If you're looking for a new path and perspective on a breakup in your life — or any end — this episode may be what you need.
Three things we dive into in this episode:
Holding, healing, and processing the grief of a breakup and getting to the other side.
Feeling whole again after the loss of a significant relationship.
Flipping the narrative and celebrating the new paths and perspectives we can find after breakups.
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📌Episode Highlights
[05:24] Caitie’s Insights on Breakup Recovery
Caitie went through a significant breakup earlier this year.
After the breakup, she decided to leave New York and begin traveling. It helped her rediscover and reclaim who she is after a significant loss.
For her, breakup recovery involves both grief and revival.
Caitie: “We have to let ourselves feel the grief of a relationship ending because we absolutely cannot heal the things that we refuse to feel.” - Click Here To Tweet This
The most significant healing moments are not always in the grand gestures. Sometimes they are in the more intimate moments of learning to love yourself better.
[10:20] Diana Davis and Her Values
Diana Davis is a creative business coach and a nomad. She is also a former photographer and graphic designer.
Diana deeply values creativity. She understands that people have different creative outlets. For her, procrastinating is just part of it.
She also truly values community. She likes to make people feel welcomed and seen.
[14:58] The Breakup as a Means of Healing
Diana was in a relationship where her feelings of jealousy and insecurity were constantly invalidated.
When she realized that her intuition was correct, she felt relieved more than sad. Her biggest takeaway was that her feelings had always been valid.
Caitie: “Healing is not fixing yourself; it’s not pointing out the things that are wrong with you and fixing them. Healing is remembering that there was never anything wrong with you to begin with.” - Click Here To Tweet This
[23:25] Reconnecting with Yourself
When you are in a relationship, there is the danger of getting tunnel vision and dishonoring your own goals and desires.
When Diana broke off her relationship, she decided to honor herself again by traveling the world.
Breakups are not one-way, and relationships are never one thing away from ending.
[28:30] Coping with the Grief
One of the best tools for coping with breakup grief is cutting off communication with the other person.
Another tool is to talk to people who will tell you what you need, not just what you want.
Do things that light you up and help you tap into yourself.
[32:49] The Turning Point
Meet new people and create new experiences. The turning point from grief to revival is when you start seeing new possibilities in front of you.
Set clear boundaries. If you see yourself going down the same path that led to the negative parts of your previous relationship, then draw the line.
You will see yourself recovering the confidence you lost. You will no longer need to adjust to meet other people's expectations of you.
Diana: “Here I am, take it or leave it. So that was really powerful. Like, these romantic relationships were catalysts to seeing myself again.” - Click Here To Tweet This
In the end, it is a powerful feeling to look back on an ended relationship not with bitterness, but with gratitude that it was able to help you grow as a person.
[44:42] Diana’s Morning and Evening Rituals
On good mornings, Diana loves to see the sunrise. She also likes to play cards, do yoga, and meditate using Shavasana.
Diana also needs to eat 10 minutes after waking up.
At night, she likes to read a book. She does not often make it more than five pages, but she tries to read what she can.
[47:56] This Week’s Processing Prompt
Is there a relationship you are contemplating ending, but not allowing it to end because you think it would mean failure?
Have you had a relationship in your life you can reframe to see as a success instead of a failure?
What positive impact did a previous breakup bring in your life? What opportunities did it offer?
[49:39] This Week’s Action Experiment
If there’s something that you like to do but have been suppressing because of a relationship or a breakup, just do it.
Do quiet self-care. Do your nails or meditate. Start reclaiming yourself.
About Caitie
Caitie Corradino MS, RDN, CDN, RYT, CPT, is the founder and lead counselor of Full Soul Nutrition. She is a registered Dietitian-Nutritionist, a Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor, a certified fitness and yoga instructor, an eating disorder recovery coach, and a Reiki practitioner. She is passionate about providing counseling services that are truly integrative and provide healing for the whole person.
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Transcript
Caitie Corradino: That is one of the pieces that I think applies to any type of breakup, right, a friendship breakup, or finally setting a boundary with a family member and breaking up with them like, that is not a failure. That is a success. Like to say, this friendship is no longer aligned with me anymore. I'm not going to waste my energy chasing this person anymore or trying to get this person to understand me when we're just inherently different people with different values. That can be such a success. It's not inherently a failure.
Welcome to Whole, Full & Alive, a podcast exploring the art and science of falling in love with your life, with your story and with who you truly are, underneath your titles, your resume, your relationship status, and your bank account. I'm Caitie Corradino, a registered dietician nutritionist, certified fitness and yoga instructor, eating disorder recovery coach, Reiki healer, and founder of Full Soul Nutrition, but underneath my titles and resume, a big fan of kitchen dance breaks, early mornings, all things chocolate truffles, world traveling and serendipity.
I'm here to share no bullshit stories and actionable tools to help you feel unshakably worthy. You have everything you need within you to feel whole, full and alive right here, right now. Let's get into it.
Hey, welcome back to another episode of Whole, Full & Alive. This is my second episode that I'm recording from Costa Rica. But it's a little different than the first one I recorded from Costa Rica because the first one I recorded from Costa Rica was in a closet in an Airbnb in the city of San Jose.
Now, I am way out there in the middle of nowhere in like a little bungalow style Airbnb. It’s like open air situation, so you might be able to hear some birds around me. The audio might be a little bit interesting. But it feels really cool to be recording a podcast here and I couldn't couldn't help myself. I don't think this is gonna be the highest quality audio, but that's okay, because I'm only sitting here for the intro.
Because for the second part of this episode, I'm going to bring on my friend who is here in Costa Rica with me, Diana Davis. So let's get into it, doing a little intro out here on the porch of our little bungalow, and then I'm going to go inside and talk with Diana, who's an incredible person. I'll introduce her in a sec. But today is the breakup recovery episode. Today, talking about breakup recovery, and I do not just mean breaking up with a romantic partner.
I mean breakups with friends. I mean breakups with family members that you maybe need to set boundaries with. I mean any relationship that you may have lost. That is how I'm defining breakup here, defining it as the loss of a significant relationship in your life. We're gonna be talking about recovering from that today. I shared on the show before that earlier this year, I went through a pretty significant breakup in a romantic partnership, and that breakup was the thing that gave me the permission to leave New York after 10 years and start traveling.
Leaving New York and beginning to travel was definitely a very, very, very empowering and wonderful experience, and I'm so grateful and privileged that I was able to make that pivot after I ended my relationship. Also, while I was in the first couple of months of traveling, there was a lot of grief that I needed to navigate, a lot of grief. Breakups are tough. Breakups forced us to confront the most fragile parts of our psyche, and they force us to confront the reality of impermanence, the reality that nothing in this life truly lasts forever, nothing.
Breakups also kind of destroy what we may have imagined our future to look like in the blink of an eye, which is a really difficult thing. Especially if you're going through the romantic kind of breakup, there is definitely a conflicting mess that's unique to it, unlike any other kind of grief, because in the romantic breakup kind of grief, you have to, most of the time, play tug of war with your heart and with what could have been and with an imaginary version of your ex that you no longer speak to.
You have to feel that grief in order to survive it. You have to let yourself sit in that conflicting mess in order to come out on the other side. You deserve to feel your way through all of that. You have to let yourself feel through all of that, so that you can get to the part where, I guess, you realize that breakups can also be really beautiful. Where you realize that to love someone really deeply, and then let go of them completely is very empowering and transformative.
So on this episode today, Diana and I are going to be talking through some of the grief aspects of surviving a breakup, and again, this can apply to any type of breakup, not just a romantic partnership. We're also going to be talking about that empowering and transformative part of the breakup, the part where you get to the other side, and you realize that this is actually a really, really incredible potent learning experience.
But it's so important to me that as we're diving into today's episode, we just keep in mind that breakups aren't only about the grief, and they're not only about the transformation, right? We have to let ourselves feel the grief of a relationship ending because we absolutely cannot heal the things that we refuse to feel. You've got to let yourself grieve. You've got to let yourself cry. You've got to let yourself vent, get angry, sad, get angry again.
All of those things are so important. We can't just focus on the big revival that often happens when we release a relationship that's no longer serving us too. I'm super grateful that my life this year has felt in many moments like a revival, like reclaiming myself and reclaiming what I really want. Also, I'd be totally creating a facade if I said that the most important parts of my healing have happened through the big and grand gestures like traveling and revamping my business and all the things.
The real healing has definitely happened in quieter and cozier and more personal moments, where I'm kind of learning to tolerate slowing down and learning to love living with myself. So as I'm getting ready to dive into this episode with Diana today, that's the major theme I want to leave you with is that big adventures, and the revival that happens after a breakup is so beautiful, can be so beautiful.
Also, the quiet moments where you're feeling your feelings and nourishing yourself are also so, so vital. So let's get into this episode with my friend and also my former photographer, and also my business coach, Diana Davis. She's the founder, the creator of Diana Davis Creative where she coaches creative entrepreneurs to build thriving businesses, and be themselves and make money and live life in the way they want to live it.
She's such an inspiring human. I'm so lucky to have her in my life in so many different capacities, and I'm so lucky to be here in Costa Rica with her so we can have this conversation about going through breakups at the same exact time this year, and doing the same exact thing which was letting go of our apartment leases and traveling. So yeah, let's get into it. All right, coming to you live from Costa Rica.
Diana Davis: From the bungalow.
Caitie: From the bungalow with little crickets and lizards and things in the background potentially.
Diana: The lizards are chirping. They're talking to each other.
Caitie: Diana, thanks so much for being on this show.
Diana: I'm so excited to be here and actually physically here with you, which is really cool.
Caitie: This is the first in person podcast recording I have done for the show.
Diana: I'm honored.
Caitie: Yeah, this is amazing. It feels a little confronting to be with you in person.
Diana: Like eye contact right here.
Caitie: Like we're actually having conversation right now.
Diana: Which we have been for like the last week, basically, not just recording it.
Caitie: I've actually been with you for almost a week now. Yeah, we're just going to record it this time, and we're going to talk about something specific.
Diana: Let's do it.
Caitie: Well, before we get into it, can you please tell us who are you? Of course, I want to hear what you do, and I want to hear what's meaningful to you. What do you value? How do people know when they're in your presence and your energy when you're in your element?
Diana: Yeah, that's such a good question. You know I love the holistic human thing. I do think it's important to note that I'm a rancher's daughter. I think that says a lot about my core. I'm also a creative. I'm also a Gemini. So if you know anything about that, we're kind of all over the place. I'm one of those people who starts 50 different books and never finishes them.
Manifesting generator, so that also means to me that you can't force me to do anything that doesn't feel aligned, kind of a rebel. I'm a procrastinator. I do things the unconventional way when I feel sparked to do them. I'm big on community. I'm big on creatives putting their gifts out into the world, getting paid for them. Therefore, I'm a business coach, and I used to be a photographer and a graphic designer, which was a huge part of my identity.
I'm a nomad. So all of those are descriptive things, but it also says a lot about where my energy is, and the kind of person that I am, I think. Yeah.
Caitie: That’s a beautiful answer, and what a cool thing to say that you're a procrastinator, right? Because I think so many people see that as their perceived weakness, and maybe it's just part of your personality. Maybe it's just part of your energy and part of your identity and part of how you get stuff done.
Diana: Yeah, I've learned to embrace it, for sure.
Caitie: Yeah.
Diana: Or you're just gonna beat yourself up for it.
Caitie: Yeah, there's so many things like that, like being a procrastinator, claim it, and just know that that's how you're going to work, and that's how you're going to move through the world. Maybe it's not wrong, and maybe it's not something you should feel ashamed about. Maybe it's just who you are.
Diana: Yeah, absolutely.
Caitie: Maybe you're not a morning person. Cool. You wake up late, and then you stay up late at night, and that's when you're in your zone of genius. Like, that's cool. That's a little rabbit hole, but I think that that's really cool that you mentioned that.
Diana: Yeah.
Caitie: Also, you are a full time business coach for creative entrepreneurs.
Diana: Correct.
Caitie: You’re former photographer. You and I met in New York City in like five different ways. I feel like I met you at a networking event, and then, you also came to my fitness class. Then I also was your photography client when I was doing completely different, like fitness projects and things back in the day. Something special I feel like sharing is that when I met you, I felt like I always knew you. For some reason, I felt,
Diana: Huge compliment.
Caitie: Like you were from New York City. Even though when I met you, I'd only been in New York City for maybe a year. I think that's the community piece about you. You're just so good at welcoming people into your circle and being open to inviting people into your circle. I felt that way instantly when I met you. You were like, oh, yeah, we could be friends.
Like that could be a thing that could happen, and I'm just like, well, I'm not used to meeting new people and then being so open to just being friends with me. People in New York are not like that, and yet, yeah.
Diana: Yeah. At the same time, I'm so flattered for you to say that I had New York, but because I love it, even though most people would be like, oh my God, you never want to be a New Yorker.
Caitie: Like yeah.
Diana: That’s sort of person but I'm like, such a compliment.
Caitie: It was like you had New York vibes because you were just so comfortable there, and also, you just had familiar vibes and for me anything familiar at that point was in New York, because I didn't really know anything else. I had been there my whole life. So it's just like, yeah, Diana's always been here.
Diana: Oh, my God.
Caitie: Anyway, I asked all my guests what is a challenge that you have overcome that has made you who you are or brought you to where you are today? On this show this episode in particular, we're talking about breakup recovery and expansion, and not just romantic partnerships, but also friendship, recovery and maybe like, subtle breakup with family member that you need to set boundaries with recovery. And so I mean, from the heart can you speak to a significant breakup that you went through that brought you to this expansive and seriously genuine, authentic aligned most yourself you've ever been place you are today?
Diana: Totally. Yeah. I mean, I do have to say, put out there that I am divorced, I got married very young. That was its own fast track to life University situation. I gained a lot of wisdom from that, and I wouldn't change the thing. The most recent was in May. And I came out of a breakup of six years. And that, yeah, I mean, might have to guide me on kind of where we want to go with this. But yeah, I think I know that this is the season where I've tapped back into my power, because there was a lot of making myself wrong in that relationship. And so to have not even like me back, I'm sort of processing this, as I'm saying it, but to unearth myself fully for the first time.
Because if you think about it, I'm 32. I met my ex when I was 25, started dating when I was 26. I was a totally different person then. And I didn't know who I was fully. So this is the first time I've been like, developed as a human and also able to just stand on my own in this space. So it has, it's like an age thing, experience thing, and finally being independent in this stage of my life
Caitie: So it's the first time you're a full, grown adult that knows who they are and what they want. And also, you're not including anyone else in the you're not consulting anyone else on the next steps for the first time.
Diana: Totally. Yeah, only tapping into yourself. Yeah.
Caitie: Yeah, that's really cool. And you said, you know, there was a lot of making yourself wrong in your relationship. What does that mean?
Diana: Yeah, I think you really have a lot of insight on this. But a lot of this was around jealousy, and cheating. And haven't talked about that a lot. Because we don't want to, you know, “throw anyone under the bus” or make any anybody wrong. But there was just a lot of feelings that I was really shameful around. No one wants a jealous girlfriend. No one wants to deal with these feelings. Why am I having them? I should tamp them down. And like, move on with my life.
And of course, that's not possible, right? When you're truly intuitively having these things come up for you. So I struggled with that for a long time. So I was making myself wrong by saying, “Hey, you should stop feeling this way.” And I was also legitimately being told, then my feelings were invalid.
Once I realized my intuition was actually correct. It was so validating. It was such a relief. That was actually my biggest takeaway — just relief. Not even sadness or anger. Just relief. I think the invalidation is huge. And just realizing you can't- It's like, what Esther Perel talks about like, death by a thousand cuts, when you're invalidating someone's feelings. So I wasn't allowing myself to sit with those feelings. I wasn't allowing them to come up. I was punishing myself for them. And I was also being punished by others for them.
Caitie: So what's interesting is, I talk on this podcast a lot about it, and with my clients a lot about this. Healing is not fixing yourself, it's not pointing out the things that are wrong with you and fixing them. Healing is remembering that there was never anything wrong with you to begin with. I feel like what I'm hearing you say now is that by going through the breakup, you healed because what you learned, once you got out of the relationship, and this happens to so many people — so many people hear themselves in your story is that you realize, “Wait, there's nothing wrong with me to begin with. I was just trying to change myself to fit into this relationship and to hold on to the box that this relationship was like keeping me in.”
So weird way of saying it, but I was trying to stay within the confines of this relationship and try to fit myself into a box that didn't lose it. And then when you get out of it, you heal. And so I feel like part one of this interview is actually taking a turn and we're saying that often by ending the relationship, that is the healing; the ending is the healing. Of course, there's the grief that comes after it, and that's what we're gonna talk about too, but sometimes ending the relationship is an act of healing to begin with, and relationship endings aren’t inherently failures
Diana: Wow, that was so good. Beautiful. No, it's so true. Yep. It was so healing for me. And it's been I just keep saying, Thank you, ex's name. Yeah, thanks for making this happen because I'm having the time of my life. But also, I have come back to myself.
Caitie: Yeah. And it's so interesting, you know, so we both- I think I'm gonna tell the story in the intro. I'll tell the story. We both went through breakups around the same time. People kept saying to me in like, April, and May when they heard I went through this breakup. I have, like, at least five to ten people say this to me. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry to hear that you and ex's name broke up. And I was like, to almost every single one of them, I laughed. I was like, ‘Why? I instigated this, like, this was me. This is a decision I made because I knew that I was losing myself. I was losing my soul. I wasn't honoring what I really wanted.” Did you have people say, “I'm so sorry” to you in the beginning?
Diana: I definitely had some people. I am also a big boundary setter. Yeah. So even in the posts that I made about ending the relationship, why make the post and make it public?
First of all, is because people are going to wonder because I share a lot of my life. “What the heck, where is he?” Second of all, I think we really ended it in a beautiful way and I wanted people to be able to witness that. But I explicitly said in that post, like, we do not need your “I'm sorry”. So if anything, please cheer us on and celebrate us. But of course, there was going to be a few people that are going to say “I'm sorry.”
And as you know, swear there's something in the stars. So many people had breakups during this time and are still continuing to like It's wild. It's like a post COVID situation or what? Yeah, but I always say, and I try to kind of watch myself, but I'm like, I'm really excited for you, whoever is breaking up with another person. I know, it feels awful, maybe. But I'm really, really excited for you.
Caitie: Yeah. And that's one of the pieces that I think applies to any type of breakup, right? A friendship breakup, or finally setting a boundary with a family member and breaking up with them. That is not a failure, that is a success. To say, this friendship is no longer aligned with me anymore, I'm not going to waste my energy chasing this person anymore, or trying to get this person to understand me when we're just inherently different people with different values, that can be such a success — it's not inherently a failure.
I just want to underscore this because I feel like so many people see breakups as this massive tragedy, and they are really hard and we're gonna talk about that in a minute. But also, they're this time where like, you're just so potent. And you're so it's just you and you get reconnected with yourself and you see who you are outside the context of that bond of that friendship, of that relationship, of whatever it is, and you sort of like crack open. Can you speak a little more to the expansiveness that you experienced the goodness that you experienced once you reconnected and recommitted to yourself?
Diana: Yeah, I mean, something that came up for me too, and I'm curious, while you're saying that is like, it is two very different experiences when you get broken up with versus like, this is something you're ending, right? There could be like, if someone blindsided me and broke up with me when I thought, well, I guess that sort of happened, but I just think it's different for everybody.
That being said, the expansiveness that I really experienced one of the biggest things was forever, I didn't really have goals, like new goals or desires. I thought, okay, we're about to buy this house, we were about to buy a ring, you know, and I'm not a traditional person, especially being divorced. I'm not like jumping at getting married, like we were together six years, and I can barely stomach the thought of getting engaged.
But I finally was ready to commit and so here we are, and my business is doing well. We live in Denver, it's, you know, not really a place I pictured for myself, but okay, this is life and we can roll with it. I didn't know where I wanted to go from there. And I really felt like I kind of reached my cap. And then the minute we broke up, I was like, I'm traveling the world. I'm doing this my way and it was like my desires had been tamped down as well for so long. To be able to tap back into them unapologetically that like, that was a huge expansion for me talk about cracking open.
Caitie: Yeah. It's kind of like you have tunnel vision sometimes when you're in a relationship, especially when you're in the wrong relationship, because you have to give so much emotional energy to try to make it work, that you just have such incredible tunnel vision. And it's like, you can't see anything outside of you. You don't know what's possible for you. If anyone had told me this time last year, that visiting a fraction of the countries that I visited this year wouldn't be possible for me, I'd be like, “No, it's not. My boyfriend has to work in person. He goes to work in person every week. How are we going to do that? I can't stay away from him for a month.”
But because I had to put in so much energy just to make that relationship work. I had to spend so much time with him. And so I couldn't do anything else. And I want to circle back to what you were saying before about being broken up with versus being the initiator. I love this quote. And I don't know where I heard it. But it's “No relationship is one thing away from ending.”
So I can speak because I had two long term relationships in my 20s that are pretty significant. And the first one, I was “blindsided” broken up with. The second one was not that way. However, in the first one, I immediately like 48 hours after we broke up, I was like, oh, yeah, I probably should have broken up with him for this reason. And we should have done this. And this was wrong. And this was wrong. And this was wrong. And this was wrong. And it's like, is it ever just really one thing away from ending? Is it really? That's a whole another story? But I feel like-
Diana: Yeah, I love that quote.
Caitie: That's something I think about a lot. Because even though I was blindsided, I never think about that anymore. At first I thought about it. At first, I was like, I want all my friends to go to his house and egg it and like, he's terrible. He's such a bad person. He did this to me, but it was like there was fifty things that were wrong. I just wasn't going to be the one to initiate the breakup, because I didn't have the strength at that time.
Diana: Yeah. And I think, like you said, the egging the house. That's like playing the victim, right? Yeah. And there's such a difference in every situation in life of the person who's the victim, and the person who actually is like, this is a growth portal. Let's effing go.
Caitie: It took me about two days to realize like, oh, wait, this is actually the most expensive thing that's ever happened to me, this is actually the most, and of course, like, Diana and I are not saying that everything we say applies to every single relationship. So many relationships have so many unique situations, and there is emotional abuse and things like that. And we can't speak to all of it at this point. I know that something that can apply to most relationships is what can I learn from the ending?
What did I learn about myself in the like, during it, I mean, relationships, if they're functioning as relationships often do, are like the best container for learning about yourself in such a, like you said, fast track portal to your growth and a divorce. Forget about it.
Diana: Yeah, forget about it.
Caitie: So anyway, for the second part of this conversation, I would love to talk about coping with the grief, the aftermath, the messiness, the stickiness, the push and pull, the playing tug of war with an imaginary version of your ex. You and I both decided to travel, we went through our breakups this year. And it's not a coincidence, we're friends, and we talked about it. And also, we, you know, I think we shared a lot of these very beautiful moments of being in Paris and in Rome, and in the mountains and all of these great places.
I want to make sure that we pull over and talk about how, in the midst of those very grand gestures and those big adventures were moments filled with a lot of pain and a lot of tears and a lot of grief. And I'm curious, what tools helped you process the very unique kind of grief that comes with a breakup?
Diana: Yeah. So much, and I just want to say it was messy for a long time. Like we, my ex and I lived together for a month after we broke up. And it was a really beautiful mutual situation in the end of things. We would just talk about grief. Like, it felt like someone was dying like we had a death sentence and we only had like three weeks, two weeks, one week, you know, we just looked at each other in the kitchen every day and just bawl, which honestly was so cathartic, because I'm not really a crier, this has cracked me open in so many ways.
And then when I did start traveling, we were not going to talk and then we decided to talk and then we were not going to talk again. And we decided to talk, you know, and just normalizing that kind of stuff. One of the big tools was actually just cutting off communication, and really tapping into myself, and really realizing how much I was leaning on him, to still validate me and to feel, you know, to have my nervous system regulated. He was the one to throw it off and the one to regulate it, which was really unhealthy therapy, obviously huge.
Having a coach, my coach — who's my business coach, actually — really helped me through talking through my breakup, just having friends with different perspectives and being aware of who's going to tell you what you need, because some people aren't. And you've got to be kind of wary of that. And then just gosh, moving my body and getting energy out and flowing. And that kind of thing, too. For sure. Traveling didn't hurt either.
Caitie: No, definitely not. I mean, I mean, you can also label traveling as like doing the thing that lights you up, because that's the thing that lights you up. It's always been the thing that lit you up. And so- and me too. And I totally just like put traveling on the backburner when I was with my ex because he didn't really want to travel as much slash he couldn't because of the nature of his work. And then I was like, I don't really care about this anymore. That was like a past Caitie who just like studied abroad in college, and I was like, “Wait, what the fuck? This is like a really important part of who I am, what am I doing?”
But I want to circle back to what you were saying about who's going to tell you what you actually need to hear. Oof, that's so important. How many friends let you just sit in your shit, and ruminate and say, I'll tell the same story five times over again, and play in that victim mentality for a while and play misery poker with you and like, are just willing to let you ruminate instead of pulling you out of it and reminding you who the fuck you are.
Diana: Yeah. And is one better than the other? You know, it depends what you need at the time. For sure. Like sometimes you just need to sit in it and be able to be the victim, right? And sometimes you need someone to like, pull you out of it. But I've also had people who don't hear it either. Yeah, like, you're not hearing me, almost more of that invalidation that I was going through, even in my breakup. And it's like, okay, that's not serving me either.
So really knowing what you need, and knowing who you're talking to, and asking for what you need, like, hey, I need you just to listen right now. Or, hey, I would really love your feedback, you know?
Caitie: So, when was the moment that you were like, I think I'm really healing and turning a corner and turning a page? What was that moment when you realized like, “Wow, maybe this grief is gonna pass?”
Diana: Yeah, so I'm in Rome. I had been in Italy for two weeks, but with friends. And so this was my first solo leg. The first night I was there. I'm looking around seeing everyone coupled up in friend groups or with families, like not a lot of solo travelers that I can see. And I was just like, how is this ever gonna work? How am I ever going to meet someone, you know, even friends? Not even a romantic partner, but that too. How is this ever going to work?
I go to therapy the next day. At this point, I'm talking to my ex again, which turned out to be not serving me at all, and go to therapy talking about it. Talk to a friend who said what I needed to hear. Just thinking, hey, I really think it might be a good idea for you to cut communication with him. And so I did, because I listened to my gut, really drew that boundary, and then literally had a fling in Rome, like that night on accident. That lasted for like three days and then I left for Florence.
But it was so expansive to gather new evidence that different scenarios were possible for me and that this person I met through a mutual friend and like wow, you could meet someone through a mutual friend like all of these expansions of you know, my I think our exes were in the same industries, like finance world, right?
Caitie: Such a fun one.
Diana: So fun. Like this fling was like a creative and just like even that expansion of like, wow, success can look like that in a man as well. And like I can have someone who's interested in what I do and really inspired by it and not deflecting with sarcasm or class clown syndrome. You know what I mean? You know exactly what I mean. So yeah, that was like, the moment I was like, it's all gonna be okay, this is gonna be fine.
Caitie: I love that story, just the way you outlined it with, you can meet people through mutual friends. And they're all these other opportunities in front of you. And just like, open your mind and open your perspective a little bit. I'm curious, you know, of course, like when we have other flings, and we meet other people and we're flirted with, it feels good. And it's like, wow, I can recover from this. But what other evidence were you able to gather outside of the context of new romantic partnerships and new romantic connections that you were going to be okay?
Diana: Yeah, I think, obviously, just tapping back into yourself. And I think a big part of it wasn't even getting validation from these people. Of course, that's part of it. But a big part of it was like, being kind of the third party person, fly on the wall. Third eye, if you will, looking down at yourself going, “Wow, you're pretty fucking awesome. Like, I would date you.” You know? It's like, wow, like, you have so much going for you, you're so easy to get along with and funny and interesting and successful and adventurous. And almost like, using this whole thing is a lens to see yourself again too, that was huge for me. And not just, you know, here's these romantic partners who are validating me and complimenting me, but like, wow, I can see myself show up.
I think the other thing was, where I'm at in my life, 32, your 30s are amazing. If you're not there, yet, those of you who are listening, but this is the first time I've ever shown up fully as me. And like on a date, in partnership in any way, like really not performing and really just being like, here I am. Take it or leave it. So that was really powerful. Like, these romantic feelings were catalysts to seeing myself again.
I mean there's also a lot of just like, solo time and tapping into friendships, even and, you know, walking the streets of Florence, and just, you know, there's confetti all over the cobblestones for whatever reason, and listening to my favorite playlist and just being like, yeah, we're good here.
Caitie: Yeah. And I, what you're saying too, about it being a catalyst for you to see yourself again, just reminds me of what you were saying at the beginning of the conversation, when you were like, I've never been so sure of who I am and also single. Because you jumped from, essentially a marriage to a long term relationship. And so you were developing with these people during that time, which can be beautiful. And also, it's so different when you're so sure of who you are, and what you value and you're single, yeah, like, wow.
Diana: Yeah, it's a powerful, powerful combination.
Caitie: Yeah, it is. And I want to say that not to pooh-pooh on people who have been in relationships since they were 21. If you met the love your life, and you're 21, and you're 31, go off queen. It's amazing. If it's working out, it's working out. It's not wrong. But I feel like people just treat being single as a death sentence in your late 20s, in your early 30s. I have had a surprising number of clients say to me, it's so cool that you're single in your late 20s.
I'm like, the fuck, why. Why is this? Why is this unique? Like, oh, you're happy? Like you're so happy? Like you. You seem to just really enjoy your life and do a lot of things. And it's just very cool that you're single. And, like, you know what, I'm going to take it. I'm going to wear that as a cool badge of honor. I'm single in my late 20s. That's awesome. If that's what people find inspiring. Like, I love that. I'm proud of that. But also, why?
Diana: Yeah. Why does it have to be like a stereotype that it's a death sentence for sure.
Caitie: Yeah, that it's unfortunate. I think it's really fortunate to be in a place where you're a fully grown person and an evolved person and have a lot of experiences under your belt, and to enter dating from that context outside of the context of a frat house or a high school party, or all of these places where we would meet our partners when we were younger.
It is an incredibly unique gift. And I I'm pretty positive that most people listening to this episode are going to be it's going to be single 20-somethings and so the message I really want to send is that to be in your 20s and be dating from a place of evolution, of knowing yourself is a fucking gift. It's not a curse.
Diana: It's such a gift, such a gift. One of the best ones I've ever received truly.
Caitie: And so, yeah, I guess before we start to wrap up, I want to come back to this feelings piece, this grief piece, you mentioned how important it is to sometimes you're like, sometimes you do just need to vent and you do need to sit in the “victim mentality” and you do need to feel.
How do you feel? Like, what are the tools that you use, to feel and then to bring yourself out of that and go and coach your clients and continue to live your life because grief is heavy whether you're ending a relationship with a romantic partner or with a friend or with a family member, grief hits you like a truck sometimes. And you really have to feel that and especially if you're in a client facing job like you and I are gonna put your face on and go back to work. How do you do it?
Diana: I think this is a deeper answer than deeper question than maybe you expected but I said I was rancher’s daughter.
Caitie: Yes, sir. We're gonna go back full circle to the beginning.
Diana: I am detrimentally good at compartmentalizing. Which isn't necessarily healthy, but it can also be a superpower at the same time. So feeling for me used to be like watching a rom com and drinking like a bottle of wine by myself. Not that I did that often. But like if I wanted to cry, that was how I accessed that. Because when you're a rancher's daughter specifically, things die. Things change, things are hard. You have to like, bury it and get over it. Or you're going to be detrimentally in grief all the time.
So you kind of learned to like just work through it very quickly, or bury it. So I will just be super honest, that I'm still working on that. I’m still working through that. I think, honestly, I've never felt so much as I did with this breakup. Part of the reason was because by the end of it, my ex partner and I were on the same page, and we were able to do it in a really loving way. And even living together for that month after the breakup, was like, man, we tapped into feelings all the time; we just let each other be and let each other witness each other in those feelings.
Now I feel like that's cracked me open in a way where I can just let those feelings flow and be witnessed in that or not, you know? So is there a specific way I tap into my feelings? Probably just letting them come up when they come up, and actually not pushing them down anymore. But also journaling, things like that, for sure. Or the class. I know you and I both love the class. Somatic movement, that kind of thing.
Caitie: Yeah. Somatic movements. Somatic breath work.
Diana: Breath work, flow. Yes. That's a new thing for me to which you've introduced me to.
Caitie: Yeah. Good stuff. Good stuff. Thank you for answering that so beautifully. And so honestly, and so. So full circle to beginning I love it.
Diana: Bring in cowboy dad.
Caitie: So artistic. And also, like, Yeah, I think it sounds like something that you're really taking away from this experience also was just feeling more deeply.
Diana: Yeah. And it's so beautiful. And I'm so grateful. I've never cried more than I have this year. I think I've released like, ten years of energy. So good.
Caitie: I really feel that way too. Even though I've always been somewhat good at feeling my feelings from a young age. I was called a drama queen when I was younger, but really, I was just good at feeling. And the difference now, between now and then, is that now I have permission to feel my feelings and no one tells me that I can’t feel them. And that's also been new coming out of this relationship too because in my relationship, I was also told to not feel anything.
Diana: Yeah, because they're inconvenient.
Caitie: They’re inconvenient. Gotta push them down. Hey, we're supposed to be having fun right now. What are you doing? Yeah. All right. So I love to wrap up all the episodes because I'm obsessed with morning and evening rituals, asking, not my clients, my guests, what their morning and evening rituals are and always with the caveat that this shit doesn't happen every day, especially when you're traveling. We had a flight at like 4am. The other day we did not do morning rituals before we left. It was not happening this morning. Also, we traveled to new location, no morning rituals. But when you can, when you have your best mornings and your best evenings, what do you do?
Diana: Yeah, yeah, definitely doesn't happen every day also am a Gemini and manifesting generator, which I mentioned, and you can't make me do anything that doesn't feel aligned. So it's like, nope, so it happens sometimes. And sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes it's totally different than others. But I have my perfect morning, it would be like getting up really early. Seeing the sunrise is one of my favorite things, which hopefully you and I will do tomorrow.
Seeing the sunrise just being in awe of nature and God and colors and all the stuff. And then maybe being outside if it's really doable depending on the time of year, pulling some cards, and maybe doing like a little yoga flow or some kind of movement. And then meditating. I actually love to meditate like as Shavasana. So like really work out hard and let the Shavasana be the meditation, like play a meditation while I'm doing that. My matcha for sure. Gotta have the matcha in there. And I have to eat like, literally 10 minutes after I wake up so there's probably some oatmeal with some peanut butter hanging around.
Caitie: Nice there too. Nice. Not when I'm here though. No peanut butter.
Diana: Yeah, no peanut butter. No, I would never.
Caitie: What about at night?
Diana: At night, honestly, if I have a calendar block that says basically read and go to bed, Diana, which it alerts me every day at like 930. And so I love reading. But a lot of times I don't give myself that space, and I'll scroll my phone. Like if I get in bed with my phone. It's all over for hours. It's awful. I’m sure that's the case for a lot of people. So if I can just like plug my phone in somewhere else, get in bed and read. That's all I need. And usually I'm conked out honestly by like five pages, which means books are very slow for me. It takes me like, years to read one.
Caitie: Yeah. And see what another beautiful thing to admit. Right? Like, oh, I don't read 10,000 books a year, but I read every night — or try to.
Diana: Maybe three to five pages.
Caitie: That's great. That's great. Keeping it real over here. Thank you so much for sharing your hard truth. I'm so grateful that we're friends who are here in such a beautiful space.
Okay, so I'm coming in with an outro because Diana and I got so into our conversation that I totally forgot to give you a processing prompt and an actionable experiment for today. So I am coming in quickly with a processing prompt and an actionable experiment. I'm back outside on the porch, you might hear the birds coming back in.
But anyway, processing prompts for today is: is there a relationship that you are contemplating ending? That you feel based on your intuition, which I defined in episode seven, maybe check that out? Or was it episode six? I don't know. Intuition versus anxiety. I defined what intuition means. So is there a relationship that you are contemplating ending that you feel might be the right thing, based off of what your intuition is saying that you're not allowing yourself to end because you see relationships ending as a failure?
Is there a relationship that you're contemplating ending that you're afraid to end? Because you're afraid that if you end the relationship, that might be a failure? And if that does not apply to you, that processing prompt today, if you're not contemplating ending a friendship or a romantic partnership or setting boundaries with a family member, then I invite you to consider this: Is there a relationship that has ended at some point over the course of your life, that you can look back on and think that was not failure, that was a success? Allowing that relationship to end was a success or was something that had a positive impact on me. And why? What did it do for you? What opportunities did it open up for you? And what did it invite you to reclaim about yourself?
And that brings me into today's actionable experiment, which is, is there something, some aspect of yourself, some thing that you like to do that you've been suppressing something that I noticed in the two pretty significant breakups that I went through in my 20s was that as soon as I got out of the relationship, I started doing things that I had kind of stopped doing while I was in the relationship. In both those relationships, for some reason, I like stopped dancing for a little bit. As soon as I went through the break up, I started dancing again, I felt like I kind of reclaimed this essential piece of my soul that I had lost touch with.
And also traveling, I'm someone who really values traveling. And I like to travel, even when I have to travel on a budget, even if I have to make sacrifices to make it work. I always try to prioritize travel, and previous partners I've had don't like to make sacrifices to travel because it just wasn't that important to them. So I kind of lost touch with traveling for a while. And I was able to reclaim that aspect of myself when I went through these breakups.
Another thing is just like quiet self care, I tend to sort of lose touch with attended to lose touch with in previous relationships, the next one answer I'm not gonna lose touch a bit. But quiet self care, like doing my nails and sitting in bed and meditating, things like that were things that I didn't do as often or as frequently as I know, I could have and would have liked to when I was partnered.
So is there, regardless of whether or not you're going through a breakup, or have gone through a breakup recently, or whatever. Is there an aspect of yourself that you need to reclaim? Something that you stopped doing recently that you know, you love doing and makes you you? I was speaking to a client earlier today who is having a hard time spending time on her own and we're talking about well, what do you really like to do? What's the thing that you would do, that you can do to make yourself happy in these moments that you're alone, and she was like, I just remembered that I really liked painting and drawing, and haven't done it for four months.
She was really excited to go out and buy art supplies and start doing it again, something like that. What's one action you can take to reclaim yourself to come back to yourself? Can you set aside 15 minutes to do that thing? Or plan a trip? Or whatever it is that makes you who you are? What do you value? And how can you engage with it to make sure you don't lose yourself? And that's all for today.
I hope that there was some nuggets of wisdom in today's episode that resonate with you, regardless of where you are in terms of breaking up or where you are in life. Hope you have a beautiful rest of your week. I'll see you back here next week. If you have any questions or feedback, I want to hear from you. I love hearing from you. So don't hesitate to reach out. Bye!
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