Breakups are rarely just about losing someone.
They’re often about losing the version of yourself that thought you couldn’t survive without them. In the beginning, it feels like everything shatters: the plans, the promises, the sense of safety. The pain can be sharp, raw, and disorienting. But within that very pain lies a portal: a threshold into a deeper, more authentic version of who you truly are.
Breakups as Mirrors and Maps
My clients are individuals who have achieved professional success. However, achieving success in personal relationships is a different journey compared to one’s professional life. Our early experiences and upbringing, shaped by our interactions with parents, society, and the world, influence how we perceive and engage in relationships. Our behaviors and patterns are adaptive responses developed in our early environment to enhance our chances of survival.
Nevertheless, these patterns from our younger years may not always serve us well in our adult relationships and environment. Therefore, we require updated maps to navigate and thrive in new relationships. I crafted this transcript with the intention of assisting my clients in calming their nervous system when they encounter triggers related to their anxious attachment and abandonment trauma.
Breakups as Turning Point
Painful breakups, though gut-wrenching, can become sacred ground for rebirth.
They force us to confront the parts of ourselves that have long been abandoned by others and sometimes by us. One moment of abandonment, though devastating, can crack open the path to something profoundly life-changing. It can reveal the ways we’ve outsourced our worth, our joy, our stability and it gently (or sometimes not so gently) calls those pieces home.
Breakups can become the beginning of a more joyous, abundant, and integrated life.
When we meet our grief with compassion instead of resistance, when we choose curiosity over judgment, something beautiful happens: pain turns into clarity, abandonment into sovereignty, and loss into deeper self-love. This isn’t just recovery. It’s reclamation.
Breakups Starts Early
Our early childhood experiences like how we were parented, how we perceived safety and love, and how we adapted to our environment, and shape the way we relate in adult relationships. These attachment patterns helped us survive emotionally as children. But what once worked as protection can now manifest as anxious attachment, abandonment trauma, or obsessive thinking when a romantic relationship ends or feels uncertain.
In the silence that follows breakups, you finally begin to hear your own voice.
The noise of the relationship, the hopes, the fears, the constant emotional negotiations, starts to quiet down. And in that quiet, something sacred begins to rise: you. Not the version of you trying to be chosen, fixed, or saved but the grounded, wise, enough-as-you-are self that was always there, waiting to be met.
Let me guide you through a self-soothing practice. This gentle inner dialogue can help calm your nervous system during moments of intense emotional activation, especially if you’re feeling stuck in obsessive thoughts, longing, or deep fatigue after a breakup.
Inner Dialogue Guide
A Self-Compassionate Inner Dialogue for Painful Breakups and Anxious Attachment
- My mind is obsessively thinking about him. I feel tired and unable to focus on anything else.
I hear you. You’re consumed by thoughts of this person, and it’s exhausting. Let’s take a moment to breathe together. Close your eyes if it feels safe. Inhale deeply, and as you exhale, imagine letting go of just 1% of the weight you’re carrying. You don’t need to fix anything right now, just notice the air entering and leaving your body. Let your breath be your anchor.
- I keep thinking: will he choose me?
While continuing to breathe gently, I invite you to turn your attention to the part of you that is longing for his choice, his validation. Can you sense where that part lives in your body? Can you be with it, not to judge, but to understand? What is this part afraid of?
- I’m angry at this part. It feels childish, and it drains my energy. I should be stronger than this. Maybe this is why men don’t love me.
It makes perfect sense that you feel frustrated. You’ve worked so hard in life, and you expect more of yourself. But this part of you isn’t here to sabotage you. It’s here to protect you. Imagine sitting beside it, not as a critic, but as a curious adult. Ask it gently: “What are you trying to protect me from?”
- She (the part) says: I’m making sure you have food, shelter, love, and unconditional acceptance.
This is such a powerful moment of insight. That part of you is not broken, it’s loyal. It’s working overtime to ensure survival, love, and belonging. And even if its methods feel outdated or overwhelming, its intention is deeply human.
Updating Your Inner Map for Relationships
If you’ve been feeling like you’re too much or not enough in your relationships, you’re not alone. These emotional patterns are not flaws, they’re old roadmaps that need updating. Just like in your professional life, you can learn to navigate relationships with greater clarity, resilience, and self-trust.
Healing from painful breakups and anxious attachment isn’t about cutting off your emotions, it’s about creating space to relate to them with kindness and curiosity.
You don’t need to fix everything today. You just need to take the next breath, the next small step toward a more compassionate relationship with yourself.
I truly appreciate your willingness to explore this inner experience. It seems that this part of you is doing its best to ensure your basic needs are met, that you feel safe, loved, and accepted. Let’s take a moment to acknowledge its good intentions and thank it for trying so hard to protect and care for you.
Now, let’s gently go a bit deeper. I invite you to ask this part:
“What are you most afraid would happen if I didn’t stay fixated on him?”
Take your time. When you listen with compassion, even the most overwhelmed parts of you can begin to feel seen.
“If she loses her father, someone must protect her. It has to be a strong, capable man. What if he leaves too? What if I lose my father? I need to find someone quickly so I won’t die.”
Thank you for sharing that. It’s clear that this part is carrying a deep fear of loss and abandonment, a fear that if there’s no one strong to protect you, you might not survive. That’s not a small fear. It makes sense that she feels so urgent and desperate.
Let’s pause and offer a moment of appreciation to this part. Even though her methods may feel overwhelming, she is trying desperately to keep you safe.
Now, gently ask her:
“Would it be okay if I (or someone I trust, like a guide or inner resource) connected directly with the part of me who’s afraid of losing her father?”
This is simply an invitation to meet that deeper fear with care and curiosity. Let me know if she gives her consent.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t accept or love this part. She ruins every chance at connection. She’s so needy, and men sense it. They pull away because of her extreme needs. I just want to get rid of her.”
I hear how deeply frustrated and disappointed you feel. And that makes so much sense, especially when you’ve worked hard to build your life and present yourself as capable. But instead of trying to exile or get rid of this part, let’s try something different. What if we just paused and acknowledged how much pain she might be in?
This part isn’t trying to destroy your relationships. She’s trying to survive. She’s using the only strategies she knows, strategies that may be outdated, but not malicious.
Take a breath. See if you can sit beside her for a moment, not to fix her, but just to witness her.
Ask her gently:
“What do you feel you need, in order to feel safe and loved without chasing or clinging?”
“I’m a woman now, but I behave like I’m five. It’s not fair. I should be enough.”
I hear your longing to feel grown, grounded, and in control. And you are enough, your adult self knows that. But this five-year-old part doesn’t yet trust that truth. She still believes that she has to beg for love to survive. And that’s not her fault. She learned it somewhere along the way.
Instead of pushing her away, what would it be like to become the safe adult she never had? The one who says, “You don’t have to beg. I’m here. I won’t leave.”
“I can’t hold her. She’s too much. She makes me anxious too.”
Thank you for your honesty. That’s a powerful truth. Sometimes, the parts of us that need the most love also stir up the most discomfort. You don’t have to hold her all by yourself. Maybe you’ve never been shown how to hold pain with gentleness but that’s something we can learn together, slowly.
For now, let’s simply acknowledge:
There’s a young part of you who’s terrified.
There’s a wise adult part of you who’s overwhelmed.
And both are doing their best.
Let’s offer both of them a breath.
No need to change anything, just be with what’s here.
I hear that being with this vulnerable part of you feels overwhelming. It’s completely valid to feel anxious or uncertain when you connect with emotional parts that carry pain or unmet needs. You don’t have to force anything. Your feelings, and your boundaries, deserve to be honored with tenderness and respect.
Not all breakups are losses. Some are sacred invitations to reclaim the parts of yourself you once gave away.
Let’s begin by simply acknowledging this part. Even if it feels too much to be with it right now, we can still recognize that it exists for a reason. Its behaviors, even if they seem extreme or uncomfortable, likely formed at a time when they were necessary for emotional survival. Let’s gently thank it for trying to keep you safe in the only way it knows how.
But since it feels difficult to hold or care for this part directly at the moment, we won’t push that. Healing is never about force, it’s about creating space. Even after very painful breakups.
Instead, let’s shift the focus toward cultivating a felt sense of safety and groundedness within you.
Can you think of an image, a memory, a place, a person, or even a sensation that symbolizes safety or comfort to you? It could be something real or imagined… a cozy room, a warm blanket, the ocean, a loving grandparent, or even a beam of soft light.
If nothing comes to mind, that’s perfectly okay.
You don’t need to have a defined symbol of safety. What matters most is that we begin nurturing an internal experience of safety, a sense that you are not alone with this pain, and that you have inner resources to support you.
Close your eyes for a moment, if it feels comfortable.
Take a slow, deep breath.
Now imagine a gentle, nurturing light surrounding you like a warm cocoon. Let it wrap around your body, calming your nervous system, softening your chest and jaw, and grounding your feet to the earth. This light represents presence, care, and protection. It asks nothing of you. It simply is.
Allow yourself to rest in this space for a few moments. When you feel even a slight shift, more breath, less tension, a sense of quiet.
Yes, I feel enough now.
I’m so deeply moved to hear that. Feeling enough—as you are, in this very moment—is not just a passing relief; it’s a quiet revolution inside.
This feeling is like arriving home after years of searching. Imagine your inner world as a garden. Some parts have bloomed beautifully, while others have been neglected, overgrown, or trampled. The child part of you—the one who felt five years old and so desperately in need— has been standing in the rain, waiting to be seen.
And now, for the first time in a long while, you’ve opened the door.
You didn’t try to fix her.
You didn’t shame her.
You simply sat beside her.
That alone is how the garden begins to heal.
Let’s take this sense of self-acceptance and bring it to that younger part of you. With the calmness now present in your system, approach her gently, not as someone broken to be repaired, but as someone wise who has carried so much, for so long.
Ask her:
What have you been holding all this time? What do you want me to know?
You don’t need to rush. Let her speak in her own way. You may hear words, see images, or simply feel emotions surfacing. Whatever arises, meet it with compassion.
Right now, feeling grounded and content is exactly where you need to be. This is not a resting point of avoidance, it’s a fertile pause, where the real integration begins.
In our next session, we’ll continue tending to this inner garden. Together, we’ll begin to explore the deeper roots, particularly those shaped by your connection with your mother. We’ll walk gently through that terrain, continuing to build a relationship with yourself that is safe, loving, and whole.
What Does a Healthy Relationship Actually Look Like?
As we work with wounded parts of ourselves, it’s natural to also ask: What would it even look like to be in a healthy relationship? Especially if past relationships were defined by fear, abandonment, or emotional chaos, it can be hard to trust that love can feel safe.
So let’s explore that.
A healthy relationship isn’t about perfection or constant bliss, it’s about mutual regulation, emotional safety, and shared responsibility.
Here are a few key elements:
1. Emotional Safety
You feel emotionally safe when you can express your feelings, needs, and fears without fearing abandonment or judgment. This safety grows when both partners make room for vulnerability and respond with empathy instead of criticism.
2. Secure Attachment
You don’t have to chase love or anxiously monitor signs of rejection. In a securely attached relationship, love is steady, not conditional on your performance or emotional “perfection.” You can be human—imperfect, emotional, sometimes messy—and still be held in care.
3. Interdependence, Not Codependence
In healthy love, both people maintain their individuality and choose to support each other. You don’t need to collapse into the other person to feel whole. Instead, two whole individuals come together to enhance one another’s lives, not complete them.
4. Clear Communication
In a thriving relationship, you talk about needs, boundaries, and expectations. Difficult conversations aren’t avoided, they’re handled with respect. There’s room for repair when ruptures happen.
5. Respect for Inner Parts
Each of us has many emotional parts, some confident, some scared, some reactive. In a healthy relationship, your partner doesn’t expect you to silence your wounds. Instead, they meet them with understanding, while also taking responsibility for their own.
Breakups feel painful because they stir the very parts of us that still believe love must be earned.
The journey toward healthy love starts with the way we relate to ourselves. When you learn to sit beside your anxious part with gentleness instead of shame, you’re laying the foundation for a relationship that’s rooted in real, mature intimacy, not fear-based attachment.
And remember:
You are not broken.
You are becoming whole.
Painful breakups might be just a tool on the way to wholeness. Breakups aren’t just the end of a relationship. They’re the beginning of a deeper relationship with yourself.
We’re not rushing healing. We’re inviting it, one breath, one moment, one inner shift at a time. Some breakups crack your heart open just enough to let the light of self-awareness in.
Integration and Initiation
Breakups can feel like the ground has been pulled out from beneath your feet.
They often arrive with a flood of confusion, grief, and silence… the kind of silence that feels unbearable at first. But over time, that silence begins to soften. And in that stillness, something unexpected begins to emerge: your own voice.
In many relationships, we lose pieces of ourselves by quietly sacrificing our needs, ignoring our intuition, or shrinking to be loved. The emotional noise—the constant hoping, fixing, managing—drowns out our truth. But breakups clear the air. They strip everything down, and for the first time in a long time, you can actually hear yourself again.
Breakups are painful, yes but they can also be profoundly clarifying.
They give us the opportunity to see the patterns we’ve repeated, the parts of ourselves we’ve abandoned, and the love we’ve been desperately seeking outside of us. When we stop resisting the grief and start meeting it with compassion, transformation begins. Suddenly, what felt like rejection becomes redirection. What once seemed like abandonment becomes the beginning of self-belonging.
This isn’t just healing from broken relationships. This is coming home to yourself.
Breakups can mark the beginning of a life that is more abundant, more honest, and more deeply connected. Not just with others, but with the truth of who you are. From this place of self-trust, new relationships—healthier, safer, more aligned—can emerge. Ones where you don’t have to earn love or perform for connection. Ones where you are met, as you are.
So let the pain guide you. Let the silence speak.
Because sometimes, the most painful breakups are also the most powerful breakthroughs.
Keywords
Breakups, relationships, painful breakup, anxious attachment, abandonment trauma, emotional healing, self-soothing, inner child work, relationship patterns, professional success and love