Stop giving your ex so much power over you.

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Hi there,

There’s a point after a breakup where you’re no longer crying on the bathroom floor, but you’re also not free. The world sees you functioning. You’re working, you’re showing up, you’re smiling again. Maybe you even feel “over it.” But internally, something else is happening — something deeply consequential.

You’ve armored up. You don’t have boundaries; you have a wall around your heart, and no one can get in.

And when you armor up, you don’t move on. Instead, you hand your ex the pen and let them keep writing the next chapters of your life.

I deeply understand the pain of heartbreak. I have nothing but compassion for what heartbreak does to the nervous system. When someone you’ve let into the most intimate spaces of your heart chooses to step away — or forces you to step away, the body reacts as if it has been abandoned in the wild. No one simply “gets over it.” You’re not supposed to. Grieving someone who is still alive is brutal.

But here is what I see again and again: Even after the grief has lifted, people still live as if they are in the shadow of their past relationship. And this isn’t because they still want their ex. But, they’re closed off, hypervigilant, and acting as if every new person is a potential threat.

You think you’re protecting yourself, but you’re actually limiting yourself.

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People tell themselves they’re “just being cautious,” but what’s really happening is this: They’re still reacting to someone who’s no longer here.

Photo by Norbert Buduczki on Unsplash

We talk a lot about emotional unavailability, as if it’s a fixed trait: Some people are open, and some people keep their hearts behind locked doors. But emotional unavailability is often less about unwillingness and more about fear. It’s a strategy of survival. A private vow we make to protect ourselves from pain: “Never again.”

These vows feel protective, wise, even empowering. And in the immediate aftermath of heartbreak, they are. When the wound is fresh, self-protection isn’t just allowed —it’s essential. You have to gather your pieces, reclaim your dignity, and rebuild your sense of safety.

But if you’re not careful, the protective layer solidifies into armor. And once the armor forms, it doesn’t just keep danger out; it keeps connection out.

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Everyone has steel walls around them. Everyone is waiting to be disappointed. Everyone is scanning for red flags instead of possibilities. And when two guarded people meet, what do you think happens? They can’t connect. There’s no vulnerability. No emotional access. It feels flat, detached, or overly transactional. Then they walk away saying:

“See? This is why dating sucks.”

“It’s impossible out there.”

“No one is serious.”

But the dating world isn’t the issue. Emotional unavailability is. And emotional unavailability is often just fear of being hurt. This is where so many people get confused. They say they’re “ready to date again,” but what they’re truly ready for is a controlled experience of connection: intimacy without risk, closeness without exposure, love without vulnerability. They want the benefits of a relationship without the inherent uncertainty of it. But that’s not how love works. To love is to risk. To build something is to allow the possibility of loss.

And this is where many people unknowingly give their ex tremendous power. Their ex is no longer calling, texting, or showing up. But they are still shaping who this person becomes, how they relate, and what they allow themselves to feel.

Your ex becomes the architect of your emotional boundaries.

Your ex becomes the reason you don’t try again.

Your ex becomes the justification for staying closed.

Your ex becomes the silent author of your dating life.

I often say that the real tragedy after heartbreak isn’t that we once loved who we lost, it’s that we don’t let ourselves love again. We start to expect little. We assume disappointment. We examine every new person through the lens of the old one. Every gesture is scrutinized. Every inconsistency is treated as a prophecy. And it creates a distorted map of love where everything is a threat, and where everyone seems suspect.

This is why the dating world feels so grim for so many people — because the collective atmosphere is thick with fear. Everyone is protecting themselves. Everyone is holding back. Everyone is touching the connection with gloves on. And we mistake this mutual guardedness for a shortage of good people, when in reality it’s an abundance of scared, guarded people.

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Connection requires vulnerability. Vulnerability requires openness, and openness requires the willingness to be hurt again.

This is the part most people don’t want to hear: Love will never guarantee that you won’t get hurt again.

No book, therapist, coach, or spiritual practice can give you that promise. What we can do is learn to trust that we can handle whatever disappointment comes our way, and learn to be more discerning. Protecting your heart is not the same as refusing to use it. You can have boundaries. You can move slowly. You can be discerning. You can learn from what happened.

But none of these require shutting down your essential human capacity to love and be loved. None of these requires making your ex the reference point for your future.

This is where authorship comes in.

When we’re wounded, our story feels like something that happened to us. The narrative is reactive: What they did, what went wrong, how we were affected. But healing — real healing — is the shift from being written by the story to writing the story. Authorship means deciding what meaning the past will have in your life. Your ex may be part of your story, but they are not the architect of your future unless you allow them to be.

Maybe it’s time to stop letting someone who’s no longer in your life decide how open your heart gets to be.

I’m thinking about you this Thanksgiving.

Love,
Jillian