Relationships are constantly changing and so it is only natural to see relationships transform or even terminate over the life course. In this presentation, we will discuss about the management of breakups, a common example of relationship termination. >> Welcome to this segment on the breakup journey. To introduce myself, my name's Hanna Kim. I'm a registered social worker with a Masters of Social Work degree from the University of Toronto. I have both a researcher and clinical background. And I've been fortunate enough to work with Dr. Ka Tat Tsang on numerous SSLD-related projects and have been able to teach other practitioners about this extremely adaptable approach. I'm excited to share this with you with my coauthor of The Breakup Book, Tangible Ways to Get You Back on Your Feet. >> Hello, my name is Sherlyn Hu, a registered social worker, artist, author and mental health clinician in Ontario, Canada and also a practitioner in strategies and skills, learning and development, SSLD. I'm interested to explore the intersection of the arts, healthcare and humanities to celebrate diverse human capacities and more creative forms of human care. I'm the co-author and illustrator of The Break-Up Book, published in 2016. Did you know? According to a study of American college students published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93% of both male and female respondents answer yes to the question, have you been rejected by somebody who you really loved? 95% of the same group has dumped somebody who really loved them. Natural and common experiences do not mean it is easy to deal with and to get over. Many of us experience breakups as destructive events that turn our life worlds upside down, threatens a sense of identity and esteem and shakes up our life plans at unexpected times. We will introduce basic steps in managing relationship breakups. Now here is a disclaimer. Getting through this presentation will not miraculously take away painful feelings, change the thoughts or behaviours of our relationship partners nor substitute the need to get external help in some cases. Rather we focus our attention on how we, ourselves can navigate in and out of this world experiences after breakups. >> Breakups can be an emotionally charged process. We can experience rage, jealousy, sadness, betrayal, relief, or any combination of these feelings. >> Did you know? Rejection hurts. Study of the brains of people going through rejection and separation by MRI has found activity in the anterior insula, a brain region linked not only with the distress that accompanies physical pain, but with physical pain itself. Scientists now think that we remember the physical pain of lost love much longer than the pain of a broken leg. >> In the face of intense emotions, we often enact on certain behaviours, and call upon a variety of strategies, both at conscious and subconscious levels >> To correct what went wrong and get back to normal. Unfortunately some behaviours can be self-defeating and self-destructive. The effects and impacts of breakups can vary, people can lose sight of what they need and want, struggle on finding effective strategies to deal and cope. And sometimes lose touch with their sense of selves and circumstances while in this transition. We base the discussion of break up management on the learning system called Strategies and Skills Learning and Development, SSLD, developed by Professor Ka Tat Tsang at the University of Toronto. For more information on SSLD visit the SSLD website. SSLD aims to make people realize that they have the capacity and a significant role, also known as agency, in making relationships work in ways that meet their underlying needs. In SSLD, the desirable outcomes for people managing break-up is, number one, need gratification, meeting people's underlying needs. And second, goal attainment, achieving people's goals. >> And the first step in all of this is, is to start taking care of ourselves at the present moment. Let's take the oxygen mask analogy for example. When on a plane under emergency circumstances, we are instructed to put the oxygen mask on ourselves before assisting others. Why do you think this is? The amount we can help others is directly related to our own capacity. If I can't breathe, suffocating from a lack of oxygen, you can bet my ability to help the person next to me will be limited to say the least. >> We want to ask yourselves first, are we ready and willing to manage this break up now? Meanwhile, keep breathing. Start with what feel more comfortable or less painful to do. It is okay that we choose not to deal with the break up now. It is normal to call a break to all those break up matters. So, now what? We suggest focusing on taking care of our wholesome selves. It is okay not to deal with the break up now. Pause. Take a deep breath. We can observe ourselves, we can look into what led us to behave and feel a certain way. For example, what is preventing us from moving forward now? What are the benefits of not moving forward? What are our fears and apprehensions? Or if it gets too unbearable, breathe. Forgive ourselves. Ask what are the three things that we feel good about ourselves? What are the three things that we grateful in our current environment? What are the three things that we can do now to make ourselves a little more comfortable? Did you know brain scans of rejected lovers, led by Doctor Helen Fisher, found activities at a nucleus accumbens. This is the central part of the brain's reward system linked with wanting, creating, energy, focus, and motivation. So what it means is, the more we want to forget a former lover, the harder we loved them. Oh, our brains! >> When we are ready and willing to manage our post-breakup journey, we can begin learning how to. In SSLD, we understand that people can learn to transform their relationships to the best of their ability. In other words, meeting one's underlying needs, reaching one's goals, and gaining a deeper understanding of one's context and environment. Believe it or not, there are systematic steps that can guide one through this rather uncertain and challenging time. We can group them using three major stages. Stage one, awareness. >> Explore your break up journey to get more in-depth understanding of who you are. Stage two, design. Learn how to feel positive and develop a sense of mastery over your own internal experiences and processes. And stage three, action. Learn to take charge of your life using tangible steps. For example, in the areas of self-care, relationship management and utilizing effective strategies and skills that you may have not used or were aware of before to get back on your feet. >> To begin fulfilling our goals and underlying needs after break up, we begin by getting a clearer picture of what is going on within me, around me. Here are some suggestions from SSLD. First, become aware of our N3Cs. N3C stands for needs, characteristics, capacities and circumstances. Our N3Cs influence our interaction with others and with our environments. In breakups, our N3Cs are directly shaken up in different shapes and forms, often without our full awareness. So it is worthwhile to look at what do we truly need. Second, assess the impact of this break up by scanning the major areas of human needs. For example, how does this relationship impact our physical needs, such as housing, food? How about your companionship, social status, identity, emotional support, financial security, sexual gratification, personal growth and development and other areas? Finally, assess the emotional and personal impact of this breakup. Management of emotions is an important aspect of self-care. Also, emotional impact reflects threats to, and/or damages of, our sense of self, sometimes sense of order in our lifeworld. We need to have an empathetic understanding of such impact before we can move forward. Meanwhile, it is important to process our emotions while we manage this break up experience. Finding a safe space, and person, to gradually connect with one's internal emotional processes is a prerequisite for subsequent work on the articulation, expression and resolution of intense emotional reactions and are very legitimate emotional needs. >> In the second stage, we focus on developing strategies and skills to learn how to feel positive about ourselves. Developing a sense of mastery over our own internal experiences and processes, such as feelings, thoughts, behaviours and the world around us. Our desired outcome is to realize we can take charge of our own lives and we can transform our lives, and previous ineffective relationship patterns, in a way that can meet our N3Cs. Meeting our N3Cs does not have to happen at the expense of harming others in the process. In fact, it aims to do the opposite. There are two major questions you can ask yourself. Question one, what am I doing right now? Question two, what do I imagine my lifeworld to be? This can include questions of what kind of person do I want to be in this stage of my life? And what do I want around me in terms of what kind of people do I want around me? What kinds of things do I want around me? What kind of situations do I want around me? And what kinds of occupational opportunities do I want to to present myself with? >> Once we get a sense of what we need and how life after breakup can be imagined, we can work on specifying the strategies and skills to be learned to master this new life based on the needs, goals, coping style, personal capacity and resources. Here are some examples of what we can learn, and this will vary from person to person at different points in time. >> To learn more about how SSLD can help one through a breakup, go to Amazon and look up The Break UP Book. It's a handy little book that comes with beautiful illustrations that you can colour and doodle around, comes with numerous exercises that will help encourage reflection, insight, action and healing, and texts that will accompany you through one of life's most challenging transitions, breakups. To learn more about SSLD as an approach that can be used in many, many different contexts and with many different issues, look up Learning to Change Lives, The Strategies and Skills Learning and Development System. It's by Dr. Ka Tat Tsang and published by University of Toronto Press. >> Always remember, you're not alone in this journey of discovery and growth after breakups. Surround yourself with people supportive of you, rain or shine. Thank you for joining in on our presentation of managing break up based on the SSLD system, brought to you by the coauthors of The Break UP Book. Tangible ways to get you back on your feet. Thank you.
