Bitter to Better

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In this breakup recovery episode of the Bitter to Better podcast, I dive into managing post-breakup impulses—the sudden urges to text your ex, check their socials, vent online, or act out of anger or grief. I walk through practical ways to reduce triggers you can control (like strict no-contact or limited, business-only communication when kids or legal ties are involved) and offer specific tools for when the waves hit: take a walk with music or a podcast, call a trusted friend, schedule therapy, distract yourself with organizing or creative work, and record or write what you want to say—but don’t send it. I also encourage making a personal “impulse plan” you can access anywhere, and using past painful outcomes as motivation to pause. The goal isn’t perfection; it’s fewer impulsive moments and more choices that support your healing, day by day.

I close with a reminder that your feelings are valid; it’s the actions we take that matter for our long-term peace. Create distance from avoidable triggers, keep communication tight and purposeful if you must co-parent or share assets, and build your menu of healthy alternatives for those intense moments. We’re in this together—step by step toward feeling better and moving forward.

[00:00:02] Unknown:

Welcome to this episode of the Bitter to Better podcast.   I realize that I have not recorded a breakup   episode in a while on the podcast.   And the Better to Better podcast is a podcast   for women   around dating,   breakup recovery,   and stress and life management.   So I like to add a little bit of all of that throughout the podcast. And if you listen to episodes   from the past, you'll see I have a bit of all of that. So this is a breakup recovery episode, and there will be more to come over the next,   month or so.   So this one is about dealing with post breakup impulses.   The impulse is to contact your ex or do something that is not beneficial to your healing process,   and oftentimes not beneficial to your image either, but that's secondary. We're really trying to heal,   cope, move through, move past the breakup, so we wanna be thinking about things that are helpful to that process. And I want to talk today about   dealing with the impulses that happen when you want to say or do something   that oftentimes you end up regretting.  

And even if you don't regret it,   it's not beneficial to to you moving forward and moving on.   So this can come in the form of having an impulse to   do some property destruction to their things,   to post on social media,   to,   talk badly about them or to try to interfere with any of their relationships,   new romantic relationship, their friendships, mutual friends that you guys had, talk bad about them to their family,   whatever. Right?   These are things that are naturally,   understandably,   very human   to have those moments of anger or sadness or despair   or frustration around what happened, how it happened, whether in the relationship or during the breakup, and wanting to just do it.  

And   oftentimes,   on impulse, doing it.   I would like to offer   some   thoughts on   how to manage these moments so that you avoid them as much as possible and have as few of them as possible,   and also knowing that you may not completely avoid them.   So   the idea   of kind of,   like, when when we're   going through our healing journey of a breakup, there are so many opportunities   for us to be triggered   by things we see, hear, hear, smell,   a place we're driving, a thing somebody says, a question somebody asks us, seeing a certain person. We can go down and down the list. You know, seeing some some item of your exes, like, you know, in your home. I mean, there are a million things that can trigger us. Right?   And so what I like to think about first in order to help avoid or limit some of these impulses to, you know, do something that isn't ideal   is to   eliminate as many triggers from your life that you can   that that are reasonable. So things that are within your control and that are reasonable to do. For example,   if getting to work, you have multiple options of a route that allows you to get there on time and not be in too much traffic. Maybe you take one route over the other if passing by that person's house if you if you have to pass by the person's house or their job or a favorite place of theirs if you take, you know, one route rather than another.  

But, obviously, if you can't avoid that, if there really is only one reasonable route, whether it's because of traffic or location or whatever, then that's what you have to do. So   the thing about triggers are there are some that we can eliminate. There are others that we have to cope with. But   I do think that it is beneficial for you to think about the ways that you are triggered, the times that you are triggered to think about your acts or to get upset.   And any of those that you can remove, you do. So one primary one   that   I will never stop harping on and that I will always push to do is if you do not have   children, shared children with this person   or legal ties of some sort, a business, a house, or something like that with this person,   then you cut off contact.  

You delete their number from your phone even if you have the number memorized.   You block them on your phone.   You unfollow, unfriend them on all social media,   and you block them on all social media. Now if you have concerns about how it might look if you unfriend them or something like that because there are different circumstances for everyone, then just block them without the the unfriending.   But the truth of the matter is you want to remove as many opportunities as possible for you to contact them or them to contact you. Because it's not just about what you might do in terms of whether you might reach out to them, but it's also the fact that they can pop up whenever.   And I talk with with, people all the time where this is the case. Like, they're doing good about no contact with the person for a couple of weeks, and that person comes in and says something or asks something. Now, of course, what I just said was if you don't have children   together or you don't have legal ties. Obviously, this is not so simple if you have those things going, especially kids. Right? If both parents are involved in the kid's life, then you need to be able to communicate as co parents. So   you can't just block them,   like, on your phone. But I still   recommend that you block them on social media. Like, I would imagine that the way that you communicate that with them around the kids or the ideal way to do that would be through phone. Right? So you can still unfollow them and block them on social media.  

And   another piece of this that I recommend is actually   maybe you just make your communication about business. Like, let's say,   so for instance, you own a house together and you need to sell that house. Communicate via email,   strictly business about the house, and be blocked on everything else on the phone,   on on social media. Again, if you don't have kids. So, like, say you don't have kids together, but you do you're trying to sell a house or deal with business stuff,   then block them on social media, block them and erase them out of your phone, and communicate via email strictly business.   I can't tell you how extremely helpful this step is and how very hard it is for many people to do.  

And we wanna ask ourselves why that is. We may feel like, oh, you know, obviously, there's an emotional investment there, so it's like, I don't wanna, like, lose every, you know, every every opportunity to to find that person or reach out to them.   There are people who are in a breakup in which they have real concerns about their ex's,   safety or health or things like that. But that I've talked about this in another episode. That's also something where you get you need to have other resources involved, their family, their friends, mental health providers,   doctors, etcetera. It's not on you to hold that and carry that. You guys are not in a relationship anymore. And I don't mean that you are a heartless person who doesn't care, but I am saying you are a human who is trying to move on and forward with their life in a healthy way. So those boundaries are important. But, anyway,   back to ways that we reduce being triggered during a breakup.  

No contact or limited contact. Even if you have kids together, you don't need to be following each other on social media. That is what a phone is for. That is potentially what email is for. K? So that's the first thing. That is something you can control.   But then there's just the reality that you've had this experience and that you have feelings,   and so you're gonna have moments.   And you have memories. Right? So you're gonna have moments of thinking about things and getting really upset about it or really sad about it or remembering a happy moment and wanting to reach out and be like, oh, remember this, remember when.   And   if you were on this journey forward and and trying to move past it,   I don't recommend you lean into those moments,   because oftentimes,   you regret it,   whether it's because that person just flat out ignores that attempt at connection   or whether it's because you guys end up getting into a heated argument   and it's just raising everybody's blood pressure and anxiety levels,   whether it's because it opens up doors that don't need to be opened or reopens wounds for you that don't need to be reopened,   I don't recommend that you lean into those moments. So what do you do when you have those moments? When you have the thought, I really wanna text them right now, whether it's I wanna send them this this,   memory that was a a happy memory between us, a video, or whether it's   that   I want to cuss them out and tell them how much I hate them or how horrible they are,   whether it's, and I wanna be clear. Even if it's you in a co parenting situation wanting to,   tell them something about their behavior or something that you feel they didn't do right, there's still a way to do that that doesn't involve this impulsive   rant and rage, which, again, maybe that's another,   episode for me to talk about how to communicate with co parenting situations.  

But,   instead, some things you can do, you have a thought and a moment, whatever. You have a memory. You drive past a place. A certain song comes on, and it brings up emotions, whether they're happy emotions or sad emotions.   The emotion   is a natural thing, and it's not to be judged, and it is totally valid, whatever it is.   The behavior, the action that you do as a result of feeling that feeling   is the important part. And what we are saying here is we are not going to text them, call them,   go to their house,   key their car,   go on social media,   post something that's   unnecessary   or embarrassing to you or problematic or any of those things. We're not gonna go on social media and overshare. We're gonna talk to our therapist about that or our good friend about that. Right?  

But these are exactly the things I'm talking about. Maybe you need to go ahead and make an appointment with your therapist or maybe you need to start seeing a therapist. Right? Maybe you sign up today.   Maybe you call or text your friend and talk about it. And sometimes, yeah, we can feel like, we're exhausting the people in our lives with what's going on with us, and so we don't wanna keep reaching out to them. Or maybe we don't feel like they give the most helpful support because a thing that is very common, the people who love us and care about us do not wanna see us hurting. And so   they   oftentimes,   will be like, why are we still talking about this person? They're trash. And on paper, that person is trash maybe.  

But the thing about it is that anyone who loves us is only seeing what's on paper about the person. They do not have the emotional investment that we have in the person. Is that right? That mean mhmm. Yeah. Exactly.   Forgive me as I put this on do not disturb.   That is my alarm to go pick up the kids very shortly.   So so it's easy for people who care about us to,   to   dismiss   our feelings and our experience or dismiss, you know, that person. Why are we talking about this? Why are we talking about this? But   because they don't have the emotional investment. So sometimes   when you have that impulse,   it is to text a friend or call a friend and and have them talk you off the ledge.  

Sometimes it is to make sure you're getting into that therapy session with your therapist.   Sometimes it's to go take a walk   and to put on headphones and listen to music, whatever version of music whatever version of music you need to listen to, whether it's something to help you cry, whether it's something to make you happy and energetic.   Maybe it's listening to a podcast while you walk, listening to an audiobook while you walk. But having some form of   distraction, but also body movement goes a long way in helping us   to calm down and process   thoughts,   and to get, tension out of our bodies. All of these things happening help reduce the impulsivity of the situation and have you help you take a step back. By the end of that twenty minute walk, do you still wanna text that person?  

At the end of that phone call with a friend, do you still wanna text that person? Another thing that I love doing   is either writing, but, honestly, more so voice recording yourself,   saying everything you wanna say to that person, but don't send it. Either immediately delete it or a challenge that I just gave a client recently is   if it's saved, you   make a,   you make a commitment that you do nothing with that piece of media for at least twenty four hours.   Twenty four hours later, you decide what you're gonna do with it. Do you still wanna send that? Are you sure that was a good idea to do that? What explosions might it cause? How might it make you look? Are you going through any court situations with this person?   Don't give them don't give them fodder, like, for the court, stuff like that. Right? So write it down,   speak it out loud,   type an email that you never send, write a letter that you burn, whatever. Get it out,   but don't send it. Right?  

So I just listed a few things. You can go for a walk and listen to music, call a friend, go to a therapy session,   speak it out loud, write it up. But there are a lot of different things you can do. Sometimes it's about distraction. So putting your head down into work or into studying or watching a good movie or a good show,   cleaning your house, declutter decluttering, organizing,   engaging in some parenting tasks, tending to your kids. It can be a number of things, and I am considering doing an episode that's just about the different buckets, what I like to think of as, like, healing buckets. So, like, there's distraction.   There's actual processing   of emotions. There's these different things that we can be doing. But this is just kind of a quick note on acknowledging these impulses that happen because you are human. We've all been there. And most, if not many of us, have done the thing we shouldn't have done, which is reaching out or doing something or saying something we shouldn't,   some that's not helpful to us. When I say we shouldn't, I don't mean the person doesn't deserve it. I don't mean that you're not right in what you're saying, but does it help you ultimately move forward and heal?  

And so when you the first thing is to try to reduce being triggered by avoiding the triggers that you can reasonably avoid and that no contact or limited contact is a big one.   And then next, it's finding other things to engage in when those impulses do come up. How do I redirect this impulse? What is the best step for me right now? I encourage you to write down all the things you could possibly do in the moment of having an impulse   and keeping it somewhere handy where you can access it and remind yourself of, okay. If I'm in the car, what can I do? I can   take a drive,   that calms me. I can put on certain music, audiobook, podcast. I can call someone and talk while I'm driving. If I'm at home, what can I do? I can clean. I can put on music and dance. I can do an activity with the kids. You know? Like,   if the weather is nice, what can I do? I can get outside and take a walk. I can go engage in some sort of physical activity, exercise, a sport, something like that, or something that that I can put my hands on. So doing some sort of crafting, pottery, painting, whatever. Right?  

The idea, though, is that just because we have the impulse doesn't mean we should lean into it even though those impulses feel so strong and so justified. And I really need to tell them how I feel and what I'm thinking. I can't believe he did this to me. I can't believe this happened. I what were they thinking?   Especially if on the other side, you have an ex who is not very   they're considerate or they're really not entertaining that, then I also want you to hold that feeling that you may have gotten when you reached out before in the past and you didn't get the response you wanted. Whether it was an angry, mean response, whether it was complete dismissal and them ignoring you,   whether it had them retaliate against you in some way.  

If you've done that, if you've reached out and you've got any of those type of responses,   it feels horrible. And I want you to remember that feeling. Use it as motivation   to avoid doing it again.   Like, harness the feeling of that and be like, oh, that made me feel so gross or so upset or so sad.   I don't want that feeling again, and use that to also help   you not reach out during those impulsive moments.   I hope this has all been helpful.   We're all we're all out here trying to do the best we can, and I know that the breakup healing journey can be a very tough one. So these are just some things to help you through moment by moment by moment and day by day.   Also,   don't forget that I now have an email list that you can sign up for at coach tracy dot life. That's c o a c h t r a c I e dot l I f e.  

Also, on YouTube, you can subscribe to coach Tracy YouTube channel, and you can get this podcast. You may be watching this podcast right now on YouTube.   And you can follow me on Instagram at the coach Tracy. See you next time.