#201: How to Actually Heal from a Breakup
Breakups are hard. Really hard. And if you have an anxious attachment style, they can feel absolutely devastating—like the rug has been pulled out from under you and you’re left spinning without an anchor. It can be tempting to scramble for control—ruminating, obsessing, even stalking—just to try to ease the pain. The truth? A breakup is not just something to “get through.” It’s an opportunity—a painful one, yes—but also a chance to meet yourself in a new way, learn important lessons, and create the conditions for healthier love in the future.
Breakups are hard. Really hard.
And if you have an anxious attachment style, they can feel absolutely devastating—like the rug has been pulled out from under you and you’re left spinning without an anchor.
When so much of our identity, safety, and stability has been tied up in a relationship, the ending can trigger deep feelings of loss, fear, and uncertainty. It can be tempting to scramble for control—ruminating, obsessing, even stalking—just to try to ease the pain. But while these coping mechanisms may offer temporary relief, they often prolong our suffering.
The truth? A breakup is not just something to “get through.” It’s an opportunity—a painful one, yes—but also a chance to meet yourself in a new way, learn important lessons, and create the conditions for healthier love in the future.
Here’s what healing with intention really looks like.
1. Honour Your Grief
We live in a culture uncomfortable with grief. We rush past it, numb it out, or analyze it away. But a breakup is a loss—and like any loss, it needs to be grieved.
Grief isn’t just about missing the person. It’s about mourning:
The routines and shared life you had
The memories you made together
The future you imagined but won’t live out
Grief comes in layers and waves. The more you allow yourself to feel it—safely, fully, without judgment—the more you give it space to move through you. Suppressing it keeps you stuck; feeling it helps you heal.
And remember: your grief is proof of your capacity to love deeply. That’s something to honour, not something to shame.
2. Watch the Stories You’re Telling Yourself
After a breakup, it’s easy to take what happened and make it mean something about you:
“I’m unlovable.”
“I’m too much.”
“Everyone leaves me.”
These stories turn pain into suffering. They chip away at your self-worth and set you up to carry low self-esteem into your next relationship.
Be mindful of your inner narrative. When you notice yourself spiraling into self-blame or shame, pause and reframe. Look at what happened more neutrally so you can learn from it without attacking yourself.
3. Find Closure From Within
For many people—especially those with anxious attachment—closure feels like something the other person has to give you. You want explanations, apologies, or one last conversation to “make it make sense.”
But true closure doesn’t come from them. It comes from you.
Waiting for the person who couldn’t meet you in the relationship to suddenly meet you in your healing is a recipe for staying stuck. Instead, shift your focus to what you can control—your choices, your actions, your acceptance of reality as it is.
Self-given closure is both empowering and freeing.
4. Reflect and Set Intentions for the Future
Once you’ve moved through the rawest stages of grief, turn toward the lessons. Not from a place of self-blame, but with curiosity and self-respect.
Ask yourself:
Where did I ignore my own needs or boundaries?
Did I tolerate behaviours that weren’t okay with me?
What signs did I overlook?
From there, define your vision for future relationships: your standards, your non-negotiables, your deal-breakers.
Love is essential—but it’s not enough without trust, safety, and reliability. Clarity here is what prevents you from repeating the same patterns.
5. Resist the Urge to Rush Into Something New
If you’re most comfortable in relationships, it can be tempting to attach to someone new quickly. But true healing happens when you give yourself time—to be with yourself, to build your self-worth, and to be discerning about where you invest your heart next.
When you’re anchored in your own standards and self-respect, you naturally become less interested in connections that can’t meet you there.
Final Thoughts
Healing from a breakup isn’t just about “getting over” someone—it’s about coming home to yourself.
If you can meet your grief with compassion, quiet the stories that diminish you, close the chapter from within, and get intentional about your future, you don’t just move on. You grow.
And that growth? That’s what makes you stronger, brighter, and more ready than ever for the secure, healthy love you deserve.
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:04]:
You're listening to On Attachment, a place to learn about how attachment shapes the way we experience relationships and where you'll gain the guidance, knowledge and practical tools to overcome insecurity and build healthy, thriving relationships. I'm your host, relationship coach Stephanie Rigg.
[00:00:23]:
And I'm really glad you're here. Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, we are talking about how to heal from a breakup in the healthiest way possible. So let's just start by stating the obvious, which is that breakups are really, really hard. And particularly if you're someone with anxious attachment patterns, as I know most of my listeners are for an array of reasons that I've spoken to on the podcast before. Anxiously Attached people struggle so much with endings and, and particularly when so much was on the line, when we were working so hard to try and hold things together, to try and patch things up, to try and prevent that disconnection, that loss. It can feel like being plunged into a level of uncertainty and rudderlessness that we just don't really know how to hold.
[00:01:15]:
And all of that can obviously be exacerbated by our over reliance on relationships to provide us with a sense of steadiness and our difficulties in knowing who we are or how to feel okay if we don't have someone to lean on. And while of course that's a human thing, that we're all wired for connection, we know that anxiously attached people can over index on that to the detriment of their own sense of inner safety. So breakups really go to the heart of a lot of our wounds, a lot of our fears, a lot of our vulnerabilities in a way that can leave us feeling very powerless, very lost, very scared, very out of control. Now, what often happens from that place is in feeling so out of control, naturally we reach for whatever tools we might have in our toolbox to try and counteract that feeling, to try and protect ourselves, to try and undo all of the pain because it feels so overwhelming and we don't really trust ourselves to be able to hold it. And so we can find ourselves in all sorts of coping strategies, ruminating, obsessing, stalking, all of the things. And of course, while that might provide some temporary relief or a sense of being in control, in my experience with supporting thousands probably now, of people through breakups, is that that can prolong our suffering and really keep us from tending to the parts of ourselves that are longing for our care and attention after a breakup. So in today's episode, I want to Offer you a different way, an alternative path to going through a breakup that doesn't just look like frantically trying to your head above water. Because I know that that's what it can feel like for so many of us.
[00:03:02]:
A way that allows you to honour yourself, honour the pain. Certainly not just trying to skip past it all and feel better, but that equally calls on you to exercise self responsibility around your choices, around where you direct your time and energy. Because ultimately, and I've said this many times before, I view breakups as a beautiful opportunity. And I know that that can feel hard to hear when you're in it. And it feels like anything but a gift. But breakups really do bring us face to face with a lot of our staff. And you know, as with anything that holds up a mirror and invites us into deep reflection and intentionality, I think we can really make the most of that if we are courageous enough to do so. So in today's episode, I'm going to be offering some guidance around what that might look like to approach a breakup in a more intentional, deliberate, self honouring way, self supporting way.
[00:04:01]:
So that you're not just flailing around, treading water, trying to stay afloat until it stops hurting so much. Because spoiler alert. And I don't know if you've noticed this, but that approach, the just survive the breakup approach doesn't tend to impart many lessons. And I think that's a crucial piece of the puzzle when going through a breakup. And that's big part of making the most of it is actually engaging with our own pain and whatever went on in the relationship and whatever led to its ending. If we can engage meaningfully with all of that without self flagellating, without shaming ourselves, then we set ourselves up to do things differently next time. To the extent that there are lessons to be learned. And I think that there are always lessons to be learned.
[00:04:49]:
So all of that is what we're going to be talking about today. And in keeping with the theme of today's episode, I have a brand new free TR all about breakups. It's titled the Top 3 Mistakes keeping you stuck after a breakup. And it goes into a lot more depth than I'll be able to in today's episode on all of those things, the ways that we can unknowingly, unintentionally be prolonging our suffering and maybe experiencing these energy leakages, things like obsessively comparing our process to that of our exes, who's moving on quicker, what does it mean? They seem to be fine. Does that mean they never cared about me? Talking about how different IT attachment styles go through breakups and why it's therefore not very useful to engage in all of that comparison. You know how to move on even if you don't feel ready, and how to treat moving on as a choice rather than just waiting for a feeling to land in your lap. How to stop the endless cycles of rumination and why it's so easy to fall into the trap of just obsessing over someone and what purpose that might be serving. I cover all of this and more in my new free training.
[00:05:59]:
So if that's of interest interest to you, the link to sign up for that is in the show notes or you can head straight to my website and check it out there. Second quick announcement is just a reminder about my upcoming event in London. It's about a month away now, which is wild. So looking forward to meeting with you in person, those who are already coming along. And if you are in or around London on the 13th of September and you would like to come along, it's going to be a really intimate event. I'll be giving a talk on the path to secure love. So talking about all of the things that can get in the way of experiencing the healthy, secure love that we all long for and how we can start to do that work within ourselves and our relationships to facilitate the building of more secure, loving relationships in our lives. And there'll be plenty of time for Q and A and meet and greet and all of those things.
[00:06:56]:
So I would so love to see you there. If you're in or around London. The tickets for that are also linked also in the show notes, or you can find them on my website or send me a message on Instagram if you're having trouble. I'd be more than happy to help you out. Okay, so let's talk about how to heal from a breakup in the healthiest way possible. Now the first and most important step in this journey is that we have to actually grieve. We have to allow ourselves the space to feel, to actually give our pain an opportunity to be seen and felt and heard and tended to and understood. Now you might be thinking, if you're listening to this, like, yeah, I'm already doing that.
[00:07:38]:
I'm in so much pain. I'm in agony. This is like the worst thing I've ever felt. But I would hazard that if you're like a lot of people, particularly again, folks who struggle with anxious attachment anxiety, we do a lot of thinking about our Pain, but not so much feeling pain. And I think that's true more broadly. In our society. We tend not to provide much space, particularly for things like grief. I think we are collectively uncomfortable with grief and the bigness of it because it is such an all consuming emotion.
[00:08:09]:
It feels like, you know, once we open the floodgates of grief, we might never close them again. And so I think a lot of us keep our grief very muted. We try and turn away from it, we try and suppress it, because it is such a big emotion and it's one that we don't have a lot of practise with. But the reality is a breakup is a mourning process. It is a grieving process like any other loss. And so we really need to honour it as that and allow ourselves to feel the depths of grief that we might be holding. And there are going to be layers of grief. There's grief for losing the person, there's grief for all of the little bits of our lives that were intertwined with theirs that we feel we may have lost along with them.
[00:08:55]:
Grief for all of the memories, grief for the future vision that now won't come to pass. There's layers of that and it will come in waves. And rather than frantically being hit by that and then feeling like we have to distract ourselves or numb out or undo it, or backpedal to try and make the grief go away, actually allowing ourselves to feel it fully is a very, very powerful thing. And ironically enough, even though it doesn't feel like it when we're in it, the more we can fully go there, obviously in safe and contained ways, the more we allow ourselves to emerge from the other side of it. Whereas if we're just trying to bury it, we're turning our backs on it. It's still there, it's still within us, desperate to be felt and seen and acknowledged. And it does tend to keep us stuck in it and stuck in the coping mechanisms that we've reached for to try and solve it or get away from it for much longer. So a really, really big, important part of a breakup, as uncomfortable as it is, is making space to feel the depths of grief.
[00:10:06]:
And as I people, the bigness of your grief is a reflection of how deeply you love. And I think that grief is actually an incredibly beautiful human emotion. It only exists when we have deep love, care and depth of feeling. And I think that that's an exquisitely beautiful thing and something that we should absolutely honour rather than something we should try and stuff down or turn away from, because we don't trust it, or we think it's wrong, or we just want to try and solve it with analytical thinking or problem solving or whatever else. So step one is honour the grief, make space for the grief and really allow yourself to feel all of the layers of conflicting feelings that might be there in and around your breakup. The second really important piece in healing from a breakup in the healthiest way possible is keeping a close eye on the stories that you are telling yourself and really being very mindful of the meaning making that you're engaging in. So what I'm talking about here is the tendency that a lot of us have again, anxiously attached. People will relate to this, that when something happens, when a relationship ends, we're very quick to internalise however it went down, whatever unfolded as being about us.
[00:11:32]:
So if someone ended the relationship because they said, you know, I can't do this, or you know, I'm not ready for a relationship, or this is too hard, we take whatever happened and we make it mean I'm unlovable, or I push them away because I'm too much, or why am I so easy to leave? Everyone always leaves me or I'm going to end up alone. I'm going to be alone forever. There must be something fundamentally wrong with me. I tried so hard and it still wasn't enough. Can be a big one. It can create this sense of failure and not enoughness, inadequacy. There are so many stories that we can feed and fuel after a breakup that again take us from pain, which is natural and normal, into suffering, which is of our own creation. And the trouble is there that in fueling all of those stories at a time when our self esteem, our self confidence is maybe already bruised and battered, we then make that so much worse because we punish ourselves, we blame ourselves, we shame ourselves, and that again creates so much suffering at a time when we're so vulnerable and we need love and care and support from ourselves and from the people around us.
[00:12:47]:
And unfortunately, it can also lead us into similarly unhealthy patterns in the next relationship. So if we maybe had patterns of self abandonment in the relationship that just ended, and then we tell ourselves all of those painful stories as we're processing the breakup and we're really hard on ourselves, then we eventually go to approach the next relationship from a foundation of really low self worth because we're harbouring all of these stories and beliefs that there's something wrong with me, I'm not lovable, people always leave me, I'm not worth fighting for. However it might sound for you. I know those are some really common ones. So it's really important that we are vigilant about monitoring those stories and interrupting them and course correcting when we see them popping up, because that's certainly something that, that we can choose to redirect. We can choose to offer ourselves different stories. And it's really only in looking more neutrally at what happened that we can seek to learn the lessons. And we'll come to that in a moment, what it looks like to learn those lessons.
[00:13:54]:
Okay, the next really important piece in healing from a breakup in the healthiest way possible is finding a way to reach a place of closure and acceptance that doesn't hinge on the other person giving you an explanation or agreeing with your version of events, or apologising or, you know, there being any sort of peace as between you. Really, what we want is to be able to find closure within ourselves in the sense of acceptance of reality. Again, if you're someone with more anxious patterns, it's really easy to push against reality, to feel like this reality is so intolerable. I'm in so much pain and so I have to scramble to try and change it or fix it or argue with it. You know, it's that classic stages of grief and we experience the denial and the bargaining and all of these things. We just can't accept reality as it is because it's too painful. And we want to have one more conversation with them. We want to, you know, close all of the open loops.
[00:14:56]:
We want to make it all make sense. But again, as I've said so many times before, the person who leaves you feeling that way, the person who maybe didn't have the emotional capacity or willingness in the relationship to have those hard conversations, you know, to communicate effectively, the likelihood of them appearing post breakup having magically developed emotional capacity and willingness that they lacked in the relationship and making themselves available for some sort of closure conversation that resolves everything for you and allows you to feel at peace. That's really, really unlikely. And even if there were some universe in which that was going to happen, it still places the ball in their court rather than yours. And it leaves you in this, this holding pattern, this story of I can't do anything, my hands are tied unless and until they show up and give me an explanation, tell me why they did what they did, tell me what they're really feeling. Like all of these things that we can desperately long for, but we're really unlikely to get. So shifting the focus instead to closure, being Something that I decide to give myself by way of accepting the reality as it is rather than as I wish it were. And that is challenging.
[00:16:18]:
And your anxious parts are not going to like that. But it's also very empowering because it places the ball back in your court. It focuses on the things that are in your control, the things that you have direct agency and responsibility over. And that is really how you get your peace back, rather than bargaining and fighting against all the things that you wish were otherwise and you feel are so unfair. All of that, that makes so much sense and we can have so much compassion for those parts of us. But ultimately moving forward and finding our centre again is about focusing on the things that we can control. Now, the final piece of the puzzle that I want to speak to around processing and healing from a breakup in the healthiest way possible is turning towards the future. And just to be clear, this is not something you have to do two weeks after your breakup.
[00:17:08]:
This might be many months later, but starting to really reflect on and engage with the lessons that need to be learned and having a level of intentionality around, okay, what comes next? What would I do differently next time? Again, never from a place of shame or blame, not about, you know, this was my fault or I messed everything up. But just looking, hopefully with a level of neutrality and honest engagement at what actually happened here. Where were the points along the way that that I may be self abandoned or that I wish I'd spoken up for something that wasn't okay with me, or I continued to tolerate things that I wasn't comfortable with, or maybe where I can see that someone was giving me clear signs that I was refusing to see or accept, where I sort of pushed past someone's lack of capacity and just kept trying all of these things, we can start to kind of reflect on and learn and develop a really clear framework or set of intentions for ourselves moving forward around okay, what do I want my relationships to look and feel like? It sounds so obvious, but most people who I work with don't have clarity around that. They just want a relationship with someone who loves them. And while of course we all want that, it's actually not a very reliable thing to have as your sole intention or your soul desire. Because love is great, but it's not enough. And I think when it doesn't have alongside it things like trust and safety and reliability and dependability and all of these other qualities that are so important in the overall picture of what it takes to build and sustain a healthy, secure relationship, we can become Very attached to people on the basis of intense emotions, intense love and attachment. But.
[00:19:05]:
But maybe we're lacking that solid foundation. So actually taking the time to get very clear on what are my standards, what are my non negotiables, what are my deal breakers, what's the vision? This is important work to do before you rush back into dating. And I know how tempting it can be to just want to find a new person to distract yourself with or to attach to. If relationships are really your comfort zone and you feel much more yourself when you're attached to someone, it can feel really hard to go slow, to take the time to be single and to be discerning about who and where you're going to devote your time and energy. But that is a very, very important part of not just repeating the same old patterns again and again, is getting so clear and being so steadfast and so committed to your own standards that you're actually not interested in entertaining connections that fall short of those standards. And of course, that's not about being, you know, overly rigid or guarded or kind of wary of people. It's just recognising the importance of your own wellbeing and knowing that relationships that lack certain qualities like trust and consistency and reliability, that those do more harm than good and that they're actually not worth investing in. So spending the time to go through that process for yourself will always pay dividends and will always be well worth the wait.
[00:20:33]:
Okay, I'm going to leave it there. I really hope that that's been helpful. As a side note, what I just stepped you through is more or less the structure of my Higher Love breakup course. So if you're nodding along and feeling like all of that makes sense and sounds like an approach that really resonates with you, consider checking out my Higher Love course. If you do my free breakup training as well, there's a special offer to join the course at a discount. So you might want to consider checking out the free training first. And so. And then perhaps looking at joining Higher Love if you're looking to go a bit deeper.
[00:21:05]:
Okay, guys, I'm gonna leave it there. Thank you so much for joining me. If you are going through a breakup, I'm sending you so much love. I know it's hard, but you are strong and one foot in front of the other. Not only will you get through this, but with a bit of intention and courage, you can get through it bigger, stronger, brighter, better than before. I really, deeply believe that to be true. So sending you so much love, and I look forward to seeing you again next week. Thanks guys.
[00:21:35]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you want to go deeper on all things attachment, love and relationships, you can find me on Instagram @stephanie__rigg or at stephanierigg.com and if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a five star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here and I hope to see you again soon.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
breakup recovery, healing from a breakup, anxious attachment, attachment styles, relationship endings, grieving process, coping strategies, rumination, self responsibility, self-worth, lessons from breakups, closure after breakup, acceptance, emotional pain, grief in relationships, moving on, comparison after breakup, inner safety, heartbreak, relationship patterns, self care, self abandonment, self compassion, dating after breakup, intentional relationships, ex-partner comparison, future vision loss, self reflection, relationship standards, self honouring
#200: How to Like Yourself More
Most of us know the importance of self-love in theory—but actually liking ourselves? That can feel far trickier. We often spend our energy on personal growth, career goals, and relationships without realising that our relationship with ourselves shapes everything else.
The truth is, liking yourself isn’t about being perfect or achieving more—it’s about building a kinder, more accepting connection with the person you spend every single moment with: you.
Here are some of the key insights and strategies for truly liking yourself more.
Most of us know the importance of self-love in theory—but actually liking ourselves? That can feel far trickier. We often spend our energy on personal growth, career goals, and relationships without realising that our relationship with ourselves shapes everything else.
The truth is, liking yourself isn’t about being perfect or achieving more—it’s about building a kinder, more accepting connection with the person you spend every single moment with: you.
Here are some of the key insights and strategies for truly liking yourself more.
1. Notice Your Inner Dialogue
The way you speak to yourself matters. For many, self-talk has been shaped by years of criticism—from parents, teachers, or even ourselves. Without noticing, you might be running an internal script that’s judgmental, harsh, or impatient.
Start by tuning into your inner voice:
Would you speak to a friend this way?
Is your tone supportive or shaming?
Are you making space for mistakes, or expecting perfection?
Awareness is the first step toward shifting from an inner critic to an inner coach.
2. Stop Waiting Until You’re “Better” to Accept Yourself
A common trap is thinking, “I’ll like myself when I’m more confident / more successful / more fit.” But the truth is, self-acceptance can’t be postponed until you meet certain conditions.
Instead, practice liking yourself exactly as you are now. This doesn’t mean you stop growing—it means you stop withholding kindness from yourself until you “earn it.”
3. Reframe Mistakes as Learning Opportunities
If you tend to replay your mistakes on loop, it’s time for a reframe. Mistakes are not proof that you’re unworthy; they’re evidence that you’re human.
Try this shift:
Instead of “I messed up, I’m awful”, try “I messed up, and here’s what I can learn.”
Replace “failure” with “feedback.”
Remind yourself: perfection isn’t the goal—growth is.
When you treat mistakes as data instead of self-defining moments, they lose their power to erode your self-esteem.
4. Identify Your Strengths (and Actually Celebrate Them)
We’re quick to dwell on our flaws but slow to acknowledge what we do well. Make a list of qualities you like about yourself—yes, even the small ones.
Think:
Personality traits (kindness, humor, curiosity)
Skills you’ve cultivated (problem-solving, listening, persistence)
Achievements you’re proud of (personal, professional, relational)
And here’s the kicker—don’t just list them. Celebrate them. Own them. Let yourself feel good about them without downplaying or dismissing.
5. Curate Environments That Support Self-Liking
Who you spend time with and what you consume daily impacts how you feel about yourself. Surround yourself with people who lift you up rather than constantly criticise. Follow social media accounts that inspire, not trigger comparison spirals.
Ask yourself:
Does this relationship make me feel more or less like myself?
Does this content expand me or shrink me?
Am I choosing spaces where I feel safe to be authentic?
6. Keep Promises to Yourself
One of the fastest ways to build self-respect (and, in turn, self-liking) is to follow through on commitments you make to yourself.
That could be:
Going for a walk when you said you would
Setting a boundary you promised to keep
Showing up for a creative project you care about
When you prove to yourself that your word matters, trust grows—and liking yourself becomes a natural byproduct.
7. Practice Self-Compassion Daily
Self-compassion isn’t just for big, hard moments. It’s a practice to weave into your everyday life:
Speak to yourself in a gentle, encouraging tone
Give yourself permission to rest
Remember that challenges and setbacks are part of being human
You don’t have to earn kindness from yourself—it’s yours by default.
Final Thought
Liking yourself more isn’t about ignoring your flaws or pretending everything is perfect. It’s about building a relationship with yourself that’s rooted in respect, compassion, and authenticity.
When you like yourself, you naturally make choices that align with your values. You set boundaries more easily. You attract relationships that reflect the way you feel about you. And most importantly—you get to feel at home in your own skin.
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:04]:
You're listening to On Attachment, a place to learn about how attachment shapes the way we experience relationships and where you'll gain the guidance, knowledge and practical tools to overcome insecurity and build healthy, thriving relationships. I'm your host, relationship coach, Stephanie Rigg.
[00:00:23]:
And I'm really glad you're here. Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, we are talking about how to become someone that you actually like. So if you've been around here a while, you've probably heard me speak about self love and my views on teaching self love, which are that while self love is a beautiful thing to aim for, a lot of us who really struggle with low self esteem, low self confidence, low self worth can can feel like self love as a goal is really, really far away. And I know for me, when I was earlier on in my personal development journey, the idea of self love felt like a performance. It felt really disingenuous for me to engage with self love related content because it was just so incongruent with my reality and what my inner relationship really looked and felt like. And so it felt a bit forced and I think that was really discouraging in some ways.
[00:01:28]:
You know, it felt like all of these people on Instagram and on the Internet are really nailing this self love thing and that's just not how I feel about myself. So, you know, maybe that's just not for me. And maybe you relate to that. Feeling a little deflated or falling into comparison traps around what self love is meant to look and feel like. And the fact that it doesn't come easily to you means there's something wrong with you. So for all of those reasons, my preference and what I find to be more effective is teaching things like self worth, self respect, self esteem, steam and tangible actions. Things that we can focus on to actively cultivate those qualities with a view to becoming someone that you like. And I think self love can follow later.
[00:02:12]:
But let's just focus in the first instance on can I become a person that I like, that I'm comfortable with, that I can stand behind and say, you know what, I'm okay with who I am, I like how I show up. There aren't these glaring sources of internal friction or fracture that feel like I don't know who I am or, or I feel really out of alignment. All of those sorts of things that can erode our self respect and take us further away from ourselves. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. I'm Going to be sharing five tips, a mix of things to start doing and stop doing. That will help you build genuine self esteem and become a person that you like being. Which I think is a really noble thing to shoot for. Now, before we get into today's episode, you might have noticed that this is episode 200 of the podcast, which is a really wonderful milestone.
[00:03:04]:
I started this podcast in April 2022. It was very much off the cuff. I remember sitting with my sister with a scrap of paper and brainstorming what I might call the podcast and coming up with all these things and just wanting to, you know, get it done and get it out there. And so we circled on attachment and off I went. I recorded three episodes in one day, whipped up some cover art on Canva and went live the next day. So the whole thing went from idea to reality in less than 48 hours. And here we are, three and a bit years later, 200 episodes. And safe to say the podcast has grown to something that has far exceeded anything I could have dreamed of.
[00:03:48]:
We've recently crossed over 7 million episode downloads. We've had over 700,000 unique listeners from over 150 countries, over 120,000 people who follow or subscribe to the show across Apple and Spotify, and over 5,000 five star ratings and reviews. So if you've been here since the beginning or for a while, thank you from the bottom of my heart for all of your support. As I said, you know this all started in my living room and it still is something that I record and produce and edit and post everything. It is a one woman show and it the world to me to have your support tuning. In your kind words. The reviews that you leave, I read them all. I receive them all with so much gratitude and if you're new here, welcome.
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I hope you find what you're looking for. I hope you find something that supports you on your path and I am so grateful to every single one of you. So a huge, huge thanks. The second very exciting announcement is that I have signed a book deal and I'm going to be writing a book, the Secure Self. It won't be out till at this stage, probably early 2027. Things a little more slowly in the publishing world than the online world, but nevertheless I am incredibly excited to be working on this. It feels like a huge milestone and a beautiful way to share my work and my teachings with so many more people all around the world. The book will be about transforming anxious attachment from the inside out, which is really at the heart of Everything that I teach how we can tend to those parts of ourselves that we have maybe abandoned or neglected and build up a really safe, sturdy foundation from within that allows us to experience life and relationships in a totally different way.
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So again, this opportunity is in no small part due to all of you guys supporting my work and supporting my platform. So for that I am immensely grateful and I can't wait to share the secure self in book form with you in due course when it's out in the world. Okay, thank you for indulging my self celebratory announcements for today. Let's get into today's episode, which is episode 200, how to become someone that you like. Okay, the first one is get really clear on what it would mean to show up as someone you like. What would it mean to live in alignment with your values? Do you know what your values are? This might sound kind of basic, but most people who I work with can't answer that question very cogently. And I think that speaks to the fact that most of us sort of drift through our lives just trying to fit in or just trying to please other people, just trying to get some semblance of like, am I doing okay? Am I succeeding? Am I being a good person without having a really clear North Star in terms of what does that mean to me? What is my compass? And until we can internally source that and have real clarity around what kind of person do I want to be, we're not going to be in a very good position to audit. Where are the leakages? Where are the gaps that we need to maybe close? Where am I out of alignment with my values? Because in the vast majority of cases it's not a mystery.
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So often people will come to me feeling really stuck and lost and confused, not knowing why they feel so horrible or why they have such low self esteem. But it doesn't take much when you start scratching the surface and they might be in a shitty relationship where, you know their core needs are chronically unmet and they feel anxious all the time. You know, they work in a job that they hate, they don't take care of their health and wellbeing and then treat it as some sort of, there must be something wrong with me that I'm feeling the way I'm feeling. Sometimes we're so deep in it that we can't really see it. And when we step back it's like, well, yeah, of course, right? Of course I feel this way. Of course I feel stuck. Of course I feel lost. I have no clear sense of where I'm going.
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I have no North Star here. I have no sense of my values. So I have nothing to reach for. I have nothing to align myself to. We really want to have a scaffold which is like, what would it mean for me to be a person of character and integrity? And until you know what the substance of that is, it's going to be really, really hard. Become someone that you're really comfortable being, because that's gotta come from within. It's not about looking around you and saying, you know, what will make people like me more? Because the more that you rely on that as the barometer for whether you are a successful person or whether you're doing a good job, it just takes you further and further away from yourself. And particularly if there's a trade off there.
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If in becoming someone that other people like or, you know, putting on that performance and approval seeking means that you're behaving in ways that are out of alignment, that are incongruent with who you want to be and leaves you with that residue of not feeling good about yourself. That's a really high price to pay. So get really clear on what would it mean for me to be a person of character and integrity? And where am I maybe not meeting the standards that I would like to set for myself in that regard and then start closing the gap. Right? We really have to be quite ruthless in auditing where our choices, our actions, our behaviours are not meeting the mark. And that is all within our control. And that's a really good thing. As much as self responsibility can hold a bit of a mirror up and can be uncomfortable, it's also in my mind extremely empowering because we have agency over that. And I find that to be a much more inspiring message than just saying, I don't know why I'm stuck, and telling ourselves that we're powerless over that.
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Okay, number two, which is kind of related to number one, get really clear on your boundaries, right? Set, honour, enforce, fiercely, protect your boundaries, particularly as they relate to your wellbeing, which is really what boundaries should be about. I think boundaries get thrown around so much. There's a lot of confusion, there's a lot of misuse or misappropriation of what this whole boundary thing is about. I did an episode maybe four or six weeks ago on boundaries versus Ultimatums and I sort of stepped through what all of these different things are. Boundaries, requests, ultimatums, deal breakers and the role that each plays in a healthy relationship or not. So you can go back and listen to that if you want more of a deep dive on this particular piece. But I think the crux of it is until we take our own boundaries seriously, which means not tolerating things that you say you're not going to tolerate, not continuing to participate in interactions, situations, circumstances that actively drain and deplete you, that leave you feeling consistently worse off. And this can be relationships, it can be friendships, it can be work settings.
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All of these things that you know really reliably are not good for you. And yet you continue to engage, you continue participate because getting other people's approval or keeping the peace or keeping your head down, or not causing a fast, not being difficult, all of these things you're putting above your wellbeing. And that to me is a boundary problem and it is always going to come back to bite you. It is not something that you can just keep burying away and pushing down because the body has to hold all of that. And sooner or later we become physically and or emotionally unwell as a result of that. And so really our boundaries are there to protect our wellbeing. And until you start leading the way on that, and until you start honouring yourself enough and respecting yourself enough, that that is more important to you than keeping the peace, than seeking other people's approval, than, you know, just doing what you're told or performing whatever it looks like for you, like that's gotta come first. You've got to signal to yourself, I matter.
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My wellbeing matters. I am a precious thing that is worthy of feeling safe and cared for and supported and living in a sustainable way. Anything short of that is very, very damaging to our self esteem because it sends the opposite message, which is basically, this doesn't feel safe, but I'm going to do it anyway because all of those other things matter to me more than my sense of safety and wellbeing. So get clear on what your boundaries are. It's very, very important work in transforming your relationship to yourself. Okay, next up is pay close attention to who or what brings out the worst in you. So again, this is really asking you to get honest about, you know, how am I showing up? And are there people, social groups, situations, environments that consistently bring out illicit parts of me or expressions of me that I don't like that lead me to be angry, frustrated, bitter, resentful, you know, scorekeeping, that kind of mentality, or, you know, that lead me to be really out of integrity, maybe certain friendship groups where I'm really judgmental and gossipy and, you know, bitchy, or all of these different things that can be shadow expressions of ourselves. And we maybe go along with it because that's just the status quo in that environment or with those people.
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And then afterwards, we're left with this icky residue of, I don't like how I was. I don't like the way that I handled that. I don't like the way I showed up. But for some reason in those settings, I always go there. I always reach for that. It always brings out parts of me that I maybe want to shift, that I'm not really comfortable with and that I know are betraying, again, like, my. My sense of who I would like to be. Character, integrity, morals.
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I know for me, when I was in my early 20s and I really struggled with a lot of things, but, like, stress from work, I would work so much, and then I had a lot of social anxiety. So we'd go out and drink a lot after work, and I would just use alcohol as a way to alleviate that social anxiety. And then, you know, I'd wake up the next day and just feel like such an anxious, insecure mess because I'd gone from, you know, one version of myself that felt really uncomfortable and insecure, and then I'd reached for alcohol to kind of make that feel less uncomfortable. But then I'd. I'd, you know, show up in ways that I didn't like, and then I'd feel deep shame and embarrassment the next morning. It was just a really unpleasant cycle. And. And that shame and embarrassment that I'd then carry would lead me into the cycle again.
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So a big part of my own growth was getting really honest about that and going like, okay, when I drink a lot, I don't like who I am, and it's really important that I take ownership of, you know, if I feel this way every time I do XYZ things like that's on me. I have to see the writing that's on the wall there. I have to acknowledge that this really consistently leaves me feeling like shit. This really harms my own sense of self esteem, my own comfort with who I am. And that's not something that I can in good conscience continue doing while also saying that I'm trying to work on myself, right? So, again, this will look different for everyone. But starting to think, like, are there certain things that reliably bring out parts of me that I don't like, that feel shadowy, that feel kind of energetically unclean, for want of a better term? And what might it look like to start moving away from those things and to Be clear, this is not about like blaming and shaming ourselves. It's just about discernment and knowing ourselves and really actively prioritising the conditions that allow you to thrive, to feel good, to show up as the person you like, rather than putting yourself in situations that, you know, pretty reliably bring out those parts of you that, that maybe you don't feel so good about afterwards. Okay, next up is ruthlessly prioritise your well being and your vitality.
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So I don't mean this in the sense of a picture perfect, you know, Instagram performance of self care, but I do think that it is very, very hard to have a healthy relationship with yourself if you do not treat yourself well, if you do not actively support your health and wellbeing, if you do not make choices that support your energy, your vitality, your aliveness. And this can look like so many things. I did an episode maybe a month or so ago about pleasure, rest and feeling good in a culture of chronic burnout and busyness. And for a lot of us, that's a really uncomfortable thing. Slowing down, resting, inviting in more pleasure and sensuality and, and goodness as a baseline feels like we're maybe doing something naughty, like there's guilt attached to that, like we've never accomplished enough to allow ourselves to slow down. Or maybe our nervous system just is so uncomfortable when we are used to operating at this hum of chronic stress that, you know, just slowing down and resting feels unsafe or uncomfortable. So there are lots of different layers here. You know, our modelling around self care, whatever that might have looked like in your family of origin or your community.
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A lot of people have coding that self care is very self indulgent and there's no time for that and, you know, keeping busy and working hard all the time. So there can be a lot to unpack here. But the point stands that I think it's really, really hard to have a deeply rewarding, aligned relationship with yourself that is based on burnout and pushing yourself past your limits over and over again. So allowing yourself to regularly feel good, to rest, to relax, to be present, without feeling like you have to earn that or like you're doing something wrong. I think that's a really important part of, again, signalling to your system that I'm worthy of this, that it's safe for me to rest, that I don't have to prove and strive all the time. And I think that allows us to then show up to all aspects of our lives more powerfully with more energy, with more vitality, with less resentment and Bitterness and, you know, being less frayed at the edges. And I think that's really undeniably a win win for everyone, for ourselves, and for the people in our lives. Okay? And last but not least, seek out opportunities to make yourself proud.
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Now, I think that really one of the most powerful experiences we can have in terms of our relationship with ourselves is being able to honestly, hand on heart, say, I'm really proud of myself, right? To experience a sense of accomplishment that feels deep and profound and well earned. Like we've overcome something hard and we've proven to ourselves what we are capable of, that is not to be underestimated. And I think that when we can have those moments of saying, like, yeah, I'm really proud. I'm proud of how I showed up, it doesn't have to be some outward achievement, right? This doesn't have to be like getting a promotion. It could be, I'm proud of myself that I spoke up for something that wasn't right for me when it would have been so much easier to bite my tongue or I'm proud of myself that I set a boundary with my boss and said that I wasn't available to work over the weekend, even though historically I would have just said yes and done what I was told. There are so many little things, opportunities to step into these things that feel foreign and that feel uncomfortable and that feel like a stretch. But when we do it and we stand in that wobbly space, in that messy middle between our comfort zone and what lies beyond it, that is very, very powerful. It's very transformative, and it shows our system that, like, I can survive the discomfort of that because I'm strong and I'm committed to doing hard things, to challenging myself, to showing myself what I am captivating, capable of.
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So actively seek out opportunities to be courageous so that you can say, I am really proud of myself. To stretch yourself, to prove to yourself that you know those limiting beliefs and the stories you might have about what's possible for you and you know what you're capable of, seek out opportunities to disprove those stories and to show to yourself that actually you can change those things, that whatever it is that you might be struggling with in terms of your beliefs about yourself or, you know, the things that feel a bit sticky in your life, they're not fixed, they're not permanent parts of you, and it's over to you to actually take steps towards a different way. And doing that, even deciding to try, can be really powerful in allowing you to feel like you're Proud of yourself. So don't underestimate the impact of that. It is really, really profound. Okay guys, that was five tips to learn to like yourself more. I'm going to quickly recap them because I know that that got lengthy. The first was get honest about what's out of alignment so that you can audit the gap between who you're being and who you want to be and that you really have your values and your sense of integrity as a scaffold that you can be led by in all of your decisions across all aspects of your life.
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The next one was set and honour your boundaries. So get really clear around what boundaries do I need, what parameters, what guardrails do I need in order to protect my wellbeing, my safety, my energy? All of that is worthy of protecting. And getting really clear on what that looks like for you is a really important way of building self esteem and building self respect and in turn liking yourself more. The next one was pay close attention to who or what brings out the worst in you or the parts of you that you don't really like, behaviours that you're trying to shift away from. Be very deliberate about funnelling your time and energy towards the people, places, activities that bring out the best in you. The next was to ruthlessly prioritise your wellbeing and vitality. So take your self care very seriously. You deserve to feel good, you deserve to rest, you deserve to live from a place of vitality and fullness and aliveness rather than one of depletion and burnout.
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And last but not least, seek out opportunities to make yourself proud. So challenge yourself. Stretch what you think you're capable of. Prove your limiting beliefs wrong and that will work wonders for your self esteem and your ability to say I'm proud of who I am. I like myself. Guys, thank you so much for joining me for this episode 200 of On Attachment. As always, so so grateful for your support and I look forward to seeing you again. Next.
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Thanks guys.
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Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you want to go deeper on all things attachment, love and relationships, you can find me on Instagram @stephanie__rigg or at stephanierigg.com and if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a five star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here and I hope to see you again soon.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
self esteem, self worth, self love, personal development, self respect, values alignment, boundaries, people pleasing, approval seeking, integrity, character, self responsibility, relationship with self, wellbeing, burnout, self care, rest, vitality, people pleasing, chronic stress, shame, social anxiety, personal growth, transformation, limiting beliefs, discomfort, courage, accomplishment, agency, healthy relationships, attachment styles