How To Heal From Heartbreak (Backed by Science) | 5 Experts on Love & Heartbreak

18:40Alain de Botton:And oxytocin.

18:40Sarah Ann Macklin:And oxytocin, of course.

18:42Alain de Botton:That's the biggest drug of all.

18:44Sarah Ann Macklin:That's the biggest drug of all, you have 100%. And the mix of those three is just like the ultimate positive feeling. We go out to find, so F is friendships. We look for someone that will listen to us, someone that will console us, someone and so on. we look for a companionship you know like those wonderful couples that go out in the morning and walk next to each other and then sit down and read two separate books they don't say a word but they just love to have each other okay we look for t tenderness oh my god like the the gentleness the touch the understanding the hug the you know has nothing to do with passion has nothing to do with friendship, but we all need it.

19:28Sarah Ann Macklin:Okay. And we go out to look for SD support, right? And as much as the Western world wants to paint that whole idea of, of independence, like I don't need anyone, come on, I would die without the feminine in my life. I am, you know, look at me, I'm the masculine, masculine man. Okay. And I will tell you openly, I'm half a person. Okay. Because of my masculinity, unless someone shows up and says, hey, babe, let's go out and play a little bit. Or, you know, someone that says, I actually need to hear something from you. What good is the masculine if it's not helping or if it's not supporting or if it's not, right?

20:07Sarah Ann Macklin:And we all have that need within us and we suppress it somehow and we don't let it be known because if we need the support of someone, that means we're dependent on them. And if we're dependent on them in a world that we cannot trust what happens when they leave us. and of course if that's the attitude they end up leaving us that's people's biggest fear i think yeah 100 and so if we don't even know why we go out dating for okay by the way all of that happens has nothing to do with love okay there are so many people in the world that have passion but not love and there are so many people in the world that have love but not passion okay there are so many people in the world that have uh you know support but they're not romantically involved they're different.

20:50Sarah Ann Macklin:Okay. And so that whole idea of going out there, that conversation that basically tells you, don't be fooled. Love is always there. You only recognize it. So if love is between the two souls, right, it's always been there before you were born and after you die. Okay. It's the two souls belong together all along. It's that what you have to work on is the complex mathematics of the relationship, of why you're out there, what you're looking for, what you need. How do you communicate it? How do you sense when it's not there enough? How do you make sure that what your partner needs is provided? All of that complexity is pure.

21:34Sarah Ann Macklin:I know it sounds really weird, but it is pure mathematics. It's mathematics. And mathematics, you know me. that's what I do right and if I tell you the math it would blow you away like take they take the simplest thing dating okay dating in the dating apps world depends on the part of the mathematics that we call the law of large numbers right the law of large numbers is let me simplify if you roll the two dice and you want a double six you have to roll 36 times right if your person is one in 36, that means on average, you're going to have to go on 36 dates. You may be lucky and go on 18 and find someone.

22:14Sarah Ann Macklin:You may be extremely lucky and go on the first and find someone, but that's very unlikely. And the probability changes along the number of times you throw the dice. So let me simplify. If your person is one in six, on the first throw of the dice, on the first date, your probability is one in six, right? If you throw again, it's one in five. So now you're up to 20%, right? If you throw again, it's one in four. Now you're up to 25%, right? And so the more you go out in the law of large numbers, the more your odds improve. Okay. The problem is it's not one in 36. The typical human, if you want only seven things in the person you're looking for, only seven, okay you're looking at the odds of one in a million wow it's one in a million 100 % think about it huh if you're saying I am looking for a man okay that is available in one in two people on the planet right uh if you if you say uh and I am looking for a man who is in a specific age group and that age group is one in four let's say your odds are not one in two plus one in four so it's not one in six, it's one in eight.

23:31Sarah Ann Macklin:You multiply the two by the four, right? And if you want them to have a specific religious background or faith or spiritual background, and that's one in five, it's not now one in eight plus five. It's not one in 13. It's one in eight multiplied by five. It's one in 40. Okay. And that continues. If the next thing is one in 10, it's one in 400. If the next thing is one in five, it's one in 2000 and 20 ,000 and it continues 2000 and continues to grow exponentially every time you add one and you can see how it works. At first it grows from two to eight. It's not a big deal, but eventually it grows from 2000 to 20 ,000 and then the next one is 20 ,000 to 200 ,000 if they are one in 10.

24:20Sarah Ann Macklin:okay and and so basically what ends up happening is if you follow the law of large numbers i'm sorry to tell you your odds are almost non-existent okay and that's what the commercial world has built what we use with emma is we use something called markov series so it's basically biased choice biased choice means if i have if i gave you the dice to roll a double six and then remove four of the of the faces and say they don't count if it lands on one of those it doesn't count okay now your odds have improved so much because i removed a lot of what you don't need so so what emma wants to do is to it wants to know you so well okay and know everyone on the app so well that instead of giving you what dating apps do 30 thousand pictures to swipe through okay on you know swipe through based on the wrong attributes because that's you know one of the things but it's not the only thing right what if i could limit it down to only five what if i can get get you out of those 30 000 people what if i could know the closest five to what you actually want okay now you're no longer in the law of large numbers.

25:37Sarah Ann Macklin:Okay. Now you're very much in Markov. So basically with five rolls of the dice, you can get there. Okay. And, and that is even more interesting that every one of those rolls of the dice is an enjoyable experiment. Okay. It's something that you learn from. It's someone that you can actually connect to and be close to. So nobody hates dating anymore. Dating doesn't become mature anymore.

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27:37Alain de Botton:Now I met Francesca Hoggy at TED in Vancouver and I was really excited to get her on the show because she just written a book all about love. So in this part we talk about what does it actually mean to love someone. Francesca gets into the true definition of real love and that's to honestly audit the way through how you're showing up in your relationship. But also, crucially, why keeping your heart open, even when it's being broken, is not a weakness. It's a strength. And she helps guide you on coming back to yourself.

28:10Sarah Ann Macklin:The old definition of true love is this idea that there is this one perfect person. And if you find that one perfect person, then, you know, everything will magically work out and you'll just live happily ever after. And the new definition of true love is really about what you're co-creating together, right? And what the dynamics and the values are of the relationship that you're in. And if you are more focused on that, then like, so if you're say you're in a relationship and you meet somebody else and you have a deep romantic connection with them, I mean, look, that's a complicated situation and certainly there are people who choose to leave their current relationship for new you know for a new partner um and you know that's your right to do that however if you are again really focused on like oh but i have this new connection and it's exciting and that's sort of all you're thinking about and you're not actually thinking well what is the purpose of even being in a relationship and what am i bringing to the relationship you You know, like if you, like a very common complaint, for instance, is that in a long-term relationship, the intimacy falls off, right?

29:16Sarah Ann Macklin:But how much were you actively, continually showing up in a way in your relationship where you were co-creating that intimacy versus you just were on autopilot? And just, and it's like, yeah, it is going to fade. It is going to fizzle out if you're not actively doing your part to co-create that energy and to keep that intimacy going. So then if you meet somebody else and it's like, oh, it's instant and it's new and it's novel because there is this novelty that we seek that it's like, well, this is easy. But it's not always going to be easy no matter how great the person is, no matter how deep your connection is, if you do not take personal responsibility for your role and whatever you co-create with that other person.

29:59Alain de Botton:What's one of the biggest problems that you see, I guess, that you help people find love? I guess this goes for singles and people in relationships. What's the biggest kind of problem that you see or occurrence that's coming up again and again at this moment in time? Projection.

30:16Sarah Ann Macklin:It's just people projecting onto others, right? Like I think this old notion that we have about relationships, which is it's your job to make me happy. And if I'm not happy, it's my partner's fault. and that also translates like in dating, it translates into, oh, if I'm with somebody who has this certain kind of job or who has, you know, who looks a certain way and checks these boxes, then they're going to be a great partner for me versus actually like getting to know someone, actually paying attention to where am I using something like, like a good example because I work with a lot of women who are professional, they're successful, And so they'll say, well, I need to be with a partner who makes a certain amount of money.

31:02Sarah Ann Macklin:And I'll just say, I just ask them why. Because it's not a judgment. I just want everybody, whatever it is you're seeking in a partner, just be clear on why you're seeking it and whether or not it actually relates to your relationship. Because oftentimes it doesn't. And so, and also I'll say, well, why do you need to be with someone who makes that much money? And they'll say, well, because if I'm with a partner who makes that much money, then he won't be intimidated by me and he'll be supportive of my career. And I'm like, OK, so the real need here is somebody who's going to support you and not be intimidated by you, not be competitive with you.

31:36Sarah Ann Macklin:But you know there are people who make way, way, way more than that who will still be competitive with you and still won't support you. So rather than...

31:43Alain de Botton:Two alphas.

31:44Sarah Ann Macklin:So rather than use the money or the title or the education as a proxy for the support that you actually are really seeking in a relationship, focus on the support that you're seeking in the relationship, right? And don't assume that just because somebody makes a lot of money, he's going to support you and your career, because that's not true. And so I think that's an example of how we project.

32:05Alain de Botton:I think a big thing that shines through here is authenticity to me. And I think many of us, and we don't live in an authentic culture anymore, which is really sad. You know, we are governed by social media. We are governed by how we are perceived online. And if I'm thinking about how most people meet partners now, it's mostly online. So we are already projecting a certain image of ourselves. How can we like show up more authentically to people when we're meeting them in a relationship? and I guess for me that connects a lot to our values. Is it important to like share what these values are but from like a real authentic way because I guess the woman who you were just explaining, maybe one of her values would have been financial or money.

32:49Alain de Botton:But how do we actually find out what our real values are so we can lead these conversations with authenticity around romantic love?

32:56Sarah Ann Macklin:Yeah. Well, it all starts with having a very honest conversation with yourself and really thinking about what is the relationship that I want to have? Not just what do I want it to look like, not what does my mind imagine it will be, but what is my heart actually calling me to experience with another person? Because if you get clear on that, then you'll start to realize there is literally no way that I can co-create that with another person unless I'm showing up as my authentic self. One of the big problems with online dating is that people are trying to get as many matches as possible. Like they're trying to make themselves as widely, you know, attractive as possible.

33:38Sarah Ann Macklin:And I understand it because I think, okay, the more options I have, then the more likely it is that I'll be able to like find a really great partner. But I see it totally differently. I see it as like, actually, the more you are yourself, that's going to make it easier for the right people to recognize you as the right person for them. And then for you to know when you're, because you're showing up as yourself, you're not just pretending when you're interacting, whether this feels good or not. So it takes courage and vulnerability in the dating phase to show up with that authenticity, but that's exactly what you need to have real intimacy in a lasting relationship.

34:20Sarah Ann Macklin:So dating is actually a great place to start practicing that. Dating skills are love skills. Like dating skills are relationship skills. And so many people are in a rush to like get out of the dating phase as quickly as possible and like meet their person, get into the relationship that they are not realizing like the amazing opportunity they have to actually practice, practice that authenticity. So even, like, small things, like, you know, in a dating profile, if all of your photos, if it's, like, the best pictures you've ever taken, and the most amazing filters, and the most amazing lighting, and the greatest angles, you're not lying, necessarily, but you're more focused on presenting the most pristine, perfect image of yourself than you are of just saying, like, I actually just want my energy and my personality to shine through.

35:13Sarah Ann Macklin:because I want people who resonate with that, not just like, oh my god, this is a really shiny, you know, lovely photo.

35:19Alain de Botton:It's because I think rejection is so profound for so many people.

35:22Sarah Ann Macklin:Yeah.

35:23Alain de Botton:And I think facing rejection in the dating world is more, is more compounded today than ever before because, as you said, there's just all of these different options. And so that emotional safety can go quite quickly, and you're not sure how many people are dating other people, even if you're in a solid relationship, you know, is that person truly committed to you or not? I think the rejection culture is quite a big one.

35:46Sarah Ann Macklin:Yeah.

35:47Alain de Botton:That we don't talk about when it comes to love.

35:49Sarah Ann Macklin:Yeah, yeah.

35:50Alain de Botton:Like, how can you navigate that and still keep your self-worth? Because ultimately, I think that's the biggest thing that compounds your self-worth.

35:57Sarah Ann Macklin:I do say in the book that rejection isn't real. And what I mean by that is not that, like, I have been broken up with, like, I have had people who I was interested in and they didn't, you know, they weren't interested in me. So I absolutely don't, you know, mean to imply that that doesn't happen. Obviously, it happens. But the thing about when we call it rejection, we are basically making a story that we weren't good enough. Right. And that's a story. Because, you know, I think of this example, when I was in my very early 20s, I was, I went through this very, like, fearful phase, where I just, like, could not receive romantic attention.

36:40Sarah Ann Macklin:I was not comfortable with it. And there were men who I was actually interested in, who asked me out, and I said no. And so for them, that was me, quote, rejecting them. But actually, I was just rejecting myself, because it was coming from my own fear, right, of what it would mean to actually have to open myself up and to, like, let people in and to then... Because I was afraid of, like, well, if I really let this person in and they get to know me, then they won't like me, right? And so I was preemptively, quote, rejecting myself based on a story that I wasn't good enough, right? And so rejection is always a story, and I really like to reframe it as disappointment.

37:21Sarah Ann Macklin:Because, yeah, it is disappointing when you like someone and they don't like you back. It is disappointing when you are in a relationship and you want to stay in that relationship and your partner doesn't. But there is also this larger faith that I really want to empower people to cultivate within themselves, which is that you are on this lifelong love journey and you get more and more and more chances. and so you do not have to take a disappointment as an indictment of what is possible for you and even if you thought oh my god we would have been perfect together if they disagree you were wrong right and so that's okay so feel those feelings of disappointment but if you start closing your heart now and you start living from this fearful place of oh i'm never going to be good enough now you are actually what you're doing is setting yourself to actually manifest the disconnection versus saying, okay, that didn't work.

38:20Sarah Ann Macklin:What can I learn from this situation? What do I need to do to support myself in moving forward? There's just a level of emotional resilience that we need in life. And we certainly need it in relationships of all kind because people will let you down. You will be hurt at times. You might feel rejected in a relationship with a partner who totally loves you. Oh, yes. And is totally committed to you. So you have to just really have that foundational conversation with yourself and relationship with yourself where you can start to say, okay, I'm calling this rejection, but is that really what's going on?

38:59Sarah Ann Macklin:And is this actually an opportunity for me to develop some more confidence within myself? I'm interrupting for one moment to ask one small favor.

39:08Alain de Botton:Please subscribe to the show. this helps it grow more than you know and I'm so bad at asking this from you I'm so bad of thinking about this but you know my goal is a hundred thousand to get to on YouTube and I really want to bring you more content and bigger episodes and we can only do that with your help together so please do hit subscribe thank you this is a conversation from quite a while ago with the man himself Paul Bronson I don't know if any of you are watching Married at First Sight but Paul is the relationship expert on there. He's also the relationship expert on Oprah. Now I have something to share about this episode.

39:45Alain de Botton:Someone who was listening to this episode live whilst it was being recorded made one of the biggest decisions of their life. This episode allowed them to leave their engagement. I didn't find this out for a while but when I did I had to sit with that because the power of hearing the right words at the right moment if you're feeling stuck, this part is for you. When you hug someone it actually releases trauma. You know obviously it works on the neurodopamine and neurotransmitters and you get, you know, oxytocin and everything when you hug someone, but actually also as a trauma release.

40:15Sarah Ann Macklin:Yes.

40:16Alain de Botton:Like when you hug someone, you do release trauma. Yes. Just being held, it's such a big thing. I've definitely gone through my kind of spells of really bad health, really extreme. You know, when I was in those moments, I was in bad relationships, professionally, personally. My whole body shut down. I really believe so much of that was because so much was just suppressed inside. And we talk about anxiety a lot today. Suppression. We don't feel that we can voice how we are.

40:44Sarah Ann Macklin:Right.

40:45Alain de Botton:And so we suppress it.

40:46Sarah Ann Macklin:Right. And then what you were saying earlier about social media is that in social media, we're trying to keep up a facade.

40:52Alain de Botton:Right?

40:52Sarah Ann Macklin:At work, we're trying to keep up a facade.

40:55Alain de Botton:Totally.

40:55Sarah Ann Macklin:So if you're keeping up a facade in all aspects of your life, when you come home, if you can't release, if you can't bring down the walls of the facade... Get it out. ...and get it out, well, guess what? you are going to not only have dissatisfaction, but to keep it real is that you are... It is detrimental to your health, and you can die as a result of that, you know? So it's so important. And that's why I believe who you choose as a partner is the most important decision of your life.

41:24Alain de Botton:I'm just thinking about people listening to this, right? And two different sets of people. Some people might be in an unhappy relationship, right? And they're thinking, okay, I feel like this, but I'm more terrified to leave the relationship because I don't want to be alone and I'm scared I'm never going to meet someone. So there's that I'm going to stay in this because, not because I want to, but because I feel like I can't be on my own because I feel very hopeful, hopeless of not meeting someone. And then there's another set of people that I'm thinking about, lots of women around me that are hopeless that they're not going to meet someone, you know, because they've had so many like terrible dates.

41:57Alain de Botton:And this also does go for men. It's not just women, but I think I'm just thinking about my own personal relationships. And I'm sure there's many amazing men out there that feel exactly the same.

42:05Sarah Ann Macklin:Right.

42:06Alain de Botton:So when we're in this state, right, knowing that having this really important relationship in our life that is one of the most biggest choices for our well-being and health, what do we do when we feel stuck? And we have this hopelessness, because I think hopelessness is one of the worst feelings.

42:19Sarah Ann Macklin:Yes. Yes. There are millions of people, men and women, who feel stuck, whether they're in the relationship or stuck because they don't feel like they can get into a relationship, but they feel stuck and therefore they feel hopeless. One of the first things that they can do is first is clap for themselves, you know why? Because if they are watching this, they've already made the first step, right? They're already being nourished, right? They already, through listening to everything that you're doing, they are learning, they're becoming aware of the challenges that they have. Awareness is where it all begins, all begins.

42:57Sarah Ann Macklin:The next piece is then to surround yourself with people who are, going back to attachments, people who are secure, people who do have a high level of self-esteem and self-love so they can better understand how it shows up. What are the behaviors? What are the behaviors of someone who has high self-esteem and is happy? Someone who's hopeful. How do they act? How do they show up? And what does that mean? That means literally making maybe new friends. Maybe that means releasing some of your existing friends. Maybe that means releasing, I know this is controversial, releasing some of your family members.

43:39Sarah Ann Macklin:There are family members that I have that I'm related by blood, but I have not talked to, and I will not talk to, most likely for the rest of my time on this planet. Because toxicity breeds toxicity. And so it's very important for us to create a healthy environment, the context. So what we're listening to, the content that we're listening to, the people we're talking to, that's all the content. And then what you want to do is you want to move to instruction. What is instruction? Instruction can come from a professional like a therapist. instruction can come from going on to YouTube and reading about meditation or journaling or exercising or all of the ways that we can increase our self-esteem and it's important to be in a place of strength before we start making strategies on exiting or before we start making strategies on okay now I think I'm gonna date I think I'm gonna get on on a dating app well remember the best time to work on your relationship is before the relationship.

44:41Sarah Ann Macklin:So think about the context, the content. Think about getting good inspiration, getting good instruction. That's how you could begin to create the plan to get out of that place of feeling stuck.

44:54Alain de Botton:I have admired young Pueblo, also known as Diego Perez, for many, many years now. And his work, his poetry, his novels have always held me through my own heartbreak and personal growth. And so a couple of years ago, when he came onto the show, I was so excited to speak to him and nervous. But it came at a good time because I was actually going through a really hard heartbreak myself when I was speaking to him. And so I hope this part of the episode can help any of you who might be going through something similar. And I would definitely recommend to go and listen to this full episode if you are, but he is full of so much wisdom and so much calmness.

45:37Alain de Botton:And this part is all about how to let go.

45:41Sarah Ann Macklin:Probably one of the most common questions that I get is how to let go and how to let go. It's one of my favorite questions, but it's a big question too, because there's not like a five rule, like step one, step two, step three, this is how you let go. And I think if anyone ever offers you that, I think you should be careful because that's, it's how to, how to let go is very situational because how to let go is you're basically asking for the secret of healing. Like, how do you heal, right? Like how, how do you have this trauma that has been burdening you? How do you make it go away? And what I do suggest to people is that different modalities have different processes that can show you how to let go.

46:28Sarah Ann Macklin:So what you have to do, and this is going back to what we were talking about earlier, is you really want to do your best to sample what's available to you. It's almost like the spiritual buffet. Sample. Try a little bit of therapy. Try a little bit of yoga. Try a little bit of meditation. Do different types of meditation, different types of therapies, and find the one that is bringing you results. And if it's really bringing you results, then fantastic. Stick to it, dig into it. And you'll find that if it's something that's really valuable, it will have a path for letting go in it.

47:05Alain de Botton:I think the biggest misconception for me around letting go from someone who's been on this journey a few times as well, is that it's not quick. You kind of have to sit with it. You kind of have to sit with the discomfort. And I didn't like it when someone said that to me. I was like, I know I'm productive. I I want to just give me the, give me the 10, 10 plan rule and I'll, I'll book it in twice. I know you're talking about tools, but I really want to be honest and share. Cause I think, as you said, being honest and sharing, you know, can help so many other people. But when I kind of went through a breakup, I did everything.

47:41Alain de Botton:I've got acupuncture. I did a breathwork course. I did another breathwork course. I did a meditation course. I did journaling every day. I meditated every day. I went for a gratitude walk every day. I'd call a friend. I'd see people all the time. I ate really, really well. I did yoga every single day. I had this checklist of everything that I was going to do. And because I thought I was doing things well and it wasn't going to plan, it was kind of making me more disheartened. And someone had to be like, you can't rationalize your way so quickly out of like letting go and feeling better. Like you kind of just have to sit with it.

48:20Alain de Botton:And I wasn't kind of quite ready for that. And then when someone said that to me, I just thought, do you know what? I'm, I'm, I'm without knowing it, I'm using tools to distract myself. I'm using all of these modalities to get myself out of feeling how I'm feeling. and I'm actually just not connecting to the present. And that for me was like the biggest moment of change, I think, like the biggest kind of, do you know what? We're here. There's nothing you can do. Right.

48:53Sarah Ann Macklin:And there's so much power. Like there's a, I heard this beautiful story of a teacher that I know who was, he's a meditator and he was meditating in his course with another teacher who was older and really well-developed. and he was asking that teacher he was like you know how can i make more progress like how can i grow faster and the teacher told him just accept like just accept that's it like and it's funny that's why and that's one of the reasons why i'm like i'm so grateful to the you know the meditation tradition that i'm a part of because it's literally about it's not like forcing yourself to feel good We don't care about that.

49:35Sarah Ann Macklin:It's about accepting reality as it is. And if in this moment, reality sucks, you be with it. You accept it. You feel it fluctuate. And I think that's beautiful because there are going to be times when life is unavoidably bad. And there are going to be times when it's good and great. Be present. Enjoy it. And when it's bad, you know that it has a time limit. It's not going to be bad forever. But I think when I'm hearing your story, it's like you like the combination of being proactive like you had that proactivity there you know but you also have to add time to it like it's like proactivity plus time you accept this is the moment this sucks it feels terrible what am I gonna do well it's like it's true right it's

50:20Alain de Botton:like one of those things and I was thinking okay one of the like huge questions on google is how to heal and everyone's trying to get a checklist and it reminds me of the wellness culture that I kind of went into 10 years ago before I went and studied biochemistry, traditional science and so on and so forth was that I was like, well, I've got a checklist of all the best things I'm going to eat. I'm going to be the healthiest person on the planet. And it just never turned out that way.

50:43Sarah Ann Macklin:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

50:44Alain de Botton:And it's like this optimized culture. There's going to be a healing version of it where it's like all of these things you can do. And it's like we're kind of losing the whole kind of understanding of like, just like stopping and being present is probably the biggest thing of the healing journey and the acceptance of change. Yeah.

51:02Sarah Ann Macklin:And when you talk to people who are actually really well developed, they'll tell you that they're just literally existing in the present moment, no past, no future. It's just what's here and what's now. And it's funny when I was listening to you earlier, it was making me think like, you know, I'm sure there's so many people who are like, I'll pay more for the faster healing version, you know, but like,

51:22Alain de Botton:100 % there's going to be somewhere that you're going to see in like two years there's going to be like a center where you can set a healing journey very very quickly and you're going to come out transformed and there's a conversation around like that's kind of what ayahuasca is like like at the moment a lot of people will say I'm going to go and find myself and do ayahuasca and then think after a week they're done and the healing's finished and it's you know there's a lot of like different modalities that are coming up I think in this space and I think it's just really an important one to highlight that actually it's not this one-stop shop it's actually

51:57Sarah Ann Macklin:it's a continual process yeah and I think you know to people out there like I would like you don't need to take out a loan to heal right you if if you're paying like five eight ten thousand dollars for something like something's not quite right so I would be a little careful with that because you can find a good therapist without breaking an arm and a leg, you know, without like breaking the bank. You can also like find really good meditation teachers and meditation traditions.

52:31Alain de Botton:Like honestly, the best ones, like the best, best meditation traditions,

52:35Sarah Ann Macklin:like you don't pay. And if you do like the suggested amount is tiny, but like the tradition that I go to, like, I'll go meditate for 45 days continuously in silence. People feed you there, you know, there are people who are serving there, who are helping create the meditative environment. And there's no suggested donation, like it's literally free, you can give a donation at the end if you want. But it's not like, you know, no one's making money off of this thing. Like when And when you're trying to gain real deep wisdom, you can't pay for that stuff.

53:12Alain de Botton:Well, I think that's the biggest philosophy, right? It's like, actually, it's a learned process. And it's wisdom. It's being wise. It's kind of like you're growing with it. I think something that's really important that is something to just mention through this journey is hope. Did you ever lose hope? Because I know we're speaking about this. And even I'm speaking about my experience of, you know, I was just being and I kind of didn't say what happened afterwards. And it's not just now that I've had something very similar to 10 years ago when I had burnout. And similar to you, I'm sure you've gone through a lot of different processes of growth and healing.

53:46But hope is a

53:48Alain de Botton:big kind of word, I think. And one, it's really important to speak about in relation to letting go and moving forward, because it can all sound easier said than done. And a lot of people can feel like they can lose hope on the way. So what do you say to those people kind of say, you know, I, I just can't keep going, or I don't have that energy to keep going. Like there's a lot of pain there that they're struggling and it's been a while. Um, what's your advice?

54:18Sarah Ann Macklin:You know, you brought me back to a particular moment. Like I remember before my rock bottom moment, there was a time where I had really lost hope. I felt like I was stuck in groundhog day. where I was repeating the same day over and over and over. And I was absolutely miserable. And what did help me come out of that was shaking up the routine. And I think that's one thing for people who really feel like they're losing hope is if you're stuck in a holding pattern, if you're stuck in the same thing happening over and over again, break the routine. Do something different. you know like just you don't even have to like go on a trip and go somewhere else you can just like just switch up the way you do things and you'll see that like you kind of come back to life again but i think we can get stuck in like the mire of sameness and it yeah can really wear you down

55:17Alain de Botton:yeah it's the same as kind of our environment i think it's the same as our minds unless we try a new thought process we're just going to keep going around and it's really, really, really similar. Ten years ago, a friend sent me a TED Talk. It was called How to Fix a Broken Heart. And when you are heartbroken, you normally do feel out of control, like the situation has all the power and you have none. But that talk gave me the control back. And years later, I got to sit down with the man behind that talk, Guy Winch, and go even deeper into why heartbreak is so consuming, so addictive and so painful, and more importantly, how we move through it.

55:58Sarah Ann Macklin:When we are in love with someone, infatuated with someone, we're in essence getting addicted to them. And by us, I mean our brain. Because our brain treats love kind of like heroin. People joke about it, but the brain doesn't think that's funny, because the brain is like, I don't see the difference. And the brain responds like they're the same thing. So when you get heartbroken, somebody just took away your heroin, your opioids, and you are in withdrawal. And the only thing that matters to you is getting that person back. The only thing that makes the world worthwhile is that there's nothing else that matters, much as somebody addicted to heroin when they're in withdrawal, that is the only thing that matters.

56:41Sarah Ann Macklin:And they will go to amazing lengths and act extremely out of character and do desperate and not great things to get that fix. which is how many of us behave when we're heartbroken. Except if we don't know that that's what our brain is doing to us, we think we just went crazy. We think we're just like, oh my God, what's wrong with me? What's going on with me? I'm acting completely nuts. You are because you're withdrawing. And if you know that at least, you can understand that urge and what your brain is doing. But if you know that also, you can understand that when you're withdrawing, a little bit more of the drug is not the best thing for you.

57:23Sarah Ann Macklin:You are trying to get unaddicted to this person. By definition, that means you're trying to reduce their presence in your thoughts, in your mind. You're trying to give them less stage time. And from that, everything else flows. And so rather than stalking them on social media, which by the way, is going to hurt for all kinds of reasons, you're reinforcing the addiction. That's why the no contact rule when it's possible is so important because again just think of heroin we'd get off heroin not by taking it intermittently right but you have to go cold turkey or there's methadone you know in some ways to transition but the point is you have to you know and it's easier to get off that drug than it is of heroin mind you but at the beginning the urge is very compelling so So you have to get off it, number one.

58:14Sarah Ann Macklin:And secondly, you have to understand that the drive, the need to see their social media and do those things is going to set you up for whopping pain because if somebody broke up with you, they didn't start thinking about it the day they broke up with you. They started thinking about it way before. And in longer-term relationships, people plan a breakup months, sometimes years in advance, and often out of consideration. Often because, well, it's New Year's. I don't want to do that to them over the holidays. Or they had this big presentation at work. Let's wait a couple of months. I don't want to screw them up before that.

58:48Sarah Ann Macklin:It's often out of consideration. But that means they're months ahead of you in the processing. Months. And so when you see on social media a week after the breakup, it's only a week later and look at them. A, it's curated. But B, yeah, they've had months to get used to this idea. You're just starting. But yes, it's extremely painful. It's a devastating experience, outbreak.

59:10Alain de Botton:It's interesting how you say it, right? It's self-destructive, but so many of us still do it, even in friendships. I'm even thinking about this as similar to friendship breakups, as I don't think enough people talk about. But I think we go through our lives and we have these really distressing moments where we grow apart from friendships and they break apart. And then we're always looking at, oh, what are they doing? Who are they speaking to? And it can feel, again, inherently really painful. So what are some tools that people can do to actually be proactive when they're going through these types of heartbreaks?

59:40Sarah Ann Macklin:So briefly, if you think of heartbreak as a form of grief, which it is, and a form of loss, which it is, then you have to grieve. So it's actually appropriate to do some thinking about the relationship, just not rumination thinking. The thinking you want to do, like I said, is you want to try and be objective about, here's what I got from that relationship. Here's what I lacked in that relationship. Here's what I learned about myself. Here's what I learned about myself in relationships. Here's what I would want to do similarly next time. Here's what I would want to do differently. In other words, you have to rebuild after a loss.

1:00:13Sarah Ann Macklin:You have to refill the voids that were left by the relationship. You have to reconstitute, in a way, your sense of identity because you went from being a we to being an I, and that's kind of fundamental. You want to rebuild your social support system. You want to rebuild your, you know, and your bench of close acquaintances. You don't need every friend to be the one that can listen and validate. You want some friends that are not very good at that, but they're great at having a good time. You want friends who are great at just introducing you to people because they seem to know where all the parties are.

1:00:45Sarah Ann Macklin:You want a bench of different abilities and qualities you can draw on, and you need to spend time creating it, reconstituting friendships, redefining who you are in the world. These are all active processes.

1:00:57Alain de Botton:And finally, to end today's episode on Heartbreak, we couldn't close without going into the science. Because sometimes when you're in it, it really helps to understand what is happening inside your body and your mind and what the so-called crazy love hormones are doing to your brain, your nervous system, and your sense of reality. So Dr. Amelia breaks it down in the last part of this episode, and it might just help you be a little kinder to yourself. I want to start with the love addiction, right? Because I think heartbreak is such a big thing for so many people. I have been through many rounds of heartbreak, and it's probably the thing that's debilitated me the most, more than anything, more than work drama, more than family drama.

1:01:42Alain de Botton:It's actually been heartbreak that has broken me the most, mentally, physically, in every way. And I think so many people listening to this will relate. We don't talk about heartbreak in this way, right? Normally we have a broken heart and someone goes, I'm sorry that you, you know, you ended that relationship or they broke up with you. And we kind of are meant to just move on. But it's actually quite a hard period to get through. So what I find interesting is that you obviously counteracted that with going out in more relationships to try and make yourself feel better. Can you explain this kind of moment in one's life when they're struggling with heartbreak and why not always going to another relationship is the most efficient and how does one know if they're in that love addiction cycle?

1:02:26Sarah Ann Macklin:Yeah. So the thing is that if I, for example, if I think about my own story. So the relationship that ended and made me suffer was actually a pretty short relationship. It was just a couple of months. But the thing is that at that point, we're kind of the dopamine levels are at their highest. So basically, and we don't have those negative, you know, we don't have any negative memories or anything. It was like kind of, it's the, well, the thing is that it's that state that Roman Julia or the Notebook movie or any book and story. It's about actually that high state of love. It's not about the attachment phase.

1:03:06Sarah Ann Macklin:And when the relationship ends at that state, it creates a huge drop in your dopamine baseline. Because the thing with dopamine is the higher the spike, so basically the longer and deeper the drop in the baseline dopamine. So you can imagine that, for example, I've always been kind of... I have had this very passionate, intense relationship. You're smiling like, you know what? I'm talking about it. I know what you're talking about. It's like a joke. Yeah. And I think it comes because I don't know your family background, but my parents, they had that story that my mom was a socialite and she met my dad, I think she was 28, riding bare-chested a white horse, and she left everything and sacrificed her life to stay with him on this beautiful farm, and we were born.

1:04:01Sarah Ann Macklin:And that was the story I wanted. And so, in my case, I found that, and then it didn't work. So, I was miserable. And what happens is... What age were you at this? I was, I think, like, 32 or something. Okay. Around 32, yeah. So, and what happens then is that the drop in a baseline dopamine levels make us very anxious and kind of also like the, you know, kind of, we might have lots of pain and just like... Overthinking. Everything feels empty and you can't contemplate because like kind of every cell wants to win that love back. And then when that wasn't happening, so there were always even a bigger drop in the dopamine baseline, more anxiety, more stress.

1:04:47Sarah Ann Macklin:And the thing is also that when we are in this state of a heartbreak, there's also a lot of cortisol nor adrenaline. So basically, it's like the similar phase than falling in love, but now it has become negative.

1:05:01Alain de Botton:Yes.

1:05:02Sarah Ann Macklin:So it's energy consuming.

1:05:03Alain de Botton:So that's it. That's the end of the heartbreak episode. It's amazing to look back and to see how many conversations we've had centered around this. This is such a universal topic. Whether you're the one who is walking away or you're the one receiving heartbreak, it affects us all in such different ways. And so it is important to know that it's a shared human experience and our body releases so many more chemicals that can make it feel so addictive and consuming. But at the end of the day, this is a conversation that connects us all at the centre. If you loved the episode, if you want to hear more, go into the show notes.

1:05:37Alain de Botton:The full episode is linked into the description. And if you loved the episode, again, please hit subscribe, follow the show or share this with someone that you love someone who might need to hear this right now and until next week I hope you all live well and be well