On Purpose with Jay Shetty
On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Still Thinking About Your Ex? (Use This 2-Step Reset to Stop the Spiral for Good!)

May 15, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

The Person You're Missing Doesn't Exist

Your brain is lying to you. That's the blunt starting point of this episode, and Jay Shetty doesn't soften it. The person you're currently grieving—the one in the photos you keep returning to, the one who stars in the mental highlight reel—is a construction. A story your brain is telling you, and your brain right now is a profoundly unreliable narrator.

When we experience loss, the brain edits. Memory is not a recording; it's a reconstruction, and every reconstruction is influenced by your current emotional state and needs. Cognitive psychologist Elizabeth Loftus established this decades ago: human memory is extraordinarily malleable. We add details that weren't there, remove details that were, and unconsciously rewrite what happened to fit what we need to be true.

In a state of loss, the brain has a specific bias: it amplifies the positive and suppresses the negative. The moments of warmth and connection get vivid. The chronic pattern of dismissal, the way they made you feel small, the arguments that circled the same drain—those get fuzzy. You end up remembering a relationship that was approximately 40% better than the one you actually had.

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (03:02) **The Problem: The Romanticizing Spiral** - Jay Shetty opens by vividly describing the compulsive behaviors of romanticizing an ex—replaying photos, listening to "their" songs, checking social media, and having imaginary conversations.
  • 2 (04:20) **Why Your Brain Lies: The Neuroscience of Loss** - The harsh truth: the person you are missing is a construction, not a real person.
  • 3 (07:02) **The Addiction Mechanism: Dopamine Withdrawal** - The brain's reward system treats the lost partner like a predicted reward, and its disruption is neurologically identical to withdrawal.
  • 4 (09:25) **The Story You're Telling Is Fiction: The Trailer vs. The Film** - Jay introduces the concept of "selective abstraction" from CBT, where you focus on one element while ignoring the broader context.
  • 5 (11:18) **The Full Film: Identifying the Underlying Pattern** - Jay prompts you to think about the actual pattern that kept reasserting itself and never changed.
  • 6 (12:56) **The Gottman Research: Patterns Present for Years** - John Gottman's research found that the "four horsemen" (contempt, criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling) are usually present for an average of six years before a breakup.
  • 7 (14:26) **What You're Actually Grieving: The Old Wound** - The grief about your ex is often a portal into a much older attachment wound.

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Guests on this episode

Jay Shetty

Show Notes

You know that moment after a breakup when you find yourself going back to their photos. Not all of them, just the best ones. The trips, the laughs, the versions of you that felt happiest together. And before you even realize it, it starts to feel like you lost something perfect. This is about that moment. The quiet spiral where you begin to question your decision, wondering if you made a mistake, where the relationship in your memory starts to feel better than it actually was. Jay breaks down what’s really happening there. Your mind is editing the past, holding onto the highlights while slowly letting go of the reasons it didn’t work. The arguments, the doubts, the patterns that hurt you all start to fade. So what you’re missing isn’t the full relationship. It’s a curated version of it.

Jay unpacks why heartbreak can feel so overwhelming. It’s not just emotional, it’s biological. Your brain responds to the loss like withdrawal, craving the connection it got used to, which is why checking their profile or replaying old conversations can feel almost impossible to resist. Even deeper than that, Jay explains how breakups often tap into something older, patterns of attachment, fears of being left, or the need to feel chosen. When you think you’re missing them, part of what you’re really feeling is the loss of security, identity, and the version of yourself that existed in that relationship.

In this episode you'll learn:

How to Stop Romanticizing Your Ex

How to Break the Late-Night Thought Spiral

How to Let Go Without Losing Yourself

How to Resist the Urge to Check Their Socials

How to Heal Without Reaching Out

How to Rebuild Your Identity After a Breakup

If you’re in that space right now, missing them, questioning everything, going back and forth in your mind, just know this: what you’re feeling is real, but it doesn’t mean the story you’re telling yourself is true. It means you cared, you attached, and now you’re learning how to let go. 

With Love and Gratitude,

Jay Shetty

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What We Discuss:

00:00 Intro

02:20 The Version You Miss Isn’t the Whole Truth

07:29 Why Your Mind Rewrites the Past

10:46 The Hidden Patterns That Break Relationships

12:29 What You’re Really Grieving

17:22 The Real Work of Letting Go

19:32 #1: No Contact Rule

21:0

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

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