72. How to Get Over Your Ex: With Breakup Coach Dorothy

When betrayal or heartbreak ends a relationship, you might feel stuck: still longing, replaying, unable to fully move on. Whether you’re co‑parenting, still connected via shared circles, or even navigating feelings for an affair partner, getting over your ex can feel impossible. In this emotionally raw episode, I speak with Dorothy (Breakup Coach) about how to get over your ex, reduce attachment, and rebuild your life from within.

We unpack the myth that “time heals everything,” explore how thoughts create feelings, and reveal why you can both decrease desire for your ex and reclaim your identity at the same time. If you’ve struggled to find emotional freedom after a breakup, this conversation gives you tools and clarity to move forward.

Key Takeaways:

• Your thoughts fuel desire and attachment. Change the story, shift the feeling.

• You can decrease attraction to your ex while building your own epic life simultaneously.

• Time alone doesn’t heal; without intentional inner work, nothing shifts.

• “No contact” isn’t a magic rule; what matters is reducing internal triggers.

• Identity work is essential: you can be whole without the relationship or person.

💬 Reflection Questions:

Have you ever tried to “get over” an ex, only to rebound emotionally or feel stuck? Which one of the ideas from this episode challenges you the most: reducing attachment, reshaping your narrative, or redefining your identity?

Connect with Luke:

• Website: www.lifecoachluke.com

• Instagram: @mylifecoachluke

• Email: luke@lifecoachluke.com

Join the After the Affair community at www.facebook.com/groups/aftertheaffaircommunity

Episode Transcript:

The After The Affair podcast with me Luke Shillings is here to help you process, decide and move forward on purpose following infidelity. Together we'll explore what's required to rebuild trust not only in yourself but also with others. Whether you stay or leave I can help and no matter what your story there will be something here for you.

Let's go! Hello and welcome to episode number 72 I'm your host Luke Shillings. This week I want to talk a little bit about how to get over your ex. Now this can fall into a couple of different categories.

It could be your primary relationship has come to an end whether that's because your partner's had an affair or for some other reason and you are struggling to get over your ex. Maybe it's made that a little bit harder because you are still connected to them in some way in the sense that maybe you are a co-parent or you have shared friends and family or work colleagues. Or maybe you are the person who has been in the affair and you have chosen to work on your primary relationship but are still having difficulties feeling somewhat attached to the affair partner.

And I suppose this also applies to affair partners. Maybe you have been in an affair with somebody who is married and they've, you know, called it a day and you're finding it hard. Now we're going to put aside for one moment, or at least I'm going to request that we put aside one moment, the the moral implications to all of the statements that I've just made.

And we're really talking about the lived individual human experience of getting over your ex, whatever the context. And to help me do that today I've brought in a very special guest. This is Dorothy Johnson.

She is known as the Breakup Coach. She is absolutely amazing. And well, I'll tell you what, let's just get straight into it.

Okay Dorothy, it's an absolute pleasure to have you here. Our first recorded interview of 2024 which is exciting in and of itself. And technically my third year as a podcast host.

Although, you know, or the third calendar year at least anyway. So I'll take that. As with all my guests, I offer you the wonderful opportunity to introduce yourself and let us know a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. My name is Dorothy.

I go by Breakup Coach Dorothy. I help people get over their ex in three months or less. And I've been doing this work since 2019.

I went through a pretty horrific breakup for myself in 2016. And I feel like I did all of the things. I googled, as any millennial will do, I went ahead and I googled how to get over your ex, how to forgive and let go, how to move on when your ex moved on quickly.

And I did all of the things. I had been dating this guy for seven years. He broke up with me over the phone.

It was a really difficult time for me. And the fascinating thing was, not only did I Google, and then, you know, read and learn about all these things, I did them all. I was journaling, I was getting in the best shape of my life.

I was travelling, I was meditating, I thought I was doing all of the right things. But yet a year and a half later, I found myself still miserable, still angry and resentful about what happened. I was in a new relationship, and I was still comparing my ex to this new person.

I was still doing things in hopes to get getting my ex's attention. It was just like, clearly, I'm not quote unquote, over my ex, and there's got to be a better way. And that was when I found out that thoughts create feelings.

So the only reason I was still so angry and resentful was because of the story I was telling myself, which was so ironic, too, because I'm sure you've heard in, in the work that we do, we always hear that, you know, a lot of time had passed, and I haven't changed, I haven't felt any different. And that's because, right, because my thoughts and the stories in my brain hadn't changed. And so when I learned some of that information, it really just exploded my mind a lot and changed my entire dynamic in my breakup journey and my relationship journey.

And it really completely changed my life like it has for so many of us who have learned that thoughts create feelings. And it just it changed everything. And so I was already getting a lot of kind of requests of like, Hey, I saw you get through your breakup so well, which was ironic, right? Because from the outside looking in, everyone was like, you're doing so well, but internally, I had been dying.

So up until that point, I wasn't really willing to help anyone else because I was like, I don't think I figured it out. But then once I did really think like, I really figured it out. I was like, Okay, everyone needs to know this.

And so I started just helping people on a whim. And then I went and got certified as a coach in 2018. And then I've turned it into my life's calling.

I really do believe that I'm here to help people heal heartbreak in a new way so that they can go on and help heal the world in a new way. And I'm just very, very grateful for for getting to do this work in the world. I can relate on many levels.

You know, so many of us go through through an experience, and it, you know, it alters the path of our life in ways that we probably never imagined. And although nobody would necessarily actively choose the pain and discomfort of a breakup or betrayal or, or any kind of, you know, really deep emotional pain, we wouldn't actively choose that as a route to a better place. Right? But, you know, if circumstances are dealt in a certain way, you you have a choice.

And you can, you can do something with that, or you can allow it to to rule your life. And it sounds like it did for a little while without you even realising. So you say that recognising that thoughts create feelings was a big shifter for you.

Yeah, that was the first like really big change because of just the anger and resentment that I carried around for so long. That was like the big the big kind of like information that changed everything for me. But then also later on in my journey, I realised that one of the main reasons people aren't over their ex is because of desire and attachment.

Having a desire for your ex and feeling attached to your ex to create the future that you want. And what I didn't realise until I started doing this work, I was like a year into this work with my clients when I all of a sudden like clicked for me was that I was kind of talking about it as like building a life that's bigger and better than the one that you have with your ex. And when you're living that bigger and better life, of course, you're not constantly consumed with your ex.

But as I started doing this work, I was seeing my clients have these bigger and better lives, but still being like attached to their ex or still having desire for their ex. And I was like, why is that? And then all of a sudden, I realised that it was thoughts that create desire and thoughts that also create attachment. So then when I started making that the main work that we did, all we had to do is learn how to reduce desire and attachment for this person.

And when you do that, you're over your ex and you're living your bigger and better life. And that was really kind of like an epiphany moment as well. Because of course, you've got to change your thoughts to change your feelings in terms of releasing the anger, the resentment, the loss, the pain, the devastation, all of that.

But also the secondary work to that is reducing desire and attachment, which is like the root cause because there's so many, I'm sure you've seen this, but there's so many breakup like symptoms that we struggle with. And there's a lot of solutions for those symptoms, which is like going no contact, all these kind of tangible or like logistical things that you would do with habits. But when you address the desire and the attachment, you then start naturally showing up as someone who's over your ex.

And it doesn't matter then. The example that I give is if you went to a party, if you had no desire for your ex and no attachment to your ex, and you saw that person at a party, it's not a problem. And I bring that up because I work with so many people who either work with their ex or have to co-parent with their ex.

And so instead of trying to manipulate these external circumstances so that they don't get triggered, we just address the trigger and make sure that you can be in those circumstances without getting triggered. That makes sense. Yeah, it does.

Absolutely. And desire is, it's a strange one, because desire doesn't feel like thoughts. I mean, I'm a coach, I know, and I've explored this and I still even sometimes have to really catch myself when it comes to the idea of desiring something.

And this can be obviously another person, but it can also be all kinds of things in life. There's things that we find beautiful, there's things that we enjoy and things that we find attractive. And it's what it is, what is it? I mean, the answer in my brain, my logical brain is telling me it must be that my thinking is creating my feeling of desire.

But it's resistant. And I would imagine that's something that if I'm feeling resistant, even knowing, I imagine that's something that many people really struggle with to begin with. Yeah.

And I love talking about desire. There's so many components to desire, like we could do an entire deep dive on desire where I think what a lot of my clients struggle with is recognising that there's a difference between desire for the outcome and desire for the how. And so we talk a lot about this in terms of like goals and things within business, I think of like, don't get attached to the how and don't get attached to your goal or your outcome or whatever it is.

But a lot of times when someone's going through a breakup, they're almost hesitant to reduce desire for their ex, because they also associate that to desire to be in a partnership. And so I think it's really important to separate those two things. And remember that you can still have a high desire for a relationship, like, I absolutely want a healthy relationship, and I want to have a partnership and I want to create a family.

But I'm going to reduce desire for my ex because that relationship isn't working. That's not the relationship that is going to create that outcome. So I think it's really important to also differentiate between the desire for the outcome versus the desire for that specific person.

Sure. And you said to begin with, I'll come back to desire in a minute, but you said to begin with how you've done all the things and you did all of that. But the shift didn't come until later, you know, on the surface, on the outside, you were the one that was healing from the ex and doing it pretty well from an external perspective.

But from inside, that wasn't the case. When you reflect back, how much of that, of those things that you did do, were still things that you would do? Or was it a case of, there's an analogy that was coming to my mind as we were talking, I was thinking a little bit like, imagine you've got a brand new super duper computer programme that does all the things. So, you know, you and I are business owners, we might have a piece of software that does all our social media content production, or, you know, helps deal with the communication between our clients and the people that we work with.

And it's this wonderful thing. It is the solution. And we can go and we can buy it and we can instal it on our computer or on the cloud or whatever it is.

But our computer is like six years old. It's still running like an old operating system. So it doesn't matter how good this new fandangled gizmo is, this shiny bright light that we've been attracted to, that's giving us like, well, this is going to solve all my problems.

We're running on an old operating system. So that's what I was sort of thinking as you were talking that through. Yeah, my brain works that way.

So I'm just wondering, like, is it on reflection? Is it now a good balance of both of the recognition that your thoughts create your feelings? And all of those specific activities? Or Yeah, what do you just know what your reflection back now is on that? Yeah, no, I do agree with the fact that it's a balance. I feel like there's a healthy balance of it. So and I, and I think it really has to do with where it's coming from.

And that's why I think that the whole thoughts and feelings thing is so important. Because originally, when I was meditating and journaling and getting in the best shape of my life and travelling, it was coming from this place of like, there's something wrong with me. And there's something that needs to be fixed.

And so it didn't really matter that I was doing those things, because it was I was doing it with that background programme playing. And so yes, those things were quote, unquote, helpful. Like I love meditation, that's still a part of my life.

I love taking care of my body, that's still part of my life. But I did a lot of things, so that something would be fixed, or so that I would be better, or so that this problem would be solved. Instead of saying, I am complete, I am whole, I am enough, who I am today, there's nothing wrong with that version of me.

And I'm going to explore that version deeper, by meditating and journaling and getting in shape in a way that I want to and all of this stuff. It was really coming from the background place of there's something wrong with me. And if I can fix that about myself, he'll want me back.

Sure. Okay, so there's that element of the change was driven by the external, it was driven by your partner, your ex partner, in this case, in there. I mean, what was it was a like a get back at is how to get back at your ex versus how to get over your ex.

Right. And I talk a lot about getting back together with your ex, because it was really about that for me was like, I didn't want to get over my ex, I wanted my ex back. And that's not talked about, there's not a breakup.

Well, now there's me. But before there wasn't a breakup coach saying, if you want to get back together with your ex, here's what you need to do. I was like, you know what, I'm going to do everything I can to make my life so epic, so amazing, that he can't unsee how great it is.

And he's going to regret having left and want to come back. And here's the thing, I'm still on board with that. I'm still on board with creating a life that is super amazing, and everything that you want it to be, or that you wanted with your ex so that you build a life that well, the analogy, I use a lot of ice cream analogies, but building your epic Sunday, right, so good.

So building your epic Sunday, so that your partner is just the cherry on top. And if that cherry rolls off the Sunday, that's okay, because you still have your epic, amazing life. And I feel like what was one of the bigger lessons throughout that breakup journey for me was, I just, I actually remember writing an email.

I wrote an email to my ex, it was like one of the embarrassing stories. And there was all the kinds of typos, all this stuff. It was like maybe two or three months after the breakup.

And I was like, my life's so much better without you in it. I've done more without you than I've done with you. And I'm so over you.

And like, clearly, I was very much not. But I remember one of the big components of that email, and sometimes I'll go back to it and reread it, like when I'm creating content for my stuff, where at the one of the very last sentences that she said that I said in that email was, I wanted to do all these things with you in life. And now I'm realising I have to build that life that I wanted so badly with you on my own so that no one can take it away again.

And I'm really proud of her for saying that and doing that. I had this epiphany moment when I was doing my year in review for last year of like, I've really created that. Everything in my life now I've created as my own and my partner truly is just the cherry on top.

And it's such a fun feeling to be in because it's just pure non-attachment. I do not feel attached to anyone or anything. And I love what I have.

I love what I built. And I know I could always build it again if I needed to. So we're not afraid of losing it.

It's such a cool place to be in. And so I feel like that was one of the biggest lessons from that breakup is learning how to create the life that you want, but you just can't do it from what I was saying of doing it from this place of, he'll want me back or we'll get back together. And you can because that's what I did.

I did it up to that point, but it only got me so far. That last remaining piece is, oh my gosh, I really am building this because I want to live a life regardless of who's in it. Isn't that amazing that, you know, we think of romantic relationships in particular, but I mean all relationships to an extent of being this sort of dependency on each other in some way.

You know, this is how we see things and we, you know, the idea of building something together. I mean there's something in that. I mean, do you still feel that, you know, you still want to, you're still building something together with a partner, but you have that complete independence and confidence and security and sense of safety and probably a long list of other adjectives that don't conflict with that desire to build something together.

That makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. Well, so I've done a lot of work in relationships in the last year and it was a process.

I'm sure you've probably gone through things like this as well, where you like learn a concept and then you learn it really well. You subscribe to that idea, you subscribe to the concept and then all of a sudden you're introduced to the complete opposite of that concept. And as coaches, if anyone's listening who's not a coach, it's fascinating going through that as a coach because you start having like moral debates with yourself of like which concept is true or which concept is right.

And ultimately you end up probably normally in the middle of the two concepts. It's really fun. It's a whole thing.

But last year was the year that I went through this with relationships, with romantic partnership. And I read this book called Us by Terrence Real. Beautiful, amazing, phenomenal book that has completely changed my life.

And because I have the background of what we just talked about of building your bigger and better life on your own, one of the things that I've also noticed in the last year is this idea of it's I don't like the verbiage that's being used. I feel like the verbiage is a little aggressive. So take it with a grain of salt.

But they call it toxic individualism. And yeah, and it's it's spoken about in terms of it's like this raw, raw, do it yourself independence, where it's like, there's a level of this that I agree with that I'm on board with up until the point of like, I want to build my epic Sunday and my partner can be on the cherry, the cherry on top so that I'm unattached. I want to be unattached and live in non attachment while also not falling into this realm of the toxic individual individualism and recognising that as humans, we are literally programmed to be in groups.

And some of the studies that he referenced in this book were so cool about your prefrontal cortex actually has to use less effort when in a group environment. So the example he gives is like the in the primitive days when we're, you know, if someone's building a fire, there was always someone else watching the perimeter. So that person could just focus on the fire.

And then the prefrontal cortex was using less energy, they did all these studies on it, blah, blah, blah. So I love that. And I think that that's so important.

And so this last year, I've been working very intensely on my romantic partnerships. And how do you keep your independence, while also remaining non attached, and building a life with another person and recognising that you're in it together. And that has been like some of the most profound work that I've ever done.

But blending those two concepts has been like, and again, I'm sure you've experienced this before, as as a coach, it can be a little bit jarring in the beginning, because you're like, wait, everything that I've been doing, what does that still apply? And it does, there is like a balance between that. And, and I love it. I love doing that work.

Yeah, those contradictions are interesting, fascinating. I mean, it's kind of I suppose it's why humans in general, regardless of whether you have any coaching experience or not, that, you know, we're living in a world of polarisation, where basically, it's black or white, it's one or zero, it's one extreme or the other. And of course, the solutions are never at the extremes ever.

You know, it's always somewhere in the middle, no matter what it is. And I made, it was a few years ago now, and particularly once I'd started to notice this, it's probably back sort of 2015, 2016. So it was the time of sort of Brexit going on in the UK.

And then there was the election going on in the States. And it was this clear divide amongst everyone. And you could only be on one side or the other.

It's like you weren't allowed to be in the middle. It's like, well, I am in the middle. I'm sorry.

I can see benefits and pros and cons of both sides. And when I saw this polarisation with the, with the elections, everything that was going on, I realised how easy it was to be convinced of one thing or another. You know, you that confirmation bias that we all experience, you see something that aligns with your values and your feelings, and, and you are drawn towards it.

And then you see something that's a little bit further, and you're drawn towards that. And gradually, over time, you're pulled further and further away from the opposite. So I made this real conscious decision that every time I learned anything new, I actively went seeking the opposite argument, or the opposite point of view, so that I could get a much more intentional and balanced view.

Because I recognised that actually, the decisions that we make in life are all about balance. They really are. And like I say, things aren't just just binary or, or black and white.

So I think it's really important to consider that even now relationships as well, because you might hear something on something like a podcast, or you might read something in a book, or you might see some quotes on a social media post that says that you should do something one way or another way. But that might contradict with something that you read the day before. And it's like, well, hang on a minute, you know, you know, each can have their purpose in a specific environment or specific setting.

But it doesn't mean that that's the Halifax rule all the time. It's not one rule fits all, which I think is really important to consider when actually dealing with any conflicting thoughts, whether that's just in your own mind, or conflicting with another human being. You know, that reminds me of is, um, it's I find it interesting, too, that we believe, like, once I have this thought, it has to be true forever.

Or it has to be true for me for forever. And like, we can have number one, we can have conflicting thoughts at the same time, like I can believe that my life is epic and amazing with my partner, and my life is epic and amazing without my partner. And I can have both of those be true for me at the same time.

And then another thing that I teach around the holidays, it's like, when you're in a relationship, it's really it serves you to believe the holiday time with my partner is so amazing. And it's so much better than when I'm single. But then when you're single for the holidays, it serves you and it's actually better for you to believe the holidays is so much better when I'm single.

And I've gone through the holidays single and in a relationship. And I find like I love doing that I love when I was single on the holidays, and I got to like, epically live it up in that way. And then I love being in the holiday season in a relationship and epically living it up that way.

And I think that that's super fun in terms of thoughts of like, absolutely. It's letting go of the right and wrong, isn't it is there is no right way to do this. And it's really about I know, you know, we are both familiar with the self coaching model is something that I've discussed on the podcast in the past.

And it's, if that feeling is a desirable feeling, when we look at looking at the feeling line, then it drives actions that lead towards outcomes that we want towards results that we want. And if that feeling in the in the F line is undesirable, then it tends to lead in a direction that isn't. So it doesn't really matter what your situation is, is pick something that is both believable and desirable, something that you actually want to feel is done with intention and not as a result of feeling victim to the external circumstance.

Okay, right. So I love it. So coming back to desire, you've spoken about decreasing desire, decreasing attachment, and I'm thinking about the context of the people who are listening to this podcast.

There are two main areas that I can think of that this applies to. One is for the person who is having the affair. And they are still in the primary relationship.

And then they've decided to commit to the primary relationship having had the affair. But of course, they can't just switch off their feelings for the affair partner. Okay.

And then the other side, if you are the betrayed spouse, and your partner has actually is broke, the relationship has broken down. And you know, you've been betrayed, and you are left essentially single or divorced, depending on the situation. But still, despite the pain that they've caused, you still desire that person.

And they're both coming from slightly different places in the sense that, again, this is a generalisation, it's not true in all cases, there's always exceptions, of course. But when we think about the relationship with the affair partner, that tends to be more like that honeymoon period, it's the shorter, more intense, things like limerence get involved, and just general sort of excitement and fun, you know, but so in some way detached from, I don't want to say detached from real life, that's not really fair, but detached from the routine and the normality of a longer term relationship. Let's say, yeah, absolutely.

Whereas, so for example, like me, I was separated and divorced after my marriage. And I still felt very attached to my identity as a husband. I thought that was probably one of the things that I struggled with quite a lot.

Certainly to begin with, I mean, obviously, I was very sad to lose my wife. And I was very sad to, you know, I can think of all the specific details, like not living with my children anymore, not living in the same town. But one of the big things was that identity.

So I'd like you to sort of maybe try and talk to both, starting with with the me first, I suppose, in the sense that, you know, I am the person who is very attached to my story, and my identity as a husband and a father and a family man, and how I start to figure that out. Yeah, no, I love that. So the attachment piece is huge in this situation that you're describing with you, of saying that my identity can only be as a husband with my ex spouse.

Right. And so again, we're not reducing the desire for wanting to have the identity of a husband, that's still there, allow that to be there. But we don't need to be attached to the ex spouse to creating the identity of a husband.

And I see this a lot with like the family component of like, no, but I want my family to be the same and saying that I can't have that, right, I can't have that family unit without being in a relationship with my ex spouse, which is simply not true. I've seen it happen in a million different ways. And you can still have all of those feelings and all of those family dynamics with or without your ex spouse.

And there's just like unlimited potentials that I have seen where, I mean, I could go into so many specific examples of how that happens, but that is available. And then when it comes to identity, I kind of love that you brought up identity, because that's something that I've worked on in the past year, but as a mother, so in 2022, I had a miscarriage, it was my second miscarriage, and I was very attached, it was like pretty far along. And I was very attached to the identity of being a mother to a human child.

Now, without the human child actually being in the reality anymore, I really worked on this past year of like still maintaining that identity, but in any other way that I possibly could, without, again, being attached to having the baby that is no longer there, right. So I was being a mother in all kinds of interesting ways of like with my dog, I was like, I'm going to throw her the birthday party, I wanted to throw baby Marilyn, I'm going to treat Christmas in the way that I would if baby Marilyn was here, I'm going to, I started teaching figure skating and volunteering at, you know, different child organisations and things like that. So I really lived into this identity of like, doing and being a mother, even without the outcome.

And so same thing, if someone's like, I really attach the identity of being a husband, there's a lot of ways that you can create the experience of being a husband without being married. And how can you get out of interest? Is that just the approach that you've you've spoken about in your own personal life there? Is that something to, in some way help you move through that process? Or is that like a permanent fixture? In terms of? I love that question. I feel like it's both right.

So it reduced attachment, because I was very attached to having a baby so much. So I was pushing my partner at the time, after the miscarriage, he was like, I can't Dorothy, like, I cannot, I do not, like, I can't even think about trying to have a child right now. I just like, I'm so not well with it.

Like, I can't. And I was pushing because I wanted a baby so badly. I was pushing it, it was damaging our relationship, like, it was so I had to really reduce attachment.

And so by having the identity of being a mother without actually having the outcome of being a mother, that is the process of reducing attachment. Right. So that to me was the process of the healing of reducing attachment.

And I'm gonna, when you say is this like a forever thing that I'm going to do for the rest of my life? I think so absolutely, with anything that I don't currently have, because at least for myself, I noticed this like pattern of anything I don't have, I kept striving towards the next thing, because I think it's going to be better than what I have. And so it was really a lesson of getting like, just like the most basics here of like getting okay with the cards that you were dealt, loving the cards that you were dealt before you start playing with them. I think that that is something that I'll carry throughout the rest of my life.

And the fact that it doesn't mean I'm not going to actively try to have children, we're absolutely going to have children. But I don't want to be attached to having a child to then live the life that I want to live. Like, I think that my life if if I'm not meant to have a child, and I don't have children, my life is super fulfilling and amazing in plenty of ways.

And if if I don't get to that place first, I'll think that the child brings that and that then creates a whole slew of other problems. Yeah, that's that's and I think when we tie that back to the example, in my own story, and I know for many people listening, so I remember thinking and feeling that that loss of identity of who I was, or without it, I couldn't move forward. It was like that was in my in my mind.

With it, I can move forward without it. I can't. I pretty much what I'm telling myself, you know, we've already spoken about how non binary things are, how non black and white things are yet when, when we're feeling the feelings, and and everything's very intense, we have to sort of simplify or at least our brains naturally simplify things into this, it's this or that, it's one or the other.

But of course, there's often an infinite number of possible things that can go in between. And then actually, one of the reasons asked the question regarding the like, you know, is it more of like a weaning off versus an ongoing thing, also ties into this, this element of identity that we've spoken about that, you know, usually when I when I take new clients on, we have a discussion around identity, and people tend to look backwards to describe themselves, you know, because that's all they feel they've got to go off. It's like what I've done, what my achievements are, you know, all of these different things.

That's a description, you know, I'm not dismissing that as a description of that's maybe what you did at that particular point in time. But your identity is essentially ever evolving. It is really only relevant right now, at this moment in time.

So even if you do commit to something, whether that be with the current idea that that's going to be indefinite, or temporary, it doesn't really matter, because you've always got the option to change. And if you can release that feeling of attachment to that belief, or that identity that you had in those particular scenarios, then it means you will be more than equipped to be able to release an equivalent identity going forward, should you choose to, and not be held, you know, pinned back as a result of that. So moving towards the affair partner.

So this, this I see is probably, I mean, there's obviously attachment as well, of course, but my brain is offering a slight more desire than attachment. Although we could argue the technicalities between those words in this context. But you know, there's a very intense desire.

So you imagine the scenario, you're in an affair, or somebody's in an affair, and they are finding the affair partner is ticking all of the boxes. And it could be for all manner of reasons, it could just be filling a void that they didn't even know was missing, which is what makes it so appealing. I've often used an analogy whereby, it's a bit like being in a darkened room where you're sort of accustomed to, you know, you can see it's a bit like, you know, a dark room, a room that you're very familiar with.

And you can find your way around no problem. And then all of a sudden, this light comes on in the corner. And this light is very, very bright.

It's very small, but it's very bright. But you know what it's like, if you have a torch shined in your face, when it's the dark, you can't see anything other than the torch, it blurs out everything. So it's the only thing you can focus on.

And it's a bit like a rabbit in headlights, you're drawn towards the light. And it's so different and so contrasting to everything that you are already familiar with, that it creates a probably just intrigue initially, and then that maybe evolves into desire and depending on the dynamics of the relationship. But okay, they're also not prepared to let go of their primary relationship, maybe they still love their partner deeply.

And maybe there's all manner of reasons as to why people may have an affair in the first place. But ultimately, they decide that in to live in a line with their own values, regardless of the other people involved, they would they want to try and rebuild the relationship. But they're still feeling this intense desire for the affair partner, because they believe that the affair partner might be answering the question here, but they believe the affair partner is this this magical thing that will solve all problems.

You know, is there any difference in how you would approach that? Or how you might help somebody in that scenario? I don't think it's like a matter of, well, I guess there is there is something different that I would do. Because when I'm working with someone, and they're just getting over, they're getting over an ex that it's, they weren't, there was no affair, there's nothing like that they're in, they're an ex, and then now they're single, their primary job is to decrease desire and decrease attachment to their ex. In the situation where I'm working with someone who's gone through the affair, they were the one that did the betraying, what happens is this silly dance between you're not only decreasing desire for the the ex, the person that you had the affair with, you're also learning how to increase desire for your primary partner.

Absolutely. So when I say silly dance, what I mean is it's interesting going through that experience doing both of learning the skill of increasing and decreasing desire at the same time. Very hard as well, when we think about comparison.

Yes, exactly. So what a lot of times that I asked my clients to do, regardless of whether or not it's this specific situation or something else is, you're really looking at the big picture, kind of like how you talked about the torch of like you, you're kind of narrowed, your vision is very narrow. And so when you're in this sense of like, urgent panicked emotion, a lot of times you're like worried about losing this person.

So you're hyper fixated. It's almost like I did an entire podcast about why you feel addicted to your ex. And it's a whole bio, like, biologically, there's stuff going on your brain that is creating intense desire.

And all that's happening is your brain is saying, this is the most important thing. And this is the only thing we can be focused on. And until you reduce desire, your brain won't be able to open up bigger.

So I purposefully and intentionally work with my clients to bring their vision and to step back and bring their vision to like looking at the whole picture. Sure. Right.

So for these individuals who are working on reducing desire for someone they had an affair with, while also increasing desire for their primary partner, that that skill of looking at the whole picture is going to be huge. And you're going to have and it's effortful until it becomes effortless. Right? So it might be effortful in the beginning of being like, Oh, but my fair partner, just like gets me so well, and we connect so easily.

But then you have to zoom out and say, my primary partner can also get me so well and can learn to learn more about me or whatever it might be. But it's like zooming out and looking at the whole picture instead of just this narrow vision that you might currently have. Does that make sense? It does.

It makes perfect sense. Are there any common misconceptions in the work that you do in terms of how to get over your ex? I mean, the two big ones that I could just go on and on about is time, time, healing everything, how long it takes to get over an ex. I remember in my breakup of 2016, I remember hearing someone say, it takes half the amount of time that you're with the person to get over them.

Wow, interesting to hear that. I'm sorry, but I do not have that time. What are you talking about? Absolutely not.

So the time is just really relative. I mean, it really takes a perspective shift and it takes you reducing desire. And I'm not saying that that doesn't take practise and practise, of course, takes time, but it doesn't have anything to do with time.

And I've just seen people get over their ex in a moment. I've seen people get over their ex in four weeks, three months. I've just seen it all over the board.

If it was time, we would all be on the same prescription. You wouldn't see PTSD. We would all be like, this is the event that occurred.

It's going to take you two months with these certain medications to get over this. And it would be very prescribed and time would make sense then. It's not it.

It's very much about you are the active force within the time, time is passive. And if you don't change your thoughts throughout time, you will not feel any differently. And here's the thing that I want to say about time.

The reason I think people say that it takes time to heal is for some people that brings a level of comfort for some people that actually feels comfortable because they're like, as long as I keep living my life, getting up each day, doing what I can do, it's going to increment and incrementally get better over time. And that makes them feel comfortable. And that actually does serve them because then they're also believing it's going to incrementally get better.

So they will prove that to be correct. But for a lot of individuals saying that it takes time to heal can be very disempowering because they're just feeling like they're at the effect of time passing and that they don't have any control of this situation, which is simply not true. So there's that component of it.

The second thing that I hear a lot about is the no contact rule and how important it is to have zero communication with your ex. And I just feel like that causes more confusion and more drama than it actually serves people. Now, if it works, if you're listening to this and you're like, no contact has worked wonders for me, keep going, keep using it.

That's awesome. So amazing. But I just, I feel like I've worked with so many individuals who just get caught up in the rules, again, the black and white thinking, the all or nothing, the dramatic extremes.

And then they are spending their time thinking about their ex more often because they're concerned about reaching out, not reaching out, being in this like in between waffling back and forth. It's just like a disaster. And instead of doing that work or like doing thought work on figuring out how to figure that out, it's like, let's just reduce desired attachment to the point where you just naturally don't have the urge to reach out to your ex.

I also just have too many people that are working with their ex or co-parenting with their ex or have the same friend groups as their ex. And they would just rather get to this place where they're no longer triggered. They're indifferent.

They're neutral. They feel calm around their ex. They can interact with their ex and it's like not a problem.

I would rather create kind of that lasting change than give you a set of rules that once you don't follow the rules, you're like, not well. I don't like rules, if that makes sense. Yeah, we don't like too many rules.

I think that that last part, it applies one in terms of you're being, like I say, getting to a place where you are not triggered, let's say, or you don't feel out of control when you are in the presence of your ex, or if you've learned that they're going to some family or friends gathering that there's a possibility you might meet. But actually, there's also an element, which is a little bit more complicated sometimes, is the relationship that the betrayed person has with the affair partner. And obviously, there's very rarely, sometimes there's direct communication, sometimes there's not.

But over time, getting to a place where if you see that person, or their name is mentioned, or something happens, again, being okay with that, you don't feel like you're a victim to that person, literally. They're controlling how you feel. And there's actually a lot of, I use that myself in terms of almost a measure, to some extent, and I think I've spoken about this on a podcast before, almost a measure of how I was doing on my healing journey.

If I saw him, how did I feel? And then I could reference that based on how I felt on previous occasions. I was like, oh, actually, I'm doing all right. And really being able to judge that, so that this person, these people can just exist in my life and not cause me, I have control.

I get to choose. And sometimes you might want to feel disappointed, angry, upset, frustrated. And then not making that a problem.

Exactly. You're choosing and you're accepting that that's how you want to feel, but not allowing that to then dictate how you show up in the world. Isn't that just pure freedom? Absolutely.

Well, thank you ever so much, Dorothy. It's been an absolute pleasure and a fun conversation. Would you like to share how people can get in touch with you? How can they find out more about the Get Over Your Ex programme and all that? Yeah, of course.

Well, thank you so much for having me. I loved our conversation. Seriously, I love the work that you're doing in the world.

Thank you for doing it. Yeah, so you can find me in multiple places. I have the How to Get Over Your Ex podcast.

So if you're into listening to podcasts, maybe you want to check that out. You can find me on Instagram at Breakup Coach Dorothy. And then my website is DorothyABJohnson.com. If you want to find out what's going on, you can head over there.

Otherwise, I'm just glad to be here. Thank you so much for sharing this all and talking about our journeys. I just love it so much.

Thank you. Have an amazing 2024. Yes.

So what has been your main takeaway from that conversation with Dorothy and myself? For me, there's been a couple of standout things. One is the recognition that we can both increase desire and attachment and decrease desire and attachment at the same time. I find that so eye opening, so obvious, yet something that even I had not really contemplated before.

It's almost like I can't do one until the other is complete rather than considering doing both at the same time, which I find really, really helpful. Then moving it away from just the idea of the desire and attachment that we have for our exes or for whoever it may be, but also how we can apply that same methodology to other things like identity, like a particular job, for example, maybe a pay rise or the belief that achieving or attaining a certain thing will make us feel a certain way. Everything we do is because of how we think it's going to make us feel.

So if we desire something, it's because we think that in attaining that thing, it will make us feel better. I'm not saying that it won't create pleasure. I'm sure it will, but it will be short-lived and it will then require additional desire or repetition of that desire to maintain the same feeling.

So if we listen to what Dorothy was saying, we don't need to actually achieve that thing or that particular thing doesn't need to happen for us to feel the desire or to feel that we have achieved our goal, whatever that may look like. We can still maintain the identity of who we want to be without the external things lining up in exactly the way that we want them to. It's all within our control.

And the same is true on the opposite side of the coin as well. If we're trying to decrease desire or decrease attachment to our partner or any other goal or thing that we wished or hoped for, then we can achieve that as well without the external needing to change. And it's this reason that I always find myself drawn back to the self-coaching model, because it reminds me every time that it's our thinking that creates our feelings, not the circumstance, not the external events.

And when you can really start to see everything in your life from that perspective, then you can release all of the expectation that you have on these external factors and you can own how you feel about it. And even if it's not the most desirable of emotions that you're experiencing, even if you're still feeling attachment when you don't want to, or you're feeling unattached when you feel like you should be falling back in love with your partner and you're just not there yet, it's okay to feel those things. That's absolutely real.

It's only when we put it against the expectation that we have for it and it falls short, does it become a problem. So own it. Just one more thing.

When this episode finishes, before you jump straight into the next podcast that you have on your playlist or the next activity that you're about to do, just give yourself 30 seconds, a minute, longer if you have time, just to ponder what you have taken away from this podcast, this particular episode, and how you can take what you've learned and apply it into some area of your life today. It might not be exactly the situations that we've been speaking about. It might be some variation of, but I'm sure that as you've been listening, things have been going on in your mind, that you're thinking, ah, yeah, I can see how that's happened to me in this situation, or how I could have acted differently in that situation.

How can you apply that today? Because ultimately, it doesn't matter how much of this content you consume. It doesn't matter how many books you read. It doesn't matter how many YouTube videos you watch.

If you don't implement some of the things that you actually learn, change will not happen. So please take it from me. Even though it can be difficult at times, one step in front of the other is all it takes.

I look forward to speaking to you all again next week.