Date Yourself Instead - The power of walking away

Episode Date: March 13, 2023

Why are we so afraid to walk away from a toxic relationship? Sometimes we're afraid to leave relationships for a variety of reasons, including: Fear of being alone Fear of the unknown Fear of change Children and family obligations And so much more. In this episode, I talk about the power of walking away from a relationship that isn't serving you, and some useful tips to navigate a breakup. As always, you can DM me on instagram @lyss or @dateyourselfinstead if you enjoyed this episode! Subscribe to my new YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCCyfFUtRJ5-RS0M3d99TQQ

Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of very Okay, I just fucked that up so bad. Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode update yourself instead I just got back from the beach. I did some morning meditation by the ocean for those of you who don't know I'm actually living in Miami Beach right now and I don't know, I'm actually living in Miami Beach right now and I absolutely love it here. I have had so much peace and clarity just being here for the last couple of months. I moved out of New York City because I felt like my body was just carrying so much anxiety and internal stress and I felt like I wasn't able to function or think clearly or record episodes the same way that I usually do and I just have had so many crazy things happen over the last two years and I went through an insane

era. I thought 2022 was really gonna be my year and it ended up being probably the worst year of my entire life. So between 2020 and then 2022 my life was in fucking shambles and New York was just a reminder of everything that was causing me so much grief and pain and between that and the freezing cold weather. I decided I really needed to grow a pair of balls and move somewhere else. I was kind of scared to relocate because I was afraid that I wasn't going to be able to assimilate well and it would just be a huge mistake. And I think everyone has the sphere of moving to a new environment. It can be really scary when you're moving someplace new when you're actually settled there and you have an apartment

there. It's really different than just taking a little trip somewhere and I travel a lot but I've never actually considered myself someone who lives somewhere else other than New York City and I feel like New York was kind of an identity thing for me because I'm from there, I grew up there and I'm so used to being there all the time, especially for work. So I was really scared to do it and pull a trigger, but it was the best decision I've ever made. I wake up every morning and I go to the beach and I journal. It's been really overall productive and incredible for me. I'm not sure if I'm gonna stay here much longer, but the

past couple months have really changed my life and I'm super grateful. Anyways, a fun fact about me is that I hate super grateful. Anyways, a fun fact about me is that I hate iced coffee. It makes me super jittery. I like hot coffee. I feel like it hits differently. I don't know if it's a mental thing, but I feel like the caffeine in iced coffee is somehow stronger or it affects your body differently because I'm always shaking when I drink it. But today I decided to take a risk and take a leap of faith and get myself a nice coffee because it's so hot outside And I couldn't imagine drinking something hot right now and aside from oh my god. I need to move this out of the frame Aside from all of that stuff that I just said I

Would love to take a second to promote my YouTube channel because I just started it and I have I have like one subscriber um I'm kidding but if you guys could go follow my YouTube and subscribe if you use YouTube and support the channel that I just created that would be amazing obviously you don't have to but I am starting to post videos on YouTube now, so I'm really excited about that. So that's another little venture. And the link to my YouTube is in my podcast description. And if you don't already follow me on Instagram as well, you could do that too. If you don't use YouTube,

or if you wanna just follow me on everything, that would be also really cool. But I don't like self-promotion. Like I get really embarrassed and weird about it. But I figured why not? Because, I don't like self-promotion. Like I get really embarrassed and weird about it, but I figured why not, because I don't know. And the topic we're going to discuss today is the power of walking away and how walking away from something

that's no longer serving you is probably the best thing you could do for yourself and your mental health and your well-being. Now, I've been in so many different relationships, really only three, but three big ones that have cost me so much energy and time, and I held on way longer than I should have. I held on to the idea that this person would change,

and things would change, and things would get better when I saw everything going downhill, and I knew deep down that it wasn't right and it was no longer serving my growth. But I continued to stay because I had this fear of being alone and I also had a fear of the unknown and there are so many different reasons why we stay holding on to relationships

that aren't good for us. So I wanted to dive into this topic today, tell you a little bit about things that I've been through and also discuss why walking away could make you feel so empowered and so amazing and so incredible once you actually take the leap of faith and do it and the hardest part is actually taking that leap. Why are we so afraid to walk away? Like what is this fear that we hold on to? Because a lot of people go through this a lot of people deal with this fear of walking away from a toxic relationship or a situation ship and it could be with someone that we're not even that close with

yet we get so easily fixated on people that don't value us for no fucking reason and we know that they're not good for us and we know that they're not right for us yet we continue to hold on and grist on to them in hopes that something magically will change. In hopes that they're gonna drop everything and suddenly commit to us. Whatever it is, we kind of feel like this need to hold on and attach ourselves to the situation. And it can be really frustrating. And this could also apply to friendships. As usual, you know, I always say, could apply to any type of relationship in your life. I know people who have toxic friendships and it's so hard for them to walk away because they've been friends with someone for 10 years. So this is applicable to that as well. So number one obviously which I'm gonna dive into more in another

episode is the fear of being alone. The concept of being by yourself and never finding anyone better and never being able to connect with anyone the way that you did with this specific person. And you're holding on so tight because you're afraid that it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to find true love and you're never going to find anyone like this person. That's the most common reason why most people struggle with walking away. Even if you are super close with someone and you feel like they're the love of your life and you feel like you're never going to find anyone better, that fear is the main reason why we don't want to walk

away. But I always hear of crazy stories where people leave toxic relationships and when they're not truly happy and they're not the best versions of themselves. And then they finally get the courage to walk away. They always end up finding someone better. Like, always, because the universe wants to see you happy, the universe wants to see you thrive and be in love and in a healthy relationship. And when you truly believe that

and you program your brain to believe that you deserve better, you will receive better. If you're telling yourself the narrative all the time that I don't deserve better, I'm not worthy, I'm not lovable, I'm never going to find anyone else. That's when you block those special people from coming into your life because you're so focused on the negatives and I believe that in order to attract anything better into your life, you have to believe that you do deserve better. And it's all about the power of thought and the power of really believing that it's possible for you. And obviously when you're going through

the situation in the moment where you're trying to walk away from someone, it can be so hard to get into that mentality. And I'm not saying don't take time to heal, you absolutely should. If you're struggling and you're really upset over a situation and you're broken up with someone and you're going through the emotions, go through the emotions. Like obviously address your emotions, don't suppress your feelings, but there's going to be a time where after you've gone through the grieving process and you start to heal, you have to program your brain to understand that you will find a better suit for you and you will find someone that's going to give you everything that you deserve. And you just have to trust that and believe that everything really happens in divine timing and happens for a reason.

And usually when you're not necessarily desperate and looking for it, that's when it comes into your life. Now the second reason why we struggle with walking away is the fear of the unknown. We don't know what's gonna happen once we break up with this person and lead the relationship. We have no fucking clue. We're walking in blindly into a whole new world and we were so comfortable and so used to having this person by our side and in our life. And it was so easy to text them and call them and they were like your best friend. I've had connections like this before and I've been through relationships like this where I felt like this person was my one and only best friend.

I would die if I wasn't with this person, et cetera. And I didn't know what to do with myself. And I felt like when we ended things, I had nowhere to turn, no one to talk to. I didn't know what the fuck to do with myself. And that's a normal feeling. When you go through a breakup, it's normal to feel that shock

and that crazy feeling of the unknown where you're like, what the fuck is going on? So if you're going through that, or you've been through that, you can understand that it's a normal feeling to go through when you're losing something that was such an integral part of your life. And I don't want to frame it like that like you're losing something, but it's just to say they're not a part of your life anymore and it's okay to have those feelings when you're going through the initial breakup and you're going through the initial process. But so many people don't want to walk

away because they're afraid of the unknown and they don't know what's going to happen once that happens. My biggest piece of advice about that is if you are going through a situation where you know you need to walk away and you're scared and you're afraid of the unknown and what's to come, write down a list of everything you would want to happen, post-breakup. I've done this before when I was going through a breakup, writing down everything that I want to happen, everything positive that I hope happens for me,

and making a plan for myself, like a step-by-step plan of all the things I could do to feel good post-breakup. And that has definitely helped me and shifted my mentality into a better mental state when I was going through a time like this. Now this kind of ties into what I was just saying, but number three of why people are so scared to walk away

is the fear of change. We all have this fear of change. It's normal because change can be really fucking scary. It can be scary when you don't know what's going to happen and you don't know what's to come. And I used to have this constant fear that if I change something and I ended something because I was so attached to it that my life would get increasingly worse. And after I didn't have this person in my life, my life would just get

really bad and really shitty and it would be worse than what I had. And I would never find anyone else. And it was always these fears that would play into my decision not to walk away and to stay and to hold on when I knew deep down that it wasn't healthy and it was still toxic. But once you let go of all those fears, you realize that those are irrational fears to have because if you're Dealing with something that's not right for you, right? And you're settling and you're settling for the bare minimum treatment and you're not in a healthy relationship anymore It can only go up from there. It can only get better from there because Now you're gonna have all the time in the world to focus on yourself, focus on healing, focus on self-love, and the first few months can be painful.

It's not gonna always be an easy process, but there will be a turning point where once you love yourself so deeply, and you realize that you deserve so much more, things will get better for you. And obviously sometimes we have to go through heartbreak and pain and grief and suffering in order to get to that point. But we're often so afraid of feeling pain and we're so afraid of feeling the grief and we're afraid of going through that process that we keep holding on and we keep attaching ourselves and delaying the process of walking away. And I could speak from personal experience, sometimes going through the pain is exactly what you need. In order to grow and become more mature, become wiser, become stronger, become more independent,

love yourself more, take care, know how to take care of yourself more, sometimes going through the pain is really exactly what you need at a certain point in your life. I know that sounds a little crazy, but I look back at all the times I've gone through really hard breakups, and I was crying my eyes out every night've gone through really hard breakups and I was crying my eyes out every night and I couldn't sleep and I couldn't eat and I went through all the emotions and I thought it would never get better and looking at myself now I realized that all of those things brought me to the person that I am today and made me the person I am today and I wouldn't take those experiences back for anything even though I think it cost me a lot of energy and time and tears and I was in a really

dark place at a point in my life, I think that's what makes me me and has shaped me into the woman I am today and I wouldn't take it back for the world. Like I wouldn't redo anything. I think I've gone through so much and I'm able to help other people because of it, and it's just such a beautiful thing, even though it fucking sucked while I was going through it. I think everything really did lead up to this moment. I think that's such a beautiful and empowering way to look at things, and that's like tying into everything happens for a reason, and I'm a really big believer in that. There's other reasons also why people are afraid to walk away, such as obligations because of family.

If you have children with someone, that's a really hard situation. Now personally, I don't like speaking on things that I have not gone through because I'm not an expert by any means, but I do know if you have kids with someone, things can get way more complicated and more challenging because you have children with another partner. And I get a lot of messages about this because there's a lot of people who go through things like that. And I just want to say that if you were in a situation that is no longer serving you, if you're miserable, if you're crying all the time, if you're

Feeling stuck and lost and you feel like you're not able to get out. I kind of look at it like this. You want your children to Have a good example for them and you want your children to grow up in a healthy, safe, and happy environment. I'm sure that's all you want So if you could take any steps to get there in order to take care of your children and help them by helping yourself and kind of removing yourself and trying to remove your kids in the best way that you can from a toxic situation, you're going to thank yourself so much in the long term

and your kids will thank you too. I wanna elaborate on that topic more once I speak to people who have kids and who have been in situations like that and if you have been in a situation like that you could always DM me and share your experience, but I like to be responsible with what I'm talking about, so I'm not going to go into my perspective and details on that too much, but I do understand why it would be so hard to walk away and we have circumstances and situations like that. Now those are just some of many reasons why people can be really afraid to take that leap

and walk away from a toxic person or situation. And now I'm going to get into why it can be really beneficial to walk away and why you should walk away and how it can make you unstoppable and make you feel super powerful. And you could step into your power and take these notes with you. I hope these help. I'm going to die right in. I'm going to take one more sip of my ice coffee before we begin. So number one is that your mental health will drastically change and improve. Once you've gone through the pain and once you've gone through the healing process of not being with this person anymore, your

mental health will get better. And I'll tell you why. When we attach ourselves to something that's toxic and we attach ourselves to this concept that things will change and things will get better. And it creates so much inner turmoil and constant stress and anxiety. It can be so draining for our mental health. And I've been in this situation before where I've held on so tightly to someone that wasn't good for me anymore. And then once I let go, when I cried my eyes out for weeks, and I went through the healing process, and I faced my emotions. There was just one day

where I woke up, and I felt suddenly so at peace. I was done with the crying, I was done with the tears, I was done with the begging, I was done with all the toxic bullshit. I just woke up and I was done with the tears, I was done with the begging, I was done with all the toxic bullshit. I just woke up and I was like, I'm fucking done. And it made me feel so empowered and so light. And in my body, I just felt like this huge weight Lift off my body and lift off my chest. And it was such an amazing feeling because for the first time in so long I felt like myself again. And I realized how bad my mental health was when I was tied to that person. And energetically, we can mess up our own vibration and mess up our own energy because we're so stuck on someone else.

But when we take all that energy and focus it back into ourselves and send ourselves and ground ourselves again, it can be such a healing and amazing feeling. The other thing about walking away is that you can regain full control of your life. You can become the best version of yourself because you're focused on your goals again. You're not catering to someone else. You're not fighting with someone all the time.

You're not crying, trying to decipher everything that they're saying to you. You're not questioning shit. You're not playing games. You're not being gaslit. There's so many benefits. If you're in a really toxic situation and you've gone through some of those things I just listed. Once they're out of your life and you cut this person out of your life, you can regain control of who you are

again. You could step into your power and be like, fuck this. I'm done with the bullshit. I'm done with the lying, the cheating, the games, whatever you've been through. And it's time for me. It's me time. It's time to prioritize my mental health, my physical health, my spiritual health, and whatever else you wanna work on in your life. It's time for you. You should dedicate the next six months. If you're going through this right now,

and you're leaving and you're walking away from someone, now you can dedicate all your precious energy and time to yourself. The other benefit that you get from walking away is that you could focus on your own goals and dreams. And I know a lot of people who sacrifice all their time and energy to their partner because they want to see their partner happy and they prioritize their partner over their own happiness. And I am so fucking guilty of this. I have gone through so many situations where I've given up everything for a man.

I've literally bent over backwards to make relationships work. I've moved to places for men. I've traveled distances for men. I've put my career on hold for men. I stopped, I literally stopped working at a point because I was trying to heal my relationship with someone and it still didn't work out. And I lost so many valuable career opportunities because I was so focused on the toxic relationship and not to say that I regret doing that but it just wasn't

useful or productive by any means and I think I sacrificed so much of myself or someone else and it was just not healthy but when you walk away you can put all that fucking energy into yourself and you can become the best version of yourself by doing that. It's just such a beautiful thing when you know that you have a list of goals and a list of things you want to do and you're gonna be able to devote your time to that now because you're not focused on trying to fix a broken relationship. I feel like every time I'm by myself, I start to attract different types of people that I normally wouldn't interact with into my aura because I'm opening myself up to new opportunities and new people and new experiences again and the universe knows when you're thriving alone

For some reason you become so magnetic once you heal and once you really start to like see your value again And you feel like yourself again post breakup these crazy things just start happening I always end up meeting new people talking to new people and having like new fresh fun interactions with other people and I believe that everything is a mirror so you attract what you are When you feel good and you feel confident and you feel magnetic and you feel beautiful and powerful and valuable again, it's so amazing what opens up for you. I feel like every time I've been at my lowest point and then I shoot back up and I feel

confident again. Amazing things start to click into place and everything falls into place and suddenly I feel like my friends are reaching out again and people I haven't talked to in years are reaching out again and I'm making new connections and I'm opening myself up to new experiences and allowing new happy things into my aura and it's just so much fun and I feel like I'm actually in this phase right now where I've kind of cut all the toxic bullshit out of my life and I'm stepping into my power in a totally new way. And just being on the beach and journaling and meditating, like I just feel so free.

And for the first time in my life, I feel like so at peace in a different way. Like I don't feel the peace from the validation of a man because like it's easy to feel happy and excited when you're in the dating phase and you're falling in love and you have a man or a woman or partner, whatever. Like you feel good because you're getting that validation and that love, but when you have that level already within yourself, it's an entirely different world and you see things from an entirely different perspective

and it's just, It's literally amazing. The last thing is You can learn from your experiences, right? You can learn from your experiences in such a powerful way and I feel like the power of walking away and then looking back later on and knowing that you made that decision to take that leap and Actually choose yourself and actually date yourself and love yourself over this other person, it just speaks volumes. And when you actually take that jump and you make that initiative, I can promise you eventually you're going to look back and think yourself and think you're younger self and what you did in the decision that you made because you took yourself out of something that wasn't

good for you and you put your energy took yourself out of something that wasn't good for you and you put your energy towards something healthier and something better, which is you. You put your energy back into you and doing that long term in the moment, in the short term, it can suck, it could feel really hard, it could feel really emotional, but I promise you in the long term, you will think yourself. You will think your past self or making that decision to walk away. And that's kind of where I'm that right now where I've been able to get myself out of situations and detach and let go and realize that I deserve better. And now I'm able to help other women and I'm able to give advice, even a friend, so you don't need a self-love podcast, you give advice

to someone, but way before the podcast, I was giving advice to people still, and I love doing that, and it just, it feels good to help other people. So, leading by example, when you go through something challenging, and when you've been through an experience, is so awesome, and it's so cool, and it's so amazing to give people advice once you've been through something. And I feel like that's an amazing way to look at things too because if you have valuable lessons that you could pass on to other people, that's the most beautiful thing you could do. Because you don't know who's life you're going to change and you don't know who's life you're going to save. And that's just such a cool and beautiful thing. I also want to tell you a quick story about

a guy who I was super attached to and it was impossible for me to let go of him time and time again and it was such a karmic relationship where I literally I kid you not carried this on for two and a half years because we were so in love with each other and it was actually healthy aside from the fact that we had religious differences. He was an amazing boyfriend to me. He actually was a really good partner and the issue was something that was external and almost out of both of our controls because he grew up very differently than I did and our families are just so different and our environments are so different and at our core our souls and who we

are we're actually really similar so the whole thing was just so fucked up and so difficult to comprehend because he was the only person I think in my life that I could say was like a karmic soulmate type of person and I promised myself I was gonna make an episode dedicated to this because it's such a complex situation and I don't know if anyone's ever been through anything like this actually ever. I kind of put off discussing it really because it's something that still kind of affects me but I'm just going to talk about it a little bit before it on the episode. So for me walking away from a relationship

like that was probably the hardest thing that I've ever had to go through relationship-wise because he treated me like a good boyfriend and he was a really good loving partner and Our love for each other was insane and so intense. I had to kind of understand that the circumstances were toxic, even though the person himself, like he himself was not toxic, the circumstances were toxic. So I had to really embrace that concept in order to walk away and remove myself from the situation. And that was one of the hardest things I've ever had to deal with because other than the religion, he was perfect and everything else was good and I have no complaints about his character who he was to me. So that's something that I've had to struggle with and wrestle with in my brain.

There can be really good things to a relationship that are so hard to detach from and let go of. And I get messages from people who are like, you know, my boyfriend's a good boyfriend, but X, Y, and Z, and I know it's toxic. Do I leave him? Do I not? Whatever it is. And if the circumstances and the situation isn't making you feel good, regardless if if the person's a good person, it's still important to value yourself and honor yourself at the end of the day., it's still important to value yourself and honor yourself at the end of the day. And it's still important to choose yourself at the end of the day. And you're choosing yourself by removing yourself. Even though it's so fucking hard and it can be such a battle that you wrestle with,

because that person did nothing technically wrong to you. Like, you know, never cheated, never lied, never did anything really fucked up to you. But there was just a dynamic in the relationship that felt really off and toxic and made you less of yourself. And I had to kind of battle with these like conflicting thoughts in my head all the time about it. And it was so hard to pull myself out of that because I loved him so much. And I just told this story, I I guess because I wanted to address that even though some parts can be good in a relationship, if it's still not serving your higher self and it's still not making you feel good overall,

it's still probably best to walk away and that doesn't mean I can't work out in the future and it doesn't mean that it's over forever but if you're really miserable in the moment and you're drained and you're not focusing on yourself at all and you feel like stuck, it's probably good to just like really think about what would your higher self do and what would be best for that version of you. And I knew talking to my higher self through meditations, I know that sounds kind of silly, but I would meditate and just really think about what was best for me long term And that inner voice in my head would always say you know you need to leave because it's not working right now And it fucking sucked and it really killed me

But if this story could help one person I know that's all that matters and Yeah, I guess that's that's the The tea on probably the hardest relationship I've ever been through. And with that, I really hope that was helpful and we covered a lot on today's episode. I'm gonna go finish my ice coffee because it's actually really good and it's been sitting there melting on my desk. I love you guys. Make sure if you're enjoying the podcast to rate on Spotify and Apple

will be so so appreciated and if you like this episode feel free to send me a message at LIS or at date yourself instead on my Instagram accounts and remember to subscribe to my new YouTube channel. I love you guys, thanks again and stay tuned for next Monday. to you and for next Monday.