Rebuild Your Confidence After The Ending Of A Love Relationship | The Wisdom Podcast | Season 1 Episode 7

The experience of divine wisdom is your sacred right.

Divine wisdom is what guides you along a spiritual path.

It is this inner knowing that helps you to witness yourself as infinitely more abundant,

Loving,

Incredible.

It is your inner wisdom that guides you to live your highest potential and to experience all that you are even as you continue to expand and seek more.

In each episode of the Wisdom Podcast,

You will hear what insights,

Offerings,

And truth have helped others conquer their fears.

Be resilient,

Live empowered and happy.

You may hear your own story in some of the stories of my clients as they have healed themselves,

Become in control of their life,

And as they have reclaimed their authentic power.

Seeking a deeper understanding and meaning of life awakens us to discover our purpose and to witness the infinite beauty and joy that is so abundant.

All of us are on a sacred path.

When we awaken to this,

We easily access the guidance of our inner wisdom,

And we see the beauty of life unfolding in perfect ways to help us manifest all of what we want.

I hope that each episode of this podcast can offer something relevant and timely for you and that the sacred path that you are on is one that you choose deliberately based on the inspired wisdom of your inner truth as you live a beautiful and love-filled life.

Hello and welcome.

This is Dorothy.

The topic for this episode,

Like many,

Come from my work with clients.

As a registered psychotherapist who works with individuals and couples on what feels like an infinite range of subjects,

All of what a client brings to a session is not just a concern or issue that may be current for them or in some cases a past unresolved hurt or trauma.

But each person brings their entire life story,

And how they have arrived at this particular place in their life is a culmination of all that they have experienced and lived up to that moment.

Sometimes we need to acquire different,

New life experiences,

Thoughts,

Behaviors if we want to have a different life from here.

So in this episode,

When I speak of my client Adele,

Perhaps you will be able to identify with her and a part of her story.

In sharing these real client stories with you,

My hope is that you will have meaningful examples of how therapy and life coaching can be life-altering.

While you can't change the past,

You can change the way you think about it and what effect it has on your present.

There is not just one Adele.

I believe each one of us goes through an important metamorphosis after the ending of a relationship that can allow us to emerge more confident,

More knowledgeable about what we want for our life and a future relationship.

And that if we choose this time to be single,

Even for a short while,

To be with ourself,

To have a relationship with the person that we need to love and cherish the most,

Then we can all emerge stronger,

Happy,

Certain about the path that we are now on and with the autonomy and self-assurance that comes from knowing that we are more than enough,

That we are deserving of the right kind of love,

Unconditional love,

That we are lovable,

Desirable,

Attractive,

And clear about what we want and what we will go in search of in a partner and in a healthy love relationship.

The ending of a relationship is the time to find your center,

To know who this person is who has emerged,

To honor the needs that you have for yourself,

And to also decide who you will still become because of your desire to be your best self.

And now I invite you to join me for episode 7 of the Wisdom Podcast and the story of Adele and the building of lasting confidence.

My client Adele had been in a serious relationship with Jacob for eight months.

Jacob was widowed and had two young children.

When they first began to date,

Adele was excited but cautious.

Her previous long-term relationship ended abruptly after seven years.

Her then-fiance Courtney expressed to her one day that he hadn't been happy for some time,

That he had been thinking about the rest of his life and the many experiences that he still wanted to have before settling down and having a family.

Adele intuitively felt as though there was more that Courtney wasn't telling her.

But in the end,

After several months of holding hope that they would get back together,

Adele realized that Courtney wasn't going to change his mind,

That he was having fun being single and living his life on his terms,

And that she needed to move on.

After a prolonged time of intense grieving and the lingering confusion of not really knowing if there was something more,

Something that maybe she had done to cause this,

Adele decided that a change of scenery would be a good thing for her,

And so she left her job to travel for a year in Australia.

When a love relationship ends,

And if the revelation is that our partner no longer wishes to be with us,

It often becomes a personal blow to our sense of self.

We internalize the ending of a relationship as a loss and perhaps something that was our fault and we are often left with unresolved feelings of confusion,

Disbelief,

And sadness.

A relationship ending can cause you to doubt your ability to believe that you are desirable and worthy.

It also has the potential of highlighting your insecurities and self-doubt.

This may cause you to examine what aspects of yourself you may lack confidence in.

Therein begins your work to deepen your knowledge and confidence in who you are and to know that you are more than enough.

Adele blamed herself for Courtney's decision to end the relationship and questioned what she could have done or said that may have caused this.

When a love relationship ends despite our will,

We might find ourselves deeply shaken.

Our confidence in ourselves and in feeling good enough and desirable may be damaged for a time or indefinitely,

And we may find ourselves wondering if we will ever find someone again to love us and would this next love last.

A relationship can provide us with merit and the stability that allows us to feel approval,

Desirable,

And loved.

And yet it can also be a distraction from doing the work of loving and accepting our self as who we are and as separate and unique from our identity as part of a couple.

For many,

Sense of self is enmeshed with job title,

Accomplishments and success,

Socioeconomic status,

And quite often the success of our partner and the accomplishments of our children.

It's only when you identify with who you are as separate from the many roles and responsibilities that you have and from your relationships and affiliations with others that you can truly own and internalize your self-worth and to know your authentic self.

For Adele and so many like her who experience a blow to their confidence and their feelings of desirability at the time of a breakup,

This would suggest that there is some unfinished work towards developing a healthy and autonomous sense of self.

Your sense of self is built upon the practice of knowing yourself well and being willing to live true to who you are.

It means relying on your feelings of confidence and self-esteem,

Of being independent and autonomous,

Able to take care of your needs.

Having a healthy sense of self means that you choose your forward movement along a path that you desire with positive feelings and inertia and the resolve to never give up on yourself.

Starting a new relationship doesn't solve the quest of feeling confident and self-assured.

Taking the time while you are newly single to develop a better relationship with yourself,

To learn about who you are at this time and place in your life,

To experience greater self-confidence and to feel desirable and good enough for yourself by your healthy standards means that when you are ready to step into the next relationship,

You will be certain of what you want and what you are not willing to settle for.

To help us with this,

It is important and in fact it's critical that we do the inner work of growing our confidence,

Of building our sense of self,

Of being self-assured in who we are.

Without self-confidence,

We will continue to rely on others to help us feel better about ourselves,

To validate that we are good enough and deserving,

Rather than relying on our belief and the self-knowledge that we are indeed more than enough,

Deserving and worthy.

If you rely on others for external feedback to remind you that you are desirable and good enough,

Then you will be vulnerable and dependent on a source outside of yourself,

A source that you can never fully expect to provide you with accolades,

Encouragement and love in the ways or distinct timing that you would need it.

Rather than rely on another person or a love relationship for your positive feelings of self-worth,

Ask yourself the following reflective questions as a way of determining how much confidence and esteem you hold that is based on your belief of who you are,

Rather than on how others see or value you.

How well formed is your sense of self?

The first question,

What are the qualities that I value most about myself?

Think about attributes,

Your personality traits,

Your strengths and what you believe in.

Second,

What causes me to feel less desirable or unworthy?

Third,

What can I do for myself in these situations or moments to acknowledge my worthiness and value and to uphold my confidence and self-worth?

You can find these questions in the transcript download that's available in every episode.

You'll find it here in the description as well.

These questions are definitely worth the investment of time that you give them.

Once you have your answers,

I suggest you keep them close at hand to remind you that your confidence and worth originate within you and they are what only you may build and grow.

If your confidence feels shaken after the ending of a love relationship,

Rather than jump immediately back into the dating world,

Even though you may think that doing so can boost your confidence,

Remember that this very action is an example of looking externally for validation.

To begin a new relationship before you build confidence in yourself keeps you feeling vulnerable and overly sensitive to what others say and do.

And it sets you up for feeling judged or rejected if your new partner does not provide you with what you are in search of,

Which is ultimately approval,

Acceptance and love.

Instead,

Take this time whilst being single to look with honesty at where you feel a lack of confidence and make it a priority to know yourself better,

To ask the important questions such as the ones I mentioned earlier and others that will help you look within for building your confidence and sense of self,

And to ultimately know yourself best in order to give yourself what you need rather than rely on others for this.

When you are newly single after a breakup,

It is one of the best times to re-examine your path in life,

What you truly want and to become self-focused rather than looking at others for what you think you should be doing and having.

To know yourself is to deepen your understanding and knowledge of who you are and what is most important to you.

This is how you become a stronger,

More confident version of yourself.

When you make yourself a priority and invest quality time in your own company,

You come to know yourself better.

When you rely on yourself and your abilities,

You feel a sense of accomplishment and success.

In doing what allows you to feel authentic happiness,

You realize that you are the source of your happiness,

That others may contribute to the quality of your life,

But that it is up to you to feel happiness from within.

Your positive feelings about yourself are felt from the experiences of reveling in and owning your personal accomplishments and successes.

And if you would like to practice curating happiness from within,

I'm going to leave a link to a video that's going to help with this.

I hope you'll enjoy it.

Accept an outlook of seeing setbacks,

Disappointment or rejection,

Such as a breakup,

As an opportunity for becoming more and for examining what you need to change and improve upon and not for anyone else but yourself.

This allows your perspective of life to be one of optimism and of allowing rather than resisting what happens to you,

And to revel in life's moments,

To reveal ways that can help you to become more confident and self-assured.

You can always assess what doesn't go your way and to consider whether you need to take a different path to attain your goals or if perhaps what you want is something different.

For Adele,

This meant examining some of the core beliefs that she held about herself,

Particularly as it related to her feelings of desirability and attractiveness,

Which as she admitted to me were aspects of herself that she had always felt less confident about.

Adele and I also challenged her core belief that she was not enough for someone to want to be with her forever,

And I showed her how to come up with accurate and positive evidence for how the opposite was in fact true.

When you examine the origin of your core beliefs,

You understand how the real life events that you have witnessed and experienced have set the stage for what you believe,

And also what reinforces your insecurities and fears.

With some help to strengthen the new core beliefs that Adele identified,

She was able to feel a growing confidence in her worthiness,

And she was far less fearful if a future relationship were to end.

Your learned beliefs originate from earlier life experiences,

What you have been witness to in your environment,

Including the spoken and unspoken messages you were given throughout childhood,

And what you continue to tell yourself and believe.

Know that in life you will continue to be given experiences that are opportunities to challenge your core beliefs,

Revealing what you need to examine more closely about yourself so that you may build greater confidence.

See these life experiences as opportunities to grow,

To become stronger and more resilient,

And to evolve into the very best version of you.

You can always increase your self-confidence,

Self-worth,

And self-esteem.

The more that you live aligned with your authentic or highest self,

Of choosing what is right and best for you,

The more that you will appreciate and value who you are.

Adele needed to believe in her own desirability and attractiveness first in order to feel confident and to know that she had much to offer someone as a life partner.

As Adele began to develop new core beliefs that she could believe in,

Her confidence in herself and her attractiveness and desirability grew.

She began to acknowledge her worth and value based on who she already was,

And she found evidence to prove to herself that she was more than good enough as a life partner for someone.

As I showed Adele how to challenge her self-doubts and the critical thoughts that would on occasion creep into her mind,

She began to look for and find evidence that she was,

Indeed,

Desirable and worthy of having a wonderful long-term relationship.

With a little help,

Adele began rewriting the old,

Insecure narratives that she had been telling herself for so long.

When her travel visa was ready and she returned to Australia,

Adele brought with her a newfound sense of self that she had never felt before.

Whether with the knowledge that she was more than enough for this or any relationship,

Adele also noticed that the inner work that she had done meant that she no longer would lose herself in a relationship,

And that she could voice her needs and desires knowing that she deserved to feel happiness based on knowing herself best and in following a path that was right for her.

Today Adele continues to live in Australia with her partner and two adopted children and is a wonderful example of how self-confidence can be built at any time in one's life by choice.

The ending of a love relationship may rattle our confidence for a short time,

And it is also possible that we will never really know the whole truth about why someone has chosen to end the relationship.

What is even more important is that you understand and know your worth,

That all relationships begin and end in some form,

But that your responsibility to yourself is always to believe in who you are and in your greatness.

Your belief in yourself is built upon positive action through the ongoing and repetitive inner dialogue that reminds you of all that you are capable and deserving of,

And to know that it is always within your power and your sacred right to improve yourself,

To grow and enhance who you are because of your desire to do so.

If you enter into a new relationship,

Continuing to doubt your worthiness,

To feel insecure in who you are,

To question your desirability,

Intelligence,

Attractiveness,

Or to be fearful of not being enough,

Then you will not attract the kind of partner that you truly want.

It matters first that you feel secure in who you are and confident in your value and worth.

If you know that you could benefit from rebuilding your confidence and a healthy sense of self that is based in truth rather than what problematic core beliefs you hold,

And if you would like my help,

Please reach out to me.

It may be time that you free yourself of the insecurities and fears that have kept you from feeling secure and confident,

From finding the right partner,

And for knowing that you are deserving of much unconditional love,

Beginning with your feelings towards yourself.

The name of my client and others have been changed to maintain confidentiality.

Additional details or circumstances may also have been altered in order to ensure their utmost privacy.

I hope this episode was of help to you,

And I'd love for you to join the community by subscribing to the podcast,

Sharing this episode or any other with someone you love,

And writing a review.

New episodes of the Wisdom Podcast are released every Sunday at 8 p.

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Eastern Standard Time.

I look forward to having you join me in another episode.

Thank you so much for joining me in this episode of the Wisdom Podcast.

To hear more,

Please check out the other episodes here.

And then join me at DorothyRetusne.

Com where you can share your questions and feedback from this or any episode with me.

And where you'll also find the Wisdom Blog,

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Allow yourself to go within,

To access your inner wisdom and to live this.

Open your authentic power,

Live your truth,

And be loved.

This is Dorothy.

Namaste.