Love and Relationships – The Blog of Nishant Garg

Dr. Cortney Warren — Letting Go of Your Ex: CBT Skills to Heal the Pain of a Breakup and Overcome Love Addiction

This is a guest post from Dr. Cortney Warren. Her new book Letting Go of Your Ex: CBT Skills to Heal the Pain of a Breakup and Overcome
Love Addiction released in Feb 2023. I am grateful to share an excerpt from her new book on this post. You can also check out my interview with her in 2022 on Choose Honesty, Honest Liars, The Psychology of Self-Deception

Dr. Cortney S. Warren is a Board Certified Clinical Psychologist and Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). Having won numerous professional awards for her research, Cortney is an expert on addictions, self-deception, romantic relationships, eating pathology, and the practice of psychotherapy from a cross-cultural perspective. Her newest work is a self-help book that explores breakups through an addictive framework called Letting Go of Your Ex: CBT Skills to Heal the Pain of a Breakup and Overcome Love Addiction (2023)

Excerpt and overview of the blog

Are you struggling to get over a former lover? Do thoughts and memories of your ex occupy your mind day and night? Do you wish you could talk to them, touch them, see them—anything to make you feel close again? Are you consumed by anger, sadness, frustration, or unbearable pain that your relationship is over? If so, you’re not alone—and you may be going through a love-addicted breakup. For people who struggle with love addiction, breakups can be downright devastating. Yet, there are tools you can use to start healing.

Loving, Growing, and Healing together in Relationships

Dear friends, I’ve been contemplating the below musings from different authors including mine to heal and grow in dating, romantic relationships, and all kinds of relationships. This blog post is brought to you by my new co-creation of a spiritual retreat from Oct 7th-Oct 9th 2022. You can check the details at Immersive Retreat – From Admiration to Inspiration. Let’s begin…

“There is no shortage of people who ended a new relationship with great potential because they were unconsciously attached to perfection. Running away when slight friction occurs is a sign of being emotionally unprepared. Great relationships are built, they don’t come ready-made.” –Yung Pueblo

“Dating/Relationships is a skill. It’s like any other skill in life which takes time, effort, and patience. Sometimes we see a successful person doing horribly in their personal relationships, and vice versa. When we see someone with an amazing relationship, it means they’ve developed this skill over time, and continually cultivate it.”

“I was reminded that what we resist persists. My intuitive guide, Sabrina Heartsong, prompted me to perhaps consider that this relationship was showing up in my life in such a way as to teach me how to stay in the flow and learn something that life was so gracefully presenting. She told me my relationship with this man had manifested itself exactly the way I energetically attracted it. The universe was showing me the areas in my life that still needed healing.” – Waleuska Lazo

Contemplative Questions to Wander and Wonder

As I’m taking a deep dive into certain areas of my life, why I do, what I do, who I’ve become, and who am I becoming — I’ve been asking myself some questions in different contexts such as vocation, love, and relationships, friendships, podcast, etc. These questions can be applied in any context I believe. I’m glad to share those questions in this post. If you think these are irrelevant to you, please disregard them, and you might reconsider these at a later point.

The quality of our life depends on the quality of questions we ask ourselves. When we listen to life, when we listen to that softer inner voice — we usually listen to the calling, the unanswered questions, the unexplored territory. Listening to life is a lifelong practice and requires cultivating moments of silence.

I heard these questions in moments of hope and despair. These questions created a tingly feeling inside me and I couldn’t resist capturing them. Some of them came through when I was talking to Amanda Tempist Jade recently.

Here’s the list:

Dr. Margaret Paul — Inner Bonding Process, Wounded Self and Loving Adult, Conversations with Inner-Child, Creating a Lasting and Loving Relationship, Accessing Spiritual Guidance (#201)

MARGARET PAUL is a bestselling author, popular MindBodyGreen writer and co-creator of the powerful Inner Bonding® self-healing process, and the related SelfQuest® self-healing online program – recommended by actress Lindsay Wagner and singer Alanis Morissette.

Dr. Paul is the author/co-author of several best-selling books, including Do I Have To Give Up Me to Be Loved By You?, Inner Bonding, Healing Your Aloneness, The Healing Your Aloneness Workbook, Do I Have To Give Up Me to Be Loved By My Kids?, and Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By God? Dr. Paul’s books have been distributed around the world and have been translated into eleven languages. She holds a PhD in psychology and is a relationship expert, noted public speaker, workshop leader, educator, chaplain, consultant and artist. She has appeared on many radio and TV shows, including the Oprah show. She has successfully worked with thousands of individuals, couples and business relationships and taught classes and seminars since 1967.

Margaret continues to work with individuals and couples throughout the world — mostly on the phone. She is able to access spiritual Guidance during her sessions, which enables her to work with people wherever they are in the world. Her current passion is working on and developing content for this Website, as well as distributing SelfQuest®, the software program that teaches Inner Bonding® and is donated to prisons and schools, as well as sold to the general public.

Margaret is passionate about helping people rapidly heal the root cause of their pain and learn the path to joy and loving relationships. In her spare time, Margaret loves to paint, make pottery, take photos, watch birds, read, ride horses, and spend time with her grandchildren.

Please enjoy!

Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or on your favorite platform.

This podcast is brought to you by Newsletter. If you’d like to learn more about what I am reading, new documentaries, what I am learning new, recent podcast updates, things I am experimenting with, or anything —which I share extensively in my weekly short and sweet “Friday Newsletter”. No spam ever! I hate that too!

Resources/Books from Margaret:

Free Ebook The 4 Mistakes that Block Self-Love and Relationships
The Inner Bonding Workbook

Listen on Apple Podcasts

The Recap of January 2022 Episodes — In Case You Missed It (#198)

Usually, my job on this show is to interview world-class experts in different domains. But this episode is an experiment and a quick recap of 3 episodes Mark Coleman, Sergey Young, Katherine Woodward Thomas, published in January 2022. I took the first 15 mins of each episode and combine them into this single episode. If you enjoy the short version of each guest’s interview, you can listen to the guest’s full interview.

Please enjoy!

Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or on your favorite platform.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Self-Reflection Questions in Dating and Relationships

Below are some questions that came up in my coaching session with Amanda Jade. I absolutely adore her. Amanda has been on my podcast, I reached out to her to coach me when I was going through some anxiousness in my dating and relationships with women.

These are powerful questions to contemplate and wanted to share them with you. There is no right or wrong answer to these questions. My answers will evolve over time as I change and grow.

For simplicity, I’m using the pronoun “her”, and you feel free to use whatever pronoun is aligned with you.

1) What are my expectations of her?

2) What part of me says YES or NO to her?

[This question arises when I am absolutely attracted to her and when I am not.]

3) What am I learning about myself?

Do you have a desire or do you have a longing? (there’s a big difference)

Words longing and desire have been used interchangeably. These are similar and yet not the same. One morning, on my quest to understand the difference between longing and desire, I started to read a bunch of articles. The reason being is to understand is if I am longing to attract a loving partner or I am desiring. I wasn’t sure what it is.

I came across a fantastic article from Janelle Hardy. The article connected with me so deeply that I took the print-out and read it about a dozen times. Later, I reached out to Janelle Hardy to see if I could share that article on my website. And, she said yes. I also subscribed to her newsletter. I’m sure that this article will connect with you at some level. I loved this article so much that I shared the link in one of my Friday Newsletter. Below is a short bio of Janelle Hardy and then the article begins.

If you enjoy this post, please share it with others. Thanks so much. Last but not the least, I subscribed to Janelle’s podcast the Personal Mythmaking Podcast and it’s very calming and heart-touching.

Janelle Hardy is a writer, artist, host of the Personal Mythmaking Podcast and the creator/teacher of a transformational memoir-writing course called The Art of Personal Mythmaking. She’s been working as a trauma-informed bodyworker in the hands-on healing arts fields for 13+ years and as an artist (writing, painting + dance) for 17+ years. Throughout that time she’s taught adults out of her living room, arts centers, universities, and community colleges. For the past 5+ years, she’s integrated all of her expertise, including a BA in Anthropology, an MA in Dance, and a Diploma in Structural Integration, into supporting people in their creative healing work via the alchemy of transformational memoir-writing.

Enter Janelle:

Desire. Desiring. Wanting.

I desire many things. Intensely deep, rich, dark, tarry chocolate. Exercising till I sweat rivers down my back, between my breasts, into my eyes. Soulful conversations that draw me into a deeper understanding of my rich friendships. Belly laughs that turn contagious and nonsensical, ending in fits on the floor, alternating sighing and laughing until fatigue burns through the impulse. Butter that is cultured and snobby, tasting of so much more than just butter, melting on my mouth as my eyes roll back. Losing-my-head sex. Dinner parties with friends, finished off with my mother’s glorious devil’s coffee.

Katherine Woodward Thomas — Conscious Uncoupling, Effects of Attachment and Childhood Wounds, Calling in “The One”, Deeper Dimensions of Relational Patterns, and More (#188)

“With all of the darkness you may be walking through, it’s good to remember that where there is no light, you have the choice to become it.”

“Love is unconditional, but relationships are not.”
Katherine Woodward Thomas

Katherine Woodward Thomas is the New York Times bestselling author of Conscious Uncoupling: 5 Steps to Living Happily Even After and Calling in “The One”: 7 Weeks to Attracting the Love of Your Life as well as an award-winning marriage and family psychotherapist. She’s also the creator of the Conscious Uncoupling process made known by Gwyneth Paltrow and introduced a more conscious, creative and respectful way to transition out of a primary love relationship.

Katherine also trains and certifies people to become Certified Calling in “The One” Coaches and/or Conscious Uncoupling Coaches and provides ongoing supervision and development to a vibrant community of her coaches from around the world.

Over the past two decades, Katherine has had the honor of teaching hundreds of thousands of people from all corners of the globe to create conscious, loving relationships and to realize the higher potentials all their connections hold for health and happiness. Katherine is a featured teacher with the international transformational educational giant, Mindvalley, and she’s appeared multiple times on The Today Show with Savannah Guthrie, been written about in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The London Times, and many other media outlets as well as being a featured guest on Maria Shriver’s Architects of Change series.

In her spare time, she loves to sing, play the flute and write lyrics. She’s a Billboard-charting, #1 iTunes jazz artist with her CD, Lucky in Love which was co-written and co-produced with The Koren Brothers.

Please enjoy!

Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Sticher, or on your favorite platform.

Connect with Katherine: Website | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn

Katherine books: