Rolling with the Punches Part 2 with Sydney

On this episode, I pick up where we left off last time...with my heart recently broken and nowhere to go. Our very first guest on the podcast, Sydney, joins us in sharing her empowering story on how she got out of a difficult relationship, and the lessons learned through this experience. Because sometimes to create a fulfilling life in our 20s, we gotta fall on our asses first. But that is ok.

Sydney is one of my amazing friends from North Carolina. She has a background in marketing and currently works as a client success manager. With half of her 20s already on their way, she has valuable wisdom to share. I know I learned a lot, and I hope you do too!

Key Takeaways:

• Don't hold onto the potential of someone and recognize the misalignment between words and actions.
• Take time for yourself and surround yourself with a quality group of supportive people.
• Don't compromise your values for the sake of a relationship.
• Recognize the signs of a toxic relationship, such as isolation, lack of support, and communication issues.
• Break free from toxic relationships and prioritize your own well-being. 
• Personal growth and healing are important in relationships.
• Set and honor your boundaries and don't try to change someone.
• Coping mechanisms such as therapy, journaling, and seeking outside perspectives can be helpful.
• Lessons learned from past relationships can make you a better partner in future relationships.

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Transcript

Lucy Herrero
Hello everyone, welcome to the third episode of The Life Rough Draft Podcast. Thank you so much for joining and for listening. I am so excited that you're here. So if you haven't listened to the first and the second episodes of the podcast, stop this episode right now and go listen to them. This is the second part of a two -part series. So make sure that you listen to the first part before going on with this one.

Where we left off on the last episode was when my ex -boyfriend had finally broken up with me after two days of me trying to convince him not to. And my world was completely falling apart.

I knew I had to act really fast before he came home and get myself out of his house. But I had nowhere to go and I wasn't entirely sure that I could count on my friends to help me.

So of course, the first thing I did was bawl my eyes out. I just started crying like crazy. I called my parents and they got super worried and they were like, okay, calm down. Like assess the situation. What is your next step? And I was like, okay, I think I can call my friend Ellie. So that is exactly what I did.

Ellie was already kind of aware of the situation, so I let her know what was happening and she was like, Lucy, I'll be right there. Give me like 20 minutes. And that was a huge relief for me because I felt like I wasn't so alone in this after all.

And I started packing everything that I could, not just things that I needed in the immediate future, but just anything that I thought would fit in my car. Cause I wanted to be out of there as fast as possible. But then I was so, so, so angry at the situation that I did one of the pettiest things that I've ever done in my life. And I was like, you know what?

I'm going to take all the things that are mine that I know my ex -boyfriend and his brother use on a daily basis. It doesn't matter if I don't need to use these things right now, I'm taking them with me. So I started packing my car with all this stuff. And guys, I took the sheets; not only the sheets that I shared with my ex -boyfriend in our room, but also the sheets that his brother used because they were mine. I took the pillows. I took the coffee and the coffee maker. I took the toilet paper. Cause I was like, when this people show up tonight at this house, not only will I and the dog be gone. But when they go to sleep, they will not have sheets to use and a pillow to put under their head. And when they wake up tomorrow morning, there will not be any coffee for them to drink. And when they have to take a fucking shit, there's not gonna be any toilet paper for them to wipe their ass. 

And I'm not proud of doing this. It was super petty. But you know, it was what I had to do in the moment to feel like I had some control over my life and to feel some sense of satisfaction. So I'm not gonna shy away from it.

After a while, Ellie arrived and we put all the things that fit into both of our cars. I stayed the night at her place and she was so incredibly nice and supportive.

My mom got on a flight that day and came to North Carolina to help me out and I honestly could not have done this without her. I was so grateful that she could make it because I was just a complete mess. We stayed at a hotel with all my things for a couple days while we went apartment and house hunting. She drove me everywhere and made sure I was eating, because I was for sure not feeding myself.

But it was so great to have her there to help me find a place and start moving into it. And to this day, I'm so incredibly grateful that I had her support and Ellie's support during those first really difficult days following the breakup.

And it took a while to really heal from this breakup. I think there was a lot that I had to think about and there was a lot that I had to just let myself feel. But one of the great things that happened throughout this process is that I opened up to many of my friends in North Carolina after months of zero communication.

I was like, hey, I'm going through this really shitty time. Can you help me? And to my surprise, they showed up for me. All of a sudden, I had all these people in my life who were coming over and supporting me, either moving me into my new place or just spending some time with me or checking in on me. And they were showing up in all these ways that I just didn't think were possible thanks to that limiting belief that I had made up.

So now, I'm not sharing this story because I feel bad for myself or I feel some deep resentment towards my ex and I want the whole world to know about it. This was actually a really hard experience for me to share.

This was not a story about girl empowerment, how I stood up for myself and really fought for what I deserved. This is actually a story in which I'm very embarrassed and ashamed of the ways that I did not stand up for myself in the way that I deserved. Because if you know me, you know that I'm a very strong and assertive person. I usually know what I want and I go for it. And I think that the way I acted throughout some of this relationship, especially towards the end is very much not who I am. I became this very weak and indecisive and scared person. And it's hard for me to look back and know that I did not stand up for myself in the ways that I needed to.

When we are in toxic relationships that cause a lot of emotional chaos and this chips away at our confidence and self -respect to the point that we become a shadow of who we once were and start acting in ways that are not aligned with our values and integrity. And I think this is what happened to me. I just felt so insecure and so scared that I regressed to a version of myself that did not align at all with who I was or who I wanted to be or even who I am now.

I also do not mean to trash talk my ex. I truly do believe that he loved me with everything that he had and tried really hard to show it. He just did not have the capacity to show it in a way that made me feel safe and seen in the relationship.

And that is a hard concept to understand that people may want with their whole heart and being to be someone for you or act in a certain way that you need, but they just do not have the capacity to. Not everyone has the capacity to love and give like we do and our 100 % and their 100 % may not look the same. So we can both be giving it our all and we're never going to be satisfied because the things that we are able and capable to do for the other person just do not align.

I think I also wasn't the perfect partner. I'm not here to play the victim and assign all the toxicity in the relationship to my ex. Looking back, there were many ways in which I could have communicated better, had more empathy, been kinder, taken more accountability to be a better partner. And I think part of this process of going through a relationship, going through a breakup is also recognizing that you can be the red flag. It's not always about what the other person is doing wrong and what we're doing right. It's also about recognizing that we can harm others too and we have to put in the work in ourselves to become a better version and become a better partner.

Nobody teaches us how to love. We are not given a manual with all the information that we need to love other people and to be excellent partners. And that's the point of this. It is through experience, through this trial and error that we learn how to best love ourselves and other people so we can hopefully show up a little better and a little wiser next time.

So anyways, this was my story and I shared this primarily because it was a pivotal moment in my life. I think that I learned so many things throughout this process that were so important for my growth and the experiences that I've had since then. I think I wouldn't be the person that I am today without this experience, without going through a very hard moment in my life where I was at the lowest physically, mentally, and emotionally I've ever been.

And I think that it was in applying all these lessons that I learned that I've been able to live a life that is happier and more fulfilling to me.

So it is all these lessons that we will be talking about next.

Lucy Herrero:
Today is a very special episode because we have our very first guest on the podcast and I'm super excited to have her here. Sydney is one of my amazing friends from North Carolina. She studied marketing and is currently working as a client success manager. She also recently had her birthday. Congrats. And she is 26 now.

Syd is one of the smartest, most resilient, and wisest people I know, and I couldn't think of a better person to join us today. So, Syd and I met maybe back in 2022 through a mutual friend, and I really loved meeting her because immediately she told me her story about a relationship and breakups she had recently.

And I thought that was one of the most empowering and amazing stories I'd ever heard. And she immediately stuck me as such an amazing and strong person to have gone through that and just doing the very best that she could at the moment to heal from that relationship. So, Syd, can you give us a little bit of background about your relationship and about the breakup?

Sydney:
Yeah, of course. First, thank you so much for having me. I'm honored to be your first guest. You've always been a great friend ever since I've met you. So excited to be here.

So the relationship that I had just gotten out of when I met Lucy was a long term relationship that I was in for about a year and a half, two years. And that was with someone who I was friends with for a year before we started dating and then developed a relationship from there, but it was kind of built on a rocky foundation.

We ended up moving in together about a year and a half or a little over a year into our relationship and within the relationship I kind of already had felt isolated. I had already lost some friends when we had decided to move in with one another.

I hadn't really been talking to my family as much and even our mutual friends that we had that I thought were my really good friends.

I felt so isolated because I was in Ohio. I'd gone to school in Ohio and ended up living there for five years. I had family in North Carolina and then also I had family in Chicago, which is where I'm from. So in Ohio, I didn't really feel like I had a solid foundation of people since being in this relationship, since I had lost basically all of my friend group aside from maybe two or three people who stuck by my side and I'm super grateful for them. But those were the people that I had and I really couldn't hang out with them that much just because of their schedule and I feel like we've all dated someone who you're hanging out with your friends and they're like what are you doing? When are you coming back? And all this so you just don't get to really enjoy yourself or immerse yourself in that human connection that you get when you meet people or you know talk to people which is something that I really like to do. 

I really like to connect with people so I lost that part of me in that relationship which made me feel lonely and even isolated from myself. I remember looking at myself in the mirror one day and I was like I don't even know who I am anymore. I just completely felt like I wasn't even me. And I, this might sound silly, but I would look at like pictures and videos of myself, like laughing and having fun with my friends. And I'm like, I just, I miss me. And, and that was, it was hard. And when you miss you and you lose yourself, you don't really know how to get yourself back, especially if you're still in that situation that made you lose yourself to begin with. 

So yeah, overall the relationship, I didn't feel like I was with someone who supported me, deeply cared for me, or even listened to me. I would always say, hey, we need to work on our communication. And it wasn't something that would really get resolved.

So yeah, that relationship just kind of went into a cycle of building and then glimpses of what I wanted the relationship to be and glimpses of the friend that I had because I missed the friend at the time that I had and then you know something small would happen or we'd get into an argument. It would all come crashing down and then we'd try to resolve it pretend like nothing happened and then it would all start over over and over and over again.

Lucy Herrero
It's like hard to be in a relationship like that because at that point you don't have any of the good things that come with being in a relationship.

Sydney
Yeah, yeah. Or like I said, I get glimpses of it and you get excited because don't get me wrong, it wasn't all bad. Like, you know, it wasn't a year and a half or two years of just misery. That's not what it was. It was I'm seeing glimpses and those glimpses last in months sometimes. And then it would just come crashing down. I'm like, we are on square one again. How did we get here?

Lucy Herrero
Right.

Mm -hmm.

Yeah, it sounds like it and I can definitely relate because I think there were moments in my relationship, like you said, it wasn't all bad. And there were definitely moments where I was like, my god, this is great. We're having a great time. He's finally like behaving in this way that's making me feel really good about this. And there's all these other things to look forward to. But then like immediately something would happen that would, like you said, make us go back to square one. And those little glimpses just give you enough to like stay and give you like an excuse to keep trying instead of just like throwing the towel and being like, I'm done.

Sydney
Mm -hmm. Yeah, I definitely agree because those glimpses are what drive the relationship. They're what pull you back into it, into you being like, okay, let's do this. I can stay in this relationship and it is gonna get better. There is hope. And then, yeah, it just comes crashing down and until you just can't take it anymore and you're like, I'm gonna leave.

Lucy Herrero
Yeah.

Right?

Alright, so that was like great context for your relationship. Can you tell us a little bit about the breakup, how it happened, and like the steps that you took to get out of that relationship?

Sydney
So yeah, I knew the relationship was over before it really was over. I know they say women break up with you in their head or internally before actually leaving you and that is exactly what had happened in this relationship. I felt like I had communicated many times what I needed and it had just gotten to a point where you know, we have lived together, like I said, we were in Ohio. 

I didn't see a future in Ohio. I never did really ever since moving there. I didn't feel like I had a future there. I knew it was just a pit stop for me. And I was with someone who had family there and at that time wasn't comfortable leaving.

So for our actual breakup, as I mentioned, not wanting to be in Ohio and building this future with someone and in a situation that I hadn't really seen myself ever being in or with someone who I hadn't really just seen for who they are at that point. I was telling myself all the time, next time we have an argument, I'm leaving. And then it actually, came, you know, because I'm not gonna lie, it's kind of embarrassing to admit, but there were times where we would have an argument and then I'd be like, I want to leave, but then I couldn't or something in me just couldn't leave or we would have a conversation and I would feel better and I'm like, okay, maybe I'm just overreacting and everything's fine. And then I remember that we lived in an apartment and we had a dog and I would cry every Monday. Mondays were my hardest day because I had spent all weekend with him and he worked in office so when he left...Some days I couldn't wait for him to leave so I could just cry because I was just so sad and wanted... I didn't know how to leave. I felt bad for even wanting to leave.

So the day of, it was the morning, it was probably like eight something if I had to guess, and I had put on a movie, it was Eat, Pray, Love, and it's a great movie. And if you've never seen the movie, and at one point, it's kind of in the beginning, it is, she has a box underneath her bed, her friend has a box, and it was filled with all of these baby clothes and baby toys, and she wanted to be a mother when she grew up, and you know, this was her basically dream box.

And the main character goes, I have a box just like that, but of all the places I wanted to travel to. And I said, I will be so upset if I have children before I get to travel. And from there just kind of got blown out of proportion. You know, hey, you don't see a future with me. You could, because you didn't say us. If we don't get to travel, then you just don't see a future with me. And from there, I had tried to explain myself, but didn't really work out, you know, and then the day kind of went on. And I still had an uneasy feeling, you know, I wanted to be with someone who I can communicate with or if there was a misunderstanding, we can talk it out.

So he had gone to another room to take a nap. And during that time, I had some time to reflect and I went and I had called one of my friends and I really was just looking for some sort of validation that it was okay to leave. And I had called her and I said, hey, I'm going to ask you something and I just want you to be super honest with me. I'm not gonna get mad. Just give it to me.

Have I changed at all from when I first started dating this person or who you knew I was before I started dating them to who I became while dating them? Have you seen a difference in me? And she had said, you know, honestly, yes, I have seen a difference in you. You're not as, you know, bubbly. You don't really hang out with your friends that much anymore. But if you're asking this question, I think you already know the answer to it. And I was like, okay.

Okay, cool. So I got my first bit of validation there and kind of opened up my eyes.

So I had gone outside and I was, you know, walking her dog and I had called my best friend. And I was like crying. nd I'm like, I don't think I can do this anymore. And she was like, you know what, Sydney, I've been waiting for this day to come. And I just kind of chuckled. 

Lucy Herrero
It's crazy how your friends just know. They do just know.

Sydney
They know, they know. Yeah, they do. They do. She was like, I've been waiting for this day to come. And I think we both like just chuckled, you know, I'm not someone if I'm sad, like I don't want to stay sad. So her and I just chuckled about it and then started to develop a plan where like, okay, I'm like, how do I leave?

We said, okay, I'm going to call my mom and figure the rest of it out from there. I asked her if I could come visit her and she was like, yes, you can. And I had told her, I was like, mom, hold me accountable. If I tell you or I call you back and I say, I don't want to leave, I want to stay, please hold me accountable because I need to leave.

And she had booked me a flight, thank God. I'm very grateful for her in doing that for me. And she had booked me a flight that same day. And as he was still taking a nap throughout all of this, so you know, I knew at that point I had a flight to catch. So I started packing my stuff and he wakes up and he's like, don't worry, I'm going to leave. And I was like, don't worry about it. I'm just going to go stay with my mom for a few days. Just I just need some space, and we can just talk about it then. And leaving was honestly so hard for me to do. It was the hardest thing. I was really upset the whole time and I had ordered myself an Uber and even while I was in the Uber, I was like, should I go back? Like, I don't know, is this the right choice? It was just that being scared of uncertainty and not knowing where your life's going to take you. I didn't, I only knew my mom and stepdad here and I had a job and they were talking about being in office and I'm like, I don't know. There was just so much uncertainty that it's scary, but I just had to take that first step while I was feeling like I had to leave because I knew, like I said, if I'm going to stay, I'm going to be stuck in the cycle and I didn't want to be stuck in it anymore.

Lucy Herrero
It's like one of those steps that you have to like, you know that if you take it, there's no going back. Like everything is gonna change forever. And that's what makes it so scary. But you also know, like you said, if you don't do that, you're gonna be stuck in this cycle.

I mean, I can't relate because obviously that decision was made for me in the moment, but I think I knew that if I said something or acted differently or made a move to go, I was taking that step and my relationship would never be the same.

Sydney
Yeah.

And it making that step is never easy for anybody.

But once you end up making this step and you get some space in between yourself and the situation not only applied to relationships, but any situation that's really stressing you out, once you take a step back and kind of look at it full picture, you can see things that are good, you can see the things that are bad, and that's what I needed in that moment. I just needed to go and I needed to clear my head away from someone who I knew could convince me to stay. So once I got to North Carolina, I was like, okay, I'm only staying here for a few days. I even let him know like, hey, I'm staying here for a few days. Like this doesn't mean we're completely broken up, but I do need some space. So can you just give me like a day or two of us just not speaking for me to genuinely just clear my head?

So within our conversation on that day that we ended up breaking up, he was like, well, what's gonna happen with our lease? You don't think it's gonna come to that point of us breaking up? And I go, yeah, I do. And he's like, okay, so you're breaking up with me, yeah. And then at that point, I was like, hey, I will still pay my side of the rent. It's not fair for you to pay your or pay the whole rent and that's not what you had signed up for. So just continue to live there.

Yeah, so that's really how I had decided to leave or the breakup story of it all. And afterwards, the day that I was moving out, one of my friends, she had met up with me to help me pack everything and my mom had come with me and I had a dinner with the people that I had still spoke with and it was nice being able to say goodbye to Ohio and goodbye to those people who had stuck by me even when it was hard to be my friend.

Lucy Herrero
I think it just takes so much strength to do what you did because it can be so easy and like speaking from a place of like I was in this situation. It can be so easy to make up excuses as to why you should stay in the relationship when you're like living together, you're paying rent together, you own a dog together. Like there's just so many things that tie the life of the two of you together that I think it makes it even harder to envision a future without that and to step into the unknown and make this really difficult decision. So I'm like in awe of your strength and just recognizing, even if it took a while, recognizing what was best for you and having people hold you accountable. I think that was super smart of you. I really wish I would have done something like that back when I was in my situation. So yeah, I think this is such an amazing story and thank you so much for sharing it.

Sydney
Yeah, of course, of course. Hopefully someone can get some insights from it and also be inspired.

Lucy Herrero
Absolutely, I'm sure that people will. So having gone through this experience and I'm thinking of my breakup as well, I think there's a lot of things that we have learned that have helped us grow as people and have helped us become better partners. So what are some of the lessons that you learned going through this experience?

Sydney
Mmm, one of the most valuable lessons I've learned was which I learned this in therapy is Don't hold on to the potential of someone, so letting go of what you know that person can be and only paying attention to what this person is showing you is something that I found very valuable, especially when I decided that I wanted to start dating again.

Lucy Herrero
Yeah, no, I totally understand that. I think we can get really hooked on other people's potential and that is what makes us stay in the relationship because we know the capacity that they have to be someone better, to be the partner that we want them to. 

On a similar vein for me, one of the biggest lessons was like, actions and words have to align and like if whatever this person is saying they're not following through with their actions then you can't believe what they're saying. What they're doing is who they are you know you have to take them at face value; you can't believe the words that they're saying, you can't believe in the potential that they have. And part of this issue was that I think I was very hung up on like the great person that this guy was at the very beginning of the relationship where everything was wonderful. He was spontaneous, adventurous. He made me feel super special, you know? And obviously when that stopped happening, that's when things started getting like rocky. So I think I was just hung up on the idea of who this guy was at the beginning and I just kept hoping that he would change and become this person again, magically, even though he was showing me every day the person that he was. 

And the thing is that at the beginning of the relationship we try to put our best foot forward. And I think sometimes we can like, alter who we are a little bit because we really want this person to like us. So, which you shouldn't, you shouldn't do that. But that is terrible. But yeah, so I was like thinking of this guy, then I was like, no, this he was never this person, you know, that this person wasn't him. This was like an idea that I have of a person that he could be. So I totally understand.

Sydney

Yeah, definitely. And it's even that when, you know, obviously when you're dating, as you said, you want to put your best foot forward and you kind of have those blinders on to anything that you don't want to see or anything that you're like, that could be an issue, but let's see. You have to, like you said, look at things at face value and take it from there, you know?

I think when talking to people after the breakup, it was like, okay, I need to just present me. And I had conversations with my best friend about it. I was like, I'm nervous to meet, you know, whoever it was. And she's like, it's normal to be nervous to go on a date and to meet someone new and and all that but you can't shelter yourself or you can't dim your own light or put yourself in your own shell just because you're scared that someone's not gonna like you. If you're showing someone who you are and they don't like you, that's okay. You don't need everyone to like you. I'm not everybody's cup of tea. Nobody is. So it's that inner work that takes time in realizing that one, I don't need everyone to like me. And as long as I'm okay with myself and I like myself and the people I love around me, love me, then that's all I need even if that's just a handful of people. I don't need a crowd. I just need a small group of people I value and that value me.

Lucy Herrero (23:59)
Yeah.

Absolutely.

I couldn't have said it better. And I think that is something absolutely important to learn because we can often present that mask at the beginning of the relationship and it's all like the honeymoon stage and you just want to be liked by other people. And then obviously as the relationship progresses and it becomes more serious and time passes and you start showing who you really are, it can be a big shocker. But then I feel like at that point, we're so invested in the relationship that it's like, well, I've invested all this time in this person. So like, need to give it a chance and like fight for this. And oftentimes we like, yes, oftentimes we do have to fight for the relationship and like, know that relationships are hard, there are going to be challenges and, and it takes like two people to go through them.

But I think other times it's better to just like recognize when there are so many incompatibilities that you can't make this work. Right? I think that's something I really struggled with. Like from the very beginning of the relationship, I saw all the ways that we were incompatible. Like you said, like, my God, my ex wanted to live in Ohio. I only saw Ohio as a pit stop. Same thing. 

My ex was making all these decisions, he had all these dreams that would plant him firmly in North Carolina. And I was like, I don't really see myself staying here beyond like a couple more months or years. And all of a sudden I was making like this huge compromise in my dreams to stay where he was. Not only that, he wanted like to have four or five or six children. And I was like, bro, I'm very best I can do this two.

I'm not a baby factory. And if you want to have four or five or six children, that's awesome. But like have them with someone who wants that as well. And like, I knew that from like month two of the relationship and I was like, yeah, I can totally make this work. It's like, no, that was never gonna happen. 

Sydney
Go out.

Yeah.

No it was never gonna happen. Me too.

Lucy Herrero 
But love is not enough in a relationship. Whatever you have that is like special in the beginning is bound to change as the dynamic of the relationship changes. And I think if we're dating to be in like a committed relationship, we want to make sure that paths and dreams align and the scope that we have for or that we want for our lives align as well. Otherwise, it's just like never going to work. It's going to be a total disaster and you're probably going to end up really regretting a lot of the things that you couldn't do. 

It's like we're in our 20s. Like, I think this is the time to, yes, like make a lot of mistakes and like, fuck up and learn. But also it is our time to really like enjoy our lives and take risks and do a lot of experiences that we're going to remember for the rest of our lives that are really going to shape us. So like, don't stay with someone who is going to prevent you from doing all these things and then one day you wake up and you're like regretting your whole life because you didn't get to do all the things that you really wanted out of like staying in a relationship that wasn't aligned with what you wanted to begin with, you know?

Sydney
Yeah, exactly. And I think building on that is that when you are with someone, you have to realize that you are both going to have to change. And I think when before, when I dated, I was like, this person is going to just stay the same and they're just gonna stay this person and whatever. And it's just not realistic for them or for me, especially as you know, I know you've gone on your personal journey and I've gone on mine and I'm a completely different person as to who I was when I was living in Ohio or even a year ago. I'm a completely different person and I'm better for that relationship. You know, I've grown a lot and although it was a hard relationship and a hard breakup and you know, I did lose people in my life.

I am so happy that I was in that relationship and I would do it again because then this person wouldn't be here. But in that same line, I knew that when I wanted to find someone new eventually, I wanted that person to also accept me for me and also accept that I'm not always going to be this person. I'm going to grow. I want to grow and I want you to grow and if I didn't, I'm doing you a disservice and I'm doing me a disservice. So that's something that's definitely shifted from when I used to date to, you know, my relationship now. And, you know, when I was dating in that gap, when I wasn't or when I wasn't dating or really open to having a relationship, it's understanding that you should be able to change in a relationship for the better. And that person should stay with you or grow with you so you can build and grow together.

Lucy Herrero
Yeah, absolutely. It's so important to be with someone that wants to grow with you. Because if you are putting in all this work to become a better person, a better partner, you know, giving so much to the relationship, and this person is just like completely uninterested to even like start healing parts of themselves, you know. I don't think even if we've worked on ourselves a lot, we never come to a relationship fully healed, right? There's always work to do on ourselves. And if you want to go and have a successful relationship, you want to be with someone you can like, you know, hold hands and go through the challenge together, knowing that you're like both working on each other instead of like having someone who is clearly not doing that, is clearly not trying to heal themselves and grow from whatever experience they have. And you're just like dragging these people like through the mud, through the challenge. And it's just like so exhausting to be the person that is doing the dragging. You do not want to be with someone who isn't open to doing that work. 

And it's honestly like, that was such a huge lesson for me as well in this relationship. Like it's not your responsibility to fix the other person. Like it's not your responsibility to do the healing that they need to do to show up as a healthy person in the relationship and have a healthy partnership. They have to be willing to do that for themselves and all that you can do is kind of like support them in the process, right? But you can't force them to go through that if they're just very unwilling to. And even after the relationship ended and I was having a really hard time because I was like this guy, I know at the bottom of his heart he's a good person, he wouldn't really like do that to me, you know. I think he's just like confused and hurt and he just doesn't know how to manage any of it. And I was always trying to send him like healing, you know, it's like, when he needs to heal, he needs to like grow and be a better person and like, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like sending all this energy his way instead of like giving it back to myself and like making sure that I was the one who was healing and doing better. 

It was until I realized that I had to let him go and focus on myself and focus on doing that healing for myself that I feel like I started making real progress in letting go of the relationship and moving on to the next thing. But it is really hard when you're someone who is very focused on the personal growth or very focused on having a healthy relationship and you're kind of like dragging the other person through this whole process.

Sydney 
Mm -hmm Right because it takes two to build a relationship And when you're in a relationship, you also want to hold each other accountable; and going back to what you said about healing and not knowing what you needed to heal. It was when I had gotten into my my new relationship where I noticed I had certain triggers and I knew I had done a lot of work on myself to be who I am today. And I knew that I wasn't going to be with someone who is going to make me feel like I had to change, like I had to alter myself in any way. This is me and take it or leave it. And even with that, there were just, you know, triggers that I would get.

Not at fault to anybody else, just things that I had felt internally that I had to sit with and think, okay, where did this come from? Because this situation is not the same situation that I had been in before. So what other healing do I need to do on my own? I have a journal. If it's something that's just on my mind and I can't get it off my mind, I'll journal it out just so I can see it. And I'll even read my journal back and see.

Okay, it's actually crazy. I was reading my journal the other day and I was like, wow, I've actually had a lot of growth, which is actually also why I like to journal. So if you don't journal, I highly recommend.

Lucy Herrero 
Yeah, I mean, I've definitely had moments where I'm going through a tough situation and I go back to my journal and I read the stuff that I wrote and I was like, Lucy, you were so wise. What happened?

You got all the answers right here. What is going on right now?

What happened to the wisdom?

Sydney
Yeah, yeah, you're like, let's circle back to that.

Lucy Herrero
Absolutely. I definitely want to touch on the subject more, but I want to talk about one of the biggest lessons that I had for myself before we move on to that.

And I think how to do with my dignity, you know, I think I really lost a lot of that towards the end of the relationship. I was just trying to convince this guy to stay even though like I was having this whole internal conflict where this voice in my mind was like, what are you doing? You know? And I was like, I don't know, but like, I can't, I can't just like leave the relationship, right? So, and I think in the weeks and the months following the breakup, I mean, I was definitely sad.

Obviously, I think it's normal to feel sad and grieve after a relationship. You're grieving the presence of the other person. You're grieving the future that you thought you were going to have. But then I realized that mostly I was just really angry. And like, yes, I was angry at, you know, the people involved in the situation, but I found out that I was mostly angry at myself because I really felt like I betrayed myself throughout the whole process. Like I knew what I had to do. I knew that I wasn't standing up for myself and that I deserved better. And yet I just like didn't do any of it.

So like, I think moving forward, as I was trying to heal from the relationship and the breakup, I had to give myself a lot of grace and just be like, this is in the past. There's nothing to do about it now, you know, but you can move forward with a better outlook on life setting healthier and more immediate boundaries, and like honoring those boundaries, and like making sure that whatever friendship or relationship you're gonna have in the future you're not like a doormat for anybody you know.

Sydney
Mm -hmm Yeah, I definitely agree that's something I also struggled with when I left that relationship. I was so mad at myself because I was like I cannot believe that I let myself go through this and stuck with it for so long, and you don't know better when you're in it and you don't know that the light at the end of the tunnels right there. You convince yourself to stay and you just don't know better at the time. You're still young and it is such a learning experience once you've gone through it and then you get out of it and it is cringy to look back on because I've been in the same situation where I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, you know, please don't. And then you get out of it and you're like, okay, I'm not going to beg anybody to stay in my life.

If you want to go, go. I'm not, you know, begging you. And yeah, and that's come from me begging people to stay in my life previously. It's just not something that I've carried on to who I am anymore.

Lucy Herrero 
Yeah. Go. Door is wide open.

Yeah, I think it feels very empowering where you start like setting those boundaries and honoring them. And if there's someone who is just like crossing those boundaries, you can be like, the door is wide open. You know, like people that come into your life are a gift, people that leave your life are a gift. So you can go. Yeah.

Sydney 
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, everybody has something to teach you.

Lucy Herrero (38:46)
So you mentioned journaling as something that has really helped you in this process and helping you grow as a person after the relationship. What are other coping mechanisms or things that you did to really help you in that process of healing from the breakup?

Sydney
I'm not saying it's gonna work for everybody, but this is just kind of what helped me. Definitely therapy first is what really helped me. It's getting another person's perspective or just going to someone like a third party who isn't intertwined in your life to have a sort of bias when they're hearing what you have to say.

So therapy was huge for me. I know I mentioned journaling. That was something that was really important to me as well. Also practicing gratitude, just being thankful for where I am, the people in my life. You know, after my breakup, I only had a few people who were still in my life that, you know, I, like I said, I was, I, I isolated myself. So.

Afterwards, I had called each and every one of them and messaged each and every one of them and thanked them for being in my life and saying, hey, I know it was hard to be with me through that all, but I'm so grateful that you were. And I cherish those people to this day. I just love these people that were with me with through everything. They were with me. They're still with me.

So it makes you have a deeper appreciation for your friends, for your family, and it brings you closer to them too. And I think it solidifies that friendship more knowing that these people are with me in my darkest moments and if they have their darkest moments, I'm going to be there with them too. And just great people.

I think a lot of people, or at least myself sometimes, I just kind of want to go into my shell and be like, okay, I can just do this on my own. I can just handle this. I don't need to talk to anybody. But talking to people and letting people be there for you is what helps you as well.

Lucy Herrero
I think for me I also did a lot of journaling. I would write him letters, everything that I wanted to say to him, like all the frustration, I knew that I couldn't just give him a call or text him or whatever because I'm a firm believer in a clean break. So even though I really wanted to do those things I'd be like no I'm just gonna write him a letter and I wouldn't send it or anything I would just like stay there but it did make me feel a lot better afterwards. Like you said just like surrounding yourself with friends and people that will make your life feel fuller. Big thing for me was that I had to move so I'd always wanted to live in downtown somewhere.

And I ended up moving to downtown Durham. And that was the most magical thing for me, because I really loved my apartment. It's like, when you've been there, it's just like beautiful, all these like brick walls and like industrial look and feel to it. And I really did feel like Jess from New Girl and like her new loft. So making that move, like doing something that I had wanted for myself for a really long time that I thought I would never get to do because of this relationship was such a healing experience and that place really did become like my safe space.

And kind of like changing the mindset of like, my god, everything sucks. Like I'm not enough for everybody. I'm not, you know, I'm never good at this. People always end up leaving in the relationship, whatever, to asking myself every day, how is this happening for me and not to me? Like, how is this a good thing? You know, and trying to have evidence, like surrounding myself with evidence all the time that this was a blessing and this was a good thing and like more good things were gonna come out of that. So, like I really liked the phrase rejections are redirections. Because I feel like because I came out of that relationship now I had all these amazing people and things and experiences that were so fulfilling in my life. And so it just made me like so happy that suddenly it all made sense why it had to happen in the way that it did, even though as it was happening and even like in the weeks or months following the breakup, like it was really hard to see that with time and as things got better and you know, I started becoming happier because all of these wonderful things that were coming into my life, it all made sense.

Lucy Herrero
Thank you so much for coming. I think we had a great conversation and I truly hope that a lot of people can find that like solace in your experience and they can really feel seen and can feel like they can make better choices for themselves and stand up for the stuff that they deserve in their love life and in their life in general.

Sydney 
Yeah, I agree. I definitely agree. I've loved your podcast so far and I'm excited to see what else you do with it. It's been great.

Lucy Herrero 
Thank you. So happy you're a part of it.

Sydney
Thanks.

Lucy Herrero
I want to end this episode by sharing that back in December of 2022, I was so unhappy and so desperate for change that I asked the universe to make 2023 the year of joy. I like to give every year theme. And you know what? The universe listened.

It made me hit rock bottom by going through my dog's sickness, then my own sickness, and eventually the breakup. So I was able to live my highest highs for the rest of 2023. Even going into 2024, I was able to live a life that was a lot more true to myself. I asked the universe to make 2023 the year of joy, and it's been the most joyous year of my life so far.

This all just goes to show that sometimes, even though it may be the hardest thing that we will ever do, closing doors really does create the space and the freedom that we need to create the life that we want and that we deserve. So yeah, falling on your ass can be the best thing to ever happen to you. I know that it was for me.

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On the next episode of the Life Rough of Draft podcast, I am forced to leave the United States and my whole life there behind. Some important and amazing guests joined me in sharing how losing a work visa lottery in the United States won them a fulfilling life beyond their expectations.