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On the urge to time travel after heartbreak · Conversations with My Walls

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: What if you stopped decorating your life with all the wrong stuff?
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Morgan and this is Conversations with My Walls.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get into it.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Time is not felt, it is only perceived.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's a favorite quote of mine and a great reminder.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Especially since I can too easily freak out about what horrible thing will happen
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  SPEAKER_00: or not happen a year from now.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yet I can forget the magic that I met and fell in love with someone in the matter
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: of two months, just this past June.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: I also had something worse happen that I'll tell you about.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: But right now,
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: it's easy to say "This amount of time has passed and I'm not where I want to be"
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  SPEAKER_00: when we try to force something.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's a natural perception when we're grasping a concept.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: But the course of life can change for the better so quickly.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: We just have to believe it's possible as much, if not more, than the opposite.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Time is a strange construct when you're a woman.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's met with urgency by nature of the patriarchy to watch
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  SPEAKER_00: that biological clock ticking.
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  SPEAKER_00: Be a desirable age even when you're past
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  SPEAKER_00: that milestone.
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  SPEAKER_00: Feeling pressure to turn back the clock of aging when men wear their wrinkles with pride.
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  SPEAKER_00: Time feels like something we must bottle, freeze, and turn back.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's not something we're conditioned to allow.
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  SPEAKER_00: So it makes sense that we're going to stress over the minute timelines
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  SPEAKER_00: and force ourselves to feel it.
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  SPEAKER_00: The manufactured pressure alone masquerading as actual time.
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  SPEAKER_00: When in reality, we can't feel it.
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  SPEAKER_00: But we can endeavor to take the power back over how we perceive it.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like how Kate Winslet rebels against the Hollywood beauty standards of injectables
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: and Kris Jenner/Kathy
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  SPEAKER_00: Hilton
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  SPEAKER_00: time-warping surgeries,
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  SPEAKER_00: the kind that make them look like peers to their children, which is very odd to me.
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  SPEAKER_00: We must rebel against the fear that we must control time.
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  SPEAKER_00: By allowing the idea that things can change quickly,
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  SPEAKER_00: especially when it's something we want versus are being told to do,
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  SPEAKER_00: it takes away the narrative of control.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: It swaps it for possibility, something that Big Beauty doesn't want us to explore.
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  SPEAKER_00: They want women on a single track where their minds are consumed with performance,
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  SPEAKER_00: not wonder, not curiosity, not questioning.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's like how Anna Bash recently pointed out in a reel,
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: when women start to rise up, a new diet fad enters society's chat.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's mindsets like that which keep our energy tethered to our appearances
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  SPEAKER_00: and keeps us preoccupied from shifting our own minds to benefit us instead of trying
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  SPEAKER_00: to fit a standard.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's what I'm living with now is how to shift my thoughts.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: In two months and change, I also got my heart broken.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't regret it because the experience actually changed the trajectory of my life.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm no longer stepping back into my old life.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: I am stepping into a new one because I'm not the same person because of this experience.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm so much more.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: I proved how strong I am and how I can love and hold space for someone else.
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  SPEAKER_00: Had I not believed it was even possible,
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  SPEAKER_00: which was by way of following my intuition to join a dating app,
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  SPEAKER_00: then I would not have met him.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: He never got to know this, but he was the first profile I saw on that app.
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  SPEAKER_00: I had no idea how it worked yet,
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  SPEAKER_00: but I was drawn to his profile square, the kindness in his eyes especially.
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  SPEAKER_00: The grid jumped around erratically and poof, he disappeared.
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  SPEAKER_00: But a month later, after I was fully onboarded, he showed up again.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I took the time to read his profile, connected with what he said, and I liked him.
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  SPEAKER_00: We matched and started talking that very day.
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  SPEAKER_00: The connection is unlike any other I've had.
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  SPEAKER_00: It also was the first time I felt fully safe in a relationship
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  SPEAKER_00: after finally recognizing I fell in the romance-desired,
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  SPEAKER_00: sex-indifferent part of the asexual spectrum.
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  SPEAKER_00: It made this scarily small dating pool feel so wonderful to have found this human within it.
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  SPEAKER_00: My heart,
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  SPEAKER_00: which I had closed off following my first heartbreak as a late bloomer to love,
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  SPEAKER_00: opened in a way I didn't think was possible.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: He was wildly smart, witty, thoughtful, hot, and checked all of my values-based boxes.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: But ultimately, he hurt me.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying not to demonize him for it because I get what is going on for him.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: I was once there myself.
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  SPEAKER_00: The details of which I'll keep private out of respect, but it aches all the same.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Did I cry the entirety of the day of the breakup?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
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  SPEAKER_00: Have I not showered for two plus days?
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  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
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  SPEAKER_00: Did I stay in bed all day yesterday?
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  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Have I as someone who naturally runs hot been inexplicably cold and swaddled in
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  SPEAKER_00: a fleece blanket almost everywhere I go around the house?
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  SPEAKER_00: Also yes.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm rising from those messy, painful bed rot ashes and being gentle with myself.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Time is also something that needs to be up when it comes
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: to not tolerating being treated badly by what we say to ourselves just as much
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  SPEAKER_00: as how others treat us.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard when you can't have your timeline of readiness reconcile with someone else's.
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  SPEAKER_00: The investment of time isn't black and white.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's the lesson.
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  SPEAKER_00: And what I'm trying to focus on,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is just because it didn't work out now or then,
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  SPEAKER_00: doesn't mean it won't work out ever.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's non-absolute.
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  SPEAKER_00: For something that by traditional thinking can take six months to a year to flourish
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  SPEAKER_00: between two people was much shorter.
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  SPEAKER_00: In other words,
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  SPEAKER_00: love blossomed under this unique condition that wasn't limited
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  SPEAKER_00: by other people's limits.
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  SPEAKER_00: By letting our awareness of possibility live outside the box,
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  SPEAKER_00: it allows for magic to find us,
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  SPEAKER_00: and for us to cultivate the climate for it to thrive in its own time frame.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like a tree,
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  SPEAKER_00: some parts can take longer than others when we look at its rings versus its leaves,
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  SPEAKER_00: yet it still stands tall together as one powerful thing,
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  SPEAKER_00: Without anyone telling it how to grow.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: While I didn't get the happily ever after that I was all in for,
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  SPEAKER_00: I got to see that a human I didn't think existed was out there.
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  SPEAKER_00: For a moment in this crazy world, he chose me, and I chose him.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that's really special.
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  SPEAKER_00: When you experience something like that and then it goes away though,
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  SPEAKER_00: it's so easy to think it'll never happen again.
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  SPEAKER_00: But we both still exist, and we aren't living in a vacuum either.
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  SPEAKER_00: Our lives have expanded for it, having seen what is possible.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: So it's on us to fine-tune our perception to realize we hold the power.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: The power is in us,
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  SPEAKER_00: and the more we focus on that,
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  SPEAKER_00: the more the right people,
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  SPEAKER_00: places, and things we'll discover.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's a return, other times brand new.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: That said,
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  SPEAKER_00: so much of me holds out the hope that he'll change his willingness to love me
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  SPEAKER_00: as I want to be loved and deserve.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: But that's another timeline I can't control.
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  SPEAKER_00: Along with the fact that I wasn't treated as I should have been,
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  SPEAKER_00: especially as the prize that I am,
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  SPEAKER_00: I didn't deserve to be hurt by someone just because they were struggling.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: All I can do is hold space for the still good person I know he is,
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  SPEAKER_00: and bless that experience with love not lost but gained.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because it still lives inside me.
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  SPEAKER_00: I created that, and I have to remember it.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I make an art print,
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  SPEAKER_00: and I don't know why, but it's a message I'll deeply need later on.
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  SPEAKER_00: In this case, the print that says, Am I okay?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: I am.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's a simplification of the process we wrestle with when questioning
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  SPEAKER_00: and doubting things and then settling into our truth, which is okayness.
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  SPEAKER_00: But it's a lot of work and needs constant reminding when you're grieving.
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  SPEAKER_00: Like Fleabag said, "I don't know where to put it.
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't know where to put my love for her,"
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  SPEAKER_00: after her mom's funeral in season two.
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  SPEAKER_00: There's always more places to put it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Grief is hardest because you feel that excess love that once was directed
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  SPEAKER_00: to someone else, ping-ponging inside you like a misplaced Sonic the Hedgehog.
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  SPEAKER_00: And while very real,
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  SPEAKER_00: it eventually settles into a new frequency, with no wrong or right way about it.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's what time should be,
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  SPEAKER_00: a frequency we tune into and embrace in both length and brevity,
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  SPEAKER_00: instead of smoothing it out into something dull like a wrinkle injected with Botox.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Those feelings make it hard not to be drawn back to the past, reliving what once was.
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  SPEAKER_00: But remember, time travel works two ways, past and future.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's the same with our thoughts.
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  SPEAKER_00: The depression inherent in grief pulls us backwards,
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  SPEAKER_00: while at the same time the anxiety of what life will be like now
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  SPEAKER_00: without this person draws us outside of the present moment.
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  SPEAKER_00: But the two can fuse together into the frequency of possibility,
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  SPEAKER_00: taking the best parts of the past and carrying them into the future with the hope
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  SPEAKER_00: and intent to discover "this or something better."
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  SPEAKER_00: It's a both/and approach where you can relearn hope and love while still being sad and worried.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: But that wonder and curiosity for what can be is the biggest gift to your future self.
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  SPEAKER_00: And is the best way to time travel with your feet firmly planted in the present.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: The person you'll be on the other side is worth it.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: And while time still can't be felt,
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  SPEAKER_00: all the other things that can,
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  SPEAKER_00: good or bad, are the best reminder that we are alive and not numbed.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: I lived so much in two months.
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  SPEAKER_00: I saw a future I didn't think would happen before.
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  SPEAKER_00: And even with it off the table now, I went there and I lived in it for a short while.
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  SPEAKER_00: Even in promise rather than presence, it was still real to me and pretty amazing.
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  SPEAKER_00: Just as amazing as you and I also are for allowing these things to be.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's much easier to close ourselves off,
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  SPEAKER_00: to live in isolation because vulnerability feels too scary to our system.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: But time is best perceived with an open heart.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's what possibility thrives off of most.
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  SPEAKER_00: So what are timelines that people projected onto you that you'd like to let go of?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: That you're too old for something, too young, you can't do it in that time.
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  SPEAKER_00: Replace it with the possibilities you want.
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  SPEAKER_00: And know that the magic
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  SPEAKER_00: that they can't see is just all the more abundant for you.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: If this sparks something in you, make sure you're subscribed so you never miss an episode.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: As this series continues, you won't want to miss a beat.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're ready to bring more conversations into your life,
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: you can explore my latest art prints at morganlindsaynelson.com.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: And in between then, take care of your space and conversations both inside and out.