How to Heal After a Break Up | Trauma Healing

In this video, what I'm going to talk to you about is how you overcome a breakup, how you actually get your legs back under you, how you actually feel like a human being again. You know, I think that one of the really difficult aspects of life is sometimes we're going to lose love. If you don't know me, I'm Michael Anthony. I'm an author, speaker, coach, podcast host, and I'm just here to help talk about life in a really real and unscripted way. I don't really have an agenda here other than sharing my story and my journey in the hopes that it helps other people.

And so if you're in this place in life, you're uncertain, you need security, you need community, you just need somebody to be a part of the journey with, there is an absolutely free community that I have called Think Unbroken that, if you click the link down in the description, you can come and join. These videos are really these talking head experiences that I'm sharing with you about how I've gotten to where I am in my life.

And I'm not saying I'm right or wrong in any of this. I'm just sharing my story. So like anyone, I've been through breakups. I've been through horribly vicious and depressing breakups, and I've been through breakups that weren't that difficult and that you come out of fairly easily.

But earlier this year, I went through arguably the hardest breakup that I've ever been through with the woman that I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with. And one of the things that I recognized in this breakup and in this experience of the healing that I'm in now and have been for most of this year is that all of this could have been avoided. I'll talk about that a little bit more later, but I want to talk about first and foremost just the practical steps to moving through the space that you're in.

I think that there's a large misnomer that's been sold to us through, whether it's social media or television, books and podcasts, radio, everything that says when you go through a breakup, you need to stop everything that you're doing and mourn and grieve and give it a month or two years or 10 or whatever, and don't put yourself back out there. I am not a proponent of that ideology. I'm not saying to go hook up and sleep with a bunch of people to get over the person that you were just with.

I mean, sometimes that's a thing that you have to do. Let's just call it what it is. But most of the time I think that the journey is about getting back to who you are and giving yourself permission to navigate this at the speed that feels appropriate. And for me, what I felt earlier in this year was just, I got hit by a truck.

I don't think I have a better way to explain it. As I head towards 40 years old, which is baffling to me to begin with, I never anticipated, nor did I ever want marriage or children. Never in my 40, almost 40 years of life, was that something that I desired until I met this person. And when I met them, it was the first time it clicked. I was like, oh, this is the thing that everyone talks about. And we walked that path. Well, we walked closely to that path, and as we continued to get to know each other, we just simply realized there are a couple value systems that are in massive misalignment.

One particularly around God and religion, because I am an agnostic most days leaning closer towards atheism than anything, and she could not be more polar opposite. It's something we talked about in the beginning, but ultimately it was something that we realized, as many people have come to in their relationships, some things are irreconcilable. And this was one of those things.

So we ended and I left. And looking at the journey of the second, third half of this year, one of the things that has been really special — and I know this is going to sound strange to go from breakup to really special — but one of the things that have been really special for me in my journey is just getting closer to me. In fact, closer to me than I've probably been in the last 20 years, where I'm only doing things that I want to do, where I'm only showing up how I want to show up, where I'm taking care of myself in different ways than I have before.

Where in fact, I picked up hobbies that I haven't had in a very long time: learning a new language, playing drums again, creating content in a different capacity. And what I'll tell you is, I mean, as an entrepreneur, I think that a lot of my friends and peers would probably support what I'm going to say: it's not that fun. Like what you see on social media clips and these people who are driving fast cars and private planes and all those things. You see this really fun, enjoyable life, but that's not always true. And I think that holds true of relationships as well, where we're sold this lie that everyone's relationship is perfect behind the scenes.

I think most people's relationships are like trash. Real talk. I think most people's relationships are just a complete disaster. And I think a big part of that is people are incredibly afraid to be seen as who they are and to tell the truth. One of the things that I do not shy away from, be it to my own dismay at times, is the truth.

And one of the things that I've learned is to share that truth first and foremost with myself. We as humans are masterful at lying to ourselves, and so the first thing that you have to look at here in your life on the backside of a breakup is: where did you lie to yourself about this relationship? And this is not about beating yourself up because that's not going to help you.

This is about acknowledging and taking a look at why this didn't work. I realized there was a disconnection. If I would've connected one dot, everything would've been different. Honestly, we probably wouldn't have dated to begin with, and that would've saved some time and suffering.

Now, let me be clear. I'm incredibly grateful for the experience I had with this person. They're going to be near and dear to my heart until the day I die. No questions asked. But had I asked the right question in the beginning, this would've never come to pass. And I realized one of the big problems is as I reflected and I took self-inventory, I wasn't asking the right questions.

And I created this thing called the 66 Questions You Should Ask Before Being in a Relationship with Someone. The reason why I created this is I realized that there are these six key elements of a relationship: mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, financial, and sexual. And if you're not somewhat connected, give or take 80% in agreement on most of those questions, you're probably not going to make it.

So I took a step back and I was like, well, how did I end up in this situation to begin with? And it was very simply put a mistake that I made by not asking the right questions. I had a mentor once tell me, "The quality of your questions determines the quality of your life." And that held true here.

So what I did is I went, I did inventory, and I looked at my life and I made a declaration to myself: oh, this was my fault. All of this that happened, that's on me. My fault. And again, not a place of judgment or shame, but just acknowledgement and looking at it for what it was. If I would've done something different, I would've been in a different scenario.

I wouldn't be making this video, that's for sure. But of course, that's not how it went, and that's very often not how life goes.

So what do you do? How do you start? Clean yourself up and pick yourself up back from the ashes. Well, I'll be honest with you: I hit a very, very hard spot for a few months where it was back into coping mechanisms, not showing up for myself as I should, getting lost in just the chaos of life — working way too much, sleeping way too little, traveling like a crazy person.

And then ultimately I got so sick, just pure exhaustion. I ended up in the hospital and I realized, here's what's so crazy: I've been coaching people for a decade. I've helped a lot of people and yet still I am a human being. So I had to do what I do best, and that's I had to go to my resources. I had to go to my friends, to the people closest to me that I value, and I had to go to therapy and get back with a coach and really dive in to the root causes and reasons why I couldn't have flipped the switch as quickly as I had. Because I can tell you this: over the last decade I've definitely had breakups where the next day I wake up and I'm good. I'm just like back to it, not even remotely bothered. I think that happens sometimes. And this one — it was different because it was arguably one of the deepest emotional connections that I've ever had.

And so there was this mourning and grief period followed by a self-apathetic period, followed by months and months and months of just getting after it again, showing up for myself, doing the right things the right way, living life on my terms, and making sure that every day I was taking care of myself.

So if you are recently on the backside of a breakup and you've had some acknowledgement — how did I end up here? — now the question is, well, how do I get some help and leverage people in my life to get back to my baseline? Okay, and now you're back at baseline. So I'm back at baseline for months and months. Now, looking at life, assessing, getting back to the things that bring me joy, happiness, fulfillment, living life on my terms, showing up for myself. And then what? Well, then what is: do you put yourself back out there or do you not?

For me the answer is yes, because I clearly had identified years ago I want to be in a relationship. It fulfills me; it gives me this thing that you don't get otherwise. And having been single the majority of my thirties, I made the decision, you know what? I'm going to go put myself back out here. Now here's what happens to so many people: we get scared that we're going to get hurt again. The reality is you might. That is just the dark reality of coming out of a breakup and looking at your life. You might get hurt again. And if you don't play the game, you can't win the prize.

So when I think about the people who are forever single because they're so afraid to get hurt again, I'm like: at some point you have to live. You have to actually live your life. And that can be very scary because living your life does entail some pain. There's no way around it. You will never get out of this without pain. And trust me, I have felt pain over the course of this last year — some of it very, very, very painful. And that's okay, because I know that on the backside of the pain it eventually goes away. This too shall pass.

So now you're sitting in your life, you're looking at it, you're assessing it, you're trying to not be judgmental. And yet the thing that happens is this idea — these ideas of rumination — start to pop up: Well, what if I would've done this? What if I wouldn't have done that? What if I said this? What if I wouldn't have said that? What if this was different? What if that was different? And then the hard part comes — and that's the letting go of all of it.

Because even though you might be putting yourself out there and you're doing the things that fulfill you, and you're going to therapy and coaching, and you have friends, the ideas and the thoughts — they exist because we're humans. You have 60,000 thoughts a day. Very, very few of those thoughts can you actually control. And so things will show up in your mind. What do you do with the thoughts in your mind? You have to allow them to exist.

I think one of the really interesting things about breaking up and then being single and kind of going through the throes of all of it is the space in which you have to sit with yourself again. And I love that space, as odd as it sounds. I love that space because when those thoughts come up, you get to really test your ability to control your mind. So much of this journey — all of it, life, not just going through breakups but life — so much of the journey is just controlling your mind. And what's so difficult about that is we think that we're not actually in control. We think that somehow our brain is running the show. It is, but it isn't. It is because it's this autonomic system that helps you function in its entirety. Without your brain, you don't breathe; without your brain you can't hear; you can't do most of the things. Your brain, if you don't know, is really built to serve one purpose and that's to help you make cognizant decisions to survive.

But what do you do if you break up with someone and you go, this feels like death? Well, the brain is going to associate the idea of love and the potential of hurt with death. And so what happens is now you want to put yourself back out there. You want to fall in love, you want to explore and meet other people, and your brain puts a wall up and says, "Hey, don't you remember that? That felt like death. You really want to do that again?" Then you go, "No, I don't want to do that again." Logical. It's a reason. It's just one of the most normal human experiences that we have because our brains are always evaluating our environment for safety.

So you have to look at that and say, Am I willing to be hurt again? Am I willing to let go of the ruminations and the thoughts about what could and could not be? Am I willing to move further into this moment? I had a client a few years ago, and this person was an awesome human being, but they had gone through a divorce and this divorce had shaken them to the core. It uprooted their entire life because it was blindsiding to them. They didn't see it coming. The divorce process was super ugly. A lot of bad things transpired and this person had come to me and basically said, "I don't ever want to date again. I don't want to fall in love again. I don't want any of those things."

What I thought was really interesting about the work that we did is that by the time we were finished this person was engaged. Why? Because we had to walk this path of recognizing that we are allowed to have joy and happiness and fulfillment even in light of all the darkness that's going to happen. I know as well as I know that the sun will rise tomorrow. There is a huge potentiality to be hurt again, and I accept that. And in that acceptance I'm able to continue to navigate the world because I bring my cognizant bias to the reality that I know there are people in the world that have happy, loving, fulfilling relationships that are in alignment with their core values and who they are as a human being. And so that's inspiring and promising to me.

Okay, so what do you do? Like timeline? This is a question that I've had people ask many, many times over the years: Well, how do you know? I don't have an answer for you. I don't have an answer for me because the timeline has always been different. There were times in the past where I would go on a date literally a week later. There were times in the past where I'd go on a date six months later, and there have been times where I've been straight single for four years, five years, where there's nothing. I'm not saying there weren't some activities because I'm human, but what I am saying is the idea of dating with intention did not exist.

So where I sit today on the backside of arguably the most painful breakup that I've ever experienced — months later, now what? Seven months later, almost — I look at this and I go, yeah, I'm ready to put myself back out there. And so I'm willing to do that. One of those things that we as individuals have to decide is to never do it again because I might get hurt. That's a bridge I'm not going to walk down.

We walk through this process. I've sat with my journal and in meditation, heartbroken and lost, and I've been willing to look at it just from a human perspective and have an assessment of where I'm at and look at it very plainly: Is this true or is this not true? As I move towards more things being true about wanting hope, the things that were true about pain and loss started to go away. So if you look at your life and you are uncertain because you have gone through this devastating experience, the question you have to come to is: Is it true that I'm ready to do something different? And until that answer is yes, well then you don't. But the hard part — for some people that answer never changes because they're unwilling to walk down the path of potentially being hurt again.

I think that putting yourself back out there and going and connecting with other human beings is one of the most rationally healthy things that you can ever do. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm okay with that because I don't know. But I do know that from an individual perspective, we have to make decisions for the betterment of our lives. And I don't know how you do that without the willingness to look at what is true and what is not, and continue to walk the path forward.

That's it. How do you just continue to walk the path forward and just say, you know what — I'm crushed. Fill it in here: it's the worst thing that's ever happened to me — and then take the time to do the things necessary to get back to baseline, to your center, to feel like you again, and to keep going. Know that on the backside of your decision to keep going, something beautiful may happen. No guarantees. That's the hardest part about it. Nobody is going to make a promise to you that you won't get ripped into again, that you won't feel like you're on the precipice of being with the love of your life and building a family and having children — no one is going to promise you that will not happen. So you have to play this game with yourself: Do I take the risk of never having the thing that I want, or do I take the risk of having the thing that I want? That's it. It's very binary.

And that's what's so strange because even though as humans we are incredibly emotional, the decision whether or not to follow through on what feels right for you — that's binary. It is yes or no. You either are going to do it or you are not. In this entire process, I think the thing that I've done really well for myself is to give myself grace: to sit in the feelings, to sit in the emotions, to feel the pain, to remember the happy times, to remember the sad times, and just to live.

You know, I had a conversation with my best friend recently, and I was telling him one of the really messed up things about accomplishing goals in your life is that sometimes they don't feel like anything. As we were having this conversation, he related: "Yeah, I get it. Sometimes it doesn't feel like anything." And he said, "That's okay." I thought to myself, that's a really fascinating way to look at it. Now months removed, all those experiences — minus a couple other conversations — I don't feel much about the thing that at one time ripped me apart. That's what's so crazy about life. Is there an inkling of it? Yeah. I said I don't feel much. There's still something there — I'm human — but it's not in this way that it was before where it was devastating and earth shattering as it was in the moment, which we all know because we all have those experiences.

As you walk this path and you're on the backside of a breakup and you're like, well, what do I do? I think it really comes down to: trust yourself. Trust yourself that you are capable of making the right decision. Now, again, I think there's a lot of variables. One of the things that is different for me that might not be for you is I'm not coming out of a marriage facing a divorce. I didn't have any co-mingled expenses. I didn't have children. We didn't have a dog or a goldfish. So there's a little bit more of a clean break, for lack of a better way to phrase it. But for some of you that may not be true and there may just be a lot of baggage. In the breakup, maybe it's just getting to the new normal.

How do you get to the new normal — to the thing that is now true about what your life is? I think if you can get to that place, that's where you start the process again. You go through the grief and the suffering, you ask the questions, you talk to your friends, you get the mentors, you contemplate whether the time is right to put yourself back out there, and then you come to the place where the new normal exists. Within that, you start the process of building. I don't think about it as rebuilding. I might've lost a relationship, but I didn't lose me. I didn't lose the parts and pieces of me that make me who I am. I lost the connection with another human being, and now I have a new baseline, a new normal. I'm not rebuilding anything; I'm just building on top of what was there previously. In a world of 8 billion-plus people, I know the person that I'm looking for is still out here. There's hope in that. I'm looking at building what's next on top of hope, not on top of despair, anger, or fear — not on top of all the things that tell us that we shouldn't or can't, or that we need to follow this terminology or this timeline.

As somebody who's been a coach for almost a decade and has had thousands of people sit in front of me, I always say the same thing: I can't help you figure this out. Some days I can barely help myself figure it out. But what I can do is tell you to look at evidence and truth and come to this place in your life where you make the right decision for you. That's all I've done after every breakup: make the right decision for me. I don't know on a long enough timeline if there's a positive outcome.

I think we're sold a brutal fairy tale that on the backside of all of the worst things that happen, something positive is coming. I don't know that that's true. I've certainly had moments where on the backside of something horrible happening, nothing positive happened — just a really bad thing happened. That's it. I'm a realist. I'm not an optimist; I'm definitely not a pessimist. I just look at life and I go, is this true? Yes or no? That's how I operate.

So now I'm looking at: do I have hope? Yes. Do I have a new foundation? Yes. Did I spend time to get back connected to myself? Yes. Did I have conversations and go through a portion of healing that was necessary because I was in a dark place for a little bit? Yes. Am I ready? Yes — all of it's true. So I make a path forward. If all of that was no, I would reassess and ask myself, what do I need to do to get to the yes? Most people sit in the no and nothing changes. I was like, yeah, I'm going to find everything possible to go to yes, because the goal hasn't changed. We don't differentiate and we don't move off the game plan until the mission is accomplished. I know that's a very binary, probably Libra way to look at the world. I'm not big on astrology, but I will tell you some things are very true, and that's the nature of the world.

That said, look: at the end of the day, if you're in suffering and you're in hurt, be in it for a while. If you made it this far into the video, you're in it, and that's okay. Give yourself the grace and the permission to be okay with the reality that that is where you're at. But also give yourself the grace and the permission to move forward. You do not have to stay stuck. For some of you watching right now, this might actually be the greatest gift you ever experienced. This will open up the world of opportunity. This will give you the freedom to leave the neighborhood, to travel, to experience the world. Maybe life has just thrown such a massive curveball at you — it's time to make a huge assessment of where you are. Maybe the thing you need to do now is quit that job, move, go and ask that person out that you've been terrified to ask out — whatever the decision is.

What's really wonderful about this place is that there's no limitation. I believe that to be true of all of life, by the way, but in this moment specifically: what's stopping you? What is really in your way from pursuing what is in front of you that you want now? A lot of people will say, "I can't do it because of my wife." "I can't do it because of my boyfriend." "I can't do it because of this relationship." First off, if that's ever the answer to why you can't do something, you need to check yourself. Secondly, if it's gone now you have no excuses.

Great example: I'm back in Bangkok. I just spent most of last year in Europe and South America, and then I was like, you know what? I want to go back to Asia. I'm going back to the place that I love, arguably more than any other place in the world. I'm going to go and explore, have more adventures, do my best to have fun, connect with people, and enjoy my life. If I fall in love again, well, that would be nice too. But I'm not going to sit at home on the couch loathing and writhing any longer than I have to. Did I have to for a period? Yep, definitely. And then that period passed because I forced myself into doing things that I knew would make my life better. I didn't hit the bottle. I didn't do a bunch of drugs. I didn't hook up with a bunch of strangers. I did things that made my life better and slowly the clouds went away. The sun came up and I was me again. It didn't take that long, even though this was the most heartbreaking experience that I've ever been through. It didn't take that long because I realized there is still an opportunity based on hope that the person I'm looking for is out here. If I'm at home on my couch, wallowing in my own self-pity, binging ice cream and cartoons and all the things that take away from my life while that person is out there waiting for me because they're showing up every day, then whose loss is it?

My friends, thank you so much for listening and for watching. Sometimes I just go on these rants — I don't even know if I left you with enough clarity — but if I did and you want more, come and join our community. The link is down in the description below. We'd love to have you. It's totally free — just a place to connect when you're on this journey called life.

Thank you for being here. Take care of yourself. Take care of each other.

And Until Next Time, My Friend.

Be Unbroken.

I'll See You Soon.