Breakup Bootcamp Read online

  Dedication

  To my family:

  Mee Ping, Kay Mau, Alice, Anita, and Paul

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Introduction

  1: It’s Never Just About the Ex

  2: How You Attach is Why You’re Unattached

  3: Change Your Beliefs, Change Your Life

  4: Feelings Aren’t Facts (When It Hurts So Good)

  5: Breaking the Shackles of Shame

  6: Fantasy Will F*ck You (Your Brain on Love)

  7: A New Standard for Love

  8: Tapping Into Your Inner Dominatrix

  9: The Secrets

  10: Happily Ever After 2.0

  Acknowledgments

  Notes

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Introduction

  Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.

  Proverb

  After nine months of dating, Adam told me he loved me for the first time.

  After eighteen months of dating, Adam and I agreed that I would move into his apartment after I suddenly lost my job.

  After twenty-four months of dating, Adam cheated on me.

  We had just returned from a romantic holiday in Europe, and he was going to dinner with the boys. But when midnight rolled around with no sign of Adam, I started to get worried. I texted and called, with no answer. My angst intensified with each hour that passed, and when he finally came home at four A.M., I was livid. Crying hysterically, I interrogated Adam about his whereabouts.

  “You’re acting crazy,” he scolded. He explained that he was with friends and potential investors, having drinks and talking business.

  I didn’t want to be that crazy girl, so in a puddle of tears, I went to bed. But the next day, I couldn’t help but ask for more clarity on the previous evening’s events.

  “Can we just go over what happened, so I can truly put it past me and not feel the need to bring it up again in the future?” I asked.

  But as Adam recounted the events this time, I noticed that some of the details had changed. The story didn’t match up with the one from the night before. As I started to push, he got defensive. He stormed into our bedroom and went back to sleep. I knew something was off. And so, for the first time ever, I did what “crazy girls” do. I checked his phone.

  It didn’t take much scrolling to realize that he hadn’t been out with investors until four A.M.

  He’d been with another woman.

  I fell to the ground, curled into a fetal position, and wept. I was unable to move for hours. I felt dead inside.

  One stream of questions looped endlessly through my brain:

  Did he think she was prettier than me? Did he think she was sexier than me? Was she better than me? What did I do to deserve this? What did I do wrong?

  I didn’t know it yet, but this betrayal had ripped open a deep emotional wound from childhood I hadn’t even known existed. And soon enough, the answer to those questions I was asking myself came rushing out, bringing with it all the pain I had ever felt as a little girl:

  I am not enough.

  Just two days ago I had been living my dream life, dating a man I thought I’d marry, discussing how we’d raise our future children. Adam was an entrepreneur; I worked for a smaller company, and the plan was for me to stay at home after we had kids. I had stopped raising my hand for promotions at work because why bother? I wanted a flexible, easy work schedule so that I could go with Adam when he traveled for business. When I got laid off from my job, I amped up my homemaking skills. I learned how to cook lavish meals. I packed his lunch. I was the perfect CEO’s girlfriend, preparing to be the perfect CEO’s wife. Dating Adam gave me purpose.

  I had gone from confident career woman with a perfect life plan, a designer loft, and a boyfriend to jobless, homeless, and boyfriend-less. Everything I had built my identity on—status, career, six-figure salary, relationship—all disappeared.

  I wasn’t just mourning the end of my relationship; I was mourning the deaths of my identity and of a beautiful future that would never come.

  Too ashamed to move in with my mom, I crashed at friends’ houses for months while Adam tried to win me back with flowers and overtures of remorse and care. It was clear he wanted to reconcile, but infidelity was one hard line I had drawn in our relationship. When he realized that there was no chance of us getting back together, something snapped. The man I had loved and called my best friend went from apologetic and caring to stone cold. Even though I didn’t want to get back together, he was the person whom I was used to turning to for comfort. That’s what the crazy thing is—you can’t help but want soothing from the very person who hurt you. But Adam had had enough; he stopped answering my calls and blocked me from his life.

  While intellectually I knew we were finished, I still yearned for him. I hated him but wanted him. What a mindfuck. One evening I found out he had canceled the tickets for a concert we had planned to go to together, and I just lost it. The concert was one more thing that he had “taken” from me, and it pushed me over the edge.

  Blinded by sadness and defeat, I started to become anxious that I would never feel any different. This soon escalated into a panic attack. I tried to calm myself by taking a bath, and as the gasps for breath started to settle, my anguish turned into something else: apathy. Now the thoughts looping through my brain became something much darker. Maybe the only way to end the pain was to end my life. I went straight into the logistics of how I’d pull it off.

  Would it be possible to die by suicide in such a way where I wouldn’t traumatize someone who found my body? Well, if the house cleaner found me, it wouldn’t be fair since she’s a stranger. I can’t let my friend who lent me her home find me—she was so gracious to let me stay.

  No matter what scenario I came up with, I couldn’t figure out how to do it without harming an innocent person. Who would have thought my good manners would save me?

  I had clearly hit rock bottom.

  The next day, I woke up asking myself these questions:

  How did I get here?

  Why did this happen to me?

  Where do I go now?

  I was at a decision point. I could keep spiraling down, or I could fight to get myself back up.

  My grief transmuted into anger. I would later learn that, in the stages of grieving, moving from sadness to anger was a positive sign—it was energy moving. I decided I was done suffering. I made an action plan to get myself back on my feet, and for a while, it worked. But then some reminder of Adam would send me back spiraling, and I’d be on the floor crying again.

  As time went on, the crying may have become less frequent, but acting bitter and resentful became my norm. I was walking around with an invisible sandwich board that read: THIS HEART IS CLOSED FOR BUSINESS. Friends who visited me found themselves held hostage by my one-woman self-pity show, starring me.

  Determined to enter the next stage of my life, I desperately searched for a safe place where I could receive the healing I so needed. I tried everything: therapy, acupuncture, Reiki, meditation, chakra cleansing, psychic readings . . . you name it. In between the super woo-woo healers advising me to repeat positive mantras and the therapists reminding me how messed up my childhood was, I had no idea if anything was working. I went to Mexico on a yoga retreat, and while it was fun to get my om on, the moment I got home I was faced with all the same feelings I had before I left. I wasn’t getting better. I was just suspending time.

  One day, as I was repeating my story for the hundredth time to a friend I hadn’t seen since the breakup, something shifted. I had exerted so much energy in despising Adam and
trying to recruit others to do the same that I was exhausted. I watched myself casting blame and aspersions on everyone and everything, and something dawned on me:

  I may not be able to change the events of my history, but I can choose to change the story I attach to those events.

  I was choosing a story that wasn’t serving me. My anger and pain kept me hyperfocused on how I had been wronged. I needed to reframe my relationship in my story. I needed to see my time with Adam as a bridge to something better, not as a destination I was now never going to reach. The only way to cross the bridge, however, was to take the energy I had wasted hating Adam and channel it into something empowering for myself.

  I wanted to learn everything I could about the science, psychology, and spirituality of heartbreaks and relationships. I wanted to help others. Because if I could help another heartbroken person feel a little less alone and a little more hopeful, then maybe my pain was worth it. This work gave me a new purpose for my life.

  Taking what I learned during my journey to acceptance and healing, I decided that I was going to help other women by creating for them what didn’t exist for me: a breakup bootcamp so that women would not have to suffer through heartbreak alone.

  In 2017, Renew Breakup Bootcamp became a reality.

  Each bootcamp has a team of what I call “heart hackers”—more than a dozen experts ranging from psychologists to hypnotists and energy healers—to assist women in processing their pain in order to heal, rewire their subconscious patterns, and shift limiting beliefs. Countless women have been able to transform their lives after Renew, the very ones who were once stuck feeling “crazy,” crying:

  “It’s like the rug has been pulled out from underneath me.”

  “I’m scared I won’t ever find someone else.”

  “I gave him the best years of my life.”

  Within a year, this multiday retreat was featured on the front page of the New York Times, with segments on Nightline, Good Morning America, and The Doctors and in articles in national publications including Fortune, Glamour, Marie Claire, and more.

  “Breakup bootcamp is now a thing,” wrote Vogue, noting the luxury aspect of the “relaxing weekend away.” CNN focused on the digital detox aspect of the retreat, a place where “no phones are allowed,” and the New York Times called it a “getaway for those of us who just can’t get over it,” highlighting the range of experts from the scientific to the metaphysical. The bootcamp was receiving international attention for its holistic approach to healing heartbreak, how every detail was intentionally designed, from the group therapy to the nutritious food to the luxurious environment in nature. I was thrilled. It meant that my hunch was right—and that other women also needed what I had been looking for.

  I took my ten years of research, writing, and trial and error in my journey of creating a better version of myself to craft the ultimate curriculum to help women move through the heartbreak process. The program design is based on everything I wish had existed for me. I wanted to give my clients the luxury of a beautiful retreat setting and delicious food, and also arm them with tools so they would leave the retreat stronger, different. After a weekend at bootcamp, I wanted them to have a new story of their past, present, and future; a new plan; a new kind of inspiration. I worked with psychologists, neuroscientists, behavioral scientists, coaches, sex educators, and spiritual healers to develop every minute of programming. It worked. It is working.

  Now, I am sharing everything I’ve learned from my clients, from experts, from research, and from my own journey with you, dear reader. This isn’t your typical relationship book by any means. This isn’t a dating guide. This is a living guide. This is a learning guide. This is a loving guide. This is a book on how to live better, learn more, and love yourself, so your next relationship will thrive.

  YOU MAY NOT BE ABLE TO CHANGE THE EVENTS OF YOUR HISTORY, BUT YOU CAN CHOOSE TO CHANGE THE STORY YOU ATTACH TO THOSE EVENTS.

  A LOVE LETTER

  Here we are, two strangers connected by common experience. Heartache. Feeling disappointed in love. Exhausted from the suffering. Where do you begin when pain seems like it has permeated every single cell of your body? How do you even begin to have hope that this “happened for a reason” when you can’t even see a reason to get out of bed?

  Yes, it can hurt that bad.

  I understand. That pain used to overwhelm me too. It followed me around like a ghost that I couldn’t escape, even in my sleep where it haunted my nightmares. I used to hate that pain. I used to cry at the injustice of what had happened. I questioned karma, I questioned humanity, I questioned if I would ever feel happy again.

  I’m here to tell you a secret. The pain doesn’t go away.

  Instead, it transforms. It alchemizes into something beautiful. It becomes a part of your depth, your compassion, your empathy to see another woman who is also suffering from heartbreak and, in one look, help her feel a little less alone. That shared humanity, that compassion that we’re all perfectly imperfect humans finding our path, that connection—is love.

  I’m not here to take away your pain or to heal you. I’m not going to offer a magic pill that will fast-forward a way around the hurt. Instead, I’m here to provide tried-and-true tools to help you move through the pain and pave a new path forward. I’m here to give you permission—to mourn, to grieve, to feel all the feels—and assure you that you don’t have to adhere to a timeline to “get over it.” I’m here to emphasize that this very process of falling, of getting back up and learning, is your power.

  Strength is the practice of opening your heart, even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts. It’s to confront the pain with compassion and curiosity, even when it feels much easier to avoid, distract, or suppress. Strength is to let the feelings—the good, the bad, and the ugly—expand your emotional range. You are in the natural cycle of life, and the ending of a cycle marks the beginning of a new one.

  You are not broken; you are just bruised. You are not shattered; you are just shape-shifting. This shake-up is merely a pivot for you to change the direction of your life. Trust the unfolding. Surrender to it. You are the author of your story; every choice you make is words on a page, writing your next chapter.

  What story do you want to tell?

  Your pain is a catalyst for change. Together, we are going to embark on an adventure to dissect the past so that we can build an empowering, inspiring future.

  Are you ready to renew?

  1

  It’s Never Just About the Ex

  There is nothing stronger than a broken woman who has rebuilt herself.

  Hannah Gadsby

  It’s never about the ex.

  It’s always about the recycled pain.

  We often re-create the emotional experience of how we were wounded as children. If we do not heal the original source of our wounds, we will continue to repeat the same emotional experience—just with different people.

  The majority of people we date will not be our destination. They were meant to be bridges; each relationship is an opportunity for us to learn a lesson so we don’t keep repeating a pattern, crossing the same bridge over and over again. Each time we cross a bridge, we have a chance to become a stronger, wiser version of ourselves.

  Even the most painful relationships reveal critical information about habits wired deep in our subconscious. If we don’t stop to assess the lessons, if we don’t tap into the wisdom the journey was meant to provide, we get stuck.

  As we expose the core wounds, beliefs, and patterns that govern how we show up in our intimate relationships and learn how to replace old habits with healthier ones, we shift our direction. One degree at a time, we eventually find ourselves at a new destination.

  But here’s something I’ve been waiting to tell you: that destination is not a happily-ever-after relationship. It comes from within.

  After crossing enough bridges, we realize that the destination is actually never about another person; it’s about self-love. This is
the foundation needed before a healthy partnership with another is possible. But before we get there, we need to see the bridge for what it is.

  And it starts one ex at a time.

  One of the best guides to how to be self-loving is to give ourselves the love we are often dreaming about receiving from others. There was a time when I felt lousy about my over-forty body, saw myself as too fat, too this, or too that. Yet I fantasized about finding a lover who would give me the gift of being loved as I am. It is silly, isn’t it, that I would dream of someone else offering to me the acceptance and affirmation I was withholding from myself.

  bell hooks, All About Love

  A DAY AT BREAKUP BOOTCAMP

  “No hate-fest rabbit holes,” I tell the latest group of women to come to Renew Breakup Bootcamp. “We are not here to find more reasons to bash the ex. The question we are going to explore is: Why were you drawn to this person in the first place? Did you ignore the red flags? Did you give away your power and sense of self-worth to someone else? Why?”

  THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE WE DATE WILL NOT BE OUR DESTINATION. THEY WERE MEANT TO BE BRIDGES; EACH RELATIONSHIP IS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR US TO LEARN A LESSON SO WE DON’T KEEP REPEATING A PATTERN, CROSSING THE SAME BRIDGE OVER AND OVER AGAIN. EACH TIME WE CROSS A BRIDGE, WE HAVE A CHANCE TO BECOME A STRONGER, WISER VERSION OF OURSELVES.

  Each time a Renew participant exclaims what a surprise her breakup, infidelity, or separation was, when we dig deeper, we discover it was not all that shocking. There were signs. There was a gut feeling something wasn’t right. There was the gradual chipping away of self-worth, the overstepping of boundaries, or a trail of red flags ignored. We can get so consumed in our relationships that we don’t even realize that we are losing ourselves to them, and only when the relationship crashes do we finally get the message that something wasn’t working.

  Having spoken to hundreds of women about their heartaches, I’ve noticed that they generally fall into a handful of categories, but of course not everyone fits in a tidy little box.