Screw Breakups, Try This! | Abbey Gibb | TEDxWileyCollege

[Applause] it was the break-up to end all breakups ugly crying on my kitchen floor so what exactly does ugly crying Target underwear overpriced almond butter and my kitchen floor have in common well besides sounding like a complete hot mess I know you're thinking that it was the break-up of all breakups in more ways than you could imagine and from it I would learn three rules and I would take three massive actions and of course I'm gonna share with you today but I'm not exactly somebody for just standing up here and like talking at you I'd

really like to have a conversation so I'm going to be asking you questions along the way I would love if you could raise your hand please also I love that mm and an amen I will take that thank you sound good cool I like the laughter so let's start question and a number one how many of you have been through a breakup raise your hands raise your hand I heard up mm-hmm yeah uh-huh thank you lots of hands congratulations you are an adult you are human so you have 100% been through a breakup right and

you have proven to yourself that breakups do not break you having said that yes having said that can we all agree they suck like yeah mm-hmm looking back you're like oh hope bullet dodged they're so glad about that one but in the moment they're terrible right they're scary and we as humans fundamentally run away from fear that isn't part of our job right yeah all right next question and for this one I'd ask that you close your eyes just for a second please everybody and for everybody at home of course I can't see you on

that computer but please close your eyes and I want you to think about a dream all right I want you to go to what I like to call the dream attic close your eyes and I really want you to think about a dream that maybe even you haven't said out loud to even yourself now this dream probably has cobwebs on its neck grandma's old pictures right in the corner in the very very back of the dream attic now maybe it's the business that you want to start maybe it's the baby that you want to have

maybe it's the relationship you know needs to end or maybe it's the very TEDx talk you want to give you want to be standing right here on this stage now to know that you've hit the nail on the head with this dream you're going to hear a voice immediately and it's gonna sound like this it's too old too late too impossible messy who do you think you are a joy kill voice if you hear that voice you know you're on the right track now keep your eyes closed and hold that dream that sacred beautiful dream

for one more second and I want you to put a seed in your heart and hold it there alright now you can open your eyes now what if I told you that that dream was not only possible but it could happen starting right now today no seriously I mean I promise you that this isn't like some motivational speech you hear at a high school gym seriously I am standing here living proof thanks to the almond butter and the ugly crying that in fact yes your dream can come true the moment you decide it there's just

this like one tiny little minor thing that you're gonna have to do you're going to have to break your own hearts to break through I'm gonna let that sit with you for one more second and I'm loving the energy thank you so much you're going to have to break your own hearts to break through for the life that you just admitted to yourself deep in your heart you know is calling you forward today I'm gonna talk about how to break up with yourself abs seriously another breakup you just said we don't like breakups right the

whole like running from the pain things really my jam how many of you are thinking that right now yeah okay or the rest of you can now keep your hands up cuz you're definitely thinking hey crazy lady I got no idea what breaking up with myself would even look like that's fine I see a couple more hands thank you for being honest I appreciate that well over the next what is now 13 minutes or so you and I are gonna go on a journey together of how to break up to break through yes this is

gonna be messy yes it'll be painful yes it'll be inconvenient and yes with all that is good and holy in this world yes it is worth it why because it is your life it is your one precious beautiful life and you are worth breaking up to break through sound like a plan you want to know how to do it okay here we go umm I prove it to you alright so the first part of knowing how to do this is realizing that there are all kinds of breakups not just romantic ones and my breakup journey

started almost 10 years ago today when my fate met his fist was my college sweetheart was all I had ever known right I started dating the guy when I was like 19 and it's kind of just like the next step because you date a guy for a long time you move in together you got the great job and so marriage is just like the next thing right but he loved bottles of vodka more than himself and that left no room to truly love me which brings me to rule number one of breaking up with yourself

your heart your heart always comes first the only person you should be afraid of losing is yourself and you cannot win battles my love with people who are at war with themselves the night my face met his fists I finally finally ran barefoot like I am right now right out that door now I didn't before because to be honest it's a lot easier to be miserable than uncertain maybe some of you can admit that you at some point have addicted to being in pain because it was more comfortable than the unknown yeah but the moment

that my face met his fist I finally ran right out that door and it started a journey not of discovery but recovery of uncovering the life that was seated in my heart that was waiting for me and it was a beautiful full circle journey that ends right here with me barefoot giving you the TEDx talk of my life pretty incredible right yeah so for this next question I want you to know that no one in the audience is gonna be filmed for this and of course to all of you wonderful people I can't see you

at home unfortunately I won't get to meet a lot of you in person so I want you to be really honest with yourself it is a judge free zone how many of you have faced anxiety yeah I'm talking about the kind of anxiety that maybe you can't go to work for the day you cancel with your friends you hang out underneath your comforter I ask the question because I certainly have faced it or maybe there's like this low-grade depression right it just doesn't seem to want to go away there's nothing really wrong there's just nothing

something that's right yeah or maybe it's an autoimmune disease breast cancer these are all forms of breakup it's just a matter of how you look at it so at 27 just a few years later I was on top of the world that's my Oprah impression by the way on top of the world and I with the TV news journalist okay I'm my own TV show I had won an Emmy by this point and I lived in a very swanky downtown apartment now I tell you that not because I'm trying to be boastful but because for

a woman that started out in this industry making $17,000 a year in Idaho Falls Idaho which is about the same size as a Marshall Texas it was a really big deal I was there right and it was great there was just this one little tiny problem I was miserable the life that I had created was not in my greatest alignment anymore and I knew it but more importantly I would find out my body knew it right which brings me to rule number two you can lie to yourself but your body will never lie to you

when it is time for you to evolve as a human your body will tell you it is just a matter of if you listen so at 27 I had a debilitating disease that left me crippled in fear and in my body can you picture Disney movies for me for a second okay go back all the way in the time machine I want you to think about like Snow White or Beauty and the Beast okay and there's this witch at the beginning of all the movies she's hunched over like this right and it's always raining for

some reason and she's carrying like a rose or an apple very creepy and she's like I've got to secret for you right or maybe you think I look like Gollum from Lord of the Rings like couldn't you maybe she's apparently the same boy just go with it it's fine this is what I look like okay and it would take me half an hour every single morning to stand up straight the arthritis was so bad at just 27 how many of you know the movie momento there's that dude yeah that wrote down all of his stuff

on the post-it notes cuz he couldn't remember anything that was also me right I had such terrible brain fog and amnesia that I couldn't remember anything I'd have to write it all down there was a moment I looked at my own father's face and I couldn't tell you his first name it had gotten that bad and then there was the pain the pain makes you feel like you're looking down the wrong end of a telescope and everything just starts to get really small and really dark and really hopeless and the doctors can't tell you what's

wrong and just keeps getting worse and more painful and no one can help you and they keep telling you of some kind of cancer but they just don't know and where does that leave you but with the body and a life clearly breaking up in front of you so what did I do did I listen right did I step back for a second because your body will always tell you you can tell by now I'm a little stubborn so no what did I do I puked in between commercial breaks I told absolutely no one in

the industry that I was sick I was gonna white-knuckle my way to success sound like any other Taipei's in the room yeah just a few good great that was me too yeah and this went on for not one not two but five years until finally I got the diagnosis Lyme disease and a host of other Co infections by that point my body had been trying to tell me all along my dear sweet Abby this just isn't working anymore you can lie to yourself but your body will never lie to you it's just a matter of

if you listen it took me five more long beautiful painful years to finally call my body safe to finally feel at home in my own skin to finally listen to my life evolving in my favor now you're probably thinking by this point hey ABS love in the story so far it's real great but I'm kind of wondering about the target underwear and the ugly crime I'll get to it my friends I promise but the plots oh the plot thickens because I will be blessed with one more massive breakup one that thousands of American women were

facing at the exact same time I broke up with my industry now a lot of us know what an industry breakup looks like it's called 2008 remember that little thing yeah all of a sudden the job that you have the industry that you had just doesn't exist anymore well all of a sudden I'm on news stories and people are driving by and they're screaming out the car window fake news and all of a sudden we as humanity we're debating facts very odd you have to know that for someone who'd been an investigative journalist for more

than 10 years I was a welcome friend everyone was so excited to see me right I was always on their side and then there was this man running for president openly talking about groping women something I was all too familiar with I can't tell you how many times I've been groped on stories that's good to say out loud I can't tell you how many times I've been groped on stories from the Capitol to Super Bowl parties and nothing ever changed there was one time I was covering a Super Bowl celebration the Seahawks had just won

their very ver su per Bowl the crowd was going wild they ran out into the streets I'm there I'm running I'm a part of it I'm reigning the middle I call alive the entire thing is so much fun and there's a group of men that come up right after my live shot and they groped me here and they groped me here and they pull me down the street like a piece of meat and no one stops them my photographer saved me and I called the newsroom and I told them what happened and they said I'm

sorry and in the same breath are you still going live tonight nothing ever changed now I was supposed to keep a straight face in my mouth shut no it wasn't an industry I recognized anymore in the break-up was extremely painful I was covering stories about how city employees were suing because of the me2 movement and they described the harassment that they were facing and that night I came home and I put the pieces together and it all just kind of clicked sometimes you have to have rage to have courage as women we're not encouraged to

be angry let alone the word rage but the word rage is literally in the word courage think about that right then and there I found myself saying for the first time screw this meets you in my opinion I had faced harassment for years so much so that it was so normal I didn't even really notice it I once went to got called in the newsroom and my boss described in great detail the size of my but and what other outfits might be better suited for a body of my size I was like this by the

way I went to grab a handful of almonds once in a TV exec said one of us is on TV so I put the almonds down and he said good girl ladies this world wants us to stay small in the size of our bodies and in our dreams and in our voice but we don't do that anymore do we we don't play small anymore do we not today not anymore that day I finally had enough so right there right there on the kitchen floor I told you that breakups they are messy and they are painful

but they are worth it why because it is your one precious beautiful life right there on the kitchen floor I said I had enough the ugly crying the almond butter by the way I should have started with hi I'm Abbi and I'm an almond butter addict I think that when you are emotionally eating the serving size should be a pint or the entire container right and that whatever can fit on the spoon that's that's the serving size when you're going through it right just go into town I thought that somehow like about salty tears mix

with the almond butter was weirdly soothing and then if I dropped anything hey I wasn't wearing any pants right it was perfect it's fantastic so write that in there I finally finally had the guts to not only break up with my industry write that in there I broke up with myself right then in there I broke up with myself which brings me to rule number three drop what you know be who you are drop what you know what you think is gonna make you happy what you think you should do in this life what you

are so certain you are as a human being drop what you know all the knows all the rejections all the times you were told you couldn't do the thing you just admitted in your heart is still calling you forward drop those knows you think I'm standing on this lovely red circle but in fact I am standing on a pile of nose that have given me an incredible perspective to finally show to you how to break up to break through so how do you do this for yourself right step number one a really brave question ask

not what weighs on your heart but what is in my heart what does it want to give a hint has to do with love has to do with some kind of love step number two what is one thing a talent a person that you can break up with today right now that's gonna get you closer to that dream step number three what is one Talent about yourself one thing that you can love more that's gonna get you closer to that dream think about that for one more second yes this is messy yes it is painful

and yes it is worthy because yes it is your life this is how to break up with yourself and you are capable of breaking up to break through won't you join me thank you you