The Dangers Of Romanticizing Grief With Gabrielle Valdes

Grief Growers,

I had the wonderful opportunity to meet Gabriel Valdez in person and kind of witness her launching into the world of guiding others through the world of love and dating,

And I really love the work that she's doing,

Especially surrounding ambiguous loss,

Which is kind of a loss where somebody disappears,

Ghosts in the dating world,

But I found a lot of similarities with grief as well in the sense that there's a lot of things that we don't get to say when somebody that we love dies or we divorce them,

Or even sometimes when a diagnosis is made and a person is no longer who they used to be and things don't get to get said,

That need to get said.

So Gabby,

Welcome to the show,

And I kind of want to start off in this vein of ambiguous loss,

But before we do anything,

Tell people kind of who you are,

What you do,

And then we'll trek into the world of how love,

Dating,

Grief,

All that jazz are intertwined.

Beautiful.

So yes,

Thank you for having me.

My name is Gabriel Valdez.

I go by Gabby,

And a little bit about me.

I am a former hopeless romantic turned into a love and dating coach.

I've spent years disillusioned with love,

Disappointed while dating,

And also destroyed by rejection and heartbreak,

And now I spend my days teaching the disappointed dater how to be their own best partner first.

This is pretty much being emotionally resilient and learning how to fully love and trust yourself,

And my background is in communications.

I have a BA in that,

And then I also have a master's in behavioral analysis and psychology,

And I am also a certified life coach.

It's a lot of things that kind of marry together perfectly to be like,

I can talk to you about dating and talk to you in a way where even just using these words right now of like a former hopeless romantic,

I'm like,

I know what that means.

It's not overly psychological or textbook or intellectual.

It's like,

Oh,

My heart understands what that is,

And I think that's a really big connector or why I resonate so deeply with the work that you do is that you bring it from kind of the cerebral place where a lot of people think about dating in this game of,

You know,

I should wait 24 hours before I call him back or I can't text,

You know,

Every three minutes or he's going to think I'm crazy or whatever,

And takes it into this heart space of like,

What are we really talking about when we're talking about,

You know,

The timing of it all?

Or are we really in a relationship or how have we defined this?

And that's just something that I really,

Really love about the work that you do.

So actually,

We're going to go in a different direction and then we'll come back to ambiguous loss,

But can you tell us what it means to be a former hopeless romantic?

Because it sounds like you're almost in recovery from something.

So true.

And I think what I've learned about being a romantic is,

Well,

Kind of taking a bird's eye view to this.

So we are all touched by romanticism.

And this is something that we,

Whether or not we're conscious of or whether we are aware of it,

It's something that's just,

It's drenched in our society.

So really connecting like love,

Attraction,

And compatibility to also like the practical things.

And for most of the time that I was dating or also in relationship,

I was heavily reliant on a lot of the romantic side of things.

So like,

Throw out all practicality,

Throw out all the tools,

All the skill set,

And just really just like lead with my intuition.

But then also that was a little bit confusing at the same time,

Because I hadn't necessarily flexed my muscle of discernment.

So I'd get really caught up with like,

Get confusing fear with intuition.

And just feeling like influenced by society.

So there were certain milestones that I had to accomplish,

Whether it was okay,

Let's go on a date,

We're exclusive,

We're in relationship,

Now marriage,

And it just felt that there was a lot of shoulds and a lot of expectations that were placed on me and my partner,

As well as the expectations that I put on myself.

And I learned by being in a long term relationship,

And we live together that there was so much that I wasn't taught growing up,

We're not exactly taught in schools,

How to have emotional,

Intimate and physically intimate,

Even spiritually intimate relationships with other people,

We're not taught those communication tools,

And we're not taught about what we truly want,

What we value what we want to need,

And then being able to have those constructive and fruitful conversations with our partner.

So in short,

It's just a lot that's happening on a societal level that I was frustrated with,

And all of those expectations that love is easy,

That love is like doesn't have necessarily any responsibility,

You're just going to know it's going to be conflict free.

And that's just not the reality of it.

And so when I say like,

I'm a recovering,

Hopeless romantic,

I think that of course,

Love is beautiful.

And there are butterfly feelings at the same time,

It's a balance between getting really clear and practical about what we want so that we can sustain this for the long term.

I literally just wrote down the media and society feed us romanticism,

Then we're left to our own devices.

Beautiful.

Beautiful.

Yeah.

It makes me laugh.

It's like,

If we feed them this,

How will they respond?

I'm like,

We're all crazy.

Yeah,

Yeah.

So recovering,

Hopeless,

Romantic,

It's almost like you're taking down these societal structures of what love is quote unquote,

Supposed to look like should look like you talked about that and then reconstructing this is how love actually works and functions and shows up in relationships.

And I really enjoy that being part of my work is having the awareness of what's present in society,

Like what are we all influenced by,

And then working one on one or either in a group setting with clients and getting really clear on what they want.

Because again,

We're fed this template,

This either monogamous template or even heterosexual template,

And that just doesn't fit for everybody.

And so being able to have honest conversations with ourselves and honest conversations with our partners,

And even collectively about what is possible in relationships is so beautiful.

And it's such a missed opportunity that we don't have these conversations.

And we haven't even updated this marriage or relationship template in like 100 years.

And we are so innovative with our work,

But we aren't even talking about the possibility and the innovation that can happen in relationships.

It's like we invented the smartphone,

But we haven't reinvented marriage.

I'm laughing.

This is very akin.

Okay,

So I love the way you're speaking about this because it's very parallel to grief.

Because I think I can't really say when we started telling ourselves the stories about grief that we did,

But it's got to be at least 100,

If not 200 years old that we started telling these stories that to grieve well means to be strong,

To let time do the work,

To grieve alone,

To get busy and distract ourselves away from it.

And so grief has also not been reinvented in quite some time.

And we see all these big strides in technology and science and literature and even the way civil rights and society is structured,

Although that has a very long way to go as well.

And yet these big constructs like grief,

Like love,

Like loss,

Like relationships,

We're like,

Yeah,

We're just going to let those sit on the back burner for a while while we make another device.

And it's not that both can't be done simultaneously because obviously relationships have been brought to the online and technological space,

Which is something else we can get into.

But right now I think I want to focus on the parallels between loss and grief.

And I actually wrote down this question for you when you started talking about romanticizing and I said,

Do we romanticize grief?

Is there a picture of loss that people have in their heads that might be more fantasy than reality?

Oh,

That's such a good question.

I think you've even started painting that picture of maybe that's even labeled as stoicism or being stoic or even perfectionism.

I'm going to get clear on how I feel by myself and process that alone.

And I don't need anybody else.

Or alternatively,

That maybe looks like I have all of these emotions.

I can't contain it.

I don't want to bring anyone else into the mess.

And that's really troubling because that actually intensifies loneliness and grief,

Especially when we feel alone.

And we have no one else to bring into our vulnerable experience.

And I feel like one of the most important tools that I've learned and I've picked up,

Especially since my last breakup,

Or just even before I got here,

Was to break up or just even being out in the dating field is it's so important to validate and acknowledge our emotions and our experiences because that leads to healing.

And not only do we need to,

You know,

Create that safety,

That emotional safety within ourselves,

But really inviting other people into that process,

Because then that also lets us practice receiving love and emotional intimacy from other people.

Like I cannot thank the community of people that have really just held me during tumultuous times.

And for the longest time,

I thought that I had to do it alone or even on a rational level,

I knew that I needed community,

But it was so hard to actually take steps forward to let people in like that's a whole other process and practice.

But really learning how to receive help from others and love and compassion that has just been such a game changer for me.

And so to answer your question about romanticizing grief,

I feel like for the longest time,

At least I'll speak for myself,

Grief was something that was something that I had to do alone.

So like I have so many poetry books that I would just like read in the middle of the night and just cry.

So just really painting that picture of just like doing it by myself,

Toughening it out,

But feeling my feelings,

But not sharing them with other people.

Yeah,

I think,

And maybe everybody does this a little bit differently.

Like everybody romanticizes and internalizes grief differently.

And it sounds like for you,

It's almost the picture of the long suffering martyr,

Or just like the person who is in such great anguish,

But can't let anybody else in.

Very,

Yeah,

Stoicism,

But also perfectionism of like,

If it's messy,

I'm not going to let anybody else into this picture.

And I think for me,

It also related to perfectionism,

But in a different way of I'm going to have all the answers in my grief.

Somehow I'm going to show up and have Kleenex at all times and know how to talk to my professors about the fact that my mom died or,

Or know what to say to my dentist the next time I have to go in for a checkup and they ask about it,

Or I'm going to have all the answers kind of how I portray that.

So grief growers,

I encourage you to think as this interview continues of how maybe you've romanticized grief and then like how it's actually functionally,

Logically really showing up for you in your world.

And I want to speak one.

Yes,

I want to say one thing about that.

That's so beautiful that you said that I think showing up polished and edited is something that's come up for me around a lot of different things,

Like grief,

Like but even just dating.

So an example of this would be my ex partner and I,

We're navigating,

Of course,

Grief and the breakup,

And we still interact with each other because we have a,

We are in the same field.

And so it's an interesting,

I think,

Dynamic to have to show up to community events polished and having all the answers and figuring it out and then going back home and kind of like suffering and grieving alone.

It's just been such an interesting thing and realizing that of course not everything happens in silo.

Like the way that I show up in this breakup is how I show up in a lot of other things in my life.

And I realized that I show up polished and edited and perfect because I put that expectation on myself to have all of the answers.

And so that's a practice that I have also been committed to just really bringing people into the mess and even the people that I deeply trust.

It's funny because I'll even preface the conversation by being like,

I don't even have cohesive words right now.

I just like need you to be in the feeling with me and I'm so thankful for that.

I'm so thankful for them because they get it and they don't try to rush and fix things.

And that's like another thing about grief and loss is just like giving yourself the time and the compassion and the grace to just be in that process.

Like grief is not linear.

It's definitely a journey and you learn so much about yourself,

Like your resilience,

Your ability to be strong,

Your ability to cry and be angry.

Like it's definitely,

It comes in waves and yeah,

Now I'm going on tangents.

No,

I think you're absolutely right though.

And I love this tip to even give a disclaimer before you dive into conversation.

And maybe it's not asterisk,

My mother is dead,

But it's asterisk,

I'm having really trouble,

Like really bad trouble forming words today or something like that.

Or like,

I feel like my thoughts aren't clear or it's like those people when you walk into their houses for the first time,

Like,

Oh,

I didn't have time to clean.

I'm like,

As if I needed a disclaimer,

I love you anyway.

But yeah,

Especially for people like coworkers,

Like distant family members,

Things like that,

That we consistently show up polished,

Pretty quote unquote presentable on their behalf.

There is something to be said for perhaps starting a conference talk or even a meeting or a dinner party by saying,

I'm really having a hard go of it lately.

And with that,

I was able to prepare this,

I'm able to present this,

I'm able to show up as this,

Whatever follows is following that disclaimer.

I want to move into the world of of breakups.

And this is a large question,

So kind of answer how you will.

But what is it about breakups that make them so incredibly hard?

A lot of things.

A loss of identity.

Because you've built a partnership with this person,

Whether it is short term or long term,

Like you've invested in this relationship.

So you've built part of your identity around this relationship,

The possibility of the relationship,

The future plans that you may have had together.

And maybe you even love the way that you felt when you were with this person.

I think that's like a really important thing to especially contrasting from past relationships where I didn't really like the person I was in that relationship,

Or even that there's also space for that too.

So not maybe loving who you were in that relationship or also loving who you were in this relationship.

So again grieving that loss of identity,

Whether you're being propelled forward to explore other parts of yourself if you didn't necessarily like who you were in your past relationship,

You're still shedding things.

You still know that there's something else out there that you can grow into and you're shedding parts of yourself that no longer exist.

So in my last long term relationship,

I was primarily codependent.

So I exhibited a lot of codependent behaviors 100% of the time.

And in that relationship,

I learned about boundaries and communication and how to be my own partner and stand in my own values.

And this sounds really polished,

But it was so messy.

But being able to grieve that loss of myself,

That person that didn't need to force a relationship to feel loved and desired or worthy and somebody who could choose to be by themselves instead of reaching for a partner,

Even though I knew it wasn't a good fit.

So really shedding those identities.

And then also,

Alternatively,

In my last relationship where I really loved who I was in this past relationship,

I felt more confident.

I felt more like myself.

I obviously had learned a lot of things in the last couple of relationships I had before being partnered with my ex.

And when we broke up,

Especially to me,

It was a full body yes.

I was like,

I'm ready for this.

And for him,

It was not.

And in retrospect,

I'm like,

Okay,

Great.

I'm so glad because rejection is redirection.

But at the same time,

Going through that whole grieving process,

I was grieving this idea of feeling confident,

Being connected with another person,

Really diving into emotional intimacy.

But then on the other side of that,

I'm like,

Wow,

Yes,

I'm never going to have those intimate moments with him again.

But I can still bring what I loved about myself into the next relationship or even presently,

Like while I'm dating or being self partnered.

So it's really hard because there's a lot of things that are happening,

You know,

Between our partner or ex partner that we had really hoped for.

We get disappointed about what could have been.

And then we're also just shedding who we were in that past relationship and then moving towards change.

And change can be really scary.

And especially when we've associated safety,

Being taken care of,

And that familiarity that comes with being in relationship or partnership,

Like we're shedding that too.

So we have to kind of redefine what security and emotional safety means to us as we move forward.

I love that you're speaking to that because a lot of people refer to the death of a spouse or the death of a partner as the ultimate breakup,

Because it's like the breakup is permanent.

And so all of these things like the loss of safety or the renegotiation of hopes and dreams and expectations and goals and even having to find a new self or being forced into a place of change is really familiar.

And I know grief goers,

There are a lot of you listening who would say,

I'd rather just have divorced from them or broken up with them,

Then they die.

And this is not a conversation about that,

Although I have had conversations in that vein in the past.

But this is where loss,

The things that irreversibly change our lives,

Whether they are a breakup or a death,

How they in turn force us to change,

Become different people and also force us,

Ask us to grieve.

Something that's interesting about breakups that make them different from death is that oftentimes we instigate them.

They are at our own hand where I think with death,

I feel people have,

They feel like they have less of a choice in the matter or no choice at all,

Which is the most common.

And sometimes people are bitter when people like me put death,

Divorce and diagnosis all into the same category and call it grief because there's almost a ranking of some feel more severe than others.

But I know from the clients that I work with,

From my own experience,

Just from hearing stories out in the world,

Sometimes a separation from somebody who is still alive and living an alternate life without you is more painful than the death of somebody else that they've experienced died in their life.

So it really is,

This is my disclaimer asterisk in this podcast that it really is individual for each and every person.

And for each breakup that you have,

It's a different kind of grief.

It's almost like the flavor changes.

Yeah.

And there's a lot of texture and nuance and complexity when it comes to relationships and grief.

And my invitation to your community is to really,

Of course,

To differentiate between the different types of grief,

But also to welcome different experiences or what other people are going through.

It's not my grief is better than yours.

My grief is harder than yours.

Like I'm sure that everyone has their own weight.

And I think that takes away.

I think that there's,

I mean,

Of course there's truth in that,

Like there's different variations,

But I think the missed opportunity is really just to create a community that allows different types of grief so that we can all be there for each other.

Because the whole point is to have that community and to feel heard and seen so that we can heal.

And when people are feeling safe to share,

What's true for them without that judgment,

That criticism,

Or that shame,

Then we're really going to elevate that person because they feel safe to really just stand in their own experiences and they're being supported by other people.

And when we're healing,

We show up more empowered,

And it's just a win-win for everybody.

That was enormously beautifully said,

And really is,

I think a cornerstone of my work,

But for your work as well,

Which is why we get along so well in real life,

Is like,

I literally just wrote down safe to share what's true without judgment.

And this is the world that we're collectively building.

I love that you said that.

Really quickly,

I want to dive into the grief of betrayal within the context of a relationship,

Because I know that a lot of grief growers listening to this podcast,

And even some who've joined our private Facebook or recently are struggling with finding out long-time secrets about a partner,

Infidelity,

And those are things that are like giant grief bombs that go off in the middle of relationships.

And really,

It's like sudden and traumatic loss sans death.

Completely,

Completely.

And again,

Everyone has their own experience.

So I will be sharing from what I know and my experiences,

So please take what you like,

Leave the rest.

I also just want to validate how everyone's feeling about having their trust broken.

That is a real thing.

And being able to honor that you as a person have a value.

You have a value system.

And for you,

That may be trustworthiness,

That may be being transparent,

That may be honest,

Whatever your value system is.

And when that trust is broken by somebody that you deeply love,

That can be really shattering,

Especially since you are holding that relationship with your full heart and showing up the way that you want to.

And so I can understand how that would be very jarring.

And also,

You would experience a lot of emotions and grief that would come with that.

But I do want to say that is amazing that you have this value system and something has triggered you in a way that has allowed you to be in that space of like,

Okay,

My values are being threatened in a way,

What can I do to facilitate that conversation or figure out how we can repair this.

So if that's what you choose to do,

Right,

So again,

There's so many different ways that this can go.

You as a person have the choice to leave,

You have the choice to stay,

You have the choice to have difficult and vulnerable conversations,

You also have the choice to not.

And again,

Being able to know that this is a process.

So even if you choose one day to be angry at your partner,

And that's that's allowed,

And then the next day,

You can have a heartfelt conversation like it doesn't have to the weight of your relationship doesn't have to rely on one conversation like being able to experience your emotions,

Allow that process that grief process to play out is all allowed.

It's all okay.

So give yourself some grace,

Give yourself some patience during that.

And I'm going to speak more to rupture and repair.

So this also might sound a little like simplified and in a way it is because again,

Relationships,

Grief,

Anger,

Disappointment,

Trust breaking is so complex and so nuanced.

But with any relationship,

There is an opportunity for repair.

So it goes rupture and repair.

So rupture would be like your trust is broken.

The repair is the opportunity for you to build trust within yourself and realizing that your trust was broken.

And you can be angry about that,

Like you don't have to defend your value system to another person.

It's okay to feel disappointed.

It's okay to feel loss when someone has broken your trust that is allowed.

And then also being able if you choose to repair,

Given yourself actually before that being able to give yourself what you need.

So if you need time to process alone with a friend,

A therapist,

Or even process with your partner,

Give yourself what you need.

So thinking about communication,

Or if you need to just decompress and be alone,

Like you trust yourself that you know that you can give yourself what you need in that moment.

And if you choose to repair the relationship,

I would invite you to have that conversation in a non-violent way.

So really speaking using I statements like I feel threatened,

I feel sad about this.

I noticed I noticed when you did X,

Y,

And Z,

It broke my trust and this is what's present for me.

As opposed to blaming,

Which is you did this to me,

Our relationship is broken because of you.

And it can be really hard to not do that.

But when we create that that container,

That safe,

Emotionally safe container,

I'm also talking about emotional safety,

Not physical safety,

Or physical abuse.

So we're creating that container where we can really,

You know,

Honor each other's mistakes.

It's not about being perfect,

But being able to just have those deep,

Vulnerable conversations about what's present for you and what was present for that other person,

That's likely going to be more generative,

As opposed to blaming,

Which then leads to people shutting down and feeling ashamed.

And again,

That may also be part of the process,

You may want to experience all those feelings that's allowed.

But if you're going to repair,

I would invite you to then also have like those really deep healing and constructive conversations by leading with compassion,

Empathy and non-violent communication.

I love that you spoke to this idea of rupture and repair.

Because you make it sound inevitable,

Because it is.

I think a lot of people go into relationships thinking,

Oh,

Especially because of these myths that love is easy,

It's never complicated,

You'll just know what to say,

Do,

You'll find the perfect partner,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

In the romanticism world,

It's like,

Then there will never be ruptures.

And in reality,

I think we all know that there are so many times when things get not even like huge breakages of trust,

But even like little miscommunications,

Or I offended you,

But I didn't mean to.

And things of that nature,

Like small,

Almost like tear and repair,

And then there's rupture and repair.

And so they come at these different levels and capacities that really impact us in our lives.

I want to get into now,

Finally,

Let's circle back to ambiguous loss,

Which is really the conversation and the topic that had me invite you on the show.

Because as you were talking about it,

I was like,

Did she suddenly switch to doing grief work?

Or is this still in the love and dating field?

And I was really just blown away by how you talked about ambiguous loss and how it relates to love and dating.

And then conversely,

How like I translated it into grief speak in my own brain.

So can you tell us what ambiguous loss is,

Like define it for us,

And then why it's so hard and how it shows up in relationships?

Sure.

So ambiguous loss was first founded by Dr.

Pauline Boss in the 1970s.

When we think about grief,

We typically associate it with death,

Right?

So which is valid.

And there also is,

Again,

That like missed opportunity to really expand on the definition of grief,

There are different shades of grief.

And so when we think about death,

What we have,

When we think about death,

There is physical evidence that something is gone,

We have,

You know,

The body for proof.

And then not only do we have that we have the community and the rituals that involve or the rituals that happen when someone has passed away.

So,

You know,

The ceremony,

The burial,

The get together with family afterwards,

These are all rituals that happen.

And again,

That brings that community of support together.

So we have the evidence to be able to validate all of our feelings,

Because this is a real thing.

And then the stages of grief can occur because we have that physical evidence.

And then not only do we have that we have the community and the rituals that help with the healing process.

And what's really interesting about ambiguous loss,

Well,

It first was centered around the idea of immigration,

Addiction,

Divorce,

And aging parents.

So the difference between grief and ambiguous loss is the loss of something that is no that is currently still with us.

So like a good example of this would be maybe a relative that has dementia.

So you are physically with your grandparents say,

And but their mind is no longer with us,

Like they don't have the ability to connect with us at least on that level.

So ambiguous loss is defined by something that is perhaps in the physical world,

But is just no longer there with us on perhaps a spiritual level.

And again,

This could be related to immigration,

Addiction,

Divorce,

Even aging parents like needed a loss of identity.

So I'm thinking about how our relationships are impacted by ambiguous loss.

So there is that rupture.

Yeah,

I literally just wrote down physical world,

Not with us spiritually.

And there is this pain of they're still here,

But they're not totally gone.

So it's almost there's this question of if it's not a death,

Death,

Do I have a right to grief?

That's pretty much it.

And thinking about breakups or ghosting or shedding our identities,

Because we don't have that physical evidence.

And because that person is still existing in the world,

We then don't get to enter the grieving process.

Or maybe we don't allow ourselves to enter that grieving process,

Which is really challenging,

Because then that also has the domino effect of not letting people into our grieving process,

Right?

So like the lack of community or even rituals.

And so for my last breakup,

I really invited myself to validate my emotions,

Like he still exists in the world,

I actually still see him.

I want to validate my experience,

Even though he is existing in this world.

Based on our conversations,

He is also I don't know if this is true for him,

But he is the image that I'm getting from him is that he is fine.

And that has also been very challenging for me because behind the scenes,

I went through a whole process of grief and just disappointment and sadness.

And I think for the longest time,

I was actually seeking permission to grieve.

And then something in me shifted where I was like,

No,

I'm a person with needs,

I'm going to validate my process,

I can be sad about this.

So again,

Just acknowledging what I'm going through make labeling it grief and ambiguous loss.

So even labeling is important.

It's an it's another step when it comes to allowing things allowing our experiences,

Like we can name it,

We can talk about it,

We can allow it.

And because I was able to own it,

That's when I was able to reach out to my community and ask for what I needed,

Or not know what I needed,

But still like go to people and be like,

Hey,

I'm really struggling.

And then it's also allowed me to really lean into rituals.

Like now I like you know,

Burn stage,

I pull like tarot cards,

I like to read poetry about breakups,

Like all of these different rituals that are going to allow me to feel my emotions.

I don't know if your community is hip to Enneagram,

But I identify as the Enneagram for and so funny because earlier in the conversation,

You were like talking about like the suffering and how that is tied to our identity.

Enneagram type fours are known to be like the hopeless romantics that like derive a lot of their identity through suffering.

So I love to feel my emotions.

But being able to allow that experience and being able to turn to tools or rituals that like help me feel the depths of my emotions has been so healing.

Yeah,

And creating a world where you don't have to suffer alone.

But like you have to be the one to put the muscle into creating a world where you don't have to suffer alone because there's not this evidence of a death,

Death,

I'm going to use that phrase again.

It's like you have to give yourself a certain kind of permission to grieve because things are not what they once were.

And this is a really good time to remind grief growers who might be new to this podcast or new to a broader definition of grief that much of the world says you're not allowed to grieve unless something dies.

But the modalities that I was trained in and what we talk about here on coming back is that grief happens anytime that what was normal has permanently and irreversibly changed.

And so it can occur within the context of relationships.

It can occur within the context of diagnoses,

Especially like something like dementia or Alzheimer's,

Like you mentioned.

And this notion of something has happened,

And I can never go back to what I had.

Even aging is related to a small but very,

Very present grief,

And it shows up differently for everybody.

And I love that you also mentioned within the context of this breakup,

You're like,

It was so hard to give myself permission to grieve.

And also on top of that,

He looked like he was fine.

And I think that's where a lot of isolation comes in,

In grief,

In the dating realm,

Because it's like on top of feeling awful.

Now I think I'm crazy.

A hundred percent.

And especially thinking about ghosting or,

You know,

Breakups.

And we have online profiles now.

So it's,

It's so interesting,

Like being able to,

You know,

See the projected perfect polished version of your ex online.

But also to some folks who have experienced ghosting.

And you as the person on the other end are really trying to initiate conversation,

You didn't get that closure.

But to really try to take initiative around,

You know,

Being in charge of your healing and your growth.

So you reach out to have a honest and vulnerable and mature conversation with another person,

And they are not meeting you where you're at,

And they're ghosting you.

And it's so disappointing to see them on social media,

And they're living their life and they are not open to talking to you,

They're not responding to your text messages.

That's like another level of ghosting and another level of grief too,

Because you know that this person is existing,

You see them on the internet.

Even you see them in real life,

And you feel helpless,

You feel like you can't do anything about it.

Yeah,

And that's something that's very resonant in the experiences of grief is feeling powerless,

Hopeless,

Helpless,

To change anything.

So definitely drawing those parallels there.

Really quickly,

I want to touch on the grief of losing yourself within somebody else in a relationship.

I think you touched on this briefly when you were talking about codependency and having codependent tendencies within a relationship,

But I do hear from a lot of people like,

Now that my person has died,

Or now that the divorce is final,

Or now that the breakup has happened,

Who am I now that they are no longer present to align myself with?

And I think so many of us are taught because of romanticism to align ourselves or even kind of be created by absorbed by,

Really consumed by the person that we choose to date and be in a relationship with.

And so when that separation happens,

It's really like an unglueing or an untangling.

Love and relationships are always a two-way street.

It's definitely not about being so independent or so codependent.

And what I've learned recently is we embody the embody all three of these energies and I'll go,

I'll start defining these right now,

Which are,

So there's codependence,

There's independent and there's interdependent.

And instead of labeling a person as a,

Like you're a codependent person or you're an interdependent person,

I want to shift that language and really allow everybody as a human to embody all three of these energies.

Cause it's not about being like,

I'm not defined by my codependent energy.

It's just human.

Like we all have needs.

We're all still figuring out how to articulate our needs and ask for it.

So thinking about codependency that looks like I need this relationship to work out.

So like on the,

You know,

On the dating field,

I need this relationship to work out for me to feel loved.

So really putting a lot of emphasis onto the other person and having that person and that relationship be defining,

Like really self-defining.

On the other end of the spectrum is independent.

So we talked about this earlier.

So maybe that looks like stoicism or you're not letting other people into the vulnerable moments.

You show up polished.

You're not letting people into like the beautiful messy middle of being,

Or the beautiful mess of being a human.

And you feel like you need to tough it out.

And then in the middle is more like interdependent.

Like,

You know who you are,

You know what you want and need.

But you also can ask for what you want and need.

Like you can depend on other people.

And that doesn't mean that you're weak or that you're not competent or that you're incapable of handling life.

And so painting this picture of a spectrum really allows the person to see like,

Okay,

It's human to be all of these different things and just to notice like,

Okay,

Maybe I'm feeling a little codependent right now.

And what are the tools or practices that I can use to really,

You know,

Allow myself to feel codependent or really move towards that interdependent energy.

I'm trying to relate that to the losing your identity.

I'm trying to tie this back in.

I'm wondering if you have anything for me.

I feel like you would.

Well,

I'm thinking of a client that I used to work with a little while back and she was experiencing the loss of her husband.

And it was really,

Who am I if I'm not his wife?

And this nuance of,

I don't know if their relationship was necessarily codependent.

I don't think I would stick that label on there by any means.

But there's something that happens when relationships grow this,

It is a dependency of sorts to be reliant on each other and to trust each other to carry half the load or when one's struggling and the other is not to kind of take more and then give more and things of that nature.

And so to all of a sudden,

Be doing life solo when you were doing life as a pair and to pull yourself out of that identity or be forced out of that identity of this person's wife,

This person's husband,

This person's partner,

This person's spouse,

Just speaking more towards the shift in identity that comes from that.

Yes,

Different question.

I think I've interpreted that differently,

But I will speak to the idea of loneliness and being alone.

And oftentimes when we're experiencing loneliness,

We tend to merge that with the idea that we are alone.

And so the question is,

How do I,

Or how do I define myself when my partner is no longer there?

And again,

This is so reasonable that you have that identity tied to your relationship and your partner,

You're grieving this part of your life and you're grieving your person.

So again,

I would just invite you to be as gentle as possible with yourself.

And then also knowing that you may be experiencing loneliness,

But just know that that is separate from actually being alone.

So being able to bring trusted friends and family into that,

Like they are also part of your identity and your support system.

And when you're,

When you feel ready,

I would invite you to lean on other people so that you can also do that,

Like repair or that rupture and repair with yourself.

That also applies to the relationship that we have with ourselves.

So you are strong,

You are courageous,

You can do that.

You can repair,

You can,

Your identity can rupture and you can also repair that and you don't have to do that alone.

So you always have community with you to help you through that grieving process.

Yeah,

I'm really interested in that because I think for many people,

Especially those who are grieving or those who have been in a relationship in their lives longer than they've not been in a relationship in their lives,

It's a new concept to rupture and repair and to do it solo.

And so reaching for resources like yours or like mine that encourage this not only community perspective,

But like an inward self-loving perspective,

I think might be the first step in acknowledging that yes,

You are doing it solo,

But you are not as alone as you think you are.

You're just not with the person that you're usually with when you've done this for years and years and years going back.

And so kind of breaking the myth of aloneness.