How To Break Up With Someone You Love – Katherine Woodward Thomas
PODCAST EPISODE SUMMARY WITH KATHERINE WOODWARD THOMAS
Many times, when a relationship ends, unresolved issues are carried over into the next relationship.
In this podcast episode, Katherine Woodward Thomas, author of Conscious Uncoupling and Calling in “The One,” shares how you can end relationships consciously and maintain friendships with your former partner.
KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM KATHERINE WOODWARD THOMAS
There are biologically brain-based reasons why we get crazy at the end of love.We need to update how we end a romantic union.
All romantic endings are horrible, and none of us do heartaches very well.
Your next relationship will not begin when you meet your new partner. It will start with how you end it with your last one.
When a relationship ends, the unresolved things are often carried over into the next relationship.
Even if the other person was 97% at fault and did horrible things, you want to look at your 3%.
Take responsibility for the 3% and make amends to yourself.
Making amends to yourself will allow you to be able to move forward again.
Once you get free of the past, then you can begin to generate the future.
We’re always creating the future. It’s just that it’s an unconscious process so what we tend to do is recreate the past over and over again.
Many of us get discouraged because we continue to repeat disappointing patterns over and over again.
TRANSCRIPTION: HOW TO BREAK UP WITH SOMEONE YOU LOVE – KATHERINE WOODWARD THOMAS
Kamala Chambers
On this episode, we’re going to be talking about how to break up from a relationship, and conscious uncoupling.
Luis Congdon
Katherine, it’s great to have you here.
Katherine Woodward Thomas
It’s a pleasure to be here with both of you.
Luis Congdon
Today, we’re going to be talking about these two different things that almost seem like opposite ends of the stick, these polarities of consciously ending a relationship.
How To Break Up With Someone You Love Consciously
Luis Congdon
It seems odd, but I’m excited to talk about how to break up with someone you love because I’ve worked with over 300 married couples and at the end of the day, I have to say a lot of couples break up. Even if they come in for counseling or coaching, it just happens.
And here’s the other contrast. We’ve had a break up before, and we’ve had our heart broken even if we do it consciously. Also, I resonate with this unconscious uncoupling thing and learning how to break up with someone you love because I’ve ended relationships in a very conscious way, and maintain friendships with my partners.
A Shift In Life Happens When You Learn How To Break Up With Someone You Love
Luis Congdon
Here’s the thing.
When that happens, our heart does get broken, and we do have to repair. It’s an ending of something. It’s like someone passing away or going through a portal, and recreating yourself. Therefore, there’s a shift that happens when you learn how to break up with someone you love.
Then, how do we get over that, bring in someone again, and recreate or create a new love? It’s because that’s just part of the tango of life so to speak.
Let’s start off with learning how to break up with someone you love consciously. I’m surprised that not too many people are talking about this Katherine. Tell me, why do you think many people fear to have this conversation on ways on how to break up with someone you love?
Topics On Making A Clean Break Are Rarely Talked About
Katherine Woodward Thomas
Conscious uncoupling shot into the lexicon when a mutual friend, between Gwyneth Paltrow and me, introduced the concept to her good work he was doing with her.
That was a great blessing because it went overnight. Within 24 hours, it was in the dictionary, and people from all over the world are emailing me what is conscious uncoupling. It initiated this conversation.
I also think people look at Gwyneth and Chris, and they go, “Oh, conscious uncoupling means you stay friends and family. You live across the street from each other. You still co-raise your children, but that’s not for me. I’m breaking up with my boyfriend, and I want to kill him.”
I’m not even going to bother looking at it, right?
Luis Congdon
Right, because in the case of Gwyneth for example, or any family member, we’re thinking “Well, they have to do it. It’s for the kids.”
Katherine Woodward Thomas
Exactly.
Conscious Uncoupling as I created it on how to break up with someone you love, and fortunately, I’ve been able to write a book on it, and it did go on the New York Times best-seller list, all of this is such grace, and I’m grateful for it.
Healthy Relationships Are A Process
Katherine Woodward Thomas
Therefore, it’s a process that is an alternative to the typical nasty antagonistic breakup. I break out for people why we go from soul mate to soul-hate.
Truthfully, there are biologically brain-based reasons why we get so crazy at the end of love and why suddenly the nicest of us turn almost sociopathic on all the things we want to do to get back on that person and punish that person.
In other words, it takes us through the terrain of initiating the break up from a biological perspective, and also from a historical standpoint, just the history of consciousness of break-ups in this world. I unpack even “happily ever after,” which is the goal we all kind of hold ourselves and others accountable for it.
Myths About Relationships And On How To Break Up With Someone You Love
Katherine Woodward Thomas
So, we just assumed that if a relationship ends before one or both people die, the relationship has failed, which is a myth that’s 400 years old. That was created when the life span was less than 40, which repositions the “ever after” part.
We’re biologically still programmed for a thousand years ago, where if you wandered away from your tribe, it was almost certain death.
On the other hand, we’re having all this “Oh my God, I’m going to die!” feelings. Our biology hasn’t caught up to our modern culture, and even our ideologists are not caught up in modern day culture.
Recently, in Time Magazine, it was a picture of a baby, and it said, “Is this child going to live to 142 years old?” I like to say, can you imagine the time when a 50th wedding anniversary is still considered the young blush of love?
Update Our Methodologies On How To Break Up With Someone You Love
Katherine Woodward Thomas
We update our computer programs, diets, exercise programs, and child growing practices. I’m suggesting we also update our methodologies of how we end a romantic union, and even what we are aspiring too.
It’s because, in a world where more people are going to break up this year than buying new cars or eat great fruit for breakfast, it is high time you learn how to break up with someone you love well. That’s what conscious uncoupling is.
In short, whether you’re married or just infatuated, hoping to be in a relationship with somebody if you’ve been in a love affair, if you’ve been engaged to someone and it broke off, or if you’ve been in love with a married person.
Set Up Wins Moving Forward
Katherine Woodward Thomas
Learning how to break up with someone you love consciously is a five-step process that helps us to not only navigate the emotional, spiritual, psychological growth.
That would leave you enhanced, expanded, more capable of having a great relationship in the aftermath of lost love, but as well as how to speak to somebody to de-escalate the conflict, to create cohesion in your community, how to make sure everyone is well and set up to win moving forward.
It’s a pretty comprehensive guide through that thorny terrain of learning how to break up with someone you love.
Luis Congdon
That means Disney and all the romantic comedies are going to have to figure out a new formula for their movies.
Romantic Comedies Try To Show How To Break Up With Someone You Love Consciously
Katherine Woodward Thomas
I’m pretty impressed with Disney because they’re trying. I see it.
I’m fascinated. You see Barbie’s getting a makeover. I don’t know if you know about Barbie with her new body types and skin color. I like some of the new endings of Disney’s coming up with lately, and the females who were saving the males just like the men are saving the girls, the boys are saving the girls.
Ways On How To Break Up With Someone You Love Consciously Evolve
Katherine Woodward Thomas
In other words, we’re all consciously developing together, changing the archetypes, our expectations of who we can be, and what’s appropriate behavior.
Conscious endings and ways on how to break up with someone you love are critical, particularly for your audience. You have an audience of love bugs.
In short, everybody’s here because they want to have love and grow loving relationships.
New Relationships Begin When You Resolve The Past One
Kamala Chambers
Certainly, that is such a perfect way to put it, just to be able to look at relationships in a whole new way.
Likewise, I think what happens a lot of times, when a relationship ends and learn how to break up with someone you love, all that stuff that wasn’t resolved are being carried over into the next relationship.
Learn How To Break Up With Someone You Love Consciously To Resolve Things
Kamala Chambers
I’ve been guilty of this. Sometimes, getting into relationship maybe too quickly, and then the things that weren’t addressed, I end up working out in the next relationship.
Katherine Woodward Thomas
Yeah.
Kamala Chambers
Also, I’m curious.
I know you have this five step journey of conscious uncoupling and on how to break up with someone you love. You know it’s time to leave because the relationship isn’t working.
Maybe you don’t feel like you want to stay in a relationship because you’re not in a health relationship. You talked how when you end a relationship with someone, and you want to kill them, what do you do with that?
What do you do when you feel like the mixed signals are even putting your mental health is in question?
Do you have to start the uncoupling earlier on before you get to that point?
Making A Clean Break From Where You Are
Katherine Woodward Thomas
No, not necessarily.
We have to start where we are. People have different experiences. The leaving experiences are different than the being left experience.
The person who’s leaving has had time to adjust, to build a life and identity out of the relationship. Their grief has been happening while in the relationship.
The person who is being left is more likely to have the shock of the break up hit them and to deregulate their emotions where they go crazy. That’s the soul mate to soul-hate.
How Nature Designed Our Ways On How To Break Up With Someone You Love
Katherine Woodward Thomas
My theory in researching the book, I found that nature is on the side of attachment. Nature doesn’t take kindly to a lack of attachment.
For example, if somebody rejects us, the chemicals in our brains that get released are the same chemicals that became activated when we first fell in love, which seems almost cruel.
Nature has designed us to start to long for the person who is rejecting us even more than we were before, which will then compel us to run after that person. Nature has designed us to stay connected to each other.
Likewise, I think the soul mate to the soul-hate phenomenon is going from nature where almost rather a negative bond than no bond at all. It’s the existential angst of just letting the relationship go.
First Step On How To Break Up With Someone You Love Consciously
Katherine Woodward Thomas
The first step on how to break up with someone you love consciously is to find mental and emotional freedom and to be able to harness the big energies you’re feeling.
You see, those are the overwhelming tidal waves of anger and righteous indignation, a desire for revenge, and deep sorrow. Be able to harness them, and move them from a negative impulse to lash out and hurt yourself or others and into the constructive drivers of positive change.
How To Break Up With Someone You Love – Move Negative Impulses To Positive
Katherine Woodward Thomas
If I feel enraged at somebody, we’re going to look for the impulse that’s underneath the anger, which is “Wow! I’m reclaiming my right to be treated well and with respect.” We focus on that.
Also, I teach people how to hold and contain those big energies so we can point them in the right direction, and how to take a stand for yourself. I had people set an intention for the bracer they’re going to have as a result of this.
To Break Up With Someone You Love – Set Intentions
Katherine Woodward Thomas
A lot of times, that intention is going to be like, “Never again am I going to deem down, dumb down, settle for less, turn away from my knowing.
That from this moment forward, I am going to have healthier relationships where my voice matters, with people who care about how I feel, who I feel safe with.”
Take those big energies of feelings and take a stand for your development.
Let this be the battle. Let this be the graduation point.
Accept Where You Are To Know How To Break Up With Someone Consciously
Katherine Woodward Thomas
That’s the first step on how to break up with someone you love because we have to start where we are.
Kamala Chambers
And isn’t that the truth?
Sometimes, it’s easy to look at the perfect or the end game and want to be there, but it takes fully accepting and embracing where we are even to create the shifts to get to where we want to be.
Let’s say, in the perfect world, we’ve gone through that process on how to break up with someone you love. We found the emotional freedom. What comes next?
The Second Step On How To Break Up With Someone You Love Consciously
Katherine Woodward Thomas
The next thing on how to break up with someone you love is to start to notice that you’re telling a story about the relationship and about what just happened.
You might even be obsessed with that story because that’s what happens. It breaks up our trauma and usually, with any trauma, we’re fixated on telling that story over and over again.
It’s because we’re trying on a psychological level to grapple with that story and to integrate it. It’s almost more than we can manage, so it’s easily ruminated on this story.
Look At Your 3%
Katherine Woodward Thomas
But the problem is that most of us are telling it from a victimized perspective. I can see everything the other person did that was unjust, unfair, and horrible.
You know what? People do horrible things.
Katherine Woodward Thomas
Maybe that was passed if I didn’t speak up. I turned away, minimized my feelings and needs, and made someone else’s feelings and needs more important.
I didn’t ask the right questions. I was afraid to rock the boat. I forgave because I wanted to get that person to like me or whatever the kind of ill motivation was and the passive ways we’ve even might participate.
How To Break Up With Someone You Love Consciously – Take Responsibility For What You Did
Katherine Woodward Thomas
They might be overt. I was mean, acting out from my old former relationship, and taking it all out on him or whatever it was.
You look at that 3%. Assume responsibility for it. And look at the cost of it in your life.
Make amends to yourself moving forward that you are never going to show up like this again, and identify the new ways that you’re going to start to turn up from this moment forward, and that begins to restore your capacity to trust yourself to love again.
Katherine Woodward Thomas
We don’t trust ourselves to choose well, to navigate the complexities of relationships well, to not self-abandon or give too much of ourselves away, and all of these things.
Learn How To Break Up With Someone You Love Consciously To Trust Yourself Again
Katherine Woodward Thomas
We have to look at that 3%.
Making amends to yourself will allow you to be able to move forward again, completely trusting yourself to navigate relationships differently next time.
Kamala Chambers
Oh my gosh! What a huge piece of that and I love that the second step on you’re going through on how to break up with someone you love is about noticing your story and then how we get fixated on being the victim.
This makes me think of when I was writing the book Road to Love. The book has followed a series of break-ups like all the relationships I was ever in and all the breakups I went through.
How To Break Up With Someone You Love – Time To Move On From Your Stories
Kamala Chambers
I remember when I was sitting down to write, one particular chapter, I just had not moved on from the pain of that relationship and was still in that story of why this person was the worst human being on that planet like the victim story.
The big piece of it that came through for me is exactly what you’re talking about. It’s that getting that capacity to trust yourself again.
Luis, this is something I’ve seen you be amazing at to have that ability to have that confidence in yourself after you end a relationship.
Learn How To Break Up With Someone You Love And Be Thankful For That Previous Relationship
Luis Congdon
I think that part of the reason why I was drawn to Katherine and her work on how to break up with someone you love consciously is that I haven’t had a lot of relationships. The ones that I’ve had, I feel like they’ve all ended well and so, I don’t have that aftermath of doubting myself in future relationships or questioning a relationship.
I feel very thankful for the previous relationships and the gifts they offered me and have been able to move on with no hard feelings.
How To Break Up With Someone You Love – Understand That People Live Longer Now
Luis Congdon
Katherine, you spoke to something that for me hits right on the target. It is that we are now in the day and age where people live longer. There are way more people on the planet.
People no longer hold the same job for most of their lives and move up through a company or keep that same job in comparison to my father, for example, and he’s in his mid-60s. My dad primarily had one, two, three, or four jobs in his life.
Katherine Woodward Thomas
Yeah.
Luis Congdon
Ever since I was eight years old, my dad has had the same job, worked for the same company, and basically, the same group of people.
Katherine Woodward Thomas
Wow
Luis Congdon
They started this company, and now, I looked at my grandma and grandpa.
As far as I know, my grandpa pretty much always had the same job. He was a doctor. He fell in love with his high school sweetheart, and they were married together for the rest of their lives. He loved the person he was with for a lifetime. My grandma had one or two jobs and was a stay at home mother.
Know How To Break Up With Someone You Love Since There Are More Transitions Now
Luis Congdon
And so, the interdependence also is different for men and women. He’s got to work and support the home, and she needs to stay home. They had five kids.
We are going through such a dramatic shift now where women and men are out there in the workplace. Men and women are staying at home and having more flexibility in the gender roles. That means that as humans, we have a lot more transitions and shifts in our life, and our lives are longer.
That’s what you were talking about.
Katherine Woodward Thomas
It is.
The Ways On How To Break Up With Someone You Love Had Changed In The Last 30 Years
Katherine Woodward Thomas
Stephanie Coontz, who’s an excellent marriage historian, says that relationships had changed more in the last 30 years than in the 3,000 years before.
That’s why I appreciate shows like yours where you’re making visible what’s happening, making the process of how we need to grow, and develop ourselves consciously.
The first line of my first book Calling in “The One” says that the reason many of us do not have the relationships yet we would desire is because we’ve not yet become the people we would need to be to attract and sustain that level of love.
What’s happened in the last 50 years is our desires for what we want in a romantic partnership have gone beyond anything our grandmothers would have ever even imagined or dared to want for herself.
How To Break Up With Someone You Love – Lower Your Expectations
Katherine Woodward Thomas
We have all these expectations of what we’re looking for, and it’s forcing us to grow. It’s forcing us to become the people that we would need to be to have that level of connection, and sustainable level of care, and co-creativity, and ability to collaborate, and all of that.
Luis Congdon
When I first started teaching marriage education courses, I was primarily working with immigrant Latinos. About 90% of my courses were all in Spanish even though it was the work of Doctors John and Julie Gottman, and their research from the Gottman Institute in The University of Washington. We took that curriculum and translated it to Spanish.
Kamala Chambers
Wow.
Different Cultures On How To Break Up With Someone You Love
Luis Congdon
It was fascinating to watch the shifts the Latin and Mexican families were having as they live in The United States, and went through these changes. It’s because Latin culture is still very patriarchal and still rooted in a deeper sense of history, with the Catholic and Christian ethics.
Then, they come over here to The United States where ethics and history, and a variety and options get blown open, as well as feminism.
I noticed these struggles that the husbands and wives would be going through. We would be sitting in a session, and the woman would say, “Well, I have dreams,” and the husband will be like, “I’m working. We have beautiful kids.
I know I could make more money and support the family better and get a better job, but what do you mean by dreams?” The wife would often time say, “I want to go back to school. I want to get a job too. Maybe I could get a job, and you could stay at home.”
Men And Women Learning How To Break Up With Someone You Love
Luis Congdon
These things would come up for the women or the women would say, “Well, I started working.” This is one couple that had this struggle where the husband was struggling to find a job, and the wife was working.
They were in a session with other couples, and she said, “I’m making money now so I feel like I should have a little bit more control of the money. He’s traditionally had a little bit more say, but now, I want to have it, and it’s my money.”
How Gender Roles And Power Dynamics Influence How To Break Up With Someone You Love
Luis Congdon
They were struggling with this thing that I could tell almost every couple in the room also was struggling with because now the gender roles and power dynamics of men and women have shifted.
That rocks the boat in a relationship. But it can also rock the boat in the sense of, “Is this the person that I should continue with in my journey and the one that will help me evolve?”
Here’s my question for you.
We’ve reached the point where I’m starting to think “This relationship is not a fit anymore. I’m no longer getting what I used too, and he’s no longer getting what he’s used too. How do we uncouple? How do we know?”
This is something people regularly ask. How do you know if you should end a relationship and learn how to break up with someone you love?
Katherine Woodward Thomas
It’s such a good question. They call it the 64 million dollar question.
Understand First The Waters You’re Swimming To Know How To Break Up With Someone You Love
Katherine Woodward Thomas
I’m excited that you love culture because I’m fascinated with culture.
A lot of the ways on how to break with someone you love and conscious uncoupling is the process of taking someone’s heartbreak and what to do with that is couched in understanding the waters we’re swimming in. This is the culture.
One of the things that are happening that’s very American is we believe in marriage.
Over 90% of us are going to get married. No matter the fact over 40% of first marriages, over 60% of second marriages, and over 70% of third marriages end in divorce, we believe in love.
I believe in love, personally. It’s why I teach Calling in the One. I am a believer of love just like all of us here.
The Tension That Causes Divorces And Makes People Learn How To Break With Someone You Love
Katherine Woodward Thomas
We live with the chronic tension that in America, we also value personal development, aspiring for your goals, dreams, growth, and reaching for new horizons. That is as American as baseball and apple pie. We have this tension.
America does have one of the highest divorce rates in the world. The husbands in that situation are not wrong to be worried.
Learn How To Break Up With Someone You Love Who Started To Grow
Katherine Woodward Thomas
In any culture where women rise to equal power with men, the divorce rates rise to about what they are right now.
Intuitively, it starts to feel very threatening to a traditional family, to both the husband and the wife to begin to grow. Because if you start to grow, it does upset the traditional roles that people are in and what people can expect. And it puts things on a very different footing.
Now, back to your question, “How do we know?”
Work On The Relationship First Before Learning How To Break Up With Someone You Love
Katherine Woodward Thomas
I think there’s a portion at the beginning of the book before I even talk about the conscious uncoupling process where I encourage people to do some work on the relationship before they decide to have a conscious uncoupling and learns ways on how to break up with someone you love.
For these persons who are stuck, I tell them, “Just go do the process without making the decision to leave.”
As a result, it’s because there are many ways people grow in doing the conscious uncoupling process where it has to do with taking stock of your part and things.
Or being able to see what kind of childhood trauma you’re replaying with your partner that you can begin to wake up out of that old trance, and start to do things more from an adult center.
There are things people learn on conscious uncoupling that sometimes let them recouple.
The Need To Grow And Change How To Break Up With Someone You Love
Katherine Woodward Thomas
I think the bottom line is you’re asking about a postmodern dilemma that we all have, which is we’re changed, junkies. That’s a good thing because we need to change.
In our world right now, I think life itself is pushing on all of us to grow and to change. We cannot just stay with our heads under the sand. We have to grow.
We are all being inspired to grow at a fast rate. And the bottom line is we have to stay interested in each other as we are going through growth. We have to care about the growth. Certainly, we have to support the growth.
How To Break Up With Someone You Love – Being Deeply Engaged
Katherine Woodward Thomas
We have to be able to say “Sweetie, I’m feeling a little threatened by this new growth that you’re going on, this new meditation thing you’re doing that’s bringing you new friends.
Tell me more about it. I want to know. I don’t particularly resonate with it, but I love you.
So I want to know what it’s about for you because I care about you and I care where you’re going. And so, I might not embrace it, but I’m with you.”
That friendship piece is going to be critical. Being able to stay friends. And being deeply engaged with each other, leaning, and learning about each other, doing our best to care about the interests and changes that are happening in our partner.
That will help us to move through all of the changes we’re navigating even when we’re on different timelines with things.
Luis Congdon
That’s great.
How To Break Up With Someone You Love And Have More Love In Your Life – Be More Curious
Luis Congdon
Of course, I’m thinking of Kamala’s book Road to Love. In one of the chapters, she talks about one of the ways to have more love in your life which is to be more curious about your life, and yourself, and approaching your thoughts and feelings with a deep sense of curiosity. Therefore, not judgment, but creating the safety where you can be curious.
In the self-development space, that’s important when you’re talking about yourself.
Then, she also has this exercise where she has couples get curious. Instead of being afraid or fearing the things or having it be the elephant in the room, and keeping an arm’s length away from it, you’re bringing it closer.
You’re looking at it from different angles and saying “Wow. This new meditation thing has got you thinking differently. I’m curious about that, and I’m noticing you have different friends and interest. Could you tell me about those changes?”
How To Break Up With Someone You Love – Bring Back Safety
Luis Congdon
When we bring that curiosity into a relationship, we’re bringing back the safety for our partner to go and explore.
We’re also bringing back the safety for them to open up and share it, which ultimately where the connection comes in.
Katherine Woodward Thomas
It’s beautiful.
Kamala Chambers
One thing I love about you said is that in cultures where women rise to power, and they develop that the divorce rate is just as high as in The United States.
I’m just trying this on because I’m thinking Luis and I have worked to become equal partners in business together.
Luis Congdon
Yes. So if we get a divorce, it’s your fault. I’m joking.
Kamala Chambers
What if before someone gets married, the equal power is already established?
Agreements In Place Affect How You Learn How To Break Up With Someone You Love
Katherine Woodward Thomas
I think that would probably be a lot easier because you do not have to change the agreements the relationship has founded upon.
I think so much of relationships is about the agreements that are in place, and where people feel betrayed is when somebody breaks an agreement, even if it was an unspoken agreement.
This is where it gets complicated because you have individuals who were raised with how people are supposed to be.
They saw their parents be a certain way, and so they go in with the expectations, but there’s no real agreement from their partner that they’re going to cook dinner every night suddenly.
How To Break Up With Someone You Love – Be Conscious Of Unspoken Agreements
Katherine Woodward Thomas
We have to try and make conscious some of these agreements we’re in. With all the things you two, sound like you’re negotiating with each other. They’re setting you up to have a very happy future I think.
Luis Congdon
She’s the boss here.
Kamala Chambers
No.
Luis Congdon
I’m just kidding.
Kamala Chambers
He likes people to think that.
Luis Congdon
For everybody that’s listening, Katherine has some significant steps, insights, and is shifting for us what it means about knowing it time to break up with someone you love.
Love isn’t staying together forever even when it’s no longer right.
I was telling Katherine before the show that I wanted to get Debbie Ford on the show before she passed away. I reached out to her, and I didn’t know that she was sick at that time. She was keeping it pretty good under wraps.
She wrote a book called Spiritual Divorce. I’m just glad we’re talking about it but now, on the other spectrum, because I want to acknowledge that Katherine when I initially found her work and reached out to her, it’s taken me almost over a year to get her on the show finally.
Various Work On How To Break Up With Someone You Love
Luis Congdon
When I reached out to her, it was because of her work that she’s done with helping people have lasting relationships and helping men and women find the love of their lives.
Also, I want to acknowledge that piece of work too because we’ve talked about conscious uncoupling and ways on how to break up with someone you love, but I want to make sure that we touch on another piece.
You’ve ended a relationship. And you’ve done it consciously. It does not mean your heart isn’t a little bit fractured from it, and you’re healing. Maybe you’ve gone through that healing process, and you’re ready to bring someone in again.
Let’s talk a little bit about that before we wrap up and spend maybe five or ten minutes or so talking about that because I want to acknowledge that body of work and what you’re up too there, Katherine. I think it’s fantastic.
Katherine Woodward Thomas
Thank you.
That’s the calling in the one work.
The Process On How To Break Up With Someone You Love And Calling In The One
Katherine Woodward Thomas
I’ve broken it down to a 49-day process. This was my first book, so it’s the beginning of the work that I do which was born out of my own experience of calling in my husband who I was married to for 11 years in a very magical way.
In short, the process is helpful to identify the internal unconscious places that we are not congruent with the love we want to create.
A lot of us are walking around confused because we want love so much. It’s not happening. We’ve been trying. And we’ve been working on ourselves for years and it just feels like a dead end, or you keep pulling in a particular pattern.
How To Break Up With Someone You Love – Figure Out What Or Who The Problem Is
Katherine Woodward Thomas
Like for me, for many years, I had a pattern of unavailable people one after the other. Any variation on the themes on married men or commitment phobic men, somehow, somebody was always unavailable, and it looked like it was just happening to me and I couldn’t figure out how it was going on through me. I just look like it was my fate to be single.
Luis Congdon
I want to point something out here for the listener because it’s beautiful what you just said. I want to make sure we draw that out for all of you listening at home.
This is what Katherine said I thought it was something that was happening to me which is kind of like “I’m not creating this. It’s going on. Why is this happening?” I see many people going “I don’t understand why I keep finding men that are unavailable or men who are jerks or guys that treat me the same over and over.”
I’m like “Wow! It’s interesting. You keep dating the same guys somehow.” They’re like “Yeah. I don’t get it, and I just need this to stop happening to me.”
Katherine Woodward Thomas
Right.
Luis Congdon
Katherine said something intelligent for me. To me, it’s just so wonderful, and it’s part of the reason why she was able to call in a wonderful marriage and have that as long as it needed to happen.
How To Break Up With Someone You Love – Know The Center Of All Experiences
Luis Congdon
She said “I realized that it was going on because of me” right? At the center of all these experiences of all these guys, you were finding that didn’t fit the mold at the center, or the common denominator was you. So then, what do you do? You were like, “Okay, great. I’ve dated a lot of jerks. I realized that, and it’s my fault.” What do we do with that?
Katherine Woodward Thomas
Yeah.
It’s more like seeing it. Carl Jung talked about whatever we make conscious until we make it aware, it occurs in our lives as fate. But once we make it aware, then, we have a choice.
How To Break Up With Someone You Love – Be Conscious Of Those Parts Of Us That Are Not Congruent With The Future
Katherine Woodward Thomas
The calling in the one process is about becoming conscious of those parts of us that are not congruent with the future, that doesn’t want to lose our freedom, that thinks marriage is a trap, that doesn’t believe that we’re worth investing in.
It has that big story like, “I’m never the one that’s chosen,” or “Somehow, I’m not good enough.” or “I’m inferior to other women.” To make those stories conscious, and to step back from the stories, and challenge the stories or to look at what would it take you.
Usually, one of these places where we get stuck is old agreements. Like, if you ever promised someone you would never love anyone like you love them or agreement you made with yourself that you’re never going to let your heart get hurt like that again ever again.
How To Break Up With Someone You Love – Become Conscious So You Can Re-Choose
Katherine Woodward Thomas
There are certain things we do where we’re almost setting ourselves up to be alone. Once we make them conscious, we can re-choose and become liberated.
When people go through the 49-day process, they get liberated from all of these inconsistencies that they didn’t even realize they had.
They get to the core beliefs that have been generating the reality like the core belief of “I will always be alone,” or “I’m not wanted,” or “I’m not enough,” and all these things that keep showing up over and over again.
We can evolve and disappear that centering, and get people lined up with their true worth and power to be able to manifest love and get people freedom.
How To Break Up With Someone You Love – Get Free Of The Past
Katherine Woodward Thomas
Once you get free of the past, then you can begin to generate the future because we’re all very magical, and we have the power.
Katherine Woodward Thomas
Once you clean that up, you can begin to deliberately create the future, and calling in the one who’s all about manifesting the miracle of love outside of anything you’ve ever known before, of any of your old stories or reference points.
This is especially useful for people who’ve struggled for a long time which are great people doing meaningful things with their lives, but this one area has been very painful.
Luis Congdon
This brings me to a question, and it’s something I want to ask you Kamala.
How Stories Affect How To Break Up With Someone You Love
Luis Congdon
In your book Road to Love, you talk about stories and how stories affect our ability to see reality, and I know you would agree with this too Katherine.
It is that we have these stories, and sometimes we would layer the stories over the experience, and then we’re no longer having an authentic or genuine experience of something.
Somebody says a compliment to us, and we spend more time in a story that that compliment means this, and then we’re no longer able to receive the thing at the moment or the good feeling because we’d layer many things with stories.
What’s your advice around stories, Kamala?
I know this is something you talk a lot about, and it’s something you remind me constantly is “Luis, that’s just a story you have. You’re awesome with that,” and it’s helped me. It’s one of the ways she coached me in my life.
What’s the suggestion for you?
Kamala Chambers
I think Katherine probably has some great insight on this too. I’ll just quickly answer that.
How To Break Up With Someone You Love – Slow Down And Listen To Yourself
Kamala Chambers
With the example of a compliment, maybe you have the story running like “I’m ugly.” or “I’m fat, ” and then someone gives you a compliment, “You look great in that dress.” And then we hear it through the filter of the story. “Well, that person doesn’t know what they’re talking about because I’m ugly and fat.”
There is this opportunity to slow down and listen to ourselves and be able to accept what we are right now, and know that the story is not who we are. The story is that filter we lay over and is affecting how we see the world.
I love to hear what you have to say about that, Katherine.
Katherine Woodward Thomas
I love the work you’re doing, Kamala too, and thank you.
This story around love, I like to call it a love identity. It was foreign when we were very young, and in relationship to someone because all of our beliefs are relational in nature.
How Beliefs Were Born That Affect The Way On How To Break Up With Someone You Love
Katherine Woodward Thomas
We weren’t just born with some general beliefs “I’m not good enough.” That belief was born inside of an older sibling always picking at you, and telling you were wrong, bad, and didn’t know what you were doing.
“I’m invisible” was born from a narcissistic parent who didn’t realize you had anything going on inside of yourself and so you were just in appendage to them.
The beliefs we form about ourselves as it relates to love like, “Who am I? What’s possible in my life?” are very dominant regarding what we’re able to create.
If you look at your life and you look at the things that come easily to you, maybe money, career, or friendships, you noticed that when you were young, you had a strong sense that when you grow up, that was going to happen for you.
You had a self-sense that that is yours to have. Where we struggle is when we’re trying to create something that’s literally outside of our identity to receive.
Calling In The One Process And How To Break Up With Someone You Love – Name The Core Identity
Katherine Woodward Thomas
In the Calling in the One process, I have a way of working with people where I help people to name what that core identity is and to have a huge transformation breakthrough so that you become anchored in what I would call your “true love identity.”
Claiming that for yourself, and congruent with that in a way that you can feel in your body. Not like just an affirmation you’re going to try and put on top of it, but you’re up underneath it in such a way that it becomes your dominant center of gravity.
Wherever we’re centered, it is where we are generating life from.
And so, we want to get people into what we call a “power center” around love where they feel like down in their toes. It’s like my worthiness to love and be loved in my capacity to cause this for myself. That’s a different centering, and that’s going to generate a whole different future.
Luis Congdon
I feel like such a hippie thinking this, and then now, saying it out loud.
How To Break Up With Someone You Love – Be Grounded And Ready For A Clean Break
Luis Congdon
I’m not a hippie but hearing you talk about where we’re grounded, and that’s where we’re generating energy from, made me think of summer.
It caused me to think of walking barefoot in the grass, and how good that feels on my feet, and just this good feeling in my body of like, “Wow. I’m soaking in the sun. My feet are just fully open to the earth.
It was just such a good feeling when you talked about that and how important that feeling is when we’re trying to generate any positive outcome in our life whether it’s the one magical relationship or the one magical job or the one magical friendship or just a magical day. Whatever it might be that feels like “This is the thing I would love.”
How To Break Up With Someone You Love – Generate Feelings You Want To Experience
Luis Congdon
How important it is to root ourselves in that experience in some small way even if it hasn’t shown up yet. That must be part of your process too, is finding ways to generate the feelings you want to experience before this partner comes in.
Katherine Woodward Thomas
Yeah, and I love that image. That’s a gorgeous picture of just walking through the grass with your feet.
I’m interested in happiness habits too, and what elevates our spirits, and hearts, and makes us feel good. One of the happiness habits I had written down is to go barefoot for a walk in the grass and things like that.
Luis Congdon
It’s not just me.
Katherine Woodward Thomas
Things like that are great because you do want to be anchored in a place of possibilities so that the creative process of “I’m going to set the intention for love” is more like “Uhm. Uhm. Uhm.” and where most of us are coming from are like, “Wah! Wah! Wah! Why don’t I have this?”.
Internal Inconsistencies Stops Us From Learning How To Break Up With Someone You Love
Katherine Woodward Thomas
We want to cultivate, and the reason why we don’t is that of all these internal inconsistencies. Most of us are feeling a little bit resigned in this area like, “It’s not possible for me.” The reason it’s not feasible for me is that I have parts of me that are not congruent and lined up with it.
It’s not like we tend to project that up to like, “It must not be in the stars for me. It must not be something I’m destined for in this lifetime that I’m feeling so resigned about this.”
The Possibility To Know How To Break Up With Someone You Love
Katherine Woodward Thomas
I’m saying, “No. It’s just that there are internal obstacles that you have not yet made conscious. The moment you make it aware and re- choose, you will begin to fill your possibility bank, and you will start to feel like, “Oh! I could create this.” “Oh! This is possible for me. Okay. What do I want to create now?” That’s it.
The Internal Cleanse That Happens Around Love, And On How To Break Up With Someone You Love
Katherine Woodward Thomas
There’s a cleaning. There’s an inner consciousness cleanse that happens around love, and then you are liberated and freed up to begin to generate a miracle in your future.
Kamala Chambers
We’ve been here with Katherine Woodward.
Are there any last thoughts you want to leave our audience with or a little tip or something before we close out today?
Why Disappointing Patterns On How To Break Up With Someone You Love Are Repeated
Katherine Woodward Thomas
One of the things I want to say, and I do this in both books, Calling in “The One,” and in Conscious Uncoupling, is I think many of us get discouraged because we continue to repeat disappointing patterns over and over again.
I like to remind people that this phenomenon was called by Freud, the “repetition compulsion,” and it’s one of the reasons the whole field of psychology was born.
It’s because Freud got fascinated that we tend to duplicate these stories over and over again.
He wanted to crack the code. He never did that. He never was able to do that, but he did distinguish the problem, which is a great contribution, and a lot of people have been building on his work ever since.
I believe that we are the generation cracking the code on this, and I have seen time and time again that it’s in the ability to become conscious of that which is running the show, and beginning to make new choices, and take new actions lined up with a different reality.
We Can Put To Bed Forever The Old Ways On How To Break UP With Someone You Love
Katherine Woodward Thomas
We have the power to put those old repetition compulsion stories to bed forever, that our past in love does not determine our future, and that what it is we are standing to create in our future is what determines our future.
We have the power that we have been given at this point in our collective evolution to be able to create miracles of love and happiness for ourselves moving forward.
Luis Congdon
What a wonderful and beautiful way to end the show.
Thank you so much for coming on today, Katherine talking about conscious uncoupling, different ways on how to break up with someone you love, and calling in the one.
