Bitter to Better

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In this episode of Bitter to Better, I break down my framework for healing after a breakup using four “buckets”: distractions, peace, joy, and processing. I explain why grief from a breakup mirrors other significant losses and how each bucket offers tools to help you function, soothe your nervous system, reconnect with joy, and do the deeper reflective work that actually heals the wounds. You’ll learn concrete ideas for helpful distractions, peace-bringing  joy-bringing practices and processing tools. I also guide you through an Emotional Identification Exercise to name your feelings, understand why they’re there, and pair each emotion with soothing actions—so you’re not just waiting for time to pass, but actively tending to the hurt. If you’ve felt stuck in bitterness or overwhelmed by the breakup mourning process, this episode offers a clear, compassionate roadmap to move from surviving the breakup to genuinely healing and growing beyond it.

[00:00:02] Unknown:

Welcome to the Bitter to Better podcast. And before we get started, I wanna tell you about a few things that you should be aware of. One, I'm preparing a free webinar that will be held in December.   I am figuring   out exactly what I'm going to talk on, but it's going to be related   I don't like the lighting situation right   now. It's going to be related to,   dating, date a date better   free webinar.   So just, be on the lookout for more information about that.   Also, start,   preparing yourself, saving your coins,   getting mentally prepared for   being a part of the Date Better program. That is launching in January. There'll be a lot more information to come on that, but I'm letting you ladies know, particularly you mothers, actually, you dating mothers. I'm letting you guys know that the Date Better program   will be coming about. It's going to be a group coaching program. It's going to be eight weeks eight weeks long. We're going to meet once a week for an hour for those eight weeks as a group, but you're also going to get a digital course that you can   move through at your own pace that has a bunch of dating advice and dating guidance. It's like my dating textbook.  

And you're going to get access to a members only community   of other date better members where you can communicate, connect.   I'll put resources   in the community   and be able to interact with you all in that community. So I just want you to be aware   that the program is going to start   January 6,   but the the ability to register and purchase the program is going to start   as early as December.   To be technical,   you could register for the program now on my website.   And in doing that, you actually will get a, like, a   early bird bonus in which I am providing,   up to three one on one coaching sessions   anytime before the start of the program in January for anyone who signs up between now and, like, the webinar.  

But I will be doing a free webinar   that's going to kind of be some dating stuff, and that will be another opportunity for people to buy as well. But you definitely get, like, the biggest kind of early bird bonuses   by, you know, purchasing the program now if you wanted to. So that actually is open on the website and has been for a while, but I'm going to be more heavily   promoting it and talking about it,   as we get closer to this webinar.   And then the cart kind of officially opens during the webinar, and that's where people are going to have their limited period of time to be able to register for the program before the cart closes so that we can start the program in January. So you will hear more and more about this on each podcast episode, but I do wanna make you aware of that to start thinking about and considering it now. You can always go to coachtracy.life   to get more information.  

That's coach, tracie,.life.   Information about the program and everything I provide and offer is there on my website. That's always the go to place if you're not sure. But the other thing is,   my email list is open. I'm currently working on a little mini a date better mini manual   that will be provided to   people who register on my email list.   So that is something   that is also a good idea to get yourself on. And in the meantime,   subscribe to my YouTube channel, coach Tracy.   Listen to this podcast. Follow the podcast. Like, kick click follow on the podcast app that you're listening on, and send the podcast to,   women and particularly   moms who could use some dating help. Alright. Now let's get into the episode.  

Today's episode is about breakup   healing bucket buckets. Breakup healing buckets.   And what I mean by this are the kind of different   categories   that I think about when it comes to,   recovering from a breakup, like the different things we can be doing for ourselves, but they fall into a few different categories.   And it's helpful for you to try to maybe   fill each bucket with some tools   if you're going through a breakup.   So,   when we are   going through any sort of grief, which is what a breakup is. Right? Like, when we think of grief and loss, we often think of death, and   we immediately think of someone grieving   is them grieving over the death of someone. But we grieve   and, really, we mourn for and experience grief about any significant loss in our lives. That can be the death of someone. That can be the end of a relationship. That can be the loss of a house, of a job, of your health,   of anything that's important to you. You know,   you, like, have a very special,   material item that means something to you and you lose that. You can mourn that. As a kid, you mourn all sorts of things that seem really minor to us now as adults, but you, you know, lose your favorite,   you know, toy or, you know,   I don't know, the paper that the,   artwork that you worked on, the drawing that you made gets scribbled on, anything. The point is, right, if it's important to us,   we mourn the loss of it and therefore experience grief. Mourning is the action. Grief is the feeling.  

And so when it comes to significant breakups in our lives, this is a grief and loss   experience. It's a a mourning process.   And so with any   grief experience, there are things that we do to help move ourselves through it. There are things that we do to help ourselves mourn. Holding a funeral or memorial   for a person who has passed away   are mourning practices. They are the acts that we do to help process and move through our grief.   With a breakup,   there are things that we   want to be doing to help ourselves move through our grief,   recover from, and heal from that breakup.  

So the different buckets I kind of think of these things in are distractions,   then which are things that can help kind of calm your mind because you're refocusing your thoughts.   There's also things that,   I would say maybe our self care that bring you a sense of peace, and therefore, they calm your nervous system.   Then third, there are things that bring you joy, which is another form of self care.   And then fourth, I would say there are things that help you process and make meaning of the experience. So I wanna talk about each of those buckets and things you can do,   in each of those buckets as part of your   healing mourning process   with for dealing with a breakup. So for distractions, it's things like distracting yourself with work, distracting yourself with parenting, distracting yourself with cleaning the house, with running errands. Distractions   are those concrete   life things that need to get done.  

So   you don't have the luxury of dropping those things,   And therefore, they can be helpful distractions because you're like, alright. I gotta show up to work. Alright. I gotta get my kids to school. Alright. I gotta feed, clothe, care for,   interact,   parent my children.   I have to get groceries. I have to clean the house. Right? So distractions   are, I think, some of the easiest things to lean into when we are dealing with a breakup   because they usually are on the have to be done list. So we'll bury our head bury our heads in work or bury our head bury our heads in doing the the kid activities,   you know, cleaning the kitchen, any of those things. And so distractions are very useful.  

There is this understanding that we don't want to over distract or distract ourselves so much that we avoid the actual emotional work in the processing, which we'll get to. But, also,   distractions   serve a purpose as well. They're they are inevitable if we're going to function in our lives. They're the things that have to get done. So they're they definitely help serve a purpose of helping our minds be able to turn off of   the grief and the thoughts about the breakup   and focus on   doing my doing my job at work, engaging with, you know, my kids, etcetera, etcetera. So distractions are one of the buckets that it is good for you to fill. Go to work, parent, do the things you need to do.   There's also   the bucket that I will say is like peace.  

The things that bring you peace and calm   while you're also dealing with all of the   the drama of the breakup. Right? So this is where we lean into self care. So I define self care as anything that brings you a sense of peace, joy, or excitement.   It's unique to the individual,   and it's a necessity and not a luxury.   We think we oftentimes think of self care as the luxuries, like, whether it's going to get a massage or being able to take a trip. Those things are self care. If they help bring you peace, joy, or excitement, they are self care for you. But, also,   self care is sleeping, eating, moving our bodies, having social connection,   and having healthy boundaries. That's what I call the five basic areas of self care. And so those are necessities. Every human needs those that thrive.  

All the rest are things that might be unique to you if you like to read, if you like to hike, things like that. But what I'm focusing on   right here is specifically the self care tasks that bring you a sense of peace, that help you breathe,   calm your nervous system,   not be up here all the time, not not be drenched in the anger and the sadness and all of that, which is to say, you're going to experience anger, sadness, all of these things while going through a breakup.   They are natural, normal human emotions that you're likely not going to avoid. It's not about avoiding them, but it is about being able to find certain tasks that give you some reprieve and some relief from those experiences   even temporarily.  

Finding moments where,   so this is where you identify what self care for you. Is it taking a walk? Is it listening to certain music? Is it dancing? Is it meditating? Is it doing breath work? Is it taking a nap?   Is it, you know, sitting by, you know,   by the ocean or by water?   What calms you? What makes your body and your mind feel?   Those are things that you want to lean in. So you lean into. So you want to fill this bucket as well. This what I would call self care   peace bringing bucket.   Identify things that help you calm yourself.   Is it getting a hug? Is it hugging your kids?  

Identify those things and put as many of those things in this bucket as possible. So that one, you're distracting yourself with the things that need to be done, like work and parenting, running errands, but two, you are bringing peace and calm to your mind and body through activities that help to calm you.   The third bucket would be the joy bringing bucket. So this is also still in the in the   this is also still a type of self care, but it's the self care activities that bring you joy.   So that could be reading. That could be hiking. That could be talking to friends. You identify for yourself what brings you joy.   It could be taking a trip, any of these things. But the idea here is is that you know what those things are. You take time to identify what those things are so you can fill this joy pea this joy bringing bucket as well. Because now what you wanna be doing is distracting yourself with the things that need to be done, bringing yourself peaceful moments through the self care activities that bring you peace, but also bringing yourself joy filled moments with the self care activities that bring you joy. Right? So those are the three buckets.  

The fourth is   the processing   meaning making bucket.   That's the part where I say, like, we don't want to over distract so much that we don't do this part. This is a very important part. This is where you reflect. Reflecting means thinking, taking time to think, ask yourself questions. You self reflect to ask yourself different questions,   to understand your feelings and experiences and thoughts around this whole process. Thinking about the past relationship, thinking about the breakup, what has made you sad, what has brought you relief about the breakup, what has made you angry. Like, it is taking the time to actually think about all the stuff, which is one of the hardest parts because thinking about all the stuff makes us sad and angry   and makes us cry and all the stuff that we oftentimes do not wanna feel. But   tools for this bucket are things like therapy   or conversations with supportive people in your life, so just talking to your friends about your thoughts or your experience.  

And it's reflective exercises like sitting and meditating   or journaling. Things that cause you to think about your experience, feelings, and thoughts. Right? And this is the tough work and the work that gets   most,   that's most easy to avoid   because it's uncomfortable. So I'm gonna distract, distract, distract with work and with the kids. I don't have the time, and I know this. Or maybe I'm gonna go out and be having all these joy joy filled moments of going out with the girls. I'm I'm doing all that.   Great. All those things are needed   and the time to process. So even if it's giving yourself twenty minutes in the day to sit and think about how do I feel and to write that down or to voice record yourself responding to that question,   whether it's, giving yourself ten minutes a day to meditate a bit, which could also be, like, just a peace bringing thing, but it could also be a time for you to just sit and think on what you're experiencing.  

There's this exercise   that I,   do   that's the emotional identification exercise, and I actually haven't described this exercise in quite some time. So on the spot, I'm gonna see if I can remember   how I usually set this up for people. But you can kind of say, like, if you took a piece of paper and I think you divide it into three columns,   column one would be the emotions you feel about the thing. So in this case, we're saying the breakup. You might put anger, sadness, embarrassment, confusion, disappointment. Just list every emotion that comes to mind.   In the second column,   you're going to write about why you feel each of those emotions. So I feel anger anger about the situation because of how,   we ended the relationship how he ended the relationship,   because he cheated, because he was not a nice person, all the reasons   that you have anger about the breakup.  

And then you go down, and what's the next emotion you have? If you put sadness, if you put sad. Right? You're writing all the reasons why you're sad about it. And it could be some of the same reasons of why you're angry. The idea, though, is you are taking deliberate time and you're piecing out each emotion. You're identifying each emotion that you're experiencing. Like, what am I feeling right now? Anger, sadness, disappointment.   Then you're taking time to write why you feel each emotion that's on that list. That's the second column. The third column   are   activities,   tasks to help soothe you through that emotion. How can I help soothe myself through anger? How can I help myself deal with this anger, move through this anger? So that goes back to some of those self care things. Like, maybe,   you know, exercising   helps you get out that anger.  

Kickboxing,   going out in the middle of the woods and screaming at the top of your lungs. Like,   you want to literally write down all the different things you can think of that help you release anger, and then you're gonna do the same thing for the next thing on the list. If it if sadness is one of the emotions you put down, what helps me release sadness? Is it listening to certain songs that allow me to cry? Is it,   is it helping is it writing my thoughts and feelings?   Any of these things. Right? And you're gonna go down like disappointment. How can I help speed myself through that? Are there self care activities that, again, are helping to bring me some sort of peace? So is it listening to music? Is it taking a nap so I can just avoid for a little bit, like, thinking about these things? Right? But this is the emotional identification exercise, and it goes it's a great tool to go into that processing meaning making bucket because it is making you sit down and think about what you're experiencing.   And this is very important   in in helping you   to move through the grief. And I've been using the term meaning making a lot. And so to explain that a bit more, it's when it's how we're able to make sense of things that have happened to us. We do this a lot with working through trauma, which, by the way, a breakup can absolutely be a trauma a traumatic experience for some. The relationship itself could have been traumatic, like, you know, whether there was, like, verbal or physical abuse, whether it was just how you were treated and how that scarred you,   trauma is subjective. So it could have traumatized you to be in that relationship. It could have traumatized you to go through the breakup. Maybe the relationship wasn't traumatic to you, but the way the breakup happened could have become traumatic.  

But when we,   have negative experiences,   when we have,   what can be traumatic experiences,   making meaning of those experiences   can be a helpful part of the process of moving   past and beyond those experiences.   Helping, to be clear, not necessarily forgetting those experiences,   but helping   our behavior, our functioning, our lives not be   so negatively impacted by those experiences that have happened to us. So meaning making can be kind of talking through and just looking at all the different circumstances.   He behaved the way he behaved in the in the relationship. Like, let's say, like, you know, my understanding is that, like, he did not have great models of   emotional intelligence.  

It, therefore, did not set him up to be the most   intelligently,   emotionally intelligent partner or supportive partner. That is not giving someone an excuse. It is just you recognizing and acknowledging their limitations or things that did not help them show up in the relationship the ways you needed them to. You would do the same reflection   stuff for yourself and and how you showed up in the relationship, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Hey. You know,   I showed up in that relationship in a way that was not helpful or beneficial   for these various reasons. Here's what I would like to do differently in the next relationship. Here's what I would like different here's what I would like to be different for myself or future like, when it comes to picking a future partner in my next relationship. Right? This is all reflective. This is all, like, holding up a mirror and thinking and asking yourself, what do I want? What do I need? What did I like? What didn't I like?  

What do I want to have left in the past of that relationship? What are the things of that relationship I would like to bring forward? What were good parts and aspects of my partner or that relationship that I do want to keep into a future relationship? But what are the parts that I want to stay stay there? Doing this very deliberate thoughtful work is the hard stuff and the stuff that people don't do enough. And when we say doing the work, this this is the work. That that sort of stuff is the work. So are the other buckets that I told you about. Right?   You know?  

It's all a part of the the going through this this process of healing from,   a breakup.   But I think this bucket is the one that is easiest to dismiss and and not and not,   deliberately engage in. So, like, you know, there's that phrase,   time heals all wounds. I don't love that phrase because time does not time alone does not heal wounds.   Time alone can heal scratches. A physical scratch, like a paper cut or an emotional scratch, like something that someone does that hurt your feelings but doesn't cut you deep. But if you have a physical wound that's like gushing blood, just sitting there and being like, oh, time's gonna take care of it. It's okay. Bleeding out. Just time. No. No. No. No. That wound actually has to be tended to and cared for by a medical professional. And also in the caring and tending to the caring of and tending to that wound is probably gonna hurt. Hurt. They're gonna have to touch it. They're gonna have to stitch it up. They're gonna have to inject you. They're gonna have to do whatever. Set the the bone, whatever. It's gonna hurt and it's gonna suck, but you're doing doing it for the healing part process. Right? If you don't have that person tend to that wound, it's going to either kill you or   disable you or not heal properly.  

Same thing for emotional wounds. So time alone does not heal emotional wounds. The work,   the the prodding and poking at it, the uncovering, the digging in there, the talking about it is what helps to heal emotional wounds as time inevitably passes because time is gonna pass with or without us. Right? But what is being done in that time is what matters. And so if it's an emotional scratch, like, ugh, that hurt a little bit. That's disappointing. That's frustrating. I don't know. You were dating some people and, you know, the you decided to vet them out or they decided to vet you out, and it might be disappointing. And it's like, ugh. But it there wasn't significant emotional investment or you agree and recognize that it wasn't a good fit. You might be disappointed. Yeah.   Time alone. Like, a week later, a month later, you're past it. You're over it just because time passed. Right? But you go through some   significant breakup.  

That's an emotional that can be an emotional wound. If it is an emotional wound for you, then it's not just because   a month passes or a year passes, I'm over it. Think of people who you've met in your life who are still very bitter about breakups, whether it was a divorce,   a marriage,   a breakup,   where there was no marriage. The the ending of an of a romantic relationship, and it's five years later, and they still   talking about it like it happened yesterday, or they're still letting it significantly impact their lives. They're just refusing to date people or they're dating all the wrong people or they're messing up relationships they get in or they're out here just speaking negatively all over everybody else's relationships. They have no good words to say about romantic,   partnership,   things like that. You know? It's one of it's   that that concept and that idea is what spurred the title better to better for me.  

It's that idea of, like,   not wanting to stay stuck in the bitterness of things, of things that happen to us, in this case, the ending of romantic relationships.   So   you have to do the work as time is passing when it's an emotional wound.   That being said, here's the quick recap of your   breakup healing buckets. There is the distractions   bucket.   There is the peace bringing buckets. There's the joy bringing buckets, and there's the processing buckets.   Those four buckets you want to be filling with tools, and you want to be pulling tools out of all four of those buckets as part of your breakup healing experience.   Alright. See you guys soon.