the other person. I love being in relationships. There's a. There's an aspect of relationship, Michael, that just doesn't get to be expressed as a single man. And I love being single too, don't get me wrong. But I have a lot of love to give and I love domesticity in some ways. And so that part of me feels like offline. And I kind of grieve that until. Until someone else shows up and allows me to bring that back online. And then all of a sudden that grief, it subsides. Now, is it in the same way with the same things? No, of course not. There is a uniqueness to that person that, you know, I will always grieve, whether it's, you know, a certain song or a certain place that was ours, our thing, our jam, whatever. That part, I think doesn't go away. But it's not grief for me anymore. Now I look at it as a happy memory, like, oh, I'm really happy that we had. That doesn't hurt.
• 10:06
  Speaker A: Yeah. It's hard for me to discern, like, am I wanting somebody in my life to just. To have somebody, because I have a desire to have somebody. And how much of it is that person? Right. Like, you know what I mean? And sometimes we can be projecting this desire to just have and be with somebody onto this. The closest thing that we've had to have that, or it's the most recent in our, in our memory and we project it onto that person. I think that's why a lot of people bring relationships that have not been successful back into their life. They keep bringing that person back in. Right. They haven't found a new person yet. So I just, I just was curious, like, how much of, of finding new love is going to replace the love lost, you know?
• 10:48
  Speaker B: I'm so happy you mentioned that because. Yes. Even when in the post breakup phase, like, there was so much. We did an episode about this and I, I said it then too. There was so much of me that was like, are we, are we doing the right thing? Is this right? Like, are we sure about this? And that was a lot of second guessing because of exactly that. Like, I, I wanted that and, and we can't. You know, what I ended up with is like, okay, just because I want these things and my nervous system is comfortable and happy in this way does not mean that it is the right person. We are the right people for each other ultimately. And those issues will still be there and we can't Just kind of say, okay, well, this is what we know, so we're gonna have, we're gonna stay with it. I mean, a lot of people do that. That's, that's fair, but it's just not this decision we made.
• 11:28
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting. It almost reminds me of this feeling that I have right now in my life I've never experienced before, which is like, become the love that I seek. And I'm learning, I'm learning that even love that people that I share with somebody, it's. I still, I'm still trying to formulate what this even means to me, but it's like, it feels like all it is is it's just love inside myself being brought up. Right. People are just bringing my own love up. Right. It's, it's an interesting thing. So love feels, which in that case, love feels like it's, it's infinite. You can have it, you can access it. It's always there, right? It's. It's fascinating.
• 12:07
  Speaker B: I know. You know, we say you have to love yourself and all these things and give yourself the love, the, you know, all that, all that good stuff, which I agree with. But there's something special about having another man there to love and to hold and to be held and to touch and to talk to and to just be with. Like, yeah, I get all that. And I do love myself quite a bit, but I also want to be loved by somebody else too.
• 12:31
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So on the other side of the coin of what I just shared, there's a part of me that's like learning how to open my heart to love. And I think part of grieving relationships for me is grieving all the relationships that I've had where I wasn't actually practicing what I want to practice as, as love. It was attachment, it was fear based, it was grasping and grabbing. So there's a part of me that's like, man, like, I wish I could have shown up in the energy I'm in now in all those relationships and how much love I could have shared and how much better the sex would have been and how like, you know, like the version of me now that I've worked so hard to get to. Like, that's who I wanted to show up and, and share love with. And I think that there's a grief there for me because I'm turning 40 and I'm like, man, like, I haven't actually got to experience the love that I've wanted to experience in this life up to this point, and I'm not saying that there's not value in all those relationships they help me get here, but the main focus of the next half of my life, I'll be. I'll be blessed if I live to 80. So I could say I'm halfway right the next 40 years. I wanted just them to just be full of love and just giving and receiving love in all sense. Like in union with myself, in union with another, and then in union with the divine. Like I want all those forms of love to be experienced. And I think so. Yeah. There's. While there is grief there that I didn't get to share these experiences prior, there's a hope that that's going to be what the next half my life is going to be filled with.
• 14:06
  Speaker B: Yeah, you've triggered another form of grief.
• 14:09
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 14:11
  Speaker B: Maybe it's bargaining. I think when you were talking about bargaining in the intro, this might be it. But it's the grief of the things I said or did or didn't say or do when I showed up in that relationship. And that comes with a lot of shame and regret. So it's like real heavy. When I think to the heaviest moments of grieving a relationship, a lot of it's on me. It's my fault. If only I did this better. If only I said this when I should have said that. Like, you know, it's just. If only I did that. If only I showed up better. If only I was better. Like me, me, me. Like it's my fault. And that really, really adds to it. So there's a lot of grief there as well. But I think to your point, it's actually true. Like I, I could have been better. I did make mistakes. Absolutely. It's. And that's the part that hurts the most because it's not, I'm not making this shit up. Like, I could have been a better partner. I could have showed up in a better way.
• 15:05
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I get it. And I, I also know the, the wisdom of that is you need the plug, you need the socket. Right. So the people that were drawn to you, they needed the medicine that you were bringing, which was whatever. Right. Whatever you felt like you weren't person needed to have that experience of you not being enough because they brought up whatever, something in them. So I do think that we're all dancing in these relationships and trying to find our way to love. And, you know, we're playing out fear, we're playing out attachment, we're playing out these patterns. So while my ego is like grieves the. I wish I had that. My soul's like, yeah, but like, you got everything you needed from all those relationships.
• 15:48
  Speaker B: Another thing I think my ego. I like the way you said that. My what? Your ego graves. Maybe this falls into that category, is my ego graves. The part of me who was in a relationship, like, yeah, and what that looked like and what that stood for. Like, I loved us. I loved being one half of our. And Michael, like, that was really nice. And that identity of, like, I'm in a relationship, here's my partner. Like, all of that. Like, I love pictures of us together. I loved showing up together. I loved, like, showing them off and all that stuff. I still think we look great together. When we took a picture, like, oh, we are so fucking hot together. Then we had a great relationship. So, again, that maybe that's ego. Maybe that's just the way it looks. But, I mean, I think there's something to be said for that.
• 16:32
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. That's the. That's the dance. That's the duality that we know all too well as Geminis. It's like, you know, the ego is there and it needs to be acknowledged, and the ego tends to. I want to bypass grieving and the soul, the heart, it knows how to grieve. It's just naturally. It just does it. But the ego, I think, is what it's constantly convincing us not to. You don't. You don't need that. Just. Just think through the grief. Don't. You don't need to feel through it. And so, yeah, it's interesting. I have an interesting story about grief that I think is. I wasn't going to tell this story until this morning. I thought of pet grief. It just came to me. I was like, okay, this is interesting. So I have a very interesting relationship with. When I was. When I was younger, like I said, parents split, so they split when I was about nine. And my. My parents ended up moving into separate homes and my sister and I moved back and forth and we couldn't. I. We had a golden retriever, so we had him from puppy to about six and was just in love with this dog, like, so much. And we had to give him up because my parents were. It was just too much. So this was, like, very painful for me, obviously, like having to give up your. Your childhood pet. So then I. I never had pets really, growing up until university. I ended up getting a cat. And I always had this resistance towards dogs, like, almost like an anger. And I thought dogs were annoying and slobbery and I, I looked for every reason why I didn't like dogs. I think that for me was part of the grief. I think I got stuck in the anger phase and like, keeping dogs away, because if I got close to a dog, it's going to potentially make me have to feel loss again or whatever it was. So I went very protective. And I'm now at this. Interesting. Well, and. Okay, I should maybe tell the other story, too. I ended up getting a cat who was from a kitten. He was nine months old when I got him. And just like I, I had him until I was. For 11 years. Okay. I decided to move to Southeast Asia for a year. And he, I. He went to stay with my mom, and I got back from Southeast Asia and I was like, mom, you have to put Daryl, my cat, into my Airbnb. Because I had to be in quarantine. I came back during COVID I had to be in quarantine for 14 days. So I'm like, put Daryl in the thing and I'll come home and I'll get to see him. And I was so excited. And I literally walk into the Airbnb and I immediately went stuffy. And I ended up developing. I don't know how, but when I was gone, I developed a bad allergy to cats. And so I ended up having to give my little baby to my mom. So he's still alive. He's 17. He's turning 17 June 21st.
• 19:22
  Speaker B: And.
• 19:25
  Speaker A: So there was grief around that. Right. Like, having to give up this another animal. I'm like, why, what, what is this all about? It's so fascinating. So now I have this, like, desire again to get a pet, and I want a golden retriever, which was the dog that I had to. To give up when I was younger, and, And a parrot. I want a parrot and I want a golden retriever. So I feel like, again, part of this was grieving. And I did, I did a little bit of work with this when I was doing my, A lot of this grief healing work. I did grief around having to give up. His name was Boswell B O Z. So, yeah, it was just grieving that and letting that go and, like, being able to move past that. And now I feel like I have this interesting relationship with, like, wanting and have an affinity to want another golden retriever because I was able to clear some of this energy out. That was, yeah, I guess, keeping me stuck in a protector part, which is like, dogs are stupid. They're this, they're that. I was telling all these stories to try and keep myself safe and not having to, to face the, the pain of, of that loss, you know. Yeah.
• 20:25
  Speaker B: There is a lot to be said for grief of pets. For a lot of people, our pets are.
• 20:31
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 20:32
  Speaker B: Sometimes the only people who we really love and unconditionally and love us in return. They are best companions. Some, for some people are only companions really. And I think there's just a lot there and I don't think our society as it is really gives a lot of, maybe not as much respect as it should or, you know, death of a pet.
• 20:52
  Speaker A: Yeah. I think once you've had a pet and you've lost a pet, you will give it that, you understand? But I think people who aren't pet people and they hear that you've lost your cat, they just think it's just another animal, like. But it's like, no, this is like, it's like a child, truly. It's like you're losing a child, you're losing your best friend. Like, you know, people attach to animals in a way that they don't attach to humans. And I think if anything, it's like a very, very authentic relationship. Like, unlike most relationships will people ever have in their life with another human. The authenticity you can have with an animal is. It's unmatched because the animal is not going to judge you. It's going to come to you and love you regardless of how you show up. Right. So it's, it's interesting.
• 21:36
  Speaker B: Yeah. And just think of how much time, you know, if you live together, you, that animal comes to rely on you. You are that parental figure, the unconditional love. There's so much there. You know, I spent just a week and a bit with my parents dog just not too long ago and like, I missed him so much. When I had to come home and my parents came back from vacation, I was like, did he eat okay? Did he like. And that was just a week. I can only imagine if I had this, this dog for, you know, a decade.
• 22:02
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm excited. I'm excited to. I'm probably got another year or two and I live in a two bedroom apartment and I've got maybe a year, another year or two in here and then I think I'm going to get a house with a backyard and that's when I'll start that chapter. I want to do it in a, in a way. Hopefully I'm with a partner at that time too. Having a dog with a partner is much better than just being solo. So yeah, I wanted to share another thing too, because I. This was what I was originally going to share. You know, the grief over a loss of a relationship for me shows up with protector parts. My. My disorganized attachment part is like. It's got so many protector parts entrenched in it, and I've had to disentangle and disintegrate all these parts. And now I've done this work, so I'm able to kind of look back on them and be like, oh, my God, like, Matt, you were so fearful, right? Fearful avoidant is the attachment style, otherwise known as disorganized, that I. I was holding on to all these protector parts to try and keep myself safe. So very much like a. An ego part. I think that's what it was. So letting go or losing relationship. I have a one guy in mind that I had a really hard time getting over him. It was. I don't know why, but it went on for years. And I just kept having dreams about him and thinking about him, and it was. It was so painful. But I started playing out, like, cycles of, like, you know, creeping their profile and trying to show them up. Like, oh, I'll post pictures with my new partner and hopefully they'll see it. And like, playing out these games, right? These little mind games that I think a lot of people play. And then just this, like, deep desire. And I think, now that I think about it, it was that. It was this. The exact. That exact thing. I hadn't met somebody new that felt like it was hitting that mark that that person brought. Brought for me. And I think it actually. Believe it or not, it was the sex that I had with that guy. It was like. It was so good. And like, there was something about it. I don't know what it was, but it was. It was. Yeah, it was just really good. And so then I. But I do remember periods of, like, letting go of that and having to just really accept and release that. And then I think I met a lot of tears and just being able to. To grieve, like, actually grieve that. But I do think that these, These. These games we play and the way the ego grieves it, it will play out that stuff. It does play mind games. It does want to feel like it's, you know, I found a hotter partner or I've done this or I've done that. I think we need to honor that part in us because it's. It's emotional immaturity for sure. But I think the ego is emotionally immature and that's how it plays out grief. Right?
• 24:31
  Speaker B: Yeah, I've certainly been there. I know what you mean.
• 24:34
  Speaker A: Yeah, we all have.
• 24:35
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 24:37
  Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. I think we want to hear from you guys on this topic. So if you have had a breakup or you've had something that you've struggled with in your life regarding relationships, you can come and share this experience with us in one of our connection circles where we will meet in small pods and you'll have an opportunity to go a bit deeper and share some intimacy with some of your fellow brothers. And talking about grief, we also have our sharing circles. If you want to come and talk on the little mini stage in the Zoom Room and share your thoughts and ideas and let other people hold space for your sharing. And both. Both are great opportunities for you to come and just unpack this topic further. So you can go to Gaiman's Brotherhood.com, check out our event section to RSVP. And if you don't have Facebook, you can always get on our email list. As soon as you go on our website, you can scroll to the very bottom, get on our email list, and we will email you everything that you need, as well as a bunch of other great resources that we email you guys weekly as our podcast episodes also get emailed out to you as well. All right, what are some ways you've moved through the grief over losing a relationship?
• 25:40
  Speaker B: Yeah, just like the last one I got. I got many to share here. I'll share some of my favorites. I think the obvious one that has to be said, even though it's obvious, is to let yourself actually grieve. Go. Go through that process. Was it bad? Bad dab.
• 25:54
  Speaker A: Duh. Yeah.
• 25:54
  Speaker B: Yep. Either one, whatever it is you're feeling, let yourself feel it. I know there is such a desire to want to get past it, to want to move past the grief, to want to be on the other side. But there is no bypassing, you know, letting. Letting myself do it. And that's the thing. I've gone through quite a few breakups, so I guess the. The silver lining is I know how it goes and I know that there will be a better day, and I know that it will take time. And like, I've. I have the wisdom of knowing that. Whereas I think people who are going through a tough breakup for the first time or only time, it's really hard. And I've been there, too. I remember that that first breakup, that felt like the end of the world to me, and that there wasn't, that this was the end. Like, it Was only going to get worse from here. And so I know that feeling. But, you know, I promise you, you know, it can get better if you let yourself feel it. So don't try to move on too fast. I know that's another thing we love to do. I did this, too. Tried to move on too fast. And guess what? Had a lot of fun. Quote, unquote fun, but extremely lonely. Loneliest time of my life was when I was having the most sex and hookups because I was trying to get over my ex at the time. Not the start, another one. Just to be clear.
• 27:02
  Speaker A: Yeah. Your pain is always waiting for you. When you're done, your brains out, your pain will just be waiting there for you still. Yeah.
• 27:09
  Speaker B: I walk into my house and I'm like, oh, okay, I'm still crying. And, yeah, eventually I learned, oh, I just need to cry. Right? And that's it. So speaking of crying, one of my favorite things, favorite ways to actually put my or allow myself to grieve is to make a breakup playlist. Y' all know that I love my music, and I express myself and my emotions through music. Sometimes I. Music allows me to get to the emotions that I can't get to through lyrics or just expressing because a lot of songs are about love and heartbreak, my friend, which is a great thing. So when I have not been able to get there, Taylor has had some great lyrics for me. Kelly Clarkson. There's so many songs out there. And whether that is whatever the emotion that is, right, it could be sadness or anger or, like, empowerment. It helps me tap into the feels because I'm good at intellectualizing my breakups. That's fine. But it's the feeling it part that I sometimes need some help with. And for me, playlists will do it. So, I mean, I have such a great playlist. It's so good. Sometimes I play it just for the fun of it. But then it kind of brings me back to that time. And I won't tell you. Don't ask me what's on there, because people always ask me. But I will only tell, like, if I'm working one on one with clients. And I'll say, hey, listen, you should listen to the song sometimes. They'll know it and they're like, oh, my gosh, Michael, you're so right. Like, I listened to the song and I just cried for 10 minutes. I'm like, bingo. That's what we need to do. And another day might be listening to something very empowering where, like, build strength for you. Right? So, yeah, make yourself a kick ass grief breakup end of relationship playlist and it'll help you. And if you're having a hard time finding a song, you can email me or DM me and I'll give you some of my favorites.
• 28:52
  Speaker A: Yeah, I love that Sam Smith tends to be a good music for breakup music. A couple questions. So what's the hardest part about heartbreak for you?
• 29:04
  Speaker B: I think what I shared previously, the owning the part of it that's mine that I blame myself for.
• 29:14
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 29:15
  Speaker B: Like, I think there's a part of me that's like, oh, I could have prevented this if only I was different. Like that, that really. It's really hard for me to get past that part.
• 29:26
  Speaker A: Yeah. Taking all the responsibility as opposed to realizing it's a co creation to build it, it's also a co creation to disintegrate it.
• 29:33
  Speaker B: Yeah, my, my brain will tell you that it's my fault on its worst days and that, yeah, I just really cling on to that. It's my fault. It's either something I did or it's because I'm unlovable and we're just going back to shame. So when we have grief and shame attached.
• 29:50
  Speaker A: I know.
• 29:50
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 29:52
  Speaker A: And this is probably a common thing now that I think about it. Actually, it's not. I might take back what I just said because it is not necessarily always a co creation to disintegrate. Sometimes we show up in ways that are really hurtful. Maybe we cheat on our partner or maybe we do something and that is actually the thing, the action that severed the relationship. So, yeah, regret is a big piece of, of heartbreak that can be hard to get over.
• 30:13
  Speaker B: I'll tell you what I did this time and what I would recommend for others as well. If this is you. This happened to work out for me just because of the nature of my breakup with Star. But after a few months, we. We went on a bike ride one day and I sat down and I said, listen, I need to. I need to tell you something. Because it was weighing on me so much. Anyone who's been in regret and guilt knows how much it weighs on you. And I just came clean. I said, listen, this is just like we did in our relationship. Like, this is the story I'm telling myself. Right. That's what we would always say to each other. And I would complain. I'm like, I'm. I'm holding on to a lot of guilt and I need to apologize for. And I said it, and I said it and I was able to be very vulnerable. And come clean and cried my eyes out when I was having that conversation, as was he. And that gave me peace. I was actually able to let it go. Now I understand that not everyone's going to have that option for sure. A lot of times we don't talk to the people that we've broken up with or that rel. That relationship is over for a reason. It's gone. So you don't have that option. I want to honor that. So in lieu of having that in person, you could do it by, like, role playing it with somebody. Okay. Or putting a picture of them, looking at a picture of them that you really love and, like, looking at the photo of them and having it that way. Or my favorite, just journaling and writing a letter to someone acknowledging if you are holding on to any guilt, regret, shame, to, like, own it and apologize. I think that is very helpful.
• 31:42
  Speaker A: I like that. I like that. One other question is, what. What's the greatest lesson that you've learned from heartbreak?
• 31:48
  Speaker B: The greatest lesson from heartbreak? Probably that I am strong enough to survive it. Yeah. I was gonna say that. It. It. There's always another. There's always someone else on the other side. But I can't say that with full. I can't guarantee that even right now. But I can say that I will be okay.
• 32:10
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 32:10
  Speaker B: And that I will survive it. That's something I've learned from all these heartbreaks.
• 32:14
  Speaker A: Yeah. There's a song lyric by Nick Mulvey, and I think it goes. I fool my. I fool myself each time I think my heart doesn't know how to break. It's. I think our hearts were meant to be broken, and they're like. They know what to do. And I think we get stuck in our mind. We get stuck in our egos telling these stories and. And the stories no longer serve us, but we keep punishing ourselves with these stories. But the heart, if we just move into heart space, the heart knows how to break, right? And it.
• 32:42
  Speaker B: And it.
• 32:42
  Speaker A: And it does its. Its thing. It. It expands. It contracts. It expands. It contracts. The heart is. It was built for it, Right? Like, if you think about, We're. We're spiritual creatures, and we are going to have grief many, many times in our life. We're going to experience the gift of being given something, and then we're going to experience the. The feeling of losing that thing. And it can feel me. Right? We're all going to lose our parents. We're all going to have breakups. We're all going to lose the love of Our life at some point. Right. So I just. I'm a firm believer that our hearts know how to break.
• 33:21
  Speaker B: That's beautiful. And yet, as you say that, I agree with you. Yet I. At the same time, I resisted so much.
• 33:26
  Speaker A: I know. Yeah. Yeah. It's a. It's an easy thing to just spew out of my mouth and be like, oh, it's just a spiritual teaching and just absorb it. But no, it's like the ego's like, screw that. Like, I don't want to lose. Like, loss is so painful. Yeah.
• 33:40
  Speaker B: I. I can't tell you how much I cried in that in those months. So much. Oh, my gosh. So, so much. And you would think, oh, no, I've done this before. I know this is gonna hurt. And not only that, but this is a mutual thing and we're still friends. Like you would think that that makes it easier. Let me tell you, it. There's still so much loss there to which I already spoke about. But, yeah, like, it doesn't. It does not make it any easier, unfortunately. And yet when you say your heart knows how to break, I. I agree with you. I believe you. But it's still. I don't want it to.
• 34:12
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I feel you. I feel you. The first thing that comes to mind. What are some ways that I've moved through grief over losing a relationship? So my longest relationship was eight years. I was with a guy from 21 to 28, and we had a house together and everything. And yeah, I think, well, this was the most painful thing. I, like, wavered for almost two years of like, should I break up with this guy? I was going to end the relationship and then his dad ended up committing suicide. And so I stayed with him for another year and it was just a very challenging relationship for me. Also very beautiful. He was my best friend and we spent eight years together. There was a lot of really beautiful things about that relationship. Also a lot of challenging things. I think for me, the biggest thing was like learning how to, like, remember why I wanted the relationship to end in the first place. That I felt like the relationship had outgrown. It's like it had outgrown the relationship. I think that's what it was. And I do believe that, you know, every. There's like shamanic teachings that say every seven years you shed your emotional self and there. That's why relationships tend to have a seven year life cycle. And because you're changing, your partner's changing, and you're just growing apart. And I think that's what happens. But I think that the part of me that has a hard time letting go, it would be the part that I have, like, a euphoric recall, or I'm only recalling the things that were beautiful. It's easy to do that when we're in a relationship. It's like, oh, the same sex was so good. Or this was amazing. And it was nice to just be with somebody. And, like, we lead with loneliness and wishing we just had that person again. So I had to really be mindful to not do that. And how I did that was I used a mantra which was, look, but don't linger. Look, but don't linger. And I think this can be applied for all grief. Right. If we linger too much in thinking about somebody that we've lost, we're going to end up being stuck. Right? We'll be stuck in the pain. We'll be stuck in not being able to move or. Or let go or forgive or whatever it is that we need to do. So. But it is nice to just look once in a while and reflect on the beauty that was in that relationship. But also being mindful of why the relationship needed to end in the first place. I think that's a big piece of it for me.
• 36:35
  Speaker B: I love that you come up with these mantras that are so quick and efficient and yet hit the nail right on the head in such a beautiful way. I love that. I'm gonna take that one without you.
• 36:45
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Look, but don't linger.
• 36:47
  Speaker B: Perfect. Yeah, yeah, I get that.
• 36:50
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 36:52
  Speaker B: The bit about loneliness. Can I. Can I talk about that a bit, too, please? So y' all know that I love being alone in solitude, and I'm very happy by myself. But let me tell you full truth. When he moved out. He moved out about six months after we broke up. The day he moved out was probably the hardest of the entire breakup, I bet. And you would think. And I remember even before he moved home, thinking, oh, it's going to be so nice when to have my house back. Silly, silly Michael. Because when it actually happened, that was probably the hardest day of it all. I pretty sure I just cried for, like, you know, 12 hours straight. You think that there's. You think that there's no more tears, but as Arianna says, there are more. So, you know, that part was very hard. Even. Even if you are someone who are okay on your own and you have that independence, like I like I do. It's still extremely hard. And that loneliness creeped in for sure because Matt's been here. I live in this, this big house. And Star is a big personality who took up a lot of room. And so to have him not here left such a void and it was actually painful to be at home. So how I moved through that was I decided, okay, I need to make my new normal, like, make my, like, I'm not moving. That was impossible for me. But if it is, that's not a bad idea. But I didn't want to move. So I decided to like redecorate a few things, change some things up. I bought a new table, I moved some things around, I got some new plants. I just shifted the layout of my place a little bit as much as I can and that sort of started to become a new normal for me. And that helped. Honestly, like changing that environment, even little things really did help. And I also purged. I remember doing a big like cleaning, spring cleaning type deal where I just got rid of a lot of things. That, that alone, I mean it wasn't, it didn't solve it by any means, but it certainly helped.
• 38:41
  Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah. I think, you know, what I took from what you just shared is like, you know, spend time coming back to the relationship with you. I think sometimes when we get into relation. Not sometimes, all the time. For most people when they get into relationships, it's, it's easy to become the addict identity of the couple. And, and so it's, you know, breakups, that's, that's the hardest part of breakups for me. I remember when I left that eight year relationship, it was like I didn't know how to be single and I felt very lost and I felt lonely and I felt like, what's the point? Like this isn't, it's. I don't have anyone to share, you know, things with. And that's actually the beauty of being in a relationship is you have that one person that you share everything with. Right. And like it's, it's such a beautiful thing. So you're kind of losing that. So it's important to grieve that. And then I do think it's important to come back home. Right. Oftentimes people become serial daters and because they don't want to come back home. But a lot of the grieving so we can become whole again, so we can enter back out into the world and date and these sorts of things is to be comfortable with yourself, spend time with you, self care. Right. It's really, really important.
• 39:46
  Speaker B: Yeah. You got to reclaim that solitude. And it is hard. I'm not saying it's easy but you. You have to learn. Otherwise, you'll constantly be in that cycle of grief.
• 39:53
  Speaker A: Right.
• 39:54
  Speaker B: You have to learn how to watch a movie by yourself or make a dinner by yourself, as hard as that was. I'm like, I don't like watching movies by myself. I usually watch them with him, or, I don't want to make a dinner by myself. I want to make a dinner for us. And all these little things that I so strongly fought against, I had to learn to do again on my own, and it was not easy at all. Yeah, Yeah.
• 40:14
  Speaker A: I love what you said. Like, reclamation of solitude. That's beautiful.
• 40:18
  Speaker B: Yes. Yeah.
• 40:19
  Speaker A: Look, but don't linger. And then reclaim your solitude.
• 40:22
  Speaker B: Solitude. And it's such a beautiful thing when you say it in that way. Like, it's like, of loneliness. And you can be loneliness in your solitude, but, like, let it be a source of power eventually.
• 40:34
  Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah. I always. People are always like, you know, that are. That are in a relationship. Oh, you're so lucky to be single and these sorts of things. And it's so nice to have freedom. And then when people are single, they're like, oh, I wish I had a relationship. So it's like, I'm just a firm believer of just honor what you have, because there's pros and cons to both. And, like, I'm actually at a place right now where I'm so content being single, and it feels like. Feels so good, and I'm, like, really loving it. And so, yeah, it's really about learning how to honor what you have in the moment and appreciating it.
• 41:03
  Speaker B: Yeah. I go back and forth for sure. The Gemini in me, I want both. And they're both wonderful. They're both great for very reason. But, yeah, you're right. When I was in that space, remember thinking, yeah, it'd be nice to have my place to myself, and I can do whatever I want. That first few months was really tough, and eventually I got there. I'm there now. I'm happy to be alone here.
• 41:21
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 41:22
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 41:22
  Speaker A: You don't have to compromise the best part about being single.
• 41:27
  Speaker B: Agreed.
• 41:28
  Speaker A: Yeah. Any. Any final thoughts? Anything else percolating there for you?
• 41:36
  Speaker B: You know, I think. Can we talk about the friendships aspect of it? Because I don't. I don't think we talked too. Too much about that. I think it's really important because I'm thinking about some clients of mine that I'm actually coaching now. Multiple are really struggling with this loss of friendship. Yeah. I just think it needs to be shared and said I mean, I. I don't have that exact experience, fortunately.
• 41:57
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 41:57
  Speaker B: But I do think it's worth talking about and that it is a unique flavor of relationship that. That's really hard to lose.
• 42:04
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 42:05
  Speaker B: Have you had to go through that, Matt?
• 42:06
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah. A lot, actually. During COVID there was a lot of that. Yeah. I tended to go left when a lot of people went right, and a lot of lost some friendships because of that. And I'm. You know, it's interesting for me because I don't. This might sound, like, harsh and definitely don't mean it to be, but I. I don't grieve the loss of friendships like I grieve the loss of romantic relationships. It feels different for me. Maybe there's a protector part around that. I'm trying to feel into that. But I've always been the kind of person. And this is probably the Gemini in me is I am a bit of a social butterfly, and I have always gone from friendships to friendships to friendships. So there's a deep sense of acceptance in me, of people come into your life for. What's the saying? A reason, a season or a lifetime. And I just accept that. I accept that there's people that come into my life. They come in for a short period of time, and they're here to teach me something. Right. So I. I view this with so much spiritual wisdom around friendships. And just even like any types of relationships other than romantic ones, I tend to be able to let go and grieve them very quickly because I just look at it as, like, this person was not meant to be in my life longer, but the people that I perceive that were going to be in my life for a lifetime, and they have left. That's when there probably would be grief around. Around, like, losing that. Losing the connection, losing the inside jokes, losing the familiarity. Yeah. So for sure, there's definitely gonna be grief around that.
• 43:35
  Speaker B: Yeah. I think to my chosen family, and I mean, it really is family to me. So for them. So losing that friendship, that relationship would be devastating probably to some degree more than my relationship. So it's almost like the opposite. Like, I would miss my. My best friend if something ever happened between us. Probably it probably hurt more than any of those previous relationships, only because for me, these people, my chosen family, have been in my life for 20 years. So there's a lot. There's a lot of relationship there. Yeah. Yeah.
• 44:12
  Speaker A: Yeah. I almost. I need to think about this one more because I feel too good at letting go. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's like I'm. So maybe there is something there for me to look at more at and. But yeah, right now it feels like it's not something that would be similar to a romantic relationship or a pet or something like that. Yeah. Who knows?
• 44:36
  Speaker B: On the flip side of those long term friendships that I have, I would say there's also the element of grieving, like short term friendships. So I was traveling quite a bit in the, in the fall, just in general. And you know, you can meet someone on your travels and only spend a week or two with them or even just a weekend even, and really have a really strong, deep, intimate connection for just a short period of time on that trip or whatever that circumstance is that brings you together, the reason, and then leave. And there's grief around losing that because, you know, it might just be that that one person was the one person that you felt really seen with and that in other people in your life you don't get that. So, you know, it's not, it's not about longevity. It's really just about how seen you feel and how understood and how connected you are. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 45:27
  Speaker A: The wisdom just plumped in, came in hard. So I grew up moving from friend to friend to friend. Like I was like liter, the definition of a social butterfly. But there is a protector part around it, which is I didn't want to get, let people get too close to me because they would have realized I was gay. So just when, when things would start getting a little bit too intimate or too vulnerable, I would move on to the next friend. So I got very good at leaving friendships and making new ones. Leaving friendships and making new ones. I still do that in my day to day life. I have people coming in and out of my life constantly. It's like a carousel. So that's, there's probably something to be said about that. It's, it's a, it's adaptive to a certain point. But I also probably can be someone who jumps ship quicker than, than others. Yeah, I'll do some, I'll do some processing around.
• 46:11
  Speaker B: Yeah, we've talked about that. Maybe you should listen to some of our podcasts.
• 46:14
  Speaker A: Yeah, exactly, yeah. Which again, it just classifies the disorganized attachment, fearful avoidant. Someone gets too close, I'm out. Right. I can easily go into hot and cold really quickly. So. And people who are listening to this that have, you know, maybe had that experience of me, they're probably going, yeah, like, yeah, I've experienced that with you. Yeah. But yeah, again, it's It's a relational pattern that I learned as a way to protect myself, and other people might even relate to that. It's like, you know how when. When somebody gets too close and they start to see the vulnerable parts in us, AKA being gay, it's like, what do we do? Right? Do we shut those people out? Do we move on? What is that? So. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 46:55
  Speaker B: And is it different for romantic partners, though, or is it the same. The same wall?
• 47:01
  Speaker A: You know, it's. It's. No, it's the same walls there, but the wall gets lowered because you can't help it. Right. Like, you're having sex with that person, too. It's very different. Things become more intimate. There's fights. And when you're in fights with somebody like you, you're. The ego just goes. It dissolves or something. And you're now in this authenticity of, like, saying whatever you need to say. Right. So it does feel a little bit different. But I've also been able to let go of people quickly with that. It hasn't been working out with them romantically.
• 47:34
  Speaker B: There's probably someone out there, Matt, who's grieving you.
• 47:37
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 47:39
  Speaker B: For sure.
• 47:40
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that could be said for all of us. Yeah, yeah. We all have these. We. I think some of it's part of it, too, is that I. I sometimes don't realize the impact I have on people. And that really has been shown to me with this podcast. People reach out and say the most amazing things. And I've had people reach out being like, you know what? Like, you're recorded a video about just the pain of my past and struggles and suicidal ideation and these things, and someone, like, sent me a message saying, like, you know, like, I didn't commit suicide because of your video. And just things like that. I'm like, wow, right? So we never really realized. And it's not just us having a podcast. It could be you're listening to this podcast, and you've had a major influence on somebody's life. We're all impacting people in ways that we have no clue. Clue, Right. And that comes with the love we give, but also the pain we. We give people, too. Like, the things we say, we can cut people really deep. So we have to really be mindful of our impact.
• 48:36
  Speaker B: It can be the medicine.
• 48:38
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Exactly. We can be poison or medicine, for sure. Yeah. Anything else?
• 48:45
  Speaker B: Oh, I think I am complete. Thank you.
• 48:48
  Speaker A: Thank you, listener, viewer, for coming on this journey with us through grief. And again, this. This podcast and YouTube channel our listener beer supporters. So if you want to support us donation, you can make link in the show notes and hit the thanks button on YouTube or you can join Early Access Auction on Apple. All three of those things help us support our community. So we do thank you and we'd love to see you come to one of our events Facebook Events tab. If you're not on Facebook, go to our website Gaiman's brotherhood.com events tab and we'd love to see you at our sharing circles or connection circles. Much love everyone.