5 Powerful Ways to Let Go of Your Ex & Start Doing Inner Work That Leads to A Healthy and Conscious Relationship
This article is for all the girlies who are trying to move on and want to learn how to do the inner work in a way that feels natural and approachable.
I’m a conscious breakup coach and certified breathwork teacher (and certified yoga teacher too) and I want you to have what I have—a beautiful marriage and everything that comes with that.
I used to let my anxious dating and relationship tendencies run my life—dating men for weeks, months and years, never feeling fully secure and always thinking it came from the outside.
What I realize now, and what I teach all my clients, is that doing the work to let go of your ex and start calling in a healthy conscious relationship is an inside job.
And thank god, right? You don’t have to wait for something or someone to help you move through this difficult and challenging period.
You can feel better on your own, without their text validating you or without them needing to make you feel some kind of way.
So today, I’m sharing 5 powerful ways to move on and start doing the work to call in your dream relationship. Grab your coffee cause it’s a long one.
Get regulated
Going through a breakup is not just an intellectual experience, it’s a full-body experience.
It’s why you feel sick, tired, jittery and overwhelmed—sometimes all at the same time. It’s your body calibrating to a feeling of unsafely after a relationship ends.
What you’re feeling during your breakup is your nervous system running the show. You’re in fight, flight or freeze. Stuck in the constant rumination, scroll or stagnant energy that comes with all the uncertainty of a breakup.
It doesn’t help that we are bombarded with information—TikTok story times, Youtube long-form content, and the ability to check their Instagram stories. It all keeps us hooked, but doesn’t actually create a practice to regulate our nervous systems. It usually just fatigues us to the point where we feel completely overwhelmed and shut down.
You need some kind of somatic (body) practice to move the energy.
This is an article I wrote with breathwork practices to help you depending on what state you’re in.
And this is my 21-day heartbreak meditation journey I created to help you start a practice to heal compassionately through some much needed stillness.
Know your attachment style (and the power of it)
I’ve often referred to myself as a conscious breakup coach specializing in anxious attachment because if there was one person who has a hero story of how she moved from being completely insecure in relationships (but was great at pretending she was confident and secure until date 3) who just couldn’t figure out why men kept doing the slow fade with her but once she figured out her attachment style that is when she met her husband and created her family and lived happily ever after—it would be me!
I’m proud to say I was anxiously attached, because I could finally have an answer for why I was so “unlucky” in love.
Your attachment style is the predetermined way you move through relationships. Who you call in, who you choose to keep, and how you feel during a breakup.
It’s also why you’re always the one putting in 150% while they put in 50% of the work. And they you often justify why that’s okay for you even if you know deep down you deserve more.
It’s the answer that you’ve been looking for but maybe never found until now.
Here’s an article I wrote on having an anxious attachment style you might want to read if you’re dating and were' just like me (on the struggle bus but really really wanting that fairytale kind of love).
Discover where you are on the self-worth scale
Speaking of attachment styles, we need to address where you are on the self-worth scale. Now, because I started really doing the inner work needed to let go of my exes who clearly weren’t meant for me (even if they were good guys but just not good for me), I really thought I had pretty good self-worth.
But that was just me masking the fact that I was completely insecure, because I was anxiously attached and I often pretended to be confident because that’s just what I did to survive in hopes that a man would see me for me (little did I realize that was because I didn’t really actually see me.)
Enter: my self-worth.
I wasn’t a big fan of the word “self-love” which, in hindsight, says something about how much self-love or self-worth I actually had (Spoiler: not very much).
I thought it was more of a woo-woo term. But really, it might just be the most important thing you need to address if you want a healthy and conscious relationship.
To know where you are on your self-worth scale, let me ask you this: when you make decisions for yourself, do they come from a place of loving yourself fully?
Or does it come from fear? Do you say “yes” to one more date with someone who isn’t really your speed (as my mother would say) because “why not?” even though if you truly checked in with yourself you’d realize it’s because low-key you’re afraid the right guy doesn’t exist and you don’t want to be alone forever so may as well give it a whirl with this dude?
Women with high self-worth actually say no a lot. Before learning how my self-worth was driving the boat of my love life, I said yes to everything. Not because I was outgoing (although I really was at the time), it was because I was afraid I’d miss my opportunity at love if I said no.
Also, I totally overextended myself because of this too.
If he didn’t want to come all the way to see me, I’d go to him and rationalize.
Oh my, would I rationalize. Are you doing that too?
It could be your self worth.
I work primarily with clients who want to step into their self-worth era and start feeling that true, authentic confidence that is radiant and magnetic but start off with the dreaded but eye-opening self-diagnosis of anxious attachment. Feel free to book a session with me if you feel aligned here.
Give yourself meaningful space from your ex
And, speaking of high self-worth, let’s talk about the importance of meaningful space, or as many might call it—a “no contact period” of sorts.
It’s so important to give yourself permission to figure out life without texting them or without their energy being around you, or affecting you. (And yes, if you’re in touch, their energy is attached to yours and therefore it does affect you in one way or another.)
Not staying in touch is a period full of emotion, fear and what-ifs. But it can be a very powerful period if you feel like you’re at a point where the breakup feels really messy and you don’t even know what to think anymore.
I actually created a really fun, cheeky and powerful No Contact Method that helps you go no contact from a place of alignment, personal power and excitement to become the woman who knows her worth and makes not talking to your ex feel easy and natural (not stressful or with high resistance). Check out the full details here.
Girlies who give themselves space get to experience clarity in a way that can’t otherwise happen when you’re always in touch.
Sometimes (often) staying in touch is a crutch, but I get that you need to get there on your own timing.
And maybe, just maybe, reading this is the sign you’ve been needing. I know how hard it can be, but every day can get easier if you actually commit. Again, my Aligned No Contact Method helps you do this.
Be compassionate to yourself through every single day
If I could, I’d tell your friends and family to be gentler to you, to listen to you for the 11th time with even more compassion than the first time you opened up to them about the pain of your breakup.
Let me tell you that going through a breakup is actually an incredible way to develop self-compassion.
It requires us to slow down, see it as real grief that needs to be acknowledged, honored, felt, processed and nurtured.
Going through a breakup is more than no longer talking—it’s actually a life-altering experience. And after working as a conscious breakup coach for many years, I can tell you that you need to be more gentle on yourself.
You need to give yourself permission to be where you are.
To not rush the healing, but to be compassionate to wherever you are today, even if yesterday looked better than today.
You don’t need to always be “progressing”—you are inherently progressing even if you can find yourself on the rollercoaster of emotions because breakups are not linear.
Always ask yourself what you need in any given moment you feel down, hurt, bummed or even angry.
If you’re someone who feels like her friends are over her telling and re-telling the events of her breakup, know that I created a 14-day email series to help you through the thick of your breakup. You can get daily support, something to look forward to everyday, created by a conscious breakup coach who gets what you’re going through and provides messages to help you heal, grow and actually feel at peace during the breakup. It encompasses A LOT of what we talked about in this blog today so if you resonate with everything shared, I encourage you to check it out here.
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I hope this article provided some healing and resources to get you through your breakup. Remember, a healthy relationship should feel healthy. That has been my mantra through the healing I did to meet and keep my husband.
If you feel called, book a session with me and let’s get through your breakup together.
Hi, I’m Nancy!
A conscious breakup coach, certified breathwork teacher, wife, mom and I have helped a lot of people heal after their relationships end. Grab my Heartbreak Haven bundle to start healing your nervous system today.