Ask Jay: How Do I Let Go?

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1:01Jay Shetty:hey it's Jay I don't know what your day's been like but I was just thinking about you for a minute and I hope you're being a little patient with yourself because you deserve it and yeah I'll talk to you soon

1:24Jay Shetty:we have all had those moments where our minds are racing from a difficult conversation reeling from the aftermath of a toxic situation or just feeling overwhelmed by the weight of the day in these moments human connection is what we need and texting someone or emailing them just doesn't make sense i get so many of my friends who will say to me jay it's just too much to type i need to voice note you real viewers and listeners are recording voice notes about everyday situations and i'm listening to each one so we can unpack them together thank you so much for calling in it's good to hear your voice.

2:01Jay Shetty:Today, we're diving into your stories about letting go. Whether it's the person you cannot stop thinking about despite how they treated you, a betrayal you cannot seem to forget, or the closure you never received. We're tackling it all. I've listened to every voice note you send, and I'm here to help us unpack these situations together. You ready?

2:27Hi, Jay. I have an ex-boyfriend. He broke up with me on Valentine's Day this year and our end of the relationship was pretty bad for me. Seems like not for him. And I was trying to fix this relationship with communication and asking for couple therapy and try to communicate. but the end was pretty bad we were arguing and fighting a lot and yeah he broke up with me and it wasn't a clear cut because sometimes we are still talking but just when he wants it today he's visiting me because it was a long distance relationship and he's still making me hope like bread crumbling and my question is how can I overcome this need to be a good girl and to finally choose myself without feeling bad for it.

3:15Even though my biggest wish because of trauma bonding is to end up with this person, also my head knows it is not the right decision to beg for loss.

3:26Jay Shetty:First of all, I'm so sorry that you're going through this breakup. And second of all, being broken up with on any day is terrible. Being broken up with on Valentine's Day or your birthday or an anniversary or Christmas or on the holidays is the worst. It sounds like you invested a lot in this relationship. It sounds like you made time for it. Sounds like you put in a lot of effort. The fact that you're encouraging couples therapy, these are all signs that you really believed in this relationship, that it mattered to you, that it was important to you. And the reason I raised that is because when you're offering things like couple therapy, you're really saying, hey, can we find time to work on us?

4:05Jay Shetty:Can we create a space where this matters? I really believe in what we're building. Can we take some time to actually invest in it together? And of course, from what it sounds like, those bids for affection, those bids for commitment, those bids for investment were not reciprocated. It sounds like he wasn't someone who wanted to go to couples therapy. It sounds like he wasn't someone who was meeting you where you were trying to meet the relationship. And I think what's fascinating is that this word reciprocation has just become one of my favorite words in relationships, especially in our primary relationships.

4:41Jay Shetty:So we have secondary and tertiary relationships, whether it be friends, whether it be family members we don't see often. But what's interesting is that the person you spend your life with is the only primary relationship you actually choose. Your other primary relationship are your parents, if you have any siblings, or the people you grew up around. Those were primary relationships you didn't choose. But the primary relationship you choose in your life is your partner. And if your primary relationship doesn't have reciprocation, doesn't have investment, doesn't have effort in the way that you're bringing into a relationship, that's a sign that you're almost having the relationship for the both of you.

5:22Jay Shetty:You're almost carrying a relationship that requires two people to be in it, but you're carrying all the weight yourself. Think about going to a grocery store and you go shopping with your partner, you pay for it, you buy the eggs, the milk, the bread, whatever else it may be, and then you're on your way back, but you're carrying all the weight. You're the one unpacking it when you get home. You're the one putting it in the refrigerator. You're the one cooking that night. And the other person's there, but they're not helping you carry the weight. The question you really have to ask yourself in this scenario is, is that the type of relationship I want?

5:56Jay Shetty:Is that the kind of experience that I want to have? And a lot of us will tolerate things like that. Maybe we'll say, oh, it's just a short period of time. Or maybe they're going through some stress. Or maybe they're going through a really difficult moment right now. And that's really fair. There are phases like that in relationships where you will carry more of the load and they'll carry more at different times. What I'm hearing from you is different. It's one-sided. That can really mess with our heads. And I just want to acknowledge and express some empathy to you as to how much of a mind bender that is.

6:31Jay Shetty:When you're like, wait a minute, I was the one doing everything right. I was the one trying to maintain this relationship, but you're the one taking it away from me. And that can make us start to question our self-worth. It can make us start to question where we belong. It can make us start to question whether we made a mistake. This episode of On Purpose is presented by Ultra Running. We all benefit from having a little more space, so do our feet. That's why ultra running shoes feature ultra fit design, giving toes more room for comfort, balance, and strength. They're perfect for running, walking, or hiking, any pace, any level.

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7:23Jay Shetty:That's the second part of what you're reflecting on and what you're thinking about, this idea that he talks to you when he wants to. You call it breadcrumbing. This idea that someone keeps giving you a little breadcrumb along the way to keep you following, right? To keep you engaged. It's almost like you're waiting for that next breadcrumb just to prove to yourself that this person still likes you. But the great thing is you've acknowledged that you've become aware of it. Do you want to be in a relationship where someone breadcrumbs you, but then disappears is when they don't want to engage? Do you want to be in a relationship where someone comes to see you when they're in town, but then you're not sure where you stand with them?

8:01Jay Shetty:These are really powerful questions for you to reflect on because I think the answer will be extremely obvious to you when you take some stillness, you're in solitude, take some time by yourself, and actually really check in with your body. Really feel it in your body. What does it feel like to be breadcrumbed? What does it feel like to be ignored? What does it feel like to be devalued? What does it feel like to be deprioritized? When you actually take a moment to not just think about it intellectually, but to feel it physically, your answer becomes much, much clearer. Now, I know you mentioned that you feel like you have this trauma bond, which makes you feel like you kind of want to be with this person.

8:42Jay Shetty:You still have this desire pulling you towards this person. Now that can be for a multitude of reasons. It can be because of how we were loved by our parents or unloved by our parents. And now we're seeking that pattern. We're repeating that pattern or repeating the opposite. It could be that some part of you doesn't want to be alone. It could be that some part of you really likes this person, really loves this person, has built up some affection for them. It could be that a part of you loves the role you play in their lives and you don't want to lose that role. And at the very base level, it could just be habit.

9:16Jay Shetty:You've had a habit of this person being in your life. Maybe you text them in the morning, maybe they text you, maybe you call them in the evening, they call you. But what we miss when we start getting nostalgic about all those moments is what you said a bit earlier. You talked about how it's been really bad. There's been lots of arguing, lots of fighting. It's really easy to get something I call relationship amnesia. Relationship amnesia is where you forget all the bad things and only remember the good things or you forget all the good things and you only remember the bad things. Think about an average 24 hours in your relationship.

9:49Jay Shetty:Think about an average 72 hours in your relationship. Not a birthday, not an anniversary, not a special moment, just an average 72 hours. Did you feel safe? Did you feel fulfilled? And did you feel heard? Was this person present with you? Did they give you the opportunity to express your feelings? Did they meet your emotions and feelings with presence and support or were they dismissive, neglectful or distant? I want to address this point that you made about overcoming your need to be a good girl and finally choosing yourself and not feeling bad for it. It's incredible how many of us stay in relationships because we don't want to look like the bad person.

10:32Jay Shetty:We know we're compromising our needs. We know we're putting ourselves second or seventh. We know we're deprioritizing ourselves. self-abandonment is not love. Self-sacrifice is not love. Losing yourself is not love. So even if you lost yourself and got someone to love you, that isn't love. And so when you say you want to overcome this need of wanting to be the good girl and not feel bad for it, what we're really going through there is a change of identity. You believe that if you have your needs, that in some way that makes you a bad person. It makes you selfish. It makes you needy, whatever else it may be that you say to yourself.

11:19Jay Shetty:What I want you to do is look at all the other evidence in your life that you're a good person. Talk to your closest friends. Talk to a family member that loves you. Talk to your colleagues. You have so much other proof that you're still a good person and you can still have needs in your relationship. You don't become a bad person because you let someone down in your relationship. It doesn't change your entire identity. And often what we're really struggling with is this transformation of how we see ourselves. Recognizing I can say no, recognizing I can have needs, recognizing I can tell you what I need from this relationship and that doesn't make me a bad person.

11:57Jay Shetty:This tendency to people please, this tendency to overcompensate actually takes us further away from ourselves.

12:08Hi, I'm a 40-year-old woman and for six years I've been in a relationship with the father of my youngest child. Throughout the relationship there was addiction, repeated lying, manipulation, gaslighting, emotional abuse and at times physical violence. Looking back I realize I slowly stop trusting my own perception of reality. Since January we call ourselves living apart but emotionally we never really separated. The relationship followed a pattern where he would sometimes suddenly decide we were over, call himself single, pursue sex or other women and come back wanting us to be together again.

12:57I stayed because I always believed the loving version of him was the real one and that the rest would eventually stop. We now have a young daughter together so we still have contact. I'm in therapy and I'm trying to rebuild my life. Rationally, I know why I left but emotionally I still question myself. Some days I miss him terribly, other days I feel relief. I don't know if what I'm feeling is love, grief, hope or the effects of years of manipulation. I don't even know if I can trust my own intuition anymore. I think my question is, how do you know when you're being true to yourself? how can you tell the difference between genuine love and a trauma bond after years of emotional abuse and if you lost trust in your own instincts because of gaslighting how do you find your way

14:02Jay Shetty:back first of all i'm so sorry you had to live through someone's addiction repeated lying manipulation, gaslighting, emotional abuse, and as you say, even at times, physical violence. I want to make sure that we direct anyone who's suffering from emotional or physical violence and abuse to the right places. So please take a look at the details we have here. First of all, I believe it's extremely natural to be as confused, lost, and experiencing all these different emotions at the same time, you talk about how you stayed because you always believed the loving version of him was the real one and the rest would eventually stop.

14:44Jay Shetty:And I think that's such a human thing to do. We give people grace. We even forgive them. We brush things under the rug or the carpet. We just move forward hoping that the good parts stay and the bad parts leave. And I think when you say that, I don't know if what I'm feeling is love, grief, hope, or the effects of years of manipulation. The answer is you're actually feeling all of them. It sounds like you loved this person, but you're also grieving the version of them you thought they could become. It sounds like you hoped for a future that would be better, but you're experiencing the reality of how they actually treat you.

15:26Jay Shetty:whether it's pursuing other people for sex or whether it's mistreating you and at the same time it sounds like even though you have days you miss them there is a part of you that genuinely feels relieved and hopefully a little bit more safe and self-preserving so i just want to acknowledge how difficult and challenging and complicated this situation is for you because you've been on an emotional rollercoaster. I'm so glad that you've got distance from the emotional rollercoaster so that you can actually look back on it, right? It's literally like looking back at a physical rollercoaster and going, oh, that's the part that we went up and down.

16:05Jay Shetty:And that's the part that we did a 360. And that's the part where I thought I felt safe. And then it all went, you know, completely untrusting. And so this distance that you have right now is so important and so valuable. And it's natural as you're looking back on the relationship that you're noticing the highs, you're noticing the lows.

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18:27Jay Shetty:Trying to make sense of it. Your first question is, how do you know when you're being true to yourself? I'd actually argue that you were being honest and true to yourself. You could tell that someone was trying to manipulate you. You could tell that someone was gaslighting you. You could tell that you were experiencing someone who is lying to you. And of course, physical and emotional abuse was happening to you as well. I think the challenge is, like all good humans, you've also had belief. You've also had hope. And these are wonderful things to have, but they're really dangerous things to have when you're with someone who doesn't know how to receive them.

19:05When you're

19:05Jay Shetty:with someone who's acting in the way that this individual is with you. Your second question is, how can you tell the difference between genuine love and a trauma bond after years of emotional abuse? For those of you that do or do not know, a trauma bond is strong emotional attachment that develops between a person and someone who's abusive, manipulative, or harmful. It often forms through a repeated cycle of mistreatment followed by periods of kindness, affection, or remorse, making it difficult for the person experiencing the abuse to leave the relationship. I think you'd agree that that sounds like your experience too.

19:44Jay Shetty:The contrast between fear, hurt and relief can make the positive moments feel especially meaningful even when the overall relationship is unhealthy. That's not love. That's a trauma bond. It's a hard truth to accept that what you thought was love was a trauma bond. that what you thought was a relationship of someone's kindness and love was actually this unpredictable behavior that you were going through. And I think your last question is the most important thing we need to focus on. You say, if you lost trust in your own instincts because of gaslighting, how do you find your way back? I'm so, so happy to hear you ask that question because you have known in your body, mind, and heart all along that this relationship has been unhealthy for you.

20:32Jay Shetty:You're aware of that. And somehow we start mistrusting the very feelings that are being more honest with us. We maybe trust the other person's kindness, but we don't trust our own intuition. We trust the other person's hope giving, and we don't trust our own pain. I want you in this moment to allow yourself to trust the pain, to trust the experience that you know you've had, no matter how heavy and hard it feels. With the help of your therapist, I want you to allow yourself to go there and go to the hardest, darkest, most difficult parts of this experience to acknowledge what you've actually gone through.

21:12Jay Shetty:Because I'm guessing that there's parts of you that are even trying to avoid that. And so the way you go back to trusting yourself is allowing yourself to feel everything in this moment that you naturally want to feel. If you want to cry, you need to let yourself cry. If you're feeling heavy, let yourself feel heavy. If you're looking back at a moment that happened and you felt that you were misled, mistreated, or whatever it is that you went through, allow yourself to feel that because that's you giving yourself permission to feel it. The same space that you gave that person to acknowledge their kindness, I want you to give yourself that space.

21:48Jay Shetty:That same part of you that was giving them the understanding, I want you to give yourself that understanding. and you will start to trust yourself when you start keeping small promises to yourself. If you promise yourself that you wanna be out of contact with that person, you'll rebuild trust. If you promise yourself that you deserve this time for yourself to just do therapy and work through it, you'll start to trust yourself. There's something I wanna share with you called the love as action test. This is a great tool to discern between your feelings and how you were treated. Often we love someone who treats us badly.

22:24Jay Shetty:Often we have affection for someone who doesn't know how to reciprocate or receive our love. Often we feel these intense emotions towards someone and we miss them even when they were the ones causing us pain. And so the lover's action test is I want you to measure the relationship by how you were treated rather than by how intensely you feel about them. That answer usually clarifies so much for you. So you can literally get a piece of paper, put a line down the middle, and on one side, I want you to write down how you felt treated, and on the other side, write down how you feel about them. And notice how they don't corroborate.