How do you move on from something that has broken you? Eight steps, and not one of them is quick.
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls. That is Kahlil Gibran and I believe it. I have broken bones and I have broken my neck, and I still say emotional pain is worse. You could break every bone in my body and it would not touch it. I drank. I did the wrong things. What moved me was accepting the moment for what it was. I took antidepressants for two years and they helped, and I would say only ever through a doctor. Music, books, anything that gives the mind one other thing to hold.
One thing to try: Your brain can only hold one thought at a time. Give it a better one for ten minutes.
In this episode
(4:02) Autonomic dysreflexia, and what it does to me
(6:40) No drink gets rid of emotional pain
(7:42) Break every bone in my body and it is still not this
(10:22) Two years of antidepressants, always through a doctor
(12:40) You can only hold one thought at a time
(13:46) Read anything. It does not have to be self help
(19:08) The eight ways, one at a time
(21:32) Heal first, or you take it into the next one
(22:34) Thanks for the thought. Not getting on that one
With gratitude to
Nancy, Debbie, Laurie and Sarah
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk
Thank you for listening.
Steven
The question this answers
How do you move on from something that has genuinely broken you?
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls. The most massive characters are seared with scars.
Kahlil Gibran
I broke bones as a child. I was the casualty king, my mum was forever taking me in. Then I broke my neck at eighteen. And I still say emotional pain is worse than any of it.
The heart of it
Nothing you do makes it stop today. What moves it is time, taken one breath at a time.
Your mind can hold one thought at a time. That is the whole reason distraction works.
Avoiding it with drink or anything else is a loan. You pay it back later with interest.
Seven months before the accident I got my heart broken for the first time. I sat on the cathedral steps in Truro on a Saturday afternoon crying my eyes out, and I told my dad that night you could break every bone in my body and it would not come close to this. Then I broke my neck, and I still stand by it.
It is more paralysing than being paralysed.
So when I say move on, I am not making it small. Heartbreak is hell, and it does not have to be a relationship. It can be a diagnosis, a business gone under, a person who has died.
How I actually got through it was nothing clever. I did drink, and I did the wrong things for a while. What moved me was accepting the moment for what it was. Not embracing it. That would be rubbish, and I was not that awake. Just recognising that time keeps going forward whether I like it or not, and the afternoon might not be as bad as the morning.
Then eight things that help, and they are ordinary on purpose. Accept the feelings and let yourself grieve. Know it is not permanent. Ask for support, and your doctor counts as support. Look after yourself. Stay off the quick fixes. Learn something from it. Take your time before the next thing, because an unhealed you takes the same problem into it. And build the good thoughts rather than fighting the bad ones.
On medication, since people ask. I took antidepressants for two years after the computer shop went under and they helped a great deal. Only ever through a doctor, and never stop them because you feel better.
One small thing to try
Give your mind one other thing to hold, for ten minutes.
Music works, and I use sad music on purpose to let the crying happen. After twenty minutes the body has usually had enough and I can move to something better. A walk works if you really listen to it. Colouring in works, oddly well, because it is dull enough to fall into.
None of it makes the pain go. It keeps flipping back. But every flip away is a minute you were not in it, and those minutes add up faster than you would think.
Questions people ask
Does this actually pass?
It does, and I know that is unbearable to hear while you are in it. One breath, one hour, one night's sleep. The morning after is usually a fraction easier than the night before, and that fraction is what you build on.
Is there anything wrong with drinking to get through it?
Only when it becomes the way you avoid. I used drink to get to sleep for a long time and then had to deal with that on top of everything else. You are not removing the problem, you are adding one.
Why do I feel lonely even with people around me?
Because loneliness is not about who is in the room. I have lain next to somebody and felt a million miles away. It is usually about expectation, and it shifts far more than you expect once you stop fighting it.
Read along
The transcript
It follows the audio. Press any line to jump there.
letting-go · grief · healing · resilience
Read the transcript
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls. The most massive characters are seared with scars.
Kahlil Gibran.
The whole world seems to be burning right now and From politics to our own lives to what we do
on a daily basis, Just everything seems to be quite overwhelming at the moment.
But then we have things that go wrong in the everyday world. We have relationships that break up. We have
Illnesses that suddenly come. We don't expect it. we have, somebody may pass away and we end up in a
grieving process, or we end up hitting rock bottom, a business fails, or we go bankrupt, all these different things
happen, all amongst everything else that's happening at the moment anyway, and, life is really damn difficult at the moment.
And I wonder sometimes, was it easier a hundred years ago? I don't think it was easier, it was different.
They did have a lot more time out in the fields maybe, walking. They did not have Tv. They did
not have the internet. They did not have the constant attention stream that we have. But it would have been
different. I'm sure they would have been complaining about the same things we complain about today. But that's what today's
podcast is about, dealing with difficult times. And if you stick with me till the end, I'm going to talk
about, A, what we can do in these difficult times, and also how to deal with a really serious relationship
breaking up. Just a eight-step process that we could go through. I'll share near the end of the podcast. But
before we start, I want to say thank you to the supporters this week. You are awesome. And those are,
let me get the list drum roll please Do I have a drum roll Let's find some. I'm
sure I can download some drum roll somewhere from the internet. There you go. We have Nancy, Debbie laurie and
Sarah. You guys are awesome. And then there's a few members that donate every month. All of you guys are
awesome. Thank you very much. You make all the difference. And if I'm helping you in any way, Brilliant now.
Then also it's week three of my weekly Calm newsletter and I send that out every single week. And if
you haven't signed up yet, head over to StevenWebb.uk. All the links are there. You can treat me to a
coffee virtual hug. You can download my five Simple practice for inner peace and you can sign up to my
weekly com StevenWebb.uk Steven spelled with v. Anyway, thank you to everyone. Let's get on with
today's podcast. So
the quote I started with, Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls. The most massive characters are seared with
scars. I do like that quote, simply because it is a follow-on from last week. And last week I was
talking about the present moment and there's nothing we can do with the present moment. So if we, when we
make friends with the present moment and when we embrace it. And I gave you some practical tips on doing
that. But then, what do you actually do with it? How do you actually move on from the present moment
if it's particularly painful? How do you actually get your life back? And, and it's quite significant with me. When
I was 18 I broke my neck and ended up paralysed just below the neck. Ended up, in America it's
called quadriplegic. Over in the UK it's tetraplegic and I suffer from Autonomic
Dysreflexia, which everybody that has a high level of spinal cord injury suffers from this condition. Which in short,
basically, it's a medical emergency when it happens, so if I feel any pain... Well, I don't feel pain actually,
but if there is any pain or anything going wrong below my level of injury it sends a pain to
my mind, my brain, it doesn't get there and it goes into like a feedback loop and everything goes haywire
and it sends my blood pressure way high. Now then, it's called autonomic dysreflexia and your blood pressure doesn't go
high like, oh, I better go to the doctor the next few weeks and... Get this sorted out. It goes
to like 140 over 160. And a lot of people don't believe it goes to that high. And even when
I had an attack a couple of years ago, the paramedics were out here and I said to them, my
blood pressure is over 200 over 150 they were like, well, probably in that high, but let's take it anyway.
And they went that's 230 over 170. I said, yeah told you. And then I was there talking them through
as it was going up and down. And. Eventually we've managed to stabilize it and get it down and it
can result in a stroke or death So I had to come to terms with this new life threatening condition.
As well as being paralysed and needing 24-hour care and having now my bum wiped having to have a shower
I've got no privacy. Literally. I cannot even go toilet by myself can't get dressed by myself I long for
that morning where I can just have a peaceful shower with nobody there with me. But anyway, that's that's that's
suffering when I'm wishing something that cannot happen. Sometimes I do, I'm human I do focus on the positive sides
and all that a lot of the the time but I'm human I'm allowed sometimes to Reminisce and what it
would be like But anyway, you know when I was lying in the hospital bed and all that how do
you move on from these difficult times like how did I move on from when my Computer shop bees knees
computers went under and I went bankrupt Or when I was heartbroken I hit rock bottom. So, I, I moved
on by Okay, I did start drinking alcohol. I did start doing the wrong things. But, I moved on by
realising this moment isn't going to last forever. And, I accepted the moment for what it was.
Not so much embraced it. That would be rubbish. No, I didn't embrace it. I wasn't, I wasn't that awake
not even that awake now. But I did recognise the present moment. I recognised that no matter what happens, time
keeps moving forward. So even when it's the most painful, I knew the next breath might not be. And one
hour at a time, one minute at a time, one breath at a time. And it's always moving the The
afternoons may not be as bad as the morning and the next day very much when we go to bed
and we sleep on it, if we can get to sleep, the mind clears the next morning. It's not quite
so bad. And that's the way you do it it's there's no magic holy grail. There's no kind of
drink that you can get rid of the emotional pain. And I'll tell you, I broke my neck. I broke
bones before my accident. I, I was the casualty king when I was a child. My mom's always taking me
to casualty. So I knew what physical pain was like. And ever since then I've got physical pain, but emotional
pain, I'll tell you what, that's a whole another level
When you've got that worry that you're in trouble or when you've got that gut feeling, I remember when I
got really heartbroken when I was just 18. And I, it was my first real puppy love. And this person
finished with me I found out they were cheating. And I remember sitting outside the cathedral in Truro and I
was sat on the steps and I was bawling my eyes out. It was Saturday afternoon because this is a
story of my life just like, like 20 years later, outside boots, but I was bawling my eyes out and
my stepsister came to help me and I went back to my dad's at the time and I remember sitting
at the table saying, do you know what? You could break every bone in my body and it wouldn't feel
nowhere near as bad as this. Okay. Seven months later I broke my neck, but I still stand by that
statement I did, emotional pain is the worst. That grief, that it's just
heart-wrenching I suppose they called it heart-wrenching for a reason, but it's really in your gut and it's so painful
and it makes you feel sick and it's so debilitating, it's more paralyzing than being paralysed itself and I can
say that, so when I say that it's just move on and things like that, it's not easy. Heartbreak is
hell. And it may not be just heartbreak from a relationship. It might be just losing someone you love. It
could be finding out that you you've been diagnosed with cancer. It could be that you've lost your business or,
or your children want to disown you or something I don't know. I'm just thinking stuff up now. But it
doesn't matter what it is. If it's painful, it's painful I'd rather have toothache any day of the week than
I would emotional pain. So I'm not trivializing emotional pain by saying, just move on. I think that's
why there's times when I've headed out one time in particular to take my life.
It's not because I didn't want to live anymore. It wasn't because that there wasn't some joys in all my
life. It's because I was in that much pain. I wanted that pain to go. And I couldn't see any
other reason of doing it apart from taking my life. Luckily, when I was sat on top of that hill,
looking down over the river, first of all, I was thinking, no, my luck, I'm gonna get caught halfway down.
It's gonna be really painful and horrible. I'm gonna be there all night. I'm gonna be starving. It's gonna be
terrible and it's not gonna go smoothly. I did think that, but the second one I thought about, it's also
going to miss my daughter and I was going to miss what is later on in life. And
I've done so much more since then. So I was like, let's give it another day. Let's just see if
the pain eases tomorrow. And I think that's the main thing is life does move on. But what practical
things can we do when we are really, really suffering? We could drink, we could get so intoxicated that we're
not even feeling the pain anymore. Well, I'll tell you what, the drink wears off and we need more we
need to up the ante We could do drugs, so we're out, we're out of it. We could go to
the doctors and we could medicate ourselves, medicate ourselves, okay, not the doctors, but we could take
antidepressants, which I did when I lost the computer shop. I took antidepressants for two years. They really helped me.
They helped. With the highs and lows, and I really needed them at the time, so I'm not against them,
but always do it through the doctor. Never stop taking them when you feel better, because, only stop it and
start it via the doctor. But
you just feel things so deeply, and, but what kind of things can we do to avoid it we just
said about not drinking and not drugs and not, not losing yourself in I mentioned two of them, sex, sex
is another thing that people will sex their way out of problems because sex is a great adrenaline. It feels
absolutely great to have that orgasm and nothing more powerful. That's why they say, you can get over a heartbreak
by sleeping with somebody else, going with somebody else because the adrenaline in the body makes you feel absolutely great.
And it does. So you could sex your way out You can eat your way out of it. Just, eat
loads of food. I personally cannot eat when I'm heartbroken or when my, when I feel like I'm in trouble
in some way or when I've done something wrong or when I feel guilty I feel so sick. So I
do the opposite. I don't eat. But whatever we do, it's avoiding. So what healthy things can we do in
order to try to cope and heal? Well, listen to music. And I have a weird one because
I would listen to sad music to allow the feelings to come out. So I think a good cry doesn't
hurt. So if I'm feeling really down and lonely, I'll listen to feelings that really bring that feeling out. And
then normally after about 10, 20 minutes, half an hour, my body's like, yeah, I've had enough now. And then
I'll turn to something better. Walking, go for a walk, find some time in nature, but really go for that
walk. Really be present. Listen to every bird, listen to every little drop of the water going down the river.
Really be present. If you're really mindfully present, you can't your mind cannot think about two things at once. It
cannot think about the pain and the suffering and the pleasures of listening to the bird. What it'll do is
keep flipping between the two. If I ask you to think of two things at once you'll flip between the
two. You'll think you're thinking about the same thing at once, but you're not. Your brain can only, you can
only be aware of one thought at a time. If you try it and pause the pause this podcast and
try and think of two things at the same time. You'll realise you flip between the two. So, and don't
get me wrong, you're not going to suddenly listen to the birds and not feel the pain. It's going to
keep coming back. But the more you pull it away, the more you step in between the subconscious mind and
the conscious mind, the more it will think about the better things, the birds. Meeting friends. Social connections are brilliant
for healing. Say to your friend, look, can you just Can you just be my silent ear for 10 minutes
and I'm just gonna offload for 10 minutes but please don't say anything just nod
or just say to your friend look you offload on me for 10 minutes and I'm gonna listen unconditionally to
you
or avoid it altogether I don't know. Reading dive into other worlds and perspectives you know
don't necessarily do self-help books do any kind of books pick up a Charles Dickens I don't know. Pick up
a Haynes manual. Do you have them in the States where their manuals that help you to fix a car?
But do something creative, do painting, that's brilliant. Get in the flow. I was in a conversation the other day
and this person said to me a wonderful thing that she's seen on TikTok and she said just draw a
flower with a sharpie, draw some lines and I might get this slightly wrong, draw some lines and then fill
in those lines with a pencil. And just keep filling in keep filling in and I know what she means
by that because the more you do something, something tedious or something that's like, just one thing after like coloring
in, eventually the mind goes okay I'll just colour in and suddenly you're in the flow and that's one way
of doing it. So pick up a piece of paper, draw scribbles everywhere and
then start with the biggest areas. And then the next biggest area, the next biggest area, carefully colour every single
one in a different colour. You could colour in each colour for the current feeling you have inside your belly
at the moment. I don't know. I made that up on the spot, but Physical exercise. Do something, move your
body.
It's really good at insight actually. When I was really heartbroken and I was exercising every night, I would have
about six or seven songs. On my Youtube list and I had to get to the orange tree song by,
I can't remember when, something rider I can't remember now and a wonderful tree, meet me at the orange tree
or something like that. I'll lay my head down there or something, but I used to listen to that and
I wanted to get to that song and I was so focused on moving my arms around I was like,
I was like doing that semaphore when you're directing airplanes I was doing that in my little computer room. But
yeah, it takes your mind off it and it gives you insights. It gives you deeper wisdom because you're thinking
about something different. And the best one, if you can manage it and it's not always easy, it's meditation.
Sitting down and just be, be with your thoughts, be with your feelings. If you're feeling lonely, be with them.
I'm feeling lonely. What's that look like? And what's really funny when you feel really lonely, and I've done a
podcast about this, is if you allow yourself to be completely lonely, after about 10 minutes or so,
the body gives up on it and goes, yeah, I'm not lonely anymore. I'm done with that. That's so yesterday
day And there's a wonderful meditation I might record it actually, because I haven't put it on the inner peace
meditations podcast. But there's a wonderful meditation that just basically you move away from the earth and you go further
and further away until you're in the universe
and you're just in there and everything's just stopped including the trees and nature everything stopped and there's no time
anymore and it's just you observing this whole universe and there's nothing.
No, nothing alive, no animals, no planets, no solar systems, no galaxies, anything, just you. And
boy, do you feel lonely. You feel incredibly lonely. And then you come back down to the earth and all
that, and you're still alone in your bedroom, but you don't feel lonely anymore. And it's this wonderful, like meditation
that flips the switch that although you may not have the person you love next to you, you
may not be in a group of people. And you can have both of those things and still feel lonely.
I've been in a relationship, I've slept, slept next to somebody and I still felt lonely. I felt like they
were a million miles away Expectations But meditation, guided meditation especially can really, really help.
Head over to Inner Peace Meditations, my podcast. Or I'll put a link to Aura, which is a wonderful, wonderful
application that I put all my meditations on and I'll give you a my coach link
to it below and I'll give you 30 days of listening to me and loads and loads of other coaches
doing an awesome job on this app. And it's not just meditations, it's talks and everything. It's a really wonderful
app and it really helped you you asleep it's called orab but there's a link below the podcast that I
will put there And I will say that if you do sign up, I will get part of the money.
So thank you very much if you do, but you can always go to inner peace meditations podcast as well.
But yeah, meditation is really, really difficult. But persevere with it. It's worth it. And if you have real difficulties
reach out to me, go to StevenWebb.uk, email me and maybe we can get together on whatsapp and I can
help you with the practice. And if you want ongoing coaching, I have a couple of slots at the moment
I can do it um I just want to say, I suppose the ultimate thing is, depending on how painful
it is at the moment, just one breath at a time, to
slowly move forward and realise this this time shall pass. It's not permanent. So just before I round
up and we come to the conclusion and I just round up on everything that I've said in the podcast,
very briefly, I did say I would give you eight ways in which you can move on from a serious
relationship, and this may not necessarily be a romantic relationship, it could be a work relationship, it could be. You've
left your job. It could be that even losing someone through a death or something like that. So the
first thing is, acceptance acknowledge your feelings and allow yourself to grieve. It's normal. It's a normal mix of
emotions. Embracing permanence. We spoke about that. Understand that pain and heartbreak are not permanent.
As the saying goes, this shall pass it will ease, you, you will love again, you will be able to
open your heart, but it be really, really difficult. Seek advice, seek support, reach out to your friends and family,
and consider professional help if needed. Even first stop, go and see your doctor, say I'm really struggling
practice self-care engage in activities that nourish your soul, listen to music, walk, meditation, exercise indulge in
hobbies everything I've just said, you know. Not bad advice actually, is it?
Avoid unhealthy coping mechanisms. I said that as well, see? Stay away from addictions. Stay away from things that
seem like a good fix, but you're just adding problems later on. If you use drink now to avoid something
now, you've got to give up that drink later or you've got to allow that to, then I there's nothing
wrong with a bit of drink, a bit of like recreational drugs, things like that. If it's going to give
you a little bit of a I
don't know, a bit of an experience, nothing wrong with that. But if you misuse it to avoid, that's a
different story. And it becomes a lot more complicated. I've done it for a long time with drink, trying to
get to sleep. And it was hard. Reflect and grow, use this experience to learn about yourself. And that's what
I was saying last week on the podcast as well. Use the present moment. Use it as a springboard onto
your next thing. Take a deep breath. Take your time. Don't rush into another relationship. Give yourself time to heal.
If you're not healed, you'll take the same problems from that relationship into the next one. You have to be
back to the person you were before that relationship or before the relationship started Soiling everything that goes wrong
because relationships are bloody difficult
hard work They're not like Disney, I blame Disney for ruining relationships In the space of an hour and a
half you meet someone, you fall in love and you live happily ever after And then see the sequel should
be you're getting divorced. It's a nightmare and how do you overcome it? It doesn't work like that. Does it
Disney you're to blame yeah
so I said take your time so embrace positive thoughts I've done a whole podcast on this as well and
I'll link below as well You don't it's not about changing your negative thoughts into positive ones. It's about
Cultivating positive thoughts when you have a positive thought get on it and if you look at all your thoughts
as trains, they're coming into a station you're observing them. Only get on the ones you want to get on
with. Acknowledge the others and let them move on. So if you ever thought that person's doing something that you
really, it's a painful thought, just go, yeah, thanks for the thought, not now, I'm thinking about
doing my gardening, or I'm thinking about something else.
And the subconscious mind will eventually learn the kind of thoughts that it wants to give you. because it does
want to help you, but it doesn't know how to. So it'll just keep giving you the thoughts that you
put most emotion into it.
So that's the ways really acceptance embrace permanence seek support, practice self-care avoid unhealthy coping
mechanisms, reflect and grow, take your time, embrace positive thoughts. So summing up this
podcast, thank you to you guys that support me. You are awesome. Take a deep breath breathing calm breathe out
relax And remember this moment is temporary, it will move on. You don't have control
over time. You don't have the ability to stop this moment and stay in it forever It
will move on no matter what. Life will dish you another problem next week. You can guarantee that. And
it's just building that resilience. If you want to join the weekly calm head over to StevenWebb.uk If you
can donate a coffee, virtual hug or anything, or leave a review, you are awesome. Thank you. You can do
it all over at StevenWebb.uk Take care. I love you. See you soon.
