Surviving Heartbreak with Wit and Wisdom

Can you turn heartbreak into your greatest comeback story? Join me, Louise Wilkinson, as we untangle the chaos that follows a breakup, grounding our journey in science, humor, and a touch of sass. Whether you saw it coming or it hit like a hurricane, heartbreak is a monumental life event, second only to losing a loved one. Together, we’ll tackle the trauma response—fight, flee, fawn, freeze, and flop—and explore how these primal instincts are trying to protect you from emotional turmoil.

In this episode of "Hack Your Heartbreak," we challenge the notorious stress hormone, cortisol, which throws your body into unnecessary survival mode, disrupting sleep and messing with your appetite. With our roadmap, you’ll learn to navigate these physiological reactions and emerge stronger. From humor-laden insights to practical life hacks, let’s transform this overwhelming ordeal into a journey of self-discovery and healing, armed with intelligence and a little tough love when needed.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Going through a breakup, Struggling with being all up in your feels, Finding it hard to get through the day. Heartbreak sucks and we've all been there. If you're in need of some life hacks on how to regulate your emotions, practically manage your life and how to rediscover yourself post-breakup, you've come to the right place. This is your roadmap to navigating out of this time in your life with intelligence, humor, sass and a little bit of tough love when you need it. Welcome to how to Hack your Heartbreak with your host, Louise Wilkinson.

Speaker 2: 0:50

Well, that's quite a dramatic way to start an episode, isn't it? But this is what we call Ground Zero. The breakup is mere minutes old, and there are two scenarios here. Either it's likened to a relative that had a terminal illness and you saw it coming and the end was inevitable, or it's like a freak tornado no warning and mass devastation. The words have been spoken I just don't want to be with you anymore.

Speaker 2: 1:22

And it's at this point that it's just about impossible for your brain to grasp the concept that this person who you've shared feelings, memories and, let's face it, a whole load of bodily fluids with, is now not going to be in your life. Now, however you reach this point, it's still a shock. Time stops, everything starts moving in slow-mo and, depending on your circumstance, there's either explosive shouting and crying or a silence so profound that you can hear your own heartbeat in your ears. I don't want to gloss over this or diminish it. It's important that you understand that what you've just experienced is a massive life event. In terms of ranking, there is only the death of a relative that ranks higher on the stress scale than the rupture of a romantic relationship. This is trauma, pure and simple, and your body will react predictably by going into well, surprise, surprise a trauma response, also known as the five Fs. The response is an automatic physiological reaction to an event that is perceived as stressful or frightening. The perception of threat activates the sympathetic nervous system and triggers an acute stress response that prepares the body to fight. Now that might show up like you start screaming or otherwise. Act aggressively to protect yourself from the threat. Flee or get the fuck away from the threat. Fawn, try to reason with the threat and play nice Freeze, make like a tree and hope that it all goes away, or flop, which is just like it sounds, to faint or pass out because your system is overloaded. These responses are evolutionary adaptions to increase the chances of survival in threatening situations and in caveman times. The threat may have been a tiger or a bear, but the brain acts like a big, hairy animal, is in front of us and prepares to do whatever it can to keep us alive. Our heart rate increases, our breathing intensifies, the blood flow to the skin is reduced and our bodies flood with adrenaline and the stress hormone cortisol.

Speaker 2: 3:46

Let's talk about cortisol. Cortisol is a pain in the ass, to put it bluntly. She's the mean girl in your system. Too much of her can send blood to the major muscle groups and your muscles in turn tense up faster than Mike Tyson jumping into the ring prepared to fight to the death. This can also give you the sensation of your chest being squeezed and an immediate crushing headache.

Speaker 2: 4:11

Now, because cortisol is a drama queen and has your body convinced it's about to fight off a coyote, it diverts blood away from the digestive system Because the digestive system is an attention whore. Because the digestive system is an attention whore, it complains, it lets you know something's wrong, and you may get cramps, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and, almost certainly, appetite loss. I don't know of anyone that's gone through a breakup and in that moment, wanted to chow down on a hamburger. The steady response of cortisol makes sleep just about impossible because your body is on high alert. Well, yeah, I know that you may have seen the issue here. That's just fucking perfect, isn't it? What are we going to do? Well, it's super important to understand here that, essentially, you're in shock. This is certainly going to last at least a couple of days, but more than likely a couple of weeks minimum. The brain can't wrap itself around sudden and significant change and, like we have already touched on cortisol is a drama queen who believes that you're about to die.

Speaker 2: 5:17

So for me, straight after the words were uttered and I picked my jaw up off the floor, I made the decision to leave his home pretty much immediately. At this point I was completely numb and it felt like I didn't own my own body. The steps that I made towards the door felt like absolute slow motion and kind of like I was walking through marshmallows, if I had to describe it. I remember thinking this is a sick joke and surely he's going to stop me walking out the door. But he didn't, and somehow I managed to get into my car and drive away. Now, somehow I managed to get into my car and drive away.

Speaker 2: 5:54

Now, it's about a 10-minute drive between our houses and I don't remember anything of perhaps the first five minutes of the trip. To be completely honest, and in hindsight, after researching the chemicals at play in that moment, yeah well, driving probably wasn't the smartest decision that I made. I pulled up at some traffic lights and I remember I became aware that my whole body was vibrating. I could feel the blood whooshing around my head and I noticed that my hands on the steering wheel were starting to shake just a little bit. I remember being hypervigilant and focused on the road for the rest of the journey, like a learner driver sitting their test, because I knew that if I didn't I'd crash. Now, side note, obviously I made it or I wouldn't be here talking to you now, but driving probably wasn't the smartest decision if you were to take anything out of my experience.

Speaker 2: 6:48

So finally, you're alone and you're pumped to the eyeballs with stress hormones and adrenaline. Alone and you're pumped to the eyeballs with stress hormones and adrenaline. You're probably pacing and you feel like you should do something, anything. You just need output. You might think about running back to the scene of the crime. You might think for reaching your phone and wanting to text your bestie furiously, and you feel like you need output just somewhere for all of this energy, adrenaline and stress to go. Well, girls and boys, I hate to break it to you, but right now you are not actually operating from anything close to logical thought.

Speaker 2: 7:28

We'll get to the workings of the brain in more detail in later episodes, but for now, all I need you to remember is one thing All your brain is concerned with is safety, and now is not the time to argue with it. So grab a pen and a piece of paper, because this is step one Get to a place that you feel safe. Now, for me, that place was my house and silence, but maybe for you it's your parents' place because you need people in close proximity or a trusted friend. The important thing is that you are in a safe space in comfortable clothes and that you have hydration. An analogy that I'm going to use frequently during this series is that of a bomb going off, and right now you've stumbled from the wreckage and you've taken the ambulance, sirens blazing to the hospital or your safe place. Now you wouldn't go to a bar or a party after you've been caught up in a bomb attack.

Speaker 2: 8:27

The rule I want you to employ here is that you need to get to a place where you would feel comfortable stripping down to your underwear. This could be your own home or that of your closest friend on the planet. That's the kind of vulnerability that we're talking about here. Of course, there's the complication of potentially living with your partner, and that makes a hasty exit a little more tricky. So here's what I'm going to tell you to do Go into the spare bedroom, get to the bathroom, lock the door, go into the spare bedroom, get to the bathroom, lock the door. You don't need to worry about your significant other, your kids or your dog or cat. Your body just needs a minute, and I need you to honour that Now.

Speaker 2: 9:09

I understand that it may be highly unlikely that you found this pod in the minutes immediately after your breakup, but all is not lost. There will be times during this journey that you'll cycle back to ground zero. Maybe it's the first time you run into your ex on the street. Maybe it's a significant birthday. Maybe it's those terrible Facebook memories that come up and slap you in the face, or maybe because humans are wired for connection. You may need to go through this a few more times in your life, in different relationships, and I know that that's the furthest thing from your mind right now. But now you know what to do. You will, in time, realize that this event is a defining moment in your life that will give you a big, glorious gift of growth. Today, however, is not that day, and I'm only bringing it up to plant a tiny seed in your head that I promise we can water together a little later on. You now also have the opportunity to share the love by putting this in the lap of your friend or family member that you receive the distress call from in the future. See, you're already paying it forward, go you.

Speaker 2: 10:25

So let's go over the key points, shall we? You are not able to access your rational mind right now. You need to get to a place of safety. You need to be in or change into comfortable clothes and hydrate, smash a glass of water or two. Yes, that's it. You can't process much else right now. Let's take four deep belly breaths together In and out, in and out, in and out, in out, in and out. Now sit tight, because it's nearly time for triage. I'm Louise Wilkinson and you are listening to how To Hack your Heartbreak.

Speaker 1: 11:30

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