Breakups are incredibly hard. It’s one of the worst types of pain there is.

But closure can come faster than you expect with a simple shift in the way you choose to think about your ex, and yourself. I’m sharing this powerful shift with you today…

Matthew:

What’s your name?

Roy:

Roy.

Matthew:

Hey Roy, how are you?

Roy:

Good, Matthew. Thanks. I’ve had an ex talk about you a lot so I thought I’d come check you out. I was…

Matthew:

Well thank you for being here.

Roy:

Yeah. Yeah. I enjoy everything you have to say, but I’m a man, so I mean, I’m just trying to figure out what I can take from the male perspective. And also how do I change the way that I – like I’m very, I guess reserved, and I dwell on my hurt because… I mean, we’re people. But I have a problem with – my ex moved on fast and I was trying to… It hurts man. We were together for five, six years and when they move on fast it makes you feel like you’re not good enough. And I just want to know, how can I change my way of thinking? And that it was just, they were waiting on me and I was waiting on them, and they just decided to go one way. I mean, how do I change my perspective on letting stuff go? Because that’s what I need to do. I need to let stuff go or I’m going to be unhappy for the rest of my life.

Matthew:

Yes.

Audience Member:

There’s 20 women that are going to give you their phone numbers.

Matthew:

Roy, you’re going through an incredible amount of hurt. When was it? When did this happen? When did she move on?

Roy:

I guess we split up in August of ’18. And I would say it was probably a good four months after.

Matthew:

So it’s incredibly painful. Part of the pain is you continuing to convince yourself that this must, on some level, have been the right person and that your right person is now with someone else. Now, I don’t believe that. I believe that the right person can only be the right person when it’s two people choosing each other. So part of the pain we hold onto is believing still that we had this jewel that’s gone. And as much as we may have loved someone, as much as we may have thought someone was incredible – they may have had wonderful qualities, we may have been incredibly attracted to them, there may have been all these great things – they cannot represent that true dream relationship, if they don’t choose you.

In fact, someone not choosing you is just about the biggest departure from your dream relationship you could ever imagine. So when we’re saying, “But we were so close…” Not being chosen by someone should be the greatest turn-off in the world. Not because there’s something wrong with that person. But because how on earth – when I was a kid and I dreamt about my dream relationship, or in my last 10 years or 20 years before I met someone, when I was dreaming of my dream relationship, it couldn’t have been the one where someone decides to go be with someone else. That wasn’t it. So this isn’t it.

Then there’s the ego, the ego element of someone chose someone else. Why not me? What did that person have? Why wasn’t I good enough? And now we take the baggage of that forward. The greatest advice I ever received was “kill your ego.” Because that motherfucker has no place in your growth. None, none. I box a lot. And when you go into the the ring and you are worried about getting hurt, when you’re worried about yourself, that’s ego. When you’re worried about the size of the other guy and this guy’s skills, that’s ego. When you’re worried about, “I came in here to do a job, what’s my job?” Then ego goes out the window.

And there are certain – we’re all going to die many, many times in our life. We’re all going to die. You just died, right? A piece of you has to die. Right now, you’re going through fucking hell. It’s been awful. Someone ripped your heart out. That’s hell. But I want that version of you that goes through hell and comes out and has something to say at the end of it. That’s the version of you I want. Do I want the version of Roy who hasn’t been through that shit? Nah, that’s fucking boring. That’s boring. I don’t want that Roy. I want Roy who’s been to hell and back. I want Roy who had to go die, resurrect himself and then come tell the rest of us how to do that. I want that Roy, that Roy is interesting to me. I want weathered, scarred Roy, who’s been through shit, who has interesting things to say.

That Roy is much more interesting to me and we learn far more, far, far more. We become far stronger by what goes wrong in our lives than what goes right. Far more. And so this, all this you’re going through, this is just like a great stew. Like it’s just adding flavor. Like it’s just making you more and more interesting, more and more complex. It’s going to make you more compassionate. It’s going to make you kinder. It’s going to make you more empathetic to other people. It’s going to give you more to bring to your next relationship. It’s going to make you such a strong person and you get through this and you deal with this.

What the fuck do you have to be afraid of? I’ve died, motherfucker. You can’t scare me. All right? Do you see that? So there’s the ego element. Kill your ego. Kill that shit. That guy has to die so a bigger me comes back, right? And then there’s the mourning because you think you’ve lost the person you’re supposed to be with. I can promise you, you haven’t because unless someone chooses you, they aren’t the person you’re supposed to be with. You could be disappointed. You can be disappointed she wasn’t the person, but you can’t grieve like she was the person because she’s not. Disappointment takes a minute to go over too, but it’s much easier to get over than true grieving of, “I’ve lost the love of my life.” You didn’t lose that. That’s still to come. Something better is coming for you. I promise you, my brother, I promise. Okay?