when there's a breakup it's exceedingly
hard especially if the person is Young
why because the relationship represents
the whole future they know there are
other people but it sort of feels like
the whole world is shutting down the
brain has to think that the person is
gone in time and space this has become
much harder with social media right
because people can check up on people
they can hear from people in the old
days like when I was growing up you just
like took the phone off the hook or you
you diverted your attention now we are
constantly renewing that the person is
still there and so love and the loss of
love and the death grief are virtually
identical it's that motivational State
and this is why it's so hard to not
reach out to somebody that you really
miss and want back I sort of studied
last week that had researchers asking
participants to write emotional and
physical pain of a breakup they found
that women tend to be more negatively
affected by breakups reporting high
levels of both physical and emotional
pain but while breakups hit women the
hardest they tended to recover more
fully man on the other hand rarely fully
recovered I thought that was very very
interesting I wasn't too sure what that
meant yeah it's interesting um it also
Rings true with my my experience and my
observations it's I mean this could
relate to a number of things and here
I'm painting with a broad brush right
you know how comfortable one is feeling
their feelings is male or female is
going to strongly dictate how quickly
one moves through grief this is the same
thing as trauma the more willing someone
is to feel the full depth and intensity
of the feelings that they associate with
that trauma the more quickly they're
going to move through
the trauma again I'm lifting from Paul
Conti's words so these aren't mine but
you know people use a number of
strategies they use distraction they use
States like they sublimate to things
like anger
um and avoidance of various kinds in
order to not feel the traumatic feelings
or not feel the breakup people will you
know try and self-soothe alcohol or try
and sell soothe with multiple new
partners or whatever it happens to be it
doesn't work just extends it because
this map of space-time and closeness
needs to be fractured and the only way
to do that is for the brain to have to
confront the reality which is that by
breakup they are no longer available
it's like the food on the other side of
that wall
is gone it's just not there anymore
uh or that the food that was accessible
now there's a wall in between and you
will not get through it and you know you
can see this actually in animal studies
that are kind of hard they're actually
very hard to watch you'll see the animal
perseverate literally damage his own
body trying to get through a barrier to
something that's highly motivated to see
people do that post breakup they usually
do that by talking to everybody about
the breakup which is its own form of
perseverating on the motivation what did
I do what did I do wrong this and that
and some of that analysis is healthy
some of it's not now why would one group
be let's just say effective at dealing
with breakups it's probably the ability
to really feel the full intensity of how
sad it is and be able to confront that I
think from a very early age there's a an
ability that at least I'm sure it
transcends to women too learning to pack
down feelings right and so when are we
really talking about when we're talking
about pack down feelings I'm not a
psychologist but what we learn is top
down control forebrain to autonomic
control it's the same thing like I don't
want to jump off the high dive or I
don't want to is public speaking but I'm
gonna I'm gonna kind of like I'm just
gonna force myself I'm gonna David
Goggins it right grief is is an
autonomic State uh we say it has valence
has negative valence but it's high
levels of autonomic arousal with a
negative connotation because you can be
high levels of autonomic arousal with
happiness right you can be very alert
and aroused and happy you may be alert
and aroused and sad it's very alert and
arousing sad and yet
we learn how to Tamp that down what is
tamping down it's reducing our heart
rate it's going to work each day being a
functional human being you know there's
a lot of that rather than allowing
ourselves to you know SOB uncontrollably
into a pillow some people are better at
this I mean the late Steve Jobs was a
big proponent of scream therapies he
used to go up into the hills behind
Stanford he actually owns still owns a
property back there he was really into
you know catharsis cathartic release of
internal state that he felt would allow
him to like return a happier nicer
person he was also kind of well known
for screaming at people in the office so
he obviously had a lot pent up inside
um so I think the better that we can
lean into
the emotional states that we fear the
most but in a controlled way where we're
not harming ourselves or other people
the better the more that we try and
avoid that and we try and sublimate or
just you know I've done this so I'm
speaking from experience you know I
would use the anger or the sadness from
an experience to just work 10 10 times
longer 10 times harder to just get that
much more Focus you're taking that
autonomic arousal that narrow aperture
and that energy and you're putting it
onto something that moves your life
forward so in some cases that's good
because you still need to function and
give but it can give you the here I'll
just say it gave me the illusion that I
was working through something because
you get all the accoutrements and
rewards of hard work but what you don't
do is remap that space time closeness
map and then you find I guarantee you
find yourself five or ten years later
wondering why you're so exhausted or why
certain things in life aren't going well
and it's because when they say you
haven't dealt with the loss you never
actually allowed yourself to feel the
feelings but once you do
it's like a valve it releases