YT YouTube2Text

YouTube2Text → Transcripts → If you still think about your ex every day and can’t move on, please watch this...

If you still think about your ex every day and can’t move on, please watch this... — Transcript

by Jay Shetty Podcast · 4,966 words · 773 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

Open in transcriber Summarize with AI Download SRT/VTT

Full transcript

0:00I know what you've been doing. You've
0:01been going back through the photos. Not
0:04all of them, just the good ones. The one
0:06from that trip. The one where they're
0:08laughing at something and the light is
0:10hitting them exactly right. You've
0:12looked at it more times than you would
0:14ever admit to anyone. You've been
0:16listening to songs that you have no
0:17business listening to right now. You
0:19know which ones. the ones that you
0:21basically turned into a soundtrack for a
0:23movie about the two of you, your
0:25relationship, a movie that's much better
0:27than the relationship actually was.
0:29You've been checking their Instagram,
0:31maybe not their main feed. You're
0:32smarter than that, but their stories for
0:34sure at 1:00 a.m. trying to figure out
0:37who that person in the background of the
0:39photo is. You've been having
0:41conversations with them in your head.
0:43long, articulate, emotionally
0:45devastating conversations where you
0:47finally say everything you should have
0:49said and they finally understand and
0:52something resolves and then you come
0:54back to reality and they haven't texted
0:58and somehow that hurts more than the
1:00imaginary conversation.
1:02You've been doing the math. How many
1:04days since you last spoke? whether
1:06they're thinking about you, what they're
1:08doing right now, whether the thing you
1:10said in that argument three months
1:12before the end was the thing that
1:14actually ended it. And in your most
1:16honest moments, the 3:00 a.m. ones or
1:19the Tuesday afternoon ones when you're
1:21supposed to be working, you've been
1:23telling yourself a story. The story goes
1:26something like this. It was so good.
1:29I've never felt that way before. I don't
1:31know if I'll ever feel that way ever
1:32again.
1:34Maybe we gave up too soon. Maybe they
1:36were the one. I'm going to need you to
1:39sit with me for 30 minutes today because
1:41I need to tell you something about that
1:43story, about your brain, about what's
1:45actually happening when you romanticize
1:48your ex. When you romanticize someone
1:50you've lost, and about what's waiting
1:52for you on the other side of this
1:54spiral, if you're willing to walk
1:56through it rather than loop it around
1:58forever. This is not a you'll be fine
2:01pep talk. This is not toxic positivity
2:04wearing a therapy speak costume. This is
2:06the real thing. The neuroscience, the
2:08psychology, the ancient wisdom, and the
2:10practical tools because you deserve the
2:13actual truth more than you deserve to
2:16feel temporarily soothed. Ready? Let's
2:19go. This is the harsh truth. Your brain
2:22is lying to you. And I want to share
2:24with you the neuroscience of why they
2:26seem perfect now that they're gone.
2:29Let's start with the most important
2:31thing. The person you are missing does
2:35not exist. Not doesn't exist anymore.
2:40Not exists but is different now. Not
2:42exists but is with someone else. The
2:44specific person you're currently
2:46grieving. The one who appears in the
2:48photos you keep returning to. The one
2:50who stars in the mental highlight reel
2:52you keep playing. The one who felt
2:53irreplaceable and perfect and like
2:56coming home. That person is a
2:58construction, a story your brain is
3:00telling you. And your brain right now is
3:02a profoundly unreliable narrator. Here's
3:05why. When we experience loss, the brain
3:08does something that is genuinely
3:09astonishing from a neuroscience
3:11perspective and genuinely cruel from a
3:14human one. It edits. Memory is not a
3:17recording. We have known this in
3:20psychology for decades, but it runs
3:22counter to how memory feels. We
3:25experience our memories as faithful
3:27replications of what happened. They're
3:29not. Every time you retrieve a memory,
3:32you're not playing it back. You're
3:34reconstructing it. And every
3:36reconstruction is influenced by your
3:38current emotional state, your current
3:40needs, and your current narrative about
3:42who you are and what your life means.
3:45This was established definitively by the
3:47cognitive psychologist Elizabeth
3:49Loftess, one of the most important and
3:51most underappreciated scientists of the
3:5320th century. Her research on memory
3:56distortion showed that human memory is
3:59extraordinarily malleable. We add
4:02details that weren't there. We remove
4:04details that were there. We
4:06unconsciously rewrite what happened to
4:09fit what we believe, what we feel, and
4:11what we need to be true. Now apply that
4:14to a relationship you've just lost. Your
4:16brain is in a state of loss. And in a
4:18state of loss, the brain is a very
4:20specific and predictable bias. It
4:23amplifies the positive and suppresses
4:24the negative in memories of what was
4:27lost. This is not a quirk. This is not
4:29weakness. This is a documented
4:31neurological phenomenon. The moments of
4:34warmth, connection, laughter, and
4:36intimacy get vivid. The chronic pattern
4:39of dismissal. The way they made you feel
4:42small in front of their friends. The way
4:44they went cold when you needed the most.
4:46The Sunday arguments that always circled
4:48the same drain. Those get fuzzy, dimmed,
4:52explained away. You end up remembering a
4:55relationship that was approximately 40%
4:57better than the one you actually had.
4:59And here's the other thing happening in
5:00your brain simultaneously. When you were
5:02in the relationship, your brain's reward
5:05system, the dopamine circuits, adapted
5:07to the presence of your partner. They
5:10became a predicted reward, something
5:12your brain had learned to anticipate and
5:14plan around. When the relationship ends,
5:16that reward prediction is suddenly
5:19violently disrupted. And the disruption
5:21of a predicted reward is neurologically
5:24identical to withdrawal. This is not
5:26metaphor. Researchers at Ruckers
5:29University, Helen Fischer and her
5:30colleagues, put people who had recently
5:32been rejected in romantic relationships
5:35into an fMRI scanner and showed them
5:38photos of their ex. This will shock you.
5:41The brain regions that activated were
5:44the same ones that activate in cocaine
5:46addiction, the vententral tegmental
5:49area. The obsessive thinking, the
5:52physical ache, the craving, the
5:53compulsive checking behavior. These are
5:56not signs of how deep your love was.
5:58They are signs of withdrawal. You're not
6:01pining for a person. You're detoxing
6:04from a neurochemical. And here's where
6:06it gets even more interesting and more
6:08uncomfortable. The brain doesn't just
6:10romanticize by boosting the positive
6:12memories. It also uses a mechanism
6:15called deprivation amplification. Things
6:18we cannot have become more desirable not
6:22despite their unavailability but because
6:25of it. [clears throat]
6:26The psychological literature calls this
6:28reactance. When something is taken away,
6:31we instinctively want it more
6:34independent of how much we actually
6:36wanted it before. Think about that for a
6:39second. You might be partially in love
6:41with the unavailability itself. You
6:44might be confusing the ache of
6:46deprivation, the biological screaming of
6:49a reward system that's been cut off with
6:51evidence of exceptional, irreplaceable
6:54love. Not because you're foolish, but
6:57because you're human. There's a line I
6:59think about all the time from Victor
7:02Frankle. Between stimulus and response,
7:06there is space. In that space is our
7:09power to choose our response.
7:12Understanding what's happening in your
7:13brain right now is that space. It is the
7:16difference between being controlled by
7:19that neurological process and being able
7:21to look at it, name it, and make a
7:23different choice. So, let's look at the
7:25other thing your brain is doing. Let's
7:28look at the story. The story you're
7:31telling is fiction. There's a difference
7:34between your highlight reel and the full
7:36picture. There's a concept in cognitive
7:38behavioral therapy called selective
7:41abstraction. [snorts] The tendency to
7:43focus on one element of a situation
7:45while ignoring the broader context. To
7:47take a fragment and let it represent the
7:49whole. We do this all the time, right?
7:52You judge someone based on your first
7:53interaction. In plain language, you're
7:56watching the trailer for your
7:57relationship, not the film. The trailer.
8:01Trailers, as you know, are masterpieces
8:03of selective editing. Have you ever been
8:05to the theaters and you watch a trailer
8:07before the movie that you're going for
8:09and then you think, "I can't wait to
8:10watch that movie." Then you watch that
8:12movie and every joke was in the trailer.
8:14Every action moment was in the trailer.
8:16Every beautiful romantic moment was in
8:18the trailer and the movie was average.
8:19Every great line, every beautiful image,
8:21every moment of connection and
8:23tenderness and electricity cut together
8:25to make you want to see the movie. The
8:28trailer for a mediocre film can make it
8:30look like the most important cinematic
8:33experience of your lifetime. If you've
8:35just gone through a breakup, this is
8:37what your brain is doing. It has cut a
8:403minute trailer for a 2-year
8:42relationship and you have watched that
8:44trailer so many times that you've
8:46started to believe the trailer is the
8:49relationship. So, I want to do something
8:51with you that's going to be
8:52uncomfortable and I want you to do it
8:54honestly. I want you to watch the full
8:57film. Not to be cruel, not to demonize
9:00them or to erase what was real and good,
9:03but because you cannot make cleareyed
9:05decisions about your own recovery, about
9:08whether you should reach out, about
9:10whether this deserves to be mourned or
9:12released, about what you actually want.
9:15If you're working from a distorted
9:16source, think about the thing that ended
9:20it. Not the surface event, the argument,
9:22the moment, the conversation. The actual
9:25underlying pattern, the pattern that
9:28kept reasserting itself that you kept
9:31hoping would change that never quite
9:33did. What was it? Was it that they made
9:36you feel like an afterthought? That your
9:38needs were inconvenient? that they were
9:41emotionally unavailable in a way that
9:43made you work constantly for reassurance
9:45you should have just been given. That
9:47there was always something more
9:48important than you, the job, the
9:50friends, the general principle of their
9:52independence. Or was it something in
9:54you? A pattern of your own that this
9:57relationship was surfacing, an anxious
9:59attachment style that turned you into
10:01someone you didn't like, a habit of
10:03losing yourself in someone else until
10:05you couldn't find the edges of where you
10:07ended and they began. Whatever the pan
10:10was, it was real. It was consistent and
10:13it did not go away. And if you got back
10:15together tomorrow, it would still be
10:18there. Still consistent, still real with
10:20the added weight of everything that's
10:22happened since. One of my favorite
10:24Buddhist teachings is this. You cannot
10:28step in the same river twice. The river
10:31changes and you change as well. What
10:35you're trying to return to doesn't exist
10:37anymore. The relationship of the
10:39highlight reel is not a place you can go
10:42back to. It was barely even a place you
10:45were actually at. Psychologist John
10:47Gottman, who has spent 40 years studying
10:50couples, identified what he calls the
10:52four horsemen of relationship failure,
10:55contempt, criticism, defensiveness, and
10:59stonewalling. And his research found
11:02that by the time relationships end,
11:04these patterns have usually been present
11:06and consistent for an average of 6 years
11:09before the breakup. 6 years. Which means
11:12you probably have evidence, memories,
11:14feelings, moments that the relationships
11:17had these patterns for a long time. But
11:19those memories are now fuzzy, explained
11:22away, rewritten as misunderstandings or
11:24your fault or understandable given their
11:27circumstances. because your editing
11:29brain has decided the relationship was
11:32better than it was. I'm not saying it
11:34wasn't real. I'm not saying it didn't
11:35matter. I'm not saying there wasn't love
11:37or beauty or genuine connection. There
11:39probably was. And that's what makes it
11:41harder, not easier, because you're not
11:44mourning a lie. You're mourning
11:46something that had real value and real
11:47limitations simultaneously. And the
11:50human brain finds that complexity almost
11:53impossible to hold. Here's the questions
11:55I want you to ask yourself after a
11:58breakup. Who were you when you were in
12:00that relationship? Were you more
12:02yourself or less yourself? Were you
12:04growing toward who you want to be or
12:07were you just tolerating, accommodating,
12:09shrinking, or performing? Were you
12:11genuinely seen or were you constantly
12:14trying to be seen and often failing?
12:16Because your answer to that question
12:18tells you something far more important
12:20than whether they were wonderful. It
12:22tells you whether the relationship was
12:25actually good for you. Now, here's what
12:27you're actually grieving. And
12:29surprisingly, it's not them. It's
12:31something much older. This is the part
12:34of the episode where I need you to stay
12:35with me because this is the hardest part
12:37and also the most important. When
12:39someone comes to me or a trusted friend
12:41and says, "I can't stop thinking about
12:44my ex. I think I made a mistake. I think
12:46they were the one." There is almost
12:48always something underneath the grief
12:50about the specific person that doesn't
12:53get examined because grief is not
12:55simple. And romantic grief is almost
12:57never just about the person in front of
12:59you. When Radi and I started Juni, our
13:01sparkling adaptogenic tea brand, I
13:04quickly realized that building a
13:05business isn't just about big ideas.
13:08It's about the little things that make
13:09people actually want to buy, come back,
13:12and trust what you do. For us, Shopify
13:14has been the foundation. It's where we
13:16built our storefront, where people
13:18experience the brand, and where we've
13:20been able to grow while truly owning
13:22that relationship with our customers.
13:24And something I've come to really
13:25appreciate is Shop Pay. You've probably
13:28seen the purple button at checkout. It
13:30makes everything simple. One click,
13:33fast, seamless. As a business owner,
13:35that means fewer abandoned carts. As a
13:38customer, it just feels easier and that
13:40trust matters. As more people discover
13:42Juni, it's reassuring to know that the
13:45experience is smooth from start to
13:46finish. Because when the process feels
13:48effortless, people come back. If you've
13:51ever thought about starting a business,
13:52this is your sign. Get started today at
13:55shopify.com/j.
13:57The psychologist and attachment
13:59researcher Sue Johnson has spent her
14:01career studying what happens in the
14:03nervous system when intimate connection
14:05is threatened or lost. And what she
14:08found is that adult romantic attachment
14:11doesn't operate in isolation. It
14:13operates on the top of the entire
14:15architecture of attachment you've been
14:17building since you were an infant. When
14:20your earliest caregivers were consistent
14:23and responsive, you developed what's
14:25called a secure attachment style. You
14:28learned at the level of the nervous
14:30system programming before language even
14:32existed that people are safe, that
14:35you're worthy of love, and that
14:36separation is temporary. That you can
14:39let people go and they will come back.
14:40Or if they don't, you will survive and
14:42find connection again. When your
14:44earliest caregivers were inconsistent or
14:46absent or overwhelming or emotionally
14:49unavailable, you developed a different
14:51program. You might have anxious
14:53attachment. The constant background hum
14:56that love is precarious. That you have
14:58to work to maintain it. That the other
15:00person's withdrawal is evidence that
15:02you've done something wrong. Or avoid an
15:05attachment. The learned belief that
15:07needing people is dangerous. That you're
15:09better off not needing. That closeness
15:11is a trap. Most people reading this,
15:14most people doing the 3:00 a.m. spiral
15:16are not just grieving a relationship.
15:18They are reexperiencing a very old
15:20wound. The grief about this person is a
15:24portal into a grief that has been
15:26sitting in the body for much longer. The
15:29anxious attached person isn't just
15:32missing their ex. They are
15:33reexperiencing every moment in childhood
15:36when love felt conditional. When
15:39approval could be earned and then
15:41suddenly withdrawn. When they tried
15:43their very hardest and it still wasn't
15:46enough. The avoidant person who is
15:48pretending to be fine and yet finds
15:50themselves inexplicably devastated isn't
15:54just managing a breakup. They are
15:56brushing against the thing they've spent
15:58their whole life running from. The
16:00terrifying evidence that they needed
16:02someone and then lost them. I'm not
16:05saying this to psychoanalyze you, but to
16:07offer something critical. Compassion for
16:10the scale of what you're actually
16:12carrying. Stop hating yourself for not
16:16getting over your ex. You're not weak
16:18because this is so hard. You're not
16:20pathetic because you can't stop thinking
16:22about them. You're a person who formed a
16:25deep attachment that is connected to
16:27something much larger and older and more
16:30foundational than this one relationship.
16:32And when that attachment is disrupted,
16:35the pain reaches all the way down into
16:37that original wound. As shocking as this
16:40sounds, this is actually good news
16:42because it means the healing you do
16:44right now, if you can do it properly, if
16:46you do it honestly, is not just about
16:49getting over this person. It is about
16:51attending to something that is needed
16:53attention for a very long time. This
16:56breakup, as terrible as it feels, is
16:59also an invitation. The Zen teacher
17:02Podran writes about something she calls
17:05groundlessness. the terrifying
17:07experience of having the floor fall away
17:10from under you, of being in freef fall
17:13with nothing solid to grab. And she
17:15argues counterintuitively,
17:17provocatively that groundlessness is not
17:20a problem to be solved. It is the most
17:23spiritual condition available to a human
17:26being. Because when the ground falls
17:28away, you discover whether you are
17:31standing on solid ground at all or
17:34whether you are standing on the illusion
17:37of someone else holding you up. The
17:39spiral of romanticizing your ex is at
17:42its core the desperate attempt to find
17:44the floor again, to go back to the thing
17:46that felt like solid ground. But the
17:49floor was never solid. It was a person,
17:51which means it was always going to move.
17:54Stop romanticizing your ex. You're not
17:57missing them. You're missing the version
18:00they showed you before you saw the full
18:02picture. You're not missing them. You're
18:05missing the future. You already planned
18:07in your head. You're not missing them.
18:09You're missing feeling chosen.
18:12You're not missing them. You're just not
18:15ready to let go of the story yet. But
18:17you will be. If you've gone through a
18:19breakup, the work, the real work, is not
18:24to find new ground to stand on. It's to
18:28find yourself standing without anything
18:32to lean on. in the groundlessness for
18:35long enough to realize you are always
18:36capable of standing alone. There's a
18:39Japanese concept called mono wear often
18:43translated as the pathos of things. The
18:46bitter sweetness of impermanence
18:49the particular beauty and sadness that
18:51comes from knowing that nothing lasts.
18:54The Japanese don't treat impermanence as
18:56a problem. They treat it as the very
18:59thing that gives experience its beauty.
19:02Cherry blossoms are the most revered
19:04symbol in Japanese culture. Not despite
19:06the fact that they fall in a weak
19:09because of it. What you had was real.
19:12What you had could have been beautiful
19:13in parts and it is gone. And all three
19:16of those things are true simultaneously.
19:19And sitting with that truth, all of it,
19:21without rewriting the ending, without
19:23fantasy editing it into something it
19:25wasn't, without bargaining with the past
19:27or that person is not resignation. It is
19:31not giving up. It is the most courageous
19:33thing you can do. The willingness to
19:35feel the full beauty of something that
19:37is over. Now, let me tell you how to
19:40actually do that. How to interrupt the
19:42spiral. How to work with your brain
19:44instead of being controlled by it.
19:46Because knowing the science doesn't make
19:48it stop hurting, but it does change what
19:51you do with the hurt. Let me be really
19:53honest with you about breakups. There is
19:56no version of getting over someone that
19:59doesn't involve feeling it. There's no
20:01cognitive hack that bypasses grief.
20:04There is no framework that makes this
20:06painless. There are two types of pain.
20:09The first is the pain that moves you,
20:12that transforms you, that carries you
20:14somewhere new. And then there's the pain
20:18that loops. The pain that keeps you
20:20exactly where you are, circling the same
20:23drain for months or years, pretending to
20:26be the depth of feeling when it's
20:28actually just a broken record. Here's
20:31how you get to the pain that moves you.
20:34Tool number one, the no contact rule.
20:38And I want to talk to you about why it's
20:39actually biology. You've heard about no
20:42contact, but you may not know the real
20:44reason it works. And the real reason is
20:46not about playing games or winning the
20:48breakup or making them miss you. The
20:50real reason is neurological. Every time
20:53you check their social media, you are
20:55feeding the addiction. You are
20:57reactivating the dopamine circuit.
20:59You're telling your neural pathways,
21:01"This is still relevant. Keep tracking
21:03it." Your brain cannot begin to
21:04withdraw, cannot begin to heal. While
21:07you keep administering micro doses of
21:09the drug, no contact is not punishment.
21:11No contact is detox. And it includes the
21:14things you're pretending don't count.
21:17The casual social media check that you
21:19tell yourself is harmless. The friendly
21:21text you're composing in your head. The
21:23driving past where they live. Every one
21:26of these is a hit. Every one of these
21:28restarts the clock on withdrawal. You're
21:31not cutting them off because you're
21:32cold. You're cutting off the supply
21:34because you're trying to heal. Those are
21:37completely different things. Stop
21:39checking their feed. They're not coming
21:42back because you watch their story.
21:44They're not coming back because you like
21:46something from 47 weeks ago at 2 a.m.
21:50They're not coming back because you
21:51figured out who that person in their
21:53photo is. They're not coming back
21:56because you've refreshed their profile
21:5811 times today. They're not coming back.
22:01But your piece is the second you stop
22:04looking. Tool number two, the full
22:07picture exercise. I want you to do
22:09something tonight if you're brave
22:11enough. Take a piece of paper, draw a
22:13line down the middle. On the left side,
22:15write down the things you genuinely
22:16miss. The real things, not the imagined
22:19perfect version, the actual things that
22:21were good and real and valuable. On the
22:23right side, write down the things you've
22:25been selectively forgetting. The pattern
22:27that kept repeating. The way you felt
22:29bad on days which are more frequent than
22:31your highlight reel admits. The specific
22:34moments where you felt unseen or
22:35dismissed or too much or not enough. The
22:38days you cried. Write down who you were
22:41on your worst days in that relationship.
22:43Write down the cost personally,
22:45professionally, to your family. This
22:47isn't bitterness. It's not a revenge.
22:49It's accuracy. You're correcting your
22:52memories editing. You're forcing your
22:54brain to hold the full picture rather
22:56than just a trailer. Tool number three,
22:59interrupt the spiral. Literally, the
23:02romanticizing spiral is a thought
23:04pattern. And thought patterns are
23:06neurological pathways, neural circuits
23:08that have been strengthened through
23:10repetition. Every time you indulge the
23:12spiral, you strengthen the pathway.
23:14Every time you interrupt it, you begin
23:16to weaken it. It's not suppression,
23:18forcing yourself to not think about
23:20something. Actually, this increases the
23:23frequency of the thought. It's the don't
23:25think about a pink elephant problem. The
23:28harder you try not to think about the
23:29pink elephant, you think about the pink
23:30elephant. What works instead is what
23:33neuroscientists call pattern
23:35interruption. A brief but genuine
23:38redirect of neural attention to
23:40something that requires full cognitive
23:42engagement. When the spiral starts, when
23:44you catch your hand moving toward their
23:46Instagram, when the imaginary
23:48conversation begins, when the maybe we
23:50gave up too soon story starts playing,
23:52you do something that requires your
23:54genuine attention. Immediately,
23:56something physical works best. A short
23:58vigorous walk, cold water on your face,
24:00five push-ups, something that activates
24:03your body and breaks the cognitive loop.
24:05Then, and this is key, you do not fight
24:07the feeling. You name it. I am
24:10experiencing a craving for this person.
24:13Just that the simple act of naming an
24:16emotion, what neuroscientists call
24:18affect labeling, activates the
24:20prefrontal cortex and measurably reduces
24:23activity in the amygdala. You move the
24:26feeling from the reactive part of your
24:28brain to the observing part. You become
24:31the person watching the spiral rather
24:33than the person inside it. Rule number
24:36four, rebuild identity, not find
24:40yourself. I know find yourself is tired
24:43advice. Bear with me because this is
24:45different, I promise. One of the most
24:47underappreciated effects of a
24:49significant relationship ending is what
24:51psychologists call self-concept
24:54contraction. In a long or deep
24:56relationship, your identity expands. You
24:58become someone who is part of a wei. You
25:01have shared friends, shared routine,
25:03shared references, shared futures. When
25:06the relationship ends, that whole
25:07dimension of identity collapses. You
25:10don't just lose the person, you lose the
25:12version of yourself that existed in
25:14relation to them. The antidote is not to
25:17immediately seek a new relationship to
25:19fill the gap, but to actively rebuild
25:21your own independent self-concept, to
25:25recover your own narrative. This means
25:28what did you stop doing when you were in
25:29that relationship? What did you let
25:32atrophy? What parts of yourself did you
25:34set aside to make room for the Wii?
25:37Friendships you let drift, interests you
25:39abandoned, ambitions you quietly
25:40shelved, the parts of you that existed
25:42before them and are still there waiting.
25:45Go find them. Not as therapy, not as
25:47distraction, as recovery of self. Every
25:51time you do something that is purely
25:52authentically yours, something that
25:55reflects who you are independent of any
25:57relationship, you are rebuilding the
26:00self-concept that the relationship and
26:02the breakup have eroded. You are
26:04answering the question, who am I without
26:07them? And discovering that the answer is
26:11more than you remembered. Please stop
26:14making excuses for them in your mind.
26:18Don't forget how small they made you
26:20feel. Don't forget they had every chance
26:23to choose you. Don't forget the excuses
26:26you made for them. Don't forget you
26:29cried because of this person more than
26:32once. Don't forget how many times they
26:34disappointed you and you stayed anyway.
26:38Please don't forget your worth. Please
26:41don't forget you deserve more than what
26:44they gave you. Please don't forget you
26:46always gave them the benefit of the
26:48doubt. Please don't forget you always
26:51saw the good in them and received the
26:54bad. Please don't forget you bent over
26:57backwards when they barely moved. Please
27:00don't forget someone who deserves you
27:04won't make you question if you're
27:06enough. Tool number five, let the grief
27:10be grief. Don't dress it up as love.
27:12This is the hardest one and the most
27:14important. Grief is grief. It needs to
27:17be felt, not managed, not optimized, not
27:20rushed through or bypassed or processed
27:23into insight before it's ready. Grief is
27:26a biological process, the nervous system
27:28integrating a loss. And it takes the
27:30time it takes. But there is a crucial
27:32difference between grief and
27:34romanticization.
27:35Grief moves. Comes in waves. Intense,
27:38then quiet, then intense again,
27:40gradually spacing out. It doesn't ask
27:43you to do anything except feel it. It
27:45doesn't require you to figure out
27:46whether they were the one or whether you
27:48made a mistake or whether you should
27:50text them. It just hurts and then hurts
27:53less and then hurts again. And
27:55eventually if you don't keep feeding it,
27:58it hurts differently. Not as a wound,
28:00but as a scar as evidence of something
28:02real that changed you that you remember.
28:05Romanticizing a relationship doesn't
28:08help you move forward. It loops. It
28:10keeps you in a story. It asks you to
28:13stay in the question what if, maybe,
28:15perhaps, if only because the story needs
28:18you to stay in it to stay alive. The
28:21story is not serving your grief. It's
28:24serving itself. So let yourself grieve.
28:27Actually grieve. Feel the loss. Feel the
28:30sadness. Feel the particular ache of
28:33missing someone who is genuinely
28:34important to you. That grief is true.
28:37That grief is healthy. that grief is the
28:39right response to loss. Just don't let
28:42the grief become a story that keeps you
28:44from moving through it. Feel it and then
28:48let it move. You've been telling
28:50yourself that you're holding on to them
28:51because of how much you love them. I
28:54want to offer you a different
28:54possibility. You've been holding on to
28:57the story of them because it's safer
28:59than the thing on the other side of
29:02letting go. On the other side of letting
29:04go is the open question of what comes
29:07next. The terrifying freedom of not
29:09being defined by this grief. The
29:11vulnerability of being available to
29:13yourself, to life, to whoever might come
29:16next without the protection of still
29:18being someone's ex. On the other side of
29:20letting go is the work of figuring out
29:22who you actually are. Not in relation to
29:24them, not in comparison to what you had,
29:27just you. standing in your own life,
29:30making choices from your own center,
29:32building something from where you
29:34actually are, rather than from where you
29:36wish you still were. But here's what I
29:39know. The love that is coming for you,
29:42the life that is waiting for you is not
29:45located in the past. It is not in the
29:48photos you keep looking back to or the
29:50songs you keep listening to or the
29:52imaginary conversations where they
29:54finally understand. It is in front of
29:56you in the version of yourself that has
29:59been through something real and survived
30:01it and learned things you couldn't have
30:03learned any other way. I really hope
30:06that this episode helps you. I hope
30:08you'll pass it on to a friend who may be
30:10going through this right now. Thank you
30:12for trusting me. Remember, I'm always in
30:14your corner and I'm forever rooting for
30:16you. If you love this episode, you're
30:19going to love my conversation with
30:21Matthew Hussie on how to get over your
30:23ex and find true love in your
30:25relationships. Make a list [music]
30:28of the things that are truly important
30:33>> for you to find in a partner and [music]
30:36then be that

About this transcript

This page contains the full transcript of If you still think about your ex every day and can’t move on, please watch this... by Jay Shetty Podcast, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 4,966 words across 773 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

What you can do with it

Use the transcript to take notes, quote the speaker, build a study guide, generate a summary with ChatGPT or Claude via the YouTube Summary tool, or export it as a timed subtitle file with YouTube to SRT. You can also re-open it in the transcriber to translate the transcript into 100+ languages.

Free YouTube transcript tool

YouTube2Text is a free YouTube transcript generator — no signup, no daily limit. Paste any YouTube link and get the full transcript instantly, with timestamps, click-to-jump, translation to 100+ languages, AI prompts for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and exports to TXT, SRT, VTT, or Markdown.