Ensuring the Next Relationship is not a Rebound
As humans we need relationships, but sometimes they do not last forever. Kasie not only uses her therapy education and experiences to help you get through them, but she also talks about how she worked through the demise of her own past relationships. They talk about the process of grief that you go through, the fact the everyone is affected differently and then she gives you some things you can do to help you move forward.
Tune in to see Dating After Demise Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Listen for the following takeaways from the show:
- When dealing with the end of a relationship, it puts you in a grieving process.
- Once it the relationship is done, you have to ask yourself “Now What?”
- What a person really wants is connections with others.
- Grieve and Loss mimic depression and the #1 enemy of depression is isolation.
- Have you really processed your grief appropriately?
- Who am I without that person in my life?
- There are secondary losses that you will go through once you lose that person in your life.
- The elevated emotions and feelings you go through during grieving is normal.
- On the flip side, if you feel Ok with the situation, that can me normal too.
- You might have brain fog while you are dealing with your loss.
- Love knows no bounds – there is no dishonoring the previous person by moving on.
- You need to decide what you want next. You do not have to have another relationship.
- Loving after losing is difficult.
- Rediscovering Love is a way to heal. This can be by reconnecting with important people in your life and does not have to be a new romantic relationship.
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Episode #172 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Hello everyone. I am Chris Gazdik and Kasie Morgan is with us again. She’s ready.
Kasie Morgan: Hello everyone.
Chris Gazdik: So this is Through a Therapist’s Eyes. Now we are battling illnesses, basically like everyone else in the world. So we are zooming today that blew up our Facebook live. So we’ll have to pick that up next week.
We are all being flexible cause you know, whatever happened to this phrase, Kasie, we’re all in this together, right?
Kasie Morgan: Yeah, but if you’re a member I have distinct Lee said on this show multiple times, we’re all in the same storm. We’re just in different boats. And so today we’re going to be in different locations due to
Chris Gazdik: The COVID. So it is, it is a crazy world we’re living in, but this is through a [00:01:00] therapist eyes, the podcast where I like to say you get personal insights from a therapist in your own home and personal time in your car. You get to see the world through the lens of a therapist and Kasie’s month. This is the last week.
I believe right. And yeah. Yeah, February already. My birthday month though. My first
Kasie Morgan: time. All when’s your birthday.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. I’m not telling you cause you’ll be weird in the office.
Kasie Morgan: I’ll look it up on that collective calendar. That
Chris Gazdik: DWI Curtis that’s my wife and my oldest kid’s birthday is February two. Oh, really?
Well, what’s their date. I won’t tell you. You won’t tell us you won’t tell us yours. Well, maybe I’ll tell you yours. Mine. If you tell me your it’s the ninth. Okay, mine’s closed anyway. So I see how I did that. Now it is February the 25th. If you must know let me see. So see the world through the lens of two therapists, but no, this is not the delivery of therapy services in any way.
And listen, guys, we love doing the show and we [00:02:00] really need your help to grow the show. And it makes a big deal for you to give us the five star reviews, give us a couple of reviews on apple iTunes. That really makes a big difference. It helps us get found around the world so that we can do what we want to do, which is blow up stereotypes and myths about mental health and substance abuse and disseminate that information.
So if you’d like to show, help the show, contact@throughatherapistseyes.com is also a great way to get on through our website. Type your little thing into the search and you get all the shows that we have out for that particular topic that you might be interested in. Cause we got some shows, we’ve been doing it.
We got like a buck 80 now or so we’re pushing, we’re pushing towards 180 soon. The human emotional experience. That’s what this is. Let’s figure this out together. Kasie, I have not given you the opportunity to, you know, kind of tell people how they can find you what they can do to do therapy with you, if they’re local or anything else that they want to know and how they would get up with you, LinkedIn or whatnot.
How do these people [00:03:00] find you?
Kasie Morgan: So there’s a plethora of ways that you can connect to me. So first and foremost directly from Metro Atlanta psychotherapy and associates web page, my contact information is present on there. If you are local to the Mount Holly Huntersville, Gastonia Denver kind of area Shaw or lit.
And you want to do a face to face session with me. Then you can find my information there. You can simply call into the office at (704) 461-8253 or my email is on the website there, but if you’re kind of distanced from us and you’re in the state of North Carolina and you would like a virtual session and you can do that by connecting with me by email and I can get you hooked up with my schedule so that we can get an appointment scheduled for you.
I’m also on LinkedIn, Kasie Morgan, LC, MHC, Q S. That stands for qualified supervisor. And if you are on the Facebook, I do have a mindful moment with Kasie [00:04:00] Facebook page, where I just kind of throw out some mindfulness moments and give some commentary sometimes on, you know, just a mindful pause for your day and things like that.
So, yeah, I. Kind of everywhere you can Google me. You won’t find very much from Google other than, you know, I’m a therapist, but that’s about
Chris Gazdik: it. So yeah, that gave me the opportunity to make Neil proud of me and my buddy, Adrian. Who’s always on me to get my hard wire plugged into the computer because if I don’t, I sometimes don’t have the best internet connection.
So I apologize if I zoned out there for a second. And I don’t know if we’re using this video, I guess, on YouTube, but yeah, you’ll see the video on YouTube. I had to put my wire in and that’s why I got up. And I dunno, this is just it’s COVID man. We’re just working the weird world we’re living in, right?
Yeah.
Kasie Morgan: I mean, we’re just kind of thriving, right? Like you just have to call audibles sometimes and do what you can to make sure some of this stuff gets up and out of it, you know, and gets produced. So [00:05:00] we’re going to do the best we can
Chris Gazdik: tonight. We are on it. So I think that the, what are we doing dating after demise sounds like a terrifying.
Title like wow. Dating after the demise of your life. That’s terrible. The next relationship is not a rebound. The harsh truth of relationships is that they sometimes, and you know what I want to give off the front end here. This is for all people that are dating. I, I just, I love the title and I love, I’d be curious to see where we go all with a Kasie, but you know what I’ve told people about dating it, check this out.
This is a real statement. If you, when you hear the statement, you’re going to be kind of like down in the dumps and depressed with it because it sounds horrible, but it’s really a truism. And I, I think it speaks to the challenge that dating and those types of relationships really are. [00:06:00] So think about this 100% of the time.
Dating relationships will end until the last time right now that sucks. I mean, that’s like not for the, you know, we could for the weary, right? Like that’s not for the faint of heart. You dating can be really a risk and a challenge with your emotions. So I don’t know where you’re going with this Kasie. You will, will venture along the way, but I’ve always used that quote to kind of demonstrate the power and the challenge of what we’re doing when we’re really dating.
It’s not easy. It’s very, very difficult timess, even when they are fun.
Kasie Morgan: Exactly. And I think it can be difficult as the dating landscape has just evolved so drastically over the last little bit, really, even in the last 10 years, five years, even almost daily, the daily landscape. Shifting for the [00:07:00] dating population.
So, you know, before I got married there wasn’t really like a strong online dating presence and now
Chris Gazdik: relatively brand new for the human race.
Kasie Morgan: Right. And so if something were to happen to my relationship currently, I wouldn’t know really how to do the dating thing that people are doing right now, but I really wouldn’t know what to do.
I, I, it would be like the blind leading the blind.
Chris Gazdik: It, it got is, I mean, for, for, you know, older fogies, like me with the gen X-ers man, we don’t date with like video and all that kind of stuff. I can’t tell you how many times in my therapy office people have like struggled and I’ve learned a lot, but they’re like, what am I supposed to do?
I I’ve older people like, you know, 60, 70 years old that are jumping on even like, Facebook’s got a dating site now and all, and we’re not going to go by the way into like the online dating thing. We’re just wrapping it a little bit here and a get go. So this show isn’t on that. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s really is a new and different [00:08:00] world and the way that we make connections and also Neil, you don’t have to come on with your voice, Neil, but just listen, that quote is not a quote.
I just want to point that out. So he doesn’t write that one down. Y’all what I’m saying is we’re gathering quotes together and we might be doing some fun things in 2022 with that. So stay tuned on that. It’s going to be fun to use some of the things that we say and have some of the quotes, but a hundred percent of the time dating relationships will end until the last time is not one of the quotes Neil that I want to use, bro.
Okay.
Kasie Morgan: Yeah. But it has a harsh truth that a lot of times our dating relationships are going to end, or they’re going to evolve in a way that doesn’t lead to a long-term situation or a marriage, or they don’t progress into what we thought that they would be. And so we end up with some type of end date and so endings can look like, you know, relationship breaks.
Separation if you’re married, divorce long-term separation. Cause I, I have some people in my office I’ve been [00:09:00] separated for 11 years. And so they’re in a long-term separation death, death of a partner spouse. But regardless of the path that you’re on today’s session or today’s topic is going to be for you because chances are, you have had a relationship that has reached its end at some point.
So then the thought process becomes then what kind of like what’s next? And that kind of brings us to today’s topic because what I find in people that I work with, and really when I reflect back on my own life is that that need, which we’re going to talk about a little bit for that companionship connection, essential connection, a life partner, things like that.
Sometimes we’ll drive our. brains and body to quickly want to fill that void, fill that hole, take care of that feeling. And we do it in a way that is [00:10:00] counterproductive to being a healthy person. And so that’s really what we’re going to talk about today.
Chris Gazdik: So, Kasie, I’m curious, let me ask you a question. When you, when you think of that, you know, now what stage the people get into, how would you characterize that timeframe, that space that people get into?
How would you just generally characterize that?
Kasie Morgan: Yeah, I mean, I can kind of set that up for you, you know, it’s, it, it really is. It’s the grief process. Yes. Right. And we’ll talk about that some more too, but it’s really the grief process, like where perhaps you were used to going to bed with a person and the next day, right?
The day after you wake up. On your tear soaked pillow, you sit up in your bed and you are completely and utterly by yourself. Right? And so even the world continues. You need life to kind of stop in that moment, so you [00:11:00] can have a life break, but it doesn’t, and you either have to get up and move on. It’s kind of like a pivotal moment, right.
There have to get up and move on or stay stuck. And so the question becomes now what, like, what do I do now? Yeah. And, and you hit,
Chris Gazdik: I just, wow. You did a really amazing job there of poignantly describing, you know, that moment. And, and, you know, what’s funny. I want to offer right up here at the, get-go a little bit of hope about that because I think it is a terrifying time in a time of grief and a time of.
You know, typically after a relationship is end and you’ve met its demise, you know you know, where you took me actually is driving home from the hospital, with my little kiddo in the car seat, new parent, and on the baby, other hand on the steering wheel, the entire way home from the hospital, walking in [00:12:00] the home, I think I carried the baby.
Maybe she did, the baby was set down on the couch. And we literally both like took three steps backwards and just stood there and stared at that thing. And it was a total, I mean, nobody said anything, but I know she and I were locked in to the exact same sense of like now what you know? And so this is a time where something bad has happened.
A relationship has ended. Maybe you’re in, maybe it’s not so bad. Maybe you actually chose. To do the ending and needed to do that. The now what really can be, and here’s my point, a time of opportunity and opening and newness. Now that can be scary, but that can also be a wonderful transition in life. So I just don’t want it to have to be always a time of grief and loss and, you know, horror
Kasie Morgan: right.
Yeah. And I, and I definitely [00:13:00] don’t think it has to be grief and loss and horror, but I also think even if you are the one that makes the decision to end the relationship, that there is a process that you have the loss of the relationship in some way. And so as this continues to unfold, we’ll talk about that a little bit about what are secondary losses, so that even if you are the one that ends the relationship, there are secondary losses that come with any kind of ending of the relationship.
So what I came across was this really cool blog. It’s called cake CA K E . It’s a really cool blog and MIT. And I was not Googling cake. I was speaking about relationships, although I did make some really good cookies out of cake mix. If anybody wants to know about that.
But cake is this blog and MIT and Harvard alums have really produced this blog to talk through mental health [00:14:00] topics and relationships. And so I’m figuring that, you know, a lot of this stuff probably has a lot of research quality in black vow and, and could be vetted. Right.
Chris Gazdik: So whatever the research,
Kasie Morgan: yeah, just somewhat intellectual. Right? So this doctoral Alejandro Vasquez is an attorney, but he’s also a grief counselor. And so she put forth several of the ideas I’m going to talk through today. But I wanted you to know that this information came from that blog. And I think that it’s really cool because this is researched information.
A lot of this is evidence-based on studies that were conducted by MIT and Harvard professionals.
Chris Gazdik: So if you follow the, the, the show, I usually do the show prep Kasie’s month. She jumps in and allows me to do some other things. She does show prep. So I don’t know the show prep, but as you’re talking, I looked down there and you’re talking about this has been [00:15:00] researched.
So I would like to know how point number one has been researched. That’s my question. Point number one is sex is fun. I’m
Kasie Morgan: sorry. You haven’t had sex. If you talk about having a baby sex
Chris Gazdik: is fun. I want to know the research methods.
Kasie Morgan: Yeah. Well, ask your wife, if you haven’t researched lately. No one else to tell you about that.
That’s a whole show in and of itself.
Chris Gazdik: That’s a whole, whole nother digression there let’s get control of ourselves. Yeah,
Kasie Morgan: exactly. So let’s address first things. First sex is fun, but that’s not this topic, you know, so that’s, that is, you know, what I would venture to say is that there are probably times in life and, and I do believe this to be true.
And please comment if you feel differently. And it’s kind of nice to see the difference maybe between the girl brain and the guy brain. But I believe that there are times in life when we are completely okay with having purely a sexual relationship with somebody. It doesn’t [00:16:00] have to have a lot of commitment.
Sometimes it doesn’t have to have, a lot of understanding of an emotionally intimate moment and things like that. But. Essentially the majority of human beings want a steadfast connection with another person that doesn’t have to be only based on sexual attractiveness.
Chris Gazdik: Let me blow up with me, me blow up a myth.
Here’s here’s the reality. First of all, sexual process and whatnot is not really gendered. There are many women that absolutely are very much more sexual than guys. There are many guys that are just uninterested in sex. That’s goes more along the lines of our relationship orientation in attachment with emotion in the abandonment and engulfment tendencies.
Engulfment folks tend to want to shut things down a little bit more and aren’t as emotional, but the big myth that I want to blow up here, or actually [00:17:00] aren’t as overtly, externally, emotional, we’re all emotional, but the big myth that I want to blow up here. Let me, well, it’s going to be leading so you could be probably easily answered this.
Kasie what’s what’s the reason why people go to prostitutes for those, those encounters. Do you know the primary reason that’s well-researched and known in my travels, I’ve come across this. What they usually really want,
Kasie Morgan: Someone to talk to. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. People do not go. And this blew my brain apart when I, when I went to this and I think that’s what you’re laying out is it’s the companionship.
It’s the conversation. It’s the connection. That’s what we’re striving for. That’s what, when a relationship ends, we miss it’s the connections that we have and try to forge. And so a lot of times, people that have been in my therapy office that are recovering from or engaged in that lifestyle and those things they’ll tell me.
Yeah, guys, just, you know, people just, they contract and don’t wanna be sexual with. [00:18:00] I mean, it’s probably a part of it at some point maybe, but the vast majority of what they want to do is just talk. Yeah. Isn’t it crazy that they pay a pop up for a whole hour or whatever, and most of the time is there for discussion talk and chat?
I don’t know. That’s I don’t think people realize that.
Kasie Morgan: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that that’s a really important point because when a relationship reaches its end, however, it comes to be what is left is a void. And it doesn’t matter if you’re the person that broke up with someone or you’re the person that has broken up with it leaves a void.
And that void is what we try to fill with things that we think can suffice. Right? So sometimes we do that with sexual partners. Sometimes we do it with substances. Sometimes we do it with gambling. Sometimes we do it with something that makes us feel. Something, but the truth is, is those things are [00:19:00] temporary fixes because exactly what you said is true.
What we really want is connection. What we really want is community connection, friendship, a genuineness, and an intimate way to emotionally connect with another person. Now, sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we don’t find that immediately. And so we do kind of data around, but when that loneliness creeps in, after a loss, we have to be really cognizant on what is our motivation.
And by that, I mean, we really have to think through what is it that when we go out or when we feel like we’re ready or prepared to enter into another dating situation, What is the motivation for trying to find another person? Does that make sense? That’s what I’m saying.
Chris Gazdik: It does in Kasie. I think, you know what I want to, maybe I’m not, maybe you’ll cover this later on and if I’m jumping out of scope, that’s fine.
But [00:20:00] look, I happen to believe that this particular time in somebody’s life, when a relationship ends and they’re feeling that loneliness and whatnot, I have come to believe sort of anecdotally, I’m curious what you think about this, Kasie, that that’s the most de-compensated point in people’s lives, oftentimes that they get to yeah.
Her head is like wildly shaking. Yes y’all. So like, you got to realize, like, this is a painful, painful spot. And what we’ve got to be very careful about is how, like, exactly you’re talking Kasie, how people go about dealing with that pain. Because when we have that level of pain, people make really poor choices sometimes and go towards the destructive means to make those ends meet in our emotional need.
So, yeah. I don’t know where if you were going to pull that in, but I think that’s pretty much, yeah.
Kasie Morgan: I think that’s, that’s really relevant and very important to discuss [00:21:00] because even if you know yourself and you know, that you go towards destructive means you may also swing in the opposite direction of complete isolation and withdrawal, right.
So even though you may not be actively doing something destructive to yourself, like substance use gambling, sex, things like that, withdrawing completely from your life retreating within yourself in that decompensation phase. It is just as dangerous in a lot of ways for you to be in that space. So the first thing,
Chris Gazdik: Here’s a quote, here’s a quote that I like to put out.
I don’t know if it’s one that we want to use Neil or not, but first of all, grief and loss, mimic depression, right? And so thousands of times over and over and over again. But when we’re talking about depression, enemy number one to depression is isolation. Actually, that is a good quote. I say that all the time.
I’m sure you know that Kasie, you know, when [00:22:00] people are depressed, they’ll isolate. Well, when you’re grieving, you’ll isolate also. And it’s, it is it. I don’t want to overstate it, dramatize it too much, but it is a dangerous time. And I love your point. You don’t want to be alone. Enemy. Number one to depression is isolation.
Same for grief.
Kasie Morgan: Right. But I think that also doesn’t mean to go out and jump into another relationship, which is kind of what we’re going to get to today as well. So the first question yourself is, have you, have you processed your grief appropriately? And to answer that question, I think that we think about it kind of one way, which is the loss of the person, right?
So I’m grieving the loss of the relationship, but the truth is, is that there are, what’s called secondary losses that are often experienced in a relationship that we don’t often think about when we talk about how thing is that we don’t often think about that. This [00:23:00] goes beyond that person, physically being there.
So that, that emotional intimacy that’s lost is gravely significant. And goes beyond just the physical presence of a person. Go ahead, Chris. What we’re going
Chris Gazdik: to say? I need to dumb it down. This sounds very clinical in secondary losses. I am curious as to what a secondary lose might mean.
Kasie Morgan: Okay. So it would mean
Chris Gazdik: did I do that well as in posing a question that yeah.
Kasie Morgan: So the first loss, right, is that the relationship has ended. That’s a loss, right? We’re grieving that loss, secondary losses would be other things, other losses that come with that person leaving your life in some way. Right. So physically they’ve stepped out now, emotionally is that first kind of secondary realm that we look at, right?
So emotionally, that person is gone. [00:24:00] Then what we don’t often think about is your own identity. Who am I without that person in my life? You know, and, and if you’re married, this comes up a lot of times, like even when you’re around like your extended family or your in-laws, right. So when you get introduced to your in-laws it’s oh, this is my, you know, this is my son, Chris, and this is his wife, Lisa.
Right? So this is Chris’s wife. This is Chris’s wife. This is Chris’s wife. It becomes part of her identity structure. Right. And that’s how it is when we’re in relationships. So when we’re around different groups of people, part of our identity structure becomes about who, the person that we’re with and how they are and what their relationship is to our friend groups.
Also, we usually have intermingled friend groups, right? So a lot of the people we hang out with are coexisting group of people. So then part of that identity that’s [00:25:00] lost is thinking about like, well, are they, my friends are their friends, you know, When we separate our relationship, do they get those friends?
And I take other friends or what’s going on here? So that identity piece of who am I without this person is something that can be a loss. Do you think that that’s true, press
Chris Gazdik: absolutely. You know, it’s funny. I, I don’t know how much we’re going to be staying on the topic of grief and everything tonight.
Usually I do this with, by saying, Hey, episode 97 or whatever, we did a show on grief and loss. So you need to check that out. If you’re checking this show out. I, I w I had the opportunity to kind of go ahead and Google on our website. I use the search button on the page. Do you know, we have not done a show exclusively on grief and loss.
How is that even possible? I don’t even know. Two years in, this is crazy. This is where revelation, because we’re going to do that. So can you keep a look out [00:26:00] soon? You will see an entire show on grief and loss because it’s a big deal. It’s a big part of the life. That we leave. And the thing that I like that you’re talking about, we won’t have time to go all into it.
I will, on the grief show, I have a different process of going through grief. You know, Elizabeth Kubler, Ross gave us, you know, bargaining and the anger phase, you know, the four stages of grief. Well, there’s different ways to go through a grieving process. I like this thing that I have, that’s, that’s the task of grieving, the tasks of grieving and one of the tasks you’re totally hitting on it right now with the idea of understanding what the loss is, meaning there’s a lot of, you’re calling it secondary losses, right?
There’s a lot of stuff that goes into, you know, I thought this woman was going to be my wife and they’re not going to be, you know, with me when our son graduates high school, like I’m not going to celebrate that with them. That’s part of the loss. There’s so many things that you have to realize that you’re grieving too, in order to go through it all, otherwise it just gets stored up inside of [00:27:00] you and you re-experience it later on when those situations come.
So, yeah. You have to know what you’re grieving.
Kasie Morgan: Yeah, for sure. And so then another area too, that I think is, you know, some times our finances are intertwined. And so the convenience of like the financial situation is completely disrupted. And so you go through that kind of financial anxiety and we talked about, you know, debt and things like that on our previous show.
And so you go through that financial kind of crisis and anxieties that come with, how do I do this on my own? What does this even look like? And that can be from a very scary, like a breakup and divorce to my, you know, I, last night I went to bed with my husband this morning, I woke up and he had a massive heart attack.
So now what, you know, like when you get into that financial crisis about what’s next in that way as well. And then we touched on the friendships and these are just a few examples, but there’s a lot of undiscovered losses. Like Chris is [00:28:00] saying that come to you as time progresses. And if you’re not really through that grieving process, they’re going to come out like that.
It’s going to manifest itself some way in your life. And so maybe it’s not, you just sitting around crying tears on your pillow, but now you’ve developed this an unreasonable road rage, or you, you know, just, yeah. And you just went off on like the grocery clerk and the grocery store it’s coming out or
Chris Gazdik: more one way or another or more.
So a lot of times what I really find that we’re working with in therapy, Kasie, and I’m sure you’ve seen it. You know, you, you really want to deal with these types of things because it will come out in your next relationship, you know, when you’re ready to progress and in your marriage, number two, or even just dating.
You know, you experienced these things that you experience, and if you leave them unaddressed, then they [00:29:00] will be a part of your ongoing relationships when you make new attachments. That’s why this is like really important when you’re looking at the what’s next question.
Kasie Morgan: Yeah. And you can even find yourself slipping into a new relationship, but then also feeling depressed at the same time.
And a lot of people always say for no apparent reason, but the truth is, is there, there is a reason there are reasons. Absolutely. Yeah, there is yeah. Reasons for sure. So having honest conversations with yourself about where things are for you is a really good solution in that moment is to really check in with you, where are things for you?
And to, to really be honest about that, because this of all the things we talk about, I cannot stress this. This is the normal process of what a person experiences, when a relationship ends grieving is a normal process, right? It is not abnormal to [00:30:00] have these intensified feelings, to have that gut lowering emotional, visceral reaction to the demise of relationship.
That is normal.
Chris Gazdik: That is not crazy. I’m giggling into might be sounding inappropriate. I, you know, when I’m doing grief work with people in my office, I will tell them, oftentimes like, look, you’re going to hear me repeat something over and over again. Let’s just get it out of the way now, because I get questions all the time.
Like if I’m doing this, is that normal. That’s normal. Well, this is happening when I’m doing that. And I’m like, yeah, that’s normal. So I’m telling people like, let’s just get that out of the way in the front end of this thing, we’re going to go through a grieving process and basically most everything that you’re going to wonder about.
Is it normal that the gear is like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Our experiencing that grief is a human experience and it has commonalities between them. So usually when you’re questioning that it’s normal.
Kasie Morgan: [00:31:00] Yeah. And it’s also okay. If you feel okay for some people, the, you know, the disruption of a relationship may have been a long time coming, so I don’t want to discount your feelings as well, but the truth is some people are really just, okay.
And that’s also normal. So I don’t want you to think that in any social way, that if you’re not experiencing symptoms of grief or if you’re grieving in a different way, it belongs to the individual. So anything about this process that you may have questions about? Chris has eloquently stated is normal.
So just know it appears in all different ways, but you have to check in with yourself.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, it’s a thing. I mean, people have asked me, like, I didn’t cry at this funeral is that, you know, like, what’s wrong with me? I’m like, no, like that’s normal it, if, again, I’m going to say that again. If you have, the question is happening to me, or I am doing X, is that normal?
I really want you to start from a [00:32:00] place of probably saying, yeah, I, I, I remember that. And, and, and, and you can check it out. You can kind of talk with people, backed out, greatly encouraged you to do it. But if you, if you had that starting place, that takes so much energy out of what people are dealing with when they’re dealing with the relationship ending, because they’re like, I don’t know, why am I feeling I’m not right.
I should feel some sort of way. And I don’t is that normal? Yes.
Kasie Morgan: Yes. Yeah. So shifting gears a little bit. So I am going to be primarily talking to the people who have been either broken up with, or have experienced a significant loss through the death of a loved one or spouse. So these are relationships that have ended and it has, you are basically either the widow or you have been the person that has been broken up with, so brain fog is a non-clinical term, right?
Brain fog. I feel like I have COVID brain fog right now. Brain fog [00:33:00] is kind of the way that I describe what the body goes through when you are in a significant relationship. And that relationship leaves by one means or another. And when that happens, you go into your kind of survival brain. And so you’re able to function there.
Like you’re able to maybe carry out day-to-day tasks, maybe able to go to work and a couple of weeks, or a couple of days, depending on this situation, you know, you’re living your life. But I would arguably say you may not be making the most rational decisions about three to six months following the demise of this relationship in one form or another Chris
Chris Gazdik: no, I, I’m kind of agreeing with you.
And it’s interesting because again, grief mimics depression in a lot of ways. And actually I’m kind of curious, Kasie brain fog [00:34:00] is a clinical term. You said it was nobly.
Kasie Morgan: I think I’m just hyper sensitive to my secondary losses. So I think God so
Chris Gazdik: sorry. Yeah, no it isn’t. And the thing is, is, is, is when you’re grieving, you’re mimicking a lot of what we experienced with depression to the point that when somebody is dealing with the depressed spouse, I will use grief experience for them to develop some insight about what it is that they’re, they’re coping with.
Because when you’re in a depression episode, you’re not on your game. That’s a, that’s a symptom. That’s just one of several, but it’s a clear symptom that your brain is just kind of, and actually the way I like to describe that to people that aren’t depressed and aren’t grieving, you know, how you, you, you wake up and you’re just, you’re in that sort of zonyspace where you’re, you’re just not thinking yet.
Like, you know, my wife will tell me, like, I don’t want to talk in the morning. I’m not woke up. I’m trying to. Well it’s because usually [00:35:00] you’re foggy, man. You’re, you’re not geared in yet. And, and, and the, actually the, the clinical term would be you’re a little dissociated really is what’s going on. So, yeah.
Yeah. I
Kasie Morgan: mean, and, and not to, you know, make this, the center focus of a topic, but, but when we have the ending of an essential connection, like a relationship or a marriage, or the death of a spouse, you’re talking about a trauma, you know, whether it’s big T little T or cumulative, like this is a traumatic experience.
And when you go through a traumatic experience, your brain and body are hardwired to keep you alive. And so it puts you in that fog. So you don’t have to experience, or re-experience that level of hurt over and over and over. Over again every day. So it makes it kind of fuzzy and foggy. So you’re able to at least, you know, slow it down a little bit, go through the motions and things like that.
It’s saving you. And so it’s working the way it’s supposed to, but what [00:36:00] it also does is it prevents you sometimes from making the most rational choices that you could make in your life. So you may have heard from somebody else in your life, like when you have an experience like this don’t make any decisions for whatever reason, they say 12 months, but don’t make any decisions for 12 months.
Like, I hear that all the time, like after someone passes away, don’t date anybody for 12 months and I’m like this, these rules rules are a little interesting, but, but I get it. The reason, what they’re talking about is to allocate for this exact thing, to get back to a place of rationality, where you’re making really good sound decisions and choices where you’re on top of your game, when you’re feeling yourself, where you’re back on your feet, things like that.
So I get. But I don’t know if we need to put like, you know, lots of rules and dates around it, like,
Chris Gazdik: yeah. And, and I’m glad that the rules and dates is coming up as a topic, because I mean, we are covering a lot of the things that we’ll cover specifically with grief, because, you know, [00:37:00] we, we oftentimes really wonder about how’s this supposed to last, I mean, you know, three to six months, that sounds like a long time everyone’s listening thinking is saying, right.
Well, yeah, it takes a little while for your emotions to kind of weave them selves back into some sort of normality for you. Even when something major has changes changed, like your husband has died and whatnot. So I will offer this though, as, as a way of timeframes for really any major traumatic event or grieving loss like this.
I like to tell people that it’s not measured in days. It’s like, you’re not going to get over this end date. Okay. It’s also not measured in weeks. People wonder like how long am I going to feel this way? Well, it’s not measured in years. What I tell people is your process really is along your lines. And, you know, there’s no hard and fast rule, but we can measure it by months.
That might be 18, but that might be four. You know, it, it, it, there’s a great variation here, but again, [00:38:00] you know, if, as long as you’re in that timeframe, this is normal to have this adjustment period, and also actually kind of cool. Let me go back to where you just brought us Kasie in those teaching moments and pull back from last week’s chat about us being enough about our bodies being like you’re so cool in the way that you describe our bodies and minds and process is designed to kind of help us to get us through.
So if you’re listening out there, you’re grieving, you’ve been smacked upside the head major life, change your body’s actually in really neat way, giving you a way to cope. And it’s designed that way. How cool is that really?
Kasie Morgan: You know, I think it’s so cool because if you don’t hear me say anything else to you today, please hear me to tell you this, you are who you are on purpose.
And if, and if you don’t believe [00:39:00] me, just consider your biology and how it keeps you going, even after, after experiencing some of the toughest debilitating, emotional experiences, like breakups divorces and things like that. You are you on purpose. And so I just want you to hear that today. Yeah, that’s awesome.
Yeah. And so this next concept is another one that I absolutely love, and I didn’t really even think about this until I started reading this article on that blog. You know, love does not know boundaries in the same way that we want to put boundaries around it. And so we often think that when a previous relationship ends and we do find ourselves in a space where we’re ready to move on and we’re ready to.
To, to move into another relationship that we just can’t possibly start another relationship without having full closure on the previous relationship or full resolution to that emotional [00:40:00] experience. And I will, I know people and have known people who have waited years and years and years, and years and years, because they’re like, I’m just not over.
I’m just not over it. It is not dishonoring. It is not you know a tale to the other person. It is not a nod. It’s not a negative. I think that was a double negative, but anyway, it’s not dishonoring to another person. If you feel like you are moving on in a meaningful way, it, it it’s, you’re not dishonoring yourself or another person.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. You know, the piggyback on that, Kasie. Yeah. You know, They’re 60 years old, their seven year old husband had a heart attack and you can feel like it’s my responsibility to honor them. And I’m doomed to be companionless. And what I hear you’re really doing is, is, is really a [00:41:00] kind service to people out there to give you permission to emotionally and appropriately engage attachments, because that’s a more than okay.
Thing to do. It’s not religiously in consistent it’s in any teachings that come across and teachings of faith traditions usually run parallel of what I know about mental health. And I think this is a piece that a lot of times people won’t think. Right. So it, and also I would just add real quick. It’s also, I think I hear you also saying Kasie, it, ain’t never going to be fully resolved.
It’s your, this is a before and after life event, man. It ain’t never going to be the same and that’s okay.
Kasie Morgan: Yeah. And you don’t need to go back to the way things were because obviously that didn’t work out, they ending. Why isn’t it work out so you can move on in a more positive direction. It can. And I want to make this abundantly clear.
The only person that you’re [00:42:00] dishonoring is maybe yourself. If you choose to rebound in an immediate relationship, purely for sexual or serial dating reasons. Now I want to make a qualifying statement here. Okay. Going back to point number one, sex is fun. Okay. If your motivation, which we talked about earlier, if the motivation of your actions.
It’s just to have fun then. Cool. But if the motivation is to begin a relationship or to try to fill a void of, you know, needing companionship, going in a serial dating fashion, going in a hookup fashion, it is not going to do it for you. And so you are dishonoring your values by participating in a situation like that is what I’m saying, your thoughts, Chris, I
Chris Gazdik: do just to [00:43:00] parret that and maybe say it in a different way to reinforce it, right?
Like, so first of all, like we are clinicians. I love to say that, you know, counselors are I’ve heard it said this way and I agree we’re either counselors to do Christian counseling. Or Christians that do counseling and I fall in the latter variety and I’m pretty open people, not real pushy about faith traditions.
I’ll work with you, you know, from whatever creed you might follow. And, but I’m also very comfortable in including that in our practice together in therapy world. So all those, I think those are the qualifications that I give. But the thing that, that, that that’s in operation here, that’s, that’s most important is that we will, and I hear you coming from this angle, Kasie, like, it’s about, look, I will roll with you in whatever direction you want to go in, in therapy.
I’m not going to direct you and push you. And I don’t have any agenda. I love to tell people I have any dog in the fight. It’s your life, not mine, but I do want to provide information. And, and [00:44:00] gear you in a way that can help you to understand destructive tendencies and potential outcomes to choices that you might make that might have a devastating result emotionally for you.
So having fun with relationships is very different than trying to fill the void. So we’re giving you a little bit of a perspective that is not on a theological perspective. That is not on a moral perspective. That’s not on a value based perspective. It’s really on a mental health perspective. That’s what we’re about.
Does that make sense, Kasie? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I think I heard you having that perspective, so it’s, it’s, what’s, what’s emotionally sound and, you know, try and fill a void with some. Crazy man, or some crazy woman, that’s going to be your next rebound dating relationship, you know, and think that’s going to go well, like it’s stressful dating .
Y’all when you’re stressed out and you want to date again, like be prepared. Yeah.
Kasie Morgan: No, thank you. I’ll just take a book and a cabin in the mountains. Oh
Chris Gazdik: my [00:45:00] gosh. Look at the birds and yeah.
Kasie Morgan: As long as I have my dog, I am good. So I think in regards to the whole permission thing too, like we talked about earlier, it doesn’t have to be now or ever.
So I think the other part of this is that you also don’t have to be in a relationship to feel whole. And, and so, you know, you talked about like the example of like a six-year-old who loses their spouse to massive heart attack, right. Just because you’re 60 and you have plenty of. I’ve left a live. It’s not anyone else’s timeline.
It’s not anyone else’s framework to know or to tell you what is best for your life. If it’s not a desire for you, if you don’t feel like you are in complete, if you feel whole not having another person in your life, that is completely okay. Because as we reiterated in our new year’s resolution show, you are enough.
You are [00:46:00] enough, but you know, love is a gift that is a blessing to our lives. And if we’re fortunate enough to experience it, that’s wonderful. And if you are someone who experienced it says it more than once or twice in your life, you are doubly blessed and everyone will have an opinion about what is best for you, but their timeline for you.
It does not have to be your
Chris Gazdik: timeline. There’s a whole lot in this section of there’s a little segment of love. Love, love knows no bounds, right?
Kasie Morgan: Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, and it really has to be about your reflection of, you know, what your thoughts and feelings are about the path forward. Now, I think becoming comfortable with that, understanding what the voids are and protecting yourself against some of the pitfalls alls that we talked about earlier is important.
Right. But I also want you to know from this conversation tonight, you are [00:47:00] enough and you don’t have to have another person and to make your life whole. My next point is something that I often see people struggle with AKA myself. And
Chris Gazdik: things like that. Well, before you go on, let me, let me stop and go back just a little bit.
Kasie, trying to also say it goes both ways, right? Like I, I like what you’re saying that other people will tell you what’s best for you and that’s not going to work. You have to be grounded in, in, in to explore yourself and, and really give yourself permission to, you know, have another partner if you want that.
You know, be individual and single. If, if that feels comfortable, I think we’ve gone both ways, but I want to put a little caveat here. Okay. A little caveat because in that exploration of what’s going on with me and what am I driving it, that fears can be a major driving force in. Right. So when you, when you’re [00:48:00] exploring, what am I experiencing and, and what am I going through?
Whatever. Thinking about for what’s next I’ve become a widower. That’s what a guy’s called by the way. Did you know that? Yep. Yep. I never knew that until a couple, few years ago, but widower for guys widow for girl, why do we have to do that? I don’t know. But we do. What am I fearful about is a primary question.
I want you to ask because that will guide you in understanding a little bit more depth on what’s driving my behavior and what’s driving my hesitation or what’s driving my avoidance, what’s driving my decisions, right?
Kasie Morgan: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that that’s a perfect segue into what I was getting ready to say anyway, which is, you know, even if it’s driving you in the direction of love, loving after losing is difficult, there’s your quote Neil loving after losing is difficult.
And so, you know, [00:49:00] it’s easier for us to love sometimes. Then to receive and be loved again. And I think that that’s something that’s actually opposite of what we think to be true. Like I think sometimes we think it’s a lot easier for someone to, you know, love me except me, you know, and all that. But the truth is, is after a loss, it goes exactly to the point.
You’re talking about that fear receptor of, if every time I love someone, they leave my life or I’ve lost them. You know, those fears can become so overwhelming that we start to feel guarded or we start to feel taken aback and like, is this going to happen again? And. Maybe I will self-sabotage this relationship or end it before it progresses, because I can’t go through
Chris Gazdik: that again.
Again, again, I’m happy and happy as well, arc [00:50:00] with my dog, man. It’s great.
Kasie Morgan: That’s right. That’s right. And so just, we just try to not allow that love to, to infiltrate our lives. And when we do that, what we’re doing is I would arguably say we’re trying to numb out a little bit, right. We’re trying to numb out.
And the problem is, is that might work for a moment, but you can’t numb out pain and sorrowful, parts of relationships and keep joy and love. If you’re numbing out, you’re
Chris Gazdik: really good at it though.
Kasie Morgan: They are there. They make really college good track. The college tries at it, but if, if you’re numbing. You can’t keep joy and love you’re numbing.
All
Chris Gazdik: definitely. Yeah. Yeah. I missed your point that a bit because yeah. W where I thought you were going, I hadn’t even made that point on the show before, which I think is really a really good one. I haven’t used that, but I, and I will like, you know, [00:51:00] enjoy as much as you don’t numb the pain, but people can numb for a long time.
They can. And, and boy, that’s what, that’s what I meant by some people are really good at that. I’m talking about years, man. People out there, you know, there are people that are really, really expert at numbing. And boy, I, I, that makes my clinical boots shake a little bit, would people that are really good at that.
Kasie Morgan: Yeah. Yeah. And, and again, numbing comes from that, you know, that initial kind of shock to our nervous system, right? The easiest way for me to get through this is to numb out. And so when we numb though, What we do in a situation where we can dote on other people full, we can pour love onto other people, but we make it almost impossible to be receptive of those same types of big emotions from other people.
We make it [00:52:00] hard to love us, and we don’t let people in and we don’t let down those defense mechanisms. And when that happens, what we eliminate is just being completely vulnerable. And if you’re not going to be able to be vulnerable, then you’re not able to really invite someone into your life in a meaningful and intimate way.
Yeah, absolutely.
Chris Gazdik: Is that what you mean? What all do, would you say Kasie makes it hard to be loved? I, because I wonder if there’s other pieces about feeling lovable. Are you speaking to that?
Kasie Morgan: Yeah. So I think, I think that’s the thing is that I think what it starts with is that is exactly what you said.
The acknowledgement of I’m lovable, right? And I think if it becomes kind of that on distorted thought or like, you know errors in our thinking pattern, like I am unlovable. And when [00:53:00] we have that as our mindset, or I don’t want to be loved, or I’m not able to be loved again, like I was loved before then it’s almost like putting on a pair of sunglasses and we view the whole world through that lens.
And when we view the world through that lens, what happens is every situation gets that kind of. Bias and how we see it. And so when someone approaches me after the demise of our relationship and they want to get to know me and they want to get a connection, they get so much up into the point of where I feel comfortable.
And then either I leave the relationship, I sabotage the relationship or I’ll allow my own inner voice about, I can’t be loved again. Like I was loved before, take over and I start to appear less confident and things like that. And the person then tells me you’re really hard to love. [00:54:00] Like it’s hard to love you or it’s hard to get in.
Chris Gazdik: Does that make sense? Yes, ma’am doing another thought here. Okay.
Kasie Morgan: Yeah. So I mean, it is it’s and so what I do find is that people, people do want to have connected. And they do want to refined ways to experience life with other people. And sometimes that can be just as comfortable with a group of friends, but other times we really do want to develop new relationships.
So when we’re able and we’re ready to reconnect, I think it is a way towards healing. So back when we said that, you know, it doesn’t have to be like where you get complete resolution with the previous relationship to move on to the next. This is part of the process when we find [00:55:00] in a healthy way, A new relationship to enter into that is part of the healing, because what you beginning to do is you’re beginning to reconnect to yourself, right?
Like what we just said, you’re reconnecting to yourself and the parts of yourself that you continue to put out there and say, this is what’s right about me. Go ahead, Chris.
Chris Gazdik: So I’d like to dumb things down a little bit. I have a simple brain. Here’s what I want you to realize and understand, because I love what you’re saying when I want to, I want to try to dumb it down for my simple brain, right?
When you are dating somebody or getting to know you are attaching to somebody you’re getting closer and you’re getting closer and you move in a way, very threatening, very scary vulnerability, particularly after a loss, all of that. But here’s the thing that’s happening along that way. You are a learning about yourself.
[00:56:00] Absolutely right. That’s what’s happening, right? Like y’all, y’all listen to the show. Might not realize that, but when you’re dating and you’re loving somebody else, you’re really kind of finding out all kinds of data and information about me and how I operate and how I function. Even if you’re looking at blaming the other person for not doing it right.
Or whatever you’re frustrated with or whatever, whatever. You’re really getting information about yourself in so many volumes of ways, right? Like, oh yeah. For instance, it’s easy to love somebody that’s loving you back. What, what do you learn about yourself when somebody is not loving you back? Are you still loving, like those are we date and on our marriages, we’re learning so much.
So what is it to say that when you begin to attach with somebody else, think about all the benefits of what you’re learning from a new relationship that is budding and growing that you’re attaching to and new things from a new perspective that you’re going to learn about yourself. Like.
Kasie Morgan: Yeah. Yeah. I [00:57:00] think that, that, to me, that quintessentially is the best part of relationships is learning another person while simultaneously learning about yourself and, and exploring life together in a way, because it’s not, there’s no manual, right?
It’s not like, Hey, here’s how we do this. This is how you do your relationship.
Chris Gazdik: That’s just fine. Kasie, when you’re doing therapy with people and they start talking about their, their, their closer relationships, dating partners primarily, or whatnot, that, that there are so many opportunities in that therapy session or in that therapy relationships about that person to explore.
Isn’t that true?
Kasie Morgan: Yeah. Like sometimes I will literally stop and say, like, let’s say that out loud again. Let’s
Chris Gazdik: just say that again. Loud, right? Yeah. Therapists out there. Honestly, if you’re struggling or you need a stuck spot to talk about a relationship, you’re going to find. Yeah,
Kasie Morgan: for sure. And so my last point here before we kind of have closing thoughts is that rediscovering love [00:58:00] is a way to heal.
And so I do believe that reconnection to essential people in your life really is part of the recovery process when you’re in a grieving situation. And like I said before, I’m not even talking necessarily about having to reconnect romantically to someone, but reconnecting to people that are essential to your life is part of that recovery process.
And if you are someone who finds themselves, you know, having the desire to reconnect your romantic partner, then I think what you are doing is you’re preparing yourself to have one of the best experiences of your life. If you’re able to do so in a healthy way. So if you’re kind of listened to this podcast, particularly this podcast, of course right now, but if you’ve done the work on yourself to be at a healthy, emotional place [00:59:00] where, where, where things left off, you’re doing some self exploration.
You’re learning about other people you’re learning about yourself. And now you’re at a place where you’re re reconnecting in a meaningful way with a romantic partner. Your experience is going to be one of joy and love and laughter and even the pain and sorrow is not going to be as devastating as you once anticipated because you have done the work on yourself to improve your emotional understanding
Chris Gazdik: and emotional strength and emotional strength.
Yeah. You know, the emotional, the human emotional experience, right? The more that you work through it, the more that you work through things, the more that you engage with. The more confident and comfortable and stronger you get really, you get knocked down a peg or two from time or time, but yeah, that’s, and there’s incredible healing and moving forward, I love what you’re talking about.
I’ll, I’ll take us out of here in a minute, Kasie, but when did you sum us up with, with your [01:00:00] your thoughts? Like you said, that you’re, you’re closing with.
Kasie Morgan: Yeah. So my, my closing thoughts today are, are pretty simplistic to love and be loved. You have to first love yourself. And so I think whenever we go through an experience that is the demise of a relationship, the loss of a spouse, so on and so forth, we can do a lot of blaming in those situations.
But I think when we’re reflective and you look at yourself and you think about the opportunities that you took, the chances and the risks that came with that relationship. Also be reflective on the rewards because even though the relationship has ended, there was something significant that it gave to you and your life.
And maybe it’s a lesson, maybe it’s a blessing. Maybe it’s children , maybe it’s, you know, plethora of things. But when you’re talking about the risk of a relationship, also [01:01:00] consider the rewards. And when you look at those rewards and you reflect on yourself, know that to love another person moving forward, reconnect to the things you love about yourself,
Chris Gazdik: well said, well done, Kasie, thank you for bringing these teaching points to us with something that I think a lot of times people are dealing with in the new year as things and things are beginning a new and whatnot.
So if you’re listening to this podcast and you’re still with us, thank you for joining us. And listen, I want you to understand that this is mostly a message about hope. When you have losses, it is a time that you’re in great pain. It is a time that you’ve gone through a traumatic situation. That’s not too dramatic to say, but you have enough in you.
You are whole, you can do it. You know, you can do it, you can get through this and then you can make grounded decisions moving forward in your life, whatever stage of [01:02:00] life you’re in, whether you’re maybe a teenager listening to this, or you’re in retirement, listening to this, this really applies to so many walks and stages of life.
And I want this to be an uplift. Hopeful message about grieving, dealing with loss and glue, growing in yourself to renew potentially in a new relationship or share with others what you’ve learned. So in 2022, as you move forward, even if you’ve reached a certain demise, have hope, keep growing, stay strong.
You can do this and we’ll see you guys next week. Take
Kasie Morgan: care.