Grief + toxic shame after a breakup is a truly painful and also illuminating experience

My own saying is that grief is the sound of hope dying. It's hard to let hopes die - IMO we primarily live because of hope. It's our lifesource.

Damn, I knew clicking this was gonna hit hard. I'm two years into neurotic grief over an 8 year insecure relationship, and it's been a whole journey just learning that point that the fixation on grief is an avoidance of the emotional experience. I used to play videos on attachment theory for hours a day, and spend every ounce of my energy reading about what went wrong until I would literally collapse. And I'd eventually open my eyes back open, sigh, and then start my obsessive research again. This past year I've been crying more than ever and actually paying attention to my internal experience of it all and it's definitely been the right path.

I am so thankful to my 13 year old self for learning English. It allowed me today  - 30 year old - to understand what I'm going through after my first and worst breakup. I feel stuck and although I'm going to therapy it has not been as helpful dealing with my grief as I hoped. Something that is complex is explained with so much clarity that it makes me wish a Spanish speaker Heidi exists in this world. It is unfair that we cannot access your content in our language so easily. This is truly a gem. Thank you very much. I will listen to this again endlessly until I can move forward with your guidance.

You are so compassionate and wise and explain things so well, thank you. For healing, self-compassion is key, it can be trained like a muscle. I wish everybody who is grieving that they feel deep love and compassion for themselves, do small things that give some joy every day and carry the pain around like a little baby who needs to be seen and heard before it can fall asleep.

I just came out of a breakup that really shook me, and I want to share this in case it helps someone else.
We had something real. A summer that felt alive, light, and honest. The connection was there — care, closeness, warmth. But when things started to deepen, fear entered the room. Not because love was wrong, but because attachment grew without enough clarity or stability.
I became anxious, tense, quieter. She became overwhelmed and needed distance. We weren’t bad people — just two nervous systems regulating stress in opposite ways. The more I tried to hold on, the heavier it got. The more she pulled back, the more lost I felt.
The ending wasn’t dramatic, but it was painful. It felt unfinished. And after, I didn’t just grieve the relationship — I grieved the version of myself that didn’t know how to stay open without fear.
What I’ve learned is this:
Pain after a breakup doesn’t mean you loved wrong.
It means you loved for real.
Sometimes relationships don’t end because there was no love, but because the container couldn’t hold it once fear took over. And understanding that doesn’t erase the pain — but it does remove the shame.
If you’re reading this and still replaying everything, still hurting, still wishing you could have one more moment — you’re not broken. You’re human. And this part, as hard as it is, does pass.
You’re not alone.

To me it was rather the shock I had after betrayal. The disappointment of knowing I chose the wrong person to open myself with, that I couldn't see them through, that while I felt connected and vulnerable in a way I haven't before, they were hiding who they were. I've always felt very lonely and they reassured me that no matter how I try, I'll always be lonely. That people will only come to use me somehow. I can't stand the anger I feel and the helplessness of knowing revenge will never be worthy. I just wanted justice. I have to grieve not only our future together, but the past, as I realized they were someone else entirely, grieve each moment I gave my heart away. It's devastating, but I have the right to move on and I'll do anything I can to do it. Thank you for an amazing video, as always. You have no idea how much you help us all. Love from Brazil

Covering anger with sadness is a very common pattern of auto-agressive behaviour in situations where we were not allowed to express such feelings.

My partner (fearful-avoidant) and I (anxious) just broke up this Monday, after only 9 months of dating and multiple break up scares. It's the first time I've actually been able to reflect and see myself, my patterns and wounds, much clearer than I ever have in a relationship. I've decided I don't want that for myself anymore, and started ACA last week. Thank you for this video, Heidi, and for all the other ones. They will change my life.

Months into a sudden divorce after betrayal....the weight of the pain is crushing, especially since I have no family or real support system.  Existence feels like a clock spinning out of control or suddenly stopping.  My ex loves to make it known to me how happy he is with his great life and girlfriend he chose over me.  Being present, writing, crying, letting it out has slowly began to help.  Since I gave way too much of myself to him for years and put my own needs aside, I'm now re building from the ground up.  Most of all I had to look into my shadow, which I found out, was him.

This is something I’m going through right now. A person I was in limerence with reciprocated but once we found an incompatibility we ended up pulling away from each other. A month later we came right back. After a couple of weeks of constant communication they decided to step back because the way they were feeling were overwhelming to them. It’s been almost three weeks and we’ve been in limited contact. They were the first person who reciprocated my deeper feelings. I know that this is only a door for me to have more of those experiences but man this is so hard to let go.

Heidi, I literally would not be as stable as I am today without your videos I’m eternally grateful for you!!! Thank you thank you thank you. Exactly the video I needed. Going through a lot of stuck grief from a past on and off relationship for 6 years. Learning how to approach my wounds

You pulled back what I hadn't realized before and it hit really hard. I've been in relationships before, married before, but this one was the first one to truly even want to know me, to try to get me to be vulnerable. At 51 I'm grieving a thing it feels like I'll never have again and I didn't appreciate it when I had it. Thank you

“I can’t behave perfectly enough to make anybody wants to stay in my life if what they want and need is to leave”
It hit me right where I needed it to. I finally understand why this happened, and why it hurts so much more than my previous relationships and limerences. It doesn’t hurt despite me being so proud and happy that I’m secure at last, but because of it. This is a growing pain that teaches me the above advanced lesson.

15:32 can’t let go of the idea of needing them in my life -> they were the most salient proof of being enough/loved

I’ve been stuck in grief for 2.5 years. It’s been awful. I am so ready to move on, but my brain keeps the rumination going. I think it’s because I never thought I could get a guy like him and fear I’ll never find someone like him again. After 4.5 years with him, I left the relationship because he wasn’t progressing it. He wanted things to stay as they were.  After leaving, he found a new girlfriend and he married her within two years of them dating. The grief, regret and rumination of “what if’s” are destroying me. I am going to keep re-watching this video until it sinks in.

This video has many MANY nuggets of wisdom. Biggest takeaways for me is:

I can only control my half of relationships.
I can not behave perfectly enough to make anybody stay in my life if what they authenticaly want and need for them self is to leave it. The secure thing to do in those circumstances is to let those people go. Feel the grief, pain and disregulation of loosing them. Accept that it has happened and move forward with my life in a new way.
If you beleive that loss and grief always mean that you have done something wrong, instead of feeling those feelings you can fall into the trap of 'fixing or improving yourself" when sometimes life has just dealt you a crap hand and that is just part of the human experience.

Grattitued and expressing what you value and appreciate in people is so important. Personally, I do this naturally, but I could find different ways to express it.
Thank you Heidi for sharing so openly! Appreciate all you do to help the community. 💚

This is actually how I got to this channel. I was trying to get over a breakup, and the pain was a little too much. I found myself constantly switching from victim of her acts and persecutor who did messy stuff and deserved to be in endless pain. Basically, drowning in endless emotional stories.

Understanding what to call those feelings, the roles they play, and the situation they are an adaptation to helped me move through the grief with a little more grace. Understanding  myself after that lead  better interal equanimity  about most situations that I end up in.

All of this took about 6 months. But basically , it's about getting to understand your own happiness and pain. In a deep and attuned way, while consistently learning more about the world and yourself. And building space to contain your pain by actually going through it day by day.

After the year, I got to the point where when pain comes, it becomes an opportunity to understand the situation better, and happiness becomes a chance to see what makes me tick . And getting  to that after a lifetime of  mal adaptive coping strategies feels like  breath of fresh air after drowning for so long.

Every sentence in this video carries so much depth, that it can only come from befriending pain. One more golden video from Heidi which will hit a lot of people in the right ways in the right moment!

I’m going through a very difficult heart break at the moment. I’ve been crying for hours now 💔. I’m an FA. In my mind I keep telling him how my day is going because that’s how our life was. Now I’m alone 24 h a day as I live alone and work at home. Friends are far and busy. Most of my family members have passed 💔. It’s particularly hard when you’re older like I am at 59 because I might not know that kind of love again 😢