Detours, Doors, and Departures: A Review of Conscious Uncoupling: 5 Steps to Happily Even After Through the Lens of My Own Heartache

 

Editorial Note:

    This is the first in my new series, “Letters to My Old Self,” which marks the 1.5-year journey leading to my 40th birthday. It’s for the women who walk away and shame themselves for ever looking back. For the women who say they’re “fine” even when they aren’t. For the women who build businesses and raise babies while privately grieving the loss of something (or someone) they gave their all to. This is for you. And for me.

I didn’t pick up Conscious Uncoupling: 5 Steps to Living Happily Even After because I wanted to feel better.

I picked it up because I was tired of pretending I already did.

And Katherine Woodward Thomas met me right there. Wounds fresh and heart raw I put my headphones in and let the audiobook take me on a much needed journey of acceptance, release, love, and freedom.

The first step—“Find Emotional Freedom”—asks you to sit with your feelings instead of suppressing them. As I was standing on the train platform, after having gone out of my way to spend one more night with a man I’ve never fully unhooked from, my brain was replaying the way we kissed. The way we touched. The way we laughed. And how he held me. And then the train pulled into the station. I gave him a half hug, didn’t look back, and caught the train home as if nothing happened.

Except everything had.

“Heartbreak is a sacred initiation,” Thomas writes. “It cracks us open to a deeper relationship with ourselves.” That morning, I didn’t feel cracked open—I felt gutted. But that ache? That was the doorway, and I was going to truly able to start walking through it when I stopped gaslighting myself about how I felt.

Step Two: Reclaim Your Power and Your Life

Thomas encourages us not just to place blame, but to understand “how you might have given away your power.” For me, it wasn’t in loving him—it was in the way I silenced myself inside that love.

I didn’t ask the hard questions when I should’ve. I said what I thought would make him feel seen instead of what I needed to say. That’s not his fault. That’s the wounded part of me who thinks love has to be earned with empathy and over-giving. That’s the me who grew up watching women swallow their truth to keep their homes intact.

And still—he was a perfect gentleman that night. It wasn’t coercive or manipulative. It was a moment charged with history and familiarity and tenderness. When we high-fived, celebrating a dream he finally realized, something shifted. We looked at each other, and the weight of what we used to be moved through us.

I can own that I still hoped love would slip through that crack.

Step Three: Break the Pattern, Heal Your Heart

I didn’t fully understand my role in the cycle until I read:

“You didn’t create your childhood wounds, but as an adult, you are responsible for healing them.”

I’ve been guilty of chasing emotional safety inside of chaotic connections. I’ve stayed quiet so as not to be too much. I’ve mistaken chemistry for destiny. I’ve re-entered soft places looking for closure and left bruised by my own expectations.

And yet—I’m healing.

I’m drinking my water, returning to my workout routines, minding the business I’m building, and tending to my skin. I’m learning what it means to offer grace to myself, not just others.

I don’t shame myself for the kiss or the softness or the moment. But I am choosing not to recreate it.

Step Four: Become a Love Alchemist

Thomas says that becoming a love alchemist means “turning heartbreak into a catalyst for transformation.” That transformation for me looks like emotional honesty—in my writing, my business, and my self-talk.

Love changed me. This relationship softened me. It showed me what it feels like to breathe with someone and not for them. It also showed me how much of myself I still hide in love. I want more than chemistry. I want clarity. I want to know what it’s like to be loved out loud.

And I’m willing to wait for it.

Step Five: Create Your Happily Even After

There’s no real end to love. But there is a new beginning on the other side of it. A beginning I’m not new to. 

“Conscious Uncoupling” isn’t about disconnection—it’s about disentanglement. It’s about ending with integrity. Loving with boundaries. Healing without punishment. It reassured me that the work I’d been doing prior to that night, was still paying off.

And I think more of us need to talk about that.

Because our businesses don’t thrive when we’re pretending we’re fine.

Our art doesn’t bloom when we’re ashamed of our hearts.

This is the start of a new series—and a new chapter. For me, and maybe for you too.

To the women who look back, even when they know better—

This is for you.

You are not weak for wanting to be loved again.

You are not foolish for missing someone who felt like home.

You are not broken because your boundaries faltered one night.

You are human. You are healing. You are still whole.

If you’re going through a breakup, Conscious Uncoupling will not save you. But it will return you to yourself. It’s not about moving on quickly—it’s about moving forward authentically.

It’s worth reading. Slowly. Honestly. And maybe with a journal nearby.