Going through a breakup? This episode will help you understand heartbreak, steady yourself, and start moving forward without losing yourself.. So, Let’s Talk About Mental Health!

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Episode Overview:

Navigating heartbreak and breakup pain can be rough, because there’s no instruction guide on how to get over a breakup… especially when it’s negatively affecting your mental health. 

In this episode of the Let’s Talk About Mental Health podcast, I’m talking about how to deal with a breakup in a way that’s honest, practical, and kind to yourself. Whether you’re struggling with heartbreak, breakup anxiety, breakup grief, or the confusing aftermath of a relationship ending, this episode will help you understand why breakup healing can feel like such an emotional rollercoaster and what to do after a breakup if you want to heal without feeding the pain. 

I explore how to get through a breakup when your mind keeps going backwards, why healing after a breakup takes time, how to move on after a breakup without abandoning your self-respect, and why letting go after a breakup is really part of a bigger healing journey. So if you’re stuck in the messy middle part and wondering how to deal with a breakup without losing yourself, this episode will help you protect your dignity and take small steps forward. 

👉 Ready to deal with a breakup without losing yourself? Then let’s talk!

💡 TL;DR: Going through a breakup? Feeling stuck in heartbreak, anxiety, or constant overthinking? In this episode I talk about how to deal with a breakup, so you can calm the chaos and start healing. 🙂

New here? Hi! Let’s Talk About Mental Health is your weekly dose of practical mental health advice for real life. I’m Jeremy Godwin (hello! 👋) and I keep things simple, honest, and doable so you can feel more in control of your life and your mental wellbeing. If you’re not already a free subscriber, sign up below to have episodes and transcripts land in your inbox every Sunday:

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Episode Transcript:

How to deal with a breakup without losing yourself

Your relationship may have ended… but did your nervous system get the memo?

Because a breakup can make your entire system feel scrambled. One moment you’re telling yourself you’ll be fine, and the next you’re replaying every conversation over and over or wondering whether to send them just one more message in order to fix your pain.

But that doesn’t mean that you’re being weak or melodramatic.

It means something that mattered has ended, and your mind and body are trying to find safety again. There are just much better ways to go about it… and that’s what we’re going to discuss in this episode.

So, let’s talk about… how to get through a breakup without losing yourself.

Hello! I’m Jeremy Godwin and this is the Let’s Talk About Mental Health podcast, full of practical advice for better mental health.

Today I’m talking about how to deal with a breakup in a healthy way. Because when a relationship ends, it can affect a lot more than just your feelings; it can throw off your routine, your sleep, your appetite, your concentration, your confidence, and your sense of who you are now that this person is no longer in the same place in your life.

And that’s why telling yourself things like, “Just move on!” really doesn’t help… because you can’t just snap your fingers and ‘move on’. You’re not only dealing with sadness, you’re dealing with grief, with shock, with attachment, with uncertainty, and with the sudden absence of something familiar. Your mind wants answers, your body wants relief, and your heart just wants the pain to stop. Which is all completely understandable… but also, not always the best combination for smart decision making. If you’ve ever sent someone a post-breakup message that made you feel afterwards like you had maybe put your dignity on hold, you know exactly what I’m talking about!

So in this episode I’m going to be talking about what a breakup actually does to you, why it can make you feel so out of control, and how to steady yourself in a way that protects your dignity as well as your self-respect and your ability to heal.

Now… when a breakup knocks you sideways, your brain is often going to chase the fastest potential relief it can find: things like checking your phone, rereading your messages, looking at their social media for clues on what’s going on, telling yourself to send them “just one more text message.” All of that feels like it makes perfect sense in the moment… but really all it usually does is to keep on reopening the wound.

So before we go any further, if you have an urge to do that I just want you to pause and ask yourself, Will this help me heal? Or will it hurt me again? That one simple question gives you a huge amount of space… and sometimes that bit of space is enough to help you choose your dignity over the panic or the emotion. We’re going to build on that idea later on, but first we do need to talk through what this stuff is all about… because once you understand what’s happening underneath the pain, it becomes a lot easier to stop judging yourself for it and instead to start taking care of yourself.

So, let’s talk about…

What a breakup really does to you

OK, so let’s be real here: a breakup is not just the end of a relationship… it’s the end of a pattern that your mind and body had become used to. That person may have become part of your daily rhythm. They may have been the person that you messaged first about things, who you made plans with, or who you imagined a future with. And so when a relationship ends, it’s not just their presence that you’re adjusting to losing; it’s the shape that your life had started to take around them.

And that’s why a breakup can feel so disorienting. You might feel sad one moment, angry the next, numb 10 minutes later, and then suddenly desperate for contact. It’s like the world’s worst rollercoaster. You might be fine in the middle of the day, and then completely brought to tears by one song, or one photo, or just one stupidly specific memory that appears out of nowhere as though it’s got its own calendar reminder or something.

Now, none of that means that you’re actually failing to move forward. What it means is that you’re grieving. You’re adjusting to the absence. You’re trying to make sense of something that affected your heart, your routine, and your sense of identity. Because when a relationship mattered to you, the ending matters too.

Even if the breakup was necessary, even if it was your choice, even if part of you knows that things weren’t working, your feelings do not always catch up with your decisions right away. And that can be really frustrating. It can also be incredibly painful.

So before we get into what to do with all of it, we do need to talk about why breakups can affect your mental health so intensely. Because once you understand what’s going on underneath all of it, all of the emotional chaos begins to make a hell of a lot more sense.

So let’s talk about…

Why breakups affect your mental health

And really, it’s because a breakup can pull your sense of safety out from underneath you. Even when a relationship wasn’t healthy, even when it was complicated, and even when the breakup was the right decision, your mind and body still have to adjust to the loss of something familiar.

Now, as I often say in this podcast, ‘familiar’ doesn’t always mean good for you. It just means that your system knew what to expect… and we human beings love predictability. It’s why so many of us struggle with the topsy-turvy state of the world at the moment. And so when a familiar pattern disappears, like a relationship, your brain often starts to search for certainty wherever it can find it.

That’s why you might find yourself replaying conversations, or analysing old messages, or checking whether they’ve posted anything online, or even trying to work out what they’re thinking or feeling or doing next. So on the surface, it can look and feel like you’re obsessing… but underneath, you’re usually trying to make the pain feel more predictable.

And so the truth is that some of the things that feel like they’re helping you cope may actually be keeping you stuck; for example, checking their social media: that might give you a moment of information, but it can also give your imagination a whole new set of problems to chew on. Sending them one more message might give you a quick release… but it can also leave you waiting for a response that then decides your emotional mood for the entire day. Chasing after closure might feel like you’re trying to heal, but sometimes it’s actually your nervous system just trying to get one last hit of certainty from the person who’s connected to the wound.

Relief is not always healing.

And that’s the big lesson here. After a breakup, the problem is not just that you’re in pain; it’s that your pain can start asking for things that don’t actually help you to recover. That doesn’t make you silly, or weak. It just makes you human. When something hurts, you naturally want relief from the pain… but if your main source of relief is also the thing that keeps on reopening the wound, you can end up stuck in a really bad loop. You feel pain, so you look for contact or information, then you get a tiny moment of relief, and then the wound opens again… and away we go, we do it all over again.

That loop can quietly drain your confidence, and chip away at your self-worth. It can make you feel like you’re not in control of yourself and question your worth based on someone else’s silence or their choices or their behaviour. And over time it can shrink your world down to just one question: “What do they think of me now?”

But that’s not healing. That’s living in emotional torment.

And that’s why we’re talking about this topic now. Because you don’t need someone to sit here and yell at you, “Move on!” like a deranged motivational fridge magnet. What you need is to understand why it’s so hard to move forward when your system is still reaching backwards for safety.

A breakup can hurt like hell, but it doesn’t get to become the final verdict on who you are. Because it’s not. Someone leaving, or changing their mind, or behaving badly, or being unable to meet your needs properly does not mean that you’re unlovable. It simply means that something ended. And that’s painful enough without turning it into a full-on character assassination of yourself.

So the focus here is not on trying to suddenly stop caring overnight. Good luck making that happen! The focus is to stop letting the pain make every decision for you. It’s to create enough stability that you can grieve without losing your dignity or your connection to yourself. And that’s what the work is. We’re going to talk about how to do that work right after this quick break.

[AD BREAK]

And welcome back! Now let’s get into the ‘how to’ part of the episode, and let’s talk about…

How to deal with a breakup

And just to be clear I mean working through the breakup, regardless of which side of it you’re on, without losing yourself or pretending that you’re fine or rushing through your healing… and also without turning your pain into a personality renovation project.

Now, the work here has three main parts: things to stop or reduce, things to start practicing, and things to build over time. As always, I’m going to cover a lot here and I don’t expect you to do all of these things at once; just pick a couple to start with, and then build on it bit by bit. You can always refer back to the episode transcript on my website at ltamh.com /episodes and it’s linked in the description. And while you’re there, if you sign up to my free mailing list you actually get episode transcripts in your email every week.

OK, so the first thing to focus on is…

Stop feeding the wound.

Also known as “please stop torturing yourself like some sort of masochist!” And I know this probably sounds obvious… but after a breakup, we often end up doing things that we think are helping us to cope but which are actually making the wound a lot worse. Like I said earlier, checking their social media can feel like you’re gathering information. You know, going through their old messages might feel like you’re trying to understand things and process. Asking mutual friends about your ex can feel like you’re looking for clarity. And sending them one more message can feel like you’re trying to get closure.

But be honest with yourself. Does any of that actually help you to heal, or does it just keep you emotionally attached to the pain?

I want you to keep coming back to the line that I said earlier: will this help me heal, or will it hurt me again? Because your nervous system may want quick relief right now, but your future self needs you to make choices that don’t create more damage that you’re going to have to clean up later on. Now, that doesn’t mean that you have to be cold and switch off your emotions. It just means stop giving the wound fresh material.

So this week, I want you to choose one thing that you’ll reduce. Not 10 things. Just one. Maybe you’re going to stop checking their social media. Maybe you’ll stop rereading old messages, or stop asking other people what your ex is doing. Maybe you’re going to stop drafting messages that you know you probably should never send. And yes, making those changes may feel awful at first… but that’s not a sign that you’re doing something wrong. Because sometimes the healthy choice feels very uncomfortable, because it removes the quick relief that you’ve been using to manage the pain.

Just remember: discomfort is not always danger. Sometimes discomfort is just your system adjusting to a healthier boundary. Next…

Plan contact carefully.

Now, let’s be honest: sometimes contact is necessary. You may share children, pets, housing, money, work, or practical responsibilities… so I am not going to sit here and say, “Ooh, never contact them again,” as if life is always that neat and tidy. Let’s be honest, you know, people have shared Netflix accounts, leases, or a dog with complicated custody arrangements. Real life is so much messier than Instagram advice. But contact needs to be clear, practical, and self-respecting. Before you send or say anything, ask yourself: Is this necessary? Is this clear? And is this kind to me? If it’s not necessary, wait. If it’s not clear, rewrite it. If it’s not kind to you, don’t send it yet. Next…

Protect your dignity in the messy middle.

So, ‘dignity’ doesn’t mean being aloof and pretending that you don’t care. It doesn’t mean acting all mysterious, or posting thirst traps, or suddenly becoming a person who uses the phrase, “I’m in a new era!” every 14 minutes… I mean, do what you need to do, but maybe check in with yourself before turning your heartbreak into a branding exercise on social media!

‘Dignity’ means choosing behaviour that you won’t have to recover from later. That might mean not begging someone to choose you. It might mean not sending that essay length message at midnight… or at all! It might mean not trying to make them jealous, not using social media as a courtroom, or a diary, or some kind of smoke signal. And if you’ve already done some of those things, just breathe. No judgement! You’re human. Breakups can bring out the most panicked parts of us. The point here is not to shame yourself; it’s to stop turning your pain into more pain and to make healthier choices moving forward. Next…

Let grief come without treating it as a crisis.

Let’s be real here: you might have a decent morning and then just fall apart at night. You might feel calm for two days and then suddenly miss them so badly that it feels like you’re back at the beginning again. That doesn’t mean that you failed. It just means that grief is not linear… and when there’s loss in your life, you experience grief. And grief takes as long as it takes to work through. To paraphrase The Supremes, you can’t hurry grief.

Now… feeling a wave of grief is not an instruction that you have to follow. It’s not a directive that you must text them. It’s not proof that you made the wrong decision. And it’s definitely not evidence that you’re going to feel this way forever. It is simply a wave of emotion. And so when it comes, try naming it simply: “This is grief.” Or, “This is longing.” Or, “This is my system missing what was familiar.” Then do something small, simple, and grounding. Put your feet on the floor. Drink water. Go step outside. Talk to someone safe. Do something that requires very little brain power.

Keep it simple, because your nervous system does not need a 15 step healing routine when you’re already feeling overwhelmed. What it needs is steadiness. Next…

Stop turning their behaviour into a verdict on your worth.

This is one of the cruellest parts of a breakup: so someone leaves, or withdraws, changes, moves on, or behaves in a way that hurts you, and your mind starts asking, “What does this say about me?” It might say something about the relationship, yes. It might say something about not being compatible. It might say something about poor timing, or patterns, or communication issues, or a lack of capacity, or emotional availability, or the choices that both of you made.

But it does not say anything about your worth.

Someone not choosing you does not mean that you’re impossible to love. Someone moving on quickly doesn’t mean that you meant nothing. Someone being cold doesn’t mean your pain is unreasonable. And someone being unable to meet you properly doesn’t mean that you asked for too much. Be very careful about letting one relationship ending become the story that you tell yourself about your entire future… because it’s not. It’s just one chapter in your story. Next…

Rebuild your rhythm before you try to rebuild your whole identity.

After a breakup, “Who am I now?” can feel like an enormous question; maybe too enormous sometimes. So, start smaller. What do you need today? What does tomorrow morning need? What does your evening need? What helps you to get through the weekend without handling the whole thing in a way that involves massive rumination? What makes your home feel a little less haunted by the relationship? Rhythm gives your mind and body something to hold onto while the bigger questions slowly become clearer.

And just a heads up here: this is not the time to make major life changes, so don’t rush to move to Mongolia or suddenly dye your hair blonde or blue… because choices made when emotions are high aren’t always the healthiest, or the wisest!

So this week, pick three anchors for yourself: one for your body, one for your space, and one for connection. So for your body that might be: taking a walk every day, having a proper meal, or going to bed at a reasonable time. For your space, it might be putting painful reminders in a box for now; not throwing them away necessarily, or setting them on fire… just not leaving them where they can ambush you every time you walk past them. And for connection, it might be one honest conversation with someone who won’t turn your breakup into gossip, or judgement, or unsolicited detective work. Keep it simple, and focus on one step at a time. Next…

Watch the story you keep repeating.

Breakups tend to create stories; things like: “I wasted my time,” “I’ll never find anyone,” “They were the only person who understood me,” “I’m too much for anyone,” “I’m not enough,” “Everyone leaves me.” And those stories can feel true because they carry pain.

But pain is not the same as truth.

So when your mind gives you a painful story, ask yourself: is this a fact, a fear, or a wound talking? That question really matters, because a breakup already hurts enough… you don’t need to add a future that you haven’t lived yet, or a rejection story that you can’t prove, or a self attack that makes it even harder to heal. Words have power, so consider the story that you’re telling yourself. Next…

Move forward before you feel fully ready.

And I’m not talking about dating before you’re ready, or going on a solo trip to Bora Bora, or just pretending that you’re fine, or even turning yourself into some shiny new version that, by next Tuesday, you’re going to be able to tell the whole internet that, “Look, I’m a new person and they should regret losing me!” Right? No! None of that. Moving forward means taking small, self-respecting steps back into your own life. It means choosing not to check their social media today. It means eating something, even if your appetite has vanished. It means letting yourself cry, without deciding that your life is over. It means saying, “I’m hurting, but I’m still responsible for how I treat myself.”

Because if you keep letting the pain make every decision for you, then the breakup keeps running your life long after the relationship has ended.

Today, you are at a point of choice. You can either keep chasing relief from the place that keeps hurting you, or you can start building safety somewhere else: inside your choices, inside your routines, inside your support, and inside the way you speak to yourself.

Healing takes time. It can be messy, slow, and deeply inconvenient. Because heartbreak just does not understand that it needs to also fit neatly around our work and errands and basic adult responsibilities. But you don’t have to solve your heartbreak today, or fix your entire future. Just choose one thing that protects your peace, one thing that protects your dignity, one thing that helps you to come back to yourself. And tomorrow, choose another.

Because that’s how you heal: one day at a time.

Conclusion

So here’s what I want you to take away from this episode. A breakup can knock you off-centre… but it doesn’t have to take you away from yourself. You’re allowed to hurt. You’re allowed to miss them. And you’re allowed to grieve what you thought your life was going to look like. But you’re also allowed to protect your peace, your dignity, and your future.

So instead of asking, “How do I make this pain stop right now?” try asking, “What choice would help me to heal instead of hurting me again?”

Because when you boil it all down, dealing with a breakup is about caring for yourself enough to stop handing your whole life over to the pain.

Each week I like to finish up by sharing a quote about the topic, and I encourage you to take a few moments to really reflect on it and consider what it means to you. This week’s quote is by an unknown author, and it is:

Silent heartbreak is the worst kind.

Unknown

Let me repeat that:

Silent heartbreak is the worst kind.

Alright, that’s it for this week. If you found this episode helpful, please follow or subscribe wherever you’re listening or watching and share it with someone who might need a bit of support right now. And if you’d like to help me keep creating practical advice for better mental health every week, join my Patreon; it’s linked in the episode description.

Thank you very much for joining me today. Look after yourself and make a conscious effort to share positivity and kindness out into the world… because you get back what you put out. Take care and talk to you next time!

Join me next week when I talk about feeling like a burden when you need support, and check out my episode on finding closure next. It’s linked in the description. I release new episodes every Sunday, so follow or subscribe to never miss episode.

Let’s Talk About Mental Health is an independent program. Discover more at ltamh.com.

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Find more content at www.ltamh.com

Let’s Talk About Mental Health.
Making Mental Health Simple.

Let’s Talk About Mental Health. © 2026 Jeremy Godwin.

The information provided in this episode is for general awareness on the topic and does not constitute advice. You should consult a doctor and/or mental health professional if you’re struggling with your mental health and wellbeing. You’ll find additional information on the Resources page of this website.