Letting Go
- Carla Crivaro
- Jul 9
- 14 min read
It doesn’t get talked about what it means to move on from a relationship. It ends. People expect us to have a few days of not feeling great and then the goal is to ‘move on’. I got caught up in this. Especially when hearing from some well-meaning people ‘I don’t know why you’re so upset when you broke up with him’.
‘Moving on’ doesn’t mean just having a bit of a cry and then carrying on with life like before. It’s a process that isn’t necessarily time limited. And here, I’m going to share my learnings and my experience in the unravelling of a relationship that completed its course.
For me when the relationship ended there was a flooding sense of relief. Of freedom. In fact a song I had come to love was really speaking to me, the words really matched how I felt and how positive I could see my life becoming now that I was liberated from a relationship that dragged me down and dimmed my light. ‘Golden’ by Jill Scott for those of you interested. In fact it became my ‘theme tune for 2025’.
So for the first few days I felt quite good. Positive. Able to see a future. Excited even. And then I went on retreat and we did a ritual - my intentions were to reclaim the parts of me lost to my ex:
Power
Ferocious love for myself and other women
Open heart
Meeting my voice and speaking my truth
Eros
To read about the full experience you can do so here. In summary what arose for me was deep grief. And the grief didn’t belong to only the experience of separation from my ex, but actually deep waves of grief unfelt for decades. Pouring out of me. Being birthed. At the end of that - bliss and ecstasy.
That’s it I thought on the way home. I had worked through it all. It had passed through me. I felt good, positive. About a week later feeling in a good place I invited a male friend for a sexual encounter but ended up in tears. Many of my self-pleasure practices were ending up in tears. Stuck emotion in my body being moved up and out by the orgasm in the form of more grief and tears.
It was around this point that I started noticing a slight sense of anxiety when I woke every morning. I had suffered with chronic anxiety a few years ago and the gentle hum in my body returned. I figured it was just perimenopausal symptoms so made sure my mornings were slower to prepare me for the day instead of rushing into them.
I mistakenly felt I had worked through much of my emotions with my ex. I had started to take a look at my role and responsibility in the relationship. I thought that maybe it hadn’t been what I had made it out to be in my pain. That potentially, in the future we could might find our way back to each other. A part of me still clinging on in some way to ‘what if…’
I wrote an article about my shame and confessions, which can be read here. Feeling like I had done the right thing, taking ownership for how I showed up. Then the messages, voice notes and phone calls came in. Angry and threatening. Not being given space to talk. Attacked, blamed. My nervous system activated, shaking, vibrating, heart beating fast. Reminding me of how much I had felt this fear throughout the relationship but having not recognised it at the time for what it was, but now, distant from the past, I realised what it was. Fear had been living in my body for so long and only in that moment did I realise what I was feeling. It was like I had to step away, have a long break, then actually come to realise how much of that relationship I had been fearful of the next reaction. The next outburst. It consolidated in me that I had made the right decision. The ‘what ifs’ quickly transmuted into ‘that was the right thing to do’. He had shown up in the way he had frequently done which had been the reason for me saying ‘this wasn’t for me’ in the first place.
So, I thought I had been able to move through it and could see objectively and feel objectively what was happening.
But then I noticed, my women’s circle Men Are Not the Enemy was coming up. I was going to educate women and invite them to share their woundings experienced from the men in their lives, past and present and share how to have better relationships with men. I was acutely aware though at how triggered I was of men. How frustrated I was that they weren’t showing up. How damaging some of them were being to their partners in not holding space, getting defensive and stone walling. I was angry at them not having the balls to ‘do the work’ and how damaging unhealed men are to our society.
I didn’t know how I was going to be able to hold space for the women when my own somatic experience was telling me that my body was seeing men as the enemy.
And then it happened. Something I had been wanting to experience for a long time. I’d first heard about it from a colleague who had been on a Sacred Sons retreat. Sacred Sons is an international organisation supporting men in their own healing work. In one retreat they hold, they invite women to come into a circle surrounded by men, while the women get to tap into their most dense emotions of grief, rage, disgust and verbally and physically express them (no physical violence). When I first heard about it I realised that I wanted to experience that - for a man to hold all of that fully and not judge me.
The opportunity came - literally 2 days before my circle. I was reluctant at first - I can’t rage at a man, I’m an advocate for men! I’m the woman who is compassionate and understands their wounds. And while this is true - I had also been hurt by men. So face red, snot pouring down my nose, I screamed into the man’s face while he held it. The waves moving through me from deep inside until they finally stopped and I felt a lightness in my body. The man reflected back to me the power he saw, my vulnerability and my light.
That weekend I was able to hold space with love.
It was a few weeks that I actually began to feel like that had been the final part of it all. That was the last of it.
I was feeling really good about myself. I wasn’t ready for a relationship because I had decided to focus on my business, kids and other women’s empowerment and have that looking how I wanted it before inviting a partner into my life.
But I was ready for some action. I got myself on Feeld, a dating app for sexual exploration and was really clear on what I wanted. I wanted a man who got off on giving pleasure and enjoyed giving oral. I wanted to undo my discomfort around receiving oral that had built up in my previous relationship. He had started off enjoying giving me pleasure, but as we trauma bonded and our patterns came out and we dived into chaos, my invitations for more oral were met with me being ‘demanding’ or ‘too much’.
On Feeld I met Alex, a man who through his loving presence guided me back to feeling confident in asking for what I wanted. Who returned me to my somatic knowing that what I want I can ask for and it isn’t that what I’m asking for is wrong, it was who I was asking it from. You can read about that full experience here. Alex and I became friends and I am extremely grateful for him showing me what men are capable of when they have done their own inner-work. It reset my nervous system to know what I deserved.
The experience with Alex also made me realise to what extent I had been holding back on asking for what I wanted. I decided to get off Feeld as my confidence had dipped again and I knew that going on dating apps when not feeling great is looking externally to fill a hole. I only wanted to engage sexually with men when I felt positive about myself so that I wouldn’t try to chase the validation by wanting someone to choose me.
The next moment of remembering was during a course I am currently doing. It’s an Uplevel Academy for my business healing the wounds which are holding me back in my career and work.
I was by myself in Marbella in Spain scouting for retreat properties and networking. In between meetings I was doing the course. It was in that week that we covered a module on ‘trust, betrayal and gaslighting’. Reading the list of gaslighting I felt the realisation move through my body in emotional undulations. I laid in bed for most of one day sobbing. My attachment coach had a couple of times when I had recounted various different stories said ‘that’s gaslighting’. She had also asked me a few times ‘is this relationship safe for you/’. It wasn’t her job to TELL me what to do. But to reflect back to me what I was saying and how we were both showing up in the way I described. It was in that moment, reading the list, as I ticked off each one as having experienced them regularly throughout my relationship that I acknowledged what had been happening. It was heartbreaking.
It also left me feeling extremely unsafe. I felt like I couldn’t in that moment trust anyone. I became really conscious of how I was reacting to everyone and everything, second guessing myself, inner-critic out in full. Feeling not good enough, too much, I can’t get anything right. I was in a spiral. I journalled, I felt. I moved. I cried.
The weeks following left me feeling quite heavy and depressed. I tend normally to be on the more anxious side. I knew this was a functional freeze. My body had been so overwhelmed with emotion that it was on shut down. I was showing up in my business where I could. But so many things I let go of because I just didn’t have the capacity, energy or emotional bandwidth to do them. I procrastinated. I laid in bed. Scrolled on my phone. Everything was feeling too much.
I knew something in me heavy had to shift. The kids went off to their dad’s and one Saturday afternoon I decided to take myself on a journey to let go of everything that was holding me back from moving forward in love and in my business.
During this process I unfriended his friends and family from social media and blocked him.
I deleted all the chats, messages and photos with my ex. I went through them all, one by one. And then it hit me - a terror. A pain that moved my body towards panic. I had experienced this almost a year ago when I had broken up with him. I had experienced the terror and to make the pain pass I had reached out to him… we had ended up back together.
I had intuit going into my process that this could potentially happen again - the feeling of terror. So I wrote on a piece of paper as my self-support to remind me ‘I am loved and supported by divine consciousness’. The terror was my body remembering the fear of death, of abandonment as a baby when I would frequently be left outside the local shop to howl. So much so that women would check if I was OK, for the reply to be - ‘She’s fine, she’s just a crying baby’.
The eradication of the messages and photos had triggered the same response in my body in that moment. My body experienced the intense separation and fear. My body remembered. Instead of reaching out to my ex, this time I sat with my hands out, either side of me asking for divine support. My hands were held and I settled back onto my sofa. The grief came in waves.
The pain and grief reached the depths of my heart, which felt like it was opening into another dimension and discharging from there. I felt the grief pour from my womb. My body releasing in waves, wails gurgling from the back of my throat. It wasn’t just the grief of my ex that was I was experiencing, it was the unfelt pain from years of not having permission to feel. My emotions being an ‘inconvenience’ to others. My sadness being ‘too much’ to hold. My disappointment being a trigger to others.
The journey that afternoon into the evening was a long one. I got to a point in that process that I realised that from now on, he was just going to be ‘someone I used to know’. My kids mention his name occasionally. Initially those mentions were met with contraction. I find I’m at a place now where those mentions don’t give me a somatic reaction. I have recovered most of the photos I had deleted - but because I had allowed myself to feel the deep pain of separation, the recovery was no longer from a place of need or clinging. I knew that at some point in the future, I would look at those photos with nostalgia for experiences shared and a guy who had been for those 2 years a big part in my own children’s lives. For now they’re hidden in my phone as I continue the process of feeling and letting go.
What I have come to notice and realise is there are many parts to this. That we can’t hurry on or move the process quicker than we want it to. It unfolds at its own pace. There are places, people and things that remind us of the hurt and pain.
That even if the relationship was an unhealthy one and a trauma bond that grief is still normal. Humans are wired for attachment. When those attachments are broken it is normal that we want to reach out, hope, question and do all the things to try and keep them in our lives in some way.
That bypassing what we feel doesn’t actually ‘get rid of it’. Moving too quickly into ‘rationalising’ everything without FEELING is actually shutting down and trapping it all in there. What we actually need to do is be with it all.
That the ruminating on what he should have done, my judgments of him, all the things I wish I had said, would like to say to him I can do - in letters or in aspecting. To let go of the ruminating thoughts we need to connect to the emotion they’re attached to, no matter how angry, bitter, petty they might feel. They’re there anyway. By ignoring them they won’t go away. They stay around in the nervous system. And if you don’t feel them now and do what’s necessary to release those things then you will end up projecting them onto your future dates and partner. So if you want a relationship different to the one that you have just come out of, one that is more fulfilling, don’t take that current hurt with you. It could take months to be with and feel it all, I am now 7 months on and still there are moments of pain wanting to be released. What I am noticing though is that because my past relationship was a reflection of relationships from my 20s, my most recent one is in fact a portal to letting go of the suppressed pain from the earlier ones.
The pain I’m feeling is not a sign that I should go back. A lot of people believe that if it hurts this much or it continues to show up that it must mean that we are ‘soul mates’ or that we’re ‘meant to be together’. Nope. It’s just normal separation (attachment) mixed with unmet and unhealed parts of ourselves wanting our attention.
I noticed that my jaw has tightened and consciously connecting to it I release tears - not knowing the story behind them. My attachment coach inviting me to share what I might be ‘biting onto’ the things unsaid that I’m locking down in my jaw.
I’m consciously aware that the ruminating thoughts are a reflection of unhealed wounds of not feeling seen (and unconsciously choosing people who don’t see me). Wounds from my inner-child of not feeling chosen - because if he had changed FOR me it would mean I am enough and that I am chosen. When in fact his behaviour was a reflection of his own pain.
That his behaviour spoke to me about the parts of myself that still don’t feel worthy and deserving - worthy and deserving of the love that I desire. Unconsciously choosing someone who reflects back to me the parts of myself that still don’t feel deserving of being treated with respect.
A more recent appointment with my attachment coach she repeated something back to me. “Carla, when we talk we don’t always hear the words we say. So I’m going to repeat what you said - I was right to not trust him”. There had been throughout the whole relationship a feeling of not being able to trust him. I had put it down to his infidelity in his previous relationships and my own wounds around betrayal with friends and ex-boyfriends. It would be a frequent point he would make. I tried to find ways to say that it wasn’t true. What I have come to realise is, that there was an intuitive knowing in me that I had been right. I couldn’t trust him. I couldn’t trust him because of his inconsistency, his behaviour and responses to me which were unkind, unloving and left me constantly questioning myself. It had not been a relationship where someone had been by my side, supporting me to be the greatest version of myself. I had dimmed down, shut down, silenced myself to keep what I thought I wanted (him). I had ignored my inner-knowing and because of that had disconnected myself. Through this I had lost trust in myself. By not speaking up for myself and having better boundaries, by not walking away sooner I had learnt not to trust myself too.
Amongst all of this pain I frequently supported myself to do lots of loving and caring acts for myself. Cuddles with my children. Surrounding myself with supportive friends. My women’s circles, although supporting other women, give me a real sense of community and belonging. Long baths. Decaf coffee and chocolate taken mindfully. Cuddles with Greja my cat. Feet in the grass feeling the earth beneath my feet. Long walks in the countryside. Dancing (sober) to have fun, move my body and meet new people. Workshops and retreats for deeper connections and healing. Feeling the sun on my face. Dancing in my kitchen to women’s sexual empowerment song. Self-pleasure practices…. After each painful moment, I bring my nervous system back to safety so it doesn’t stay there. Read more about that here.
My ex…He was just a reflection - a reflection of the unhealed parts of me that I get to meet and be with now. To prepare me for the partnership that I desire.
As I write this my period, 8 days late, has started. My womb, also letting go. I also notice the tension in my jaw, the tension in my pelvis and although I know that the journey of letting go is mostly done, there are still parts my body is still learning to release.
I have removed the idea of a timeline. I’m surrendering to the knowledge that this unravelling may still have more layers to be revealed. Now I choose to meet them with love and self-compassion. Without rush. And with a knowing that in a future relationship some unmet parts might surface. But this time, I have learnt that I get to choose with whom I want to share those vulnerable parts of me - a man that knows how to hold me tenderly and with care.
Did this resonate for you? Are you still learning to let go of a recent relationship or even one more distant? For women I have a free WhatsApp group where we talk sex, love and relationships - email me to join. For men and women, if you’re are going through the unravelling and looking for support, reach out hello@carlacrivaro.com.
Stop avoiding and start feeling...
Women’s sexual empowerment playlist (don't forget to bring youself back to fun and pleasure between the pain!)
Carla Crivaro is a trauma-informed and certified Sex, Love & Relationship Coach, she works with men and women internationally to reach their goals in delicious sex, profound love and authentic relationships. Carla helps men and women understand themselves and each other, sexually and relationally, in and out of the bedroom. You can reach her at hello@carlacrivaro.com.
Other resources which are supportive around this topic are:
Comments