Several months ago, I had the idea to reach out to some of my very favorite authors, thinkers, and creators to ask them five questions about their work. It felt like the perfect scheme to connect with people I admire and whose work has meant something to me.
The very first person that I wanted to ask was Gina Gomez. I’ve been following Gina for a long time now on Instagram and had taken so much wisdom and inspiration from her teachings there. She works with the Enneagram and in helping people move through relationship endings — two things I’m also kind of into. And she does it with this gorgeous warmth and depth that I just don’t see in many online spaces.
I hope that you enjoy the first in this new series. I’m really grateful to Gina for offering her insights. And if you have folks you’d like to suggest be featured, please send me a note!
Ashley: There is probably an assumption by most of us that if you are passionate about this work, it’s because you intimately know the pain of breaking up and romantic loss. What about your own experiences inspired you to want to spend your time and energy helping others through it?
Gina: Yes, you would be correct with your assumptions! I definitely have quite a bit of experience with breakups, and a divorce at 25. My last significant relationship was seven years. We were engaged to be married and I called everything off in 2019 and moved from New York City to Boise. It was in that time that I had my coaching business and primarily was working with the Enneagram and helping women with self-awareness and mindfulness.
The breakup was devastating, as I thought I was going to spend a lifetime with this person. That obviously didn’t work out, but it also catapulted me into my work even deeper. And so it felt like a very natural shift to go from self-awareness to grief work. And I know that we have so many resources out there to help us with being in a relationship, dating, marriage, all of it, but no one really ever teaches you how to break up or go through a divorce or uncouple, right?
It’s always like how to make it work, which is great, but as we know, at least half of the time it doesn’t. There are not enough resources out there for grief and how to process it and how to understand what is physically going on with your body and your mind. And so I was in this place where I was healing and doing the best that I could with the tools that I was learning.
And I feel like I had finally understood like, oh this doesn’t have to break you to your core, that there are ways to learn how to regulate and find yourself again. And now that I’ve been doing it for about four and a half years, I would say nothing other than my dog brings me such great pleasure and excitement. I get to see women not just survive that kind of heartbreak, but find themselves and start to thrive again.
Ashley: I think what I value most about your approach to break-up recovery is that you are clear that it’s an inside job. It’s not about waiting until you get some specific closure from your ex or the conditions are right. You encourage people to start from within. How do you encourage people to start that process, especially when they might feel stuck on waiting for something like an apology or an acknowledgement?
Gina: This is such a great question and I think it’s something that definitely crosses all of our minds when we’re going through a breakup or divorce is that feeling that we want this neutralized understanding of what the F just happened. We’re told by the media, TV, the movies that it comes from this conversation that you have with your ex. And although some of it may happen that way, it definitely isn’t something that continues to sustain you.
Because once you’ve had even somewhat of a conversation, you want another one, and another one, and another one, because your brain just has so many questions that it feels need to be answered.
I think the most important part of the work that I do with clients is having them explore what closure actually is for them and what that would feel like in their bodies. What would bring calm, peace, and that inner knowing of being able to move on. And I don’t mean move on as in like get over it, but just move forward while holding that capacity for the loss.
Closure, as we know it, is sort of this thing that’s been fed to us. So understanding first what that actually looks like and feels like to each individual is really important. I think the natural next question that comes up with that is, well, now that I know it, now what? How do I get it?
And it’s a process, and it’s something that we want to hold space for as long as it needs to be held. I remember feeling quite at ease and it was like six months post-breakup and I felt good, and all of a sudden I’m in Target and crying, just spontaneously crying. And it was a moment where I’m like, oh, I need to stay with this.
I need more closure with this. I need more closure with this. And I understood that the more space I gave my grief, the more closure I got.
Ashley: For a lot of us, a relationship ending can be a drawn-out process. There might be lots of reconnecting with that partner or, maybe not even them, but the same person in a different body. What makes us keep repeating some of the same relationship dynamics, whether it’s with the same person or similar people? Why can’t we just seem to move forward instead of back?
Gina: I love this question so much because when I think about the people that I meet today, I see them as a mirror. I know that that can seem a little woo-woo, so to explain, it’s as if I am interacting with someone and I’m seeing back my own thoughts, beliefs, and feelings.
Often we’re not yet conscious of what’s going on deep inside of us – and we of course all have wounds, and many of us have abandonment wounds. Until these wounds are in a healing process, when we meet a potential partner, we meet these people and automatically we assign them to heal it subconsciously. We project all of these things on to them and they typically will hold characteristics abd attributes of our caregivers who might have contributed to these wounds.
So, long answer short, we are just wanting to heal and to be seen and to be really understood in our pain. We want someone to come and redeem those wounds and make them not true. It goes back to our deep insecurities of whether we are worthy enough. Are we good enough to fight for? Whatever those beliefs are. And it can be hard because if we stay in a state of looking externally for someone to heal that.
We need to understand that these wounds are going to be here and we can tend to them ourselves for the rest of our lives. It’s not like it’s just a one and done deal. Or we can keep choosing people who are going to perpetuate that wound. And I think it is such a gift when you do find someone who you know is safe and are able to heal together.
Ashley: I discovered your work initially because of how you educated people on the Enneagram, and I love the way you weave Enneagram types into helping us understand ourselves in relationships and break-ups. Why is the Enneagram for you such a useful relationship tool and, especially for those who aren’t as familiar with it, what can it help us understand in the process of loss?
Gina: I found the Enneagram through a therapist who I was seeing in Rome and I still think about this therapist to this day. The Enneagram is a personality tool, and it’s much deeper than that, but essentially it helps you understand the motivating factors behind why you act the way that you do. Like other personality systems, it helps us understand ourselves and gives us a different lens to look through. The Enneagram really gets to the heart of what is motivating our behaviors.
Learning about my own type was like going to the doctor and finally getting a diagnosis. All of a sudden I wasn’t a bad person like I thought, or I wasn’t a manipulative or broken person. I was finally able to see myself through a compassionate lens and it was the first time I was ever able to do that.
I think that when you learn about yourself through a compassionate lens, you can hold a lot more space for a lot of those uncomfortable feelings that definitely come up when you’re going through heartache. It helps you understand why the withdrawal symptoms (from a relationship) can even cause you to do quote unquote crazy things.
It’s such a great tool to understand yourself, and also to understand your exes and how they may not be the narcissist that you think they are. I mean, sometimes they might be, but it’s just it gives us a broader view and a lot more compassion
Ashley: For those in relationships that they might know have some significant challenges, how do they approach knowing whether it’s a relationship that can be salvaged? How can they tell if acceptance is what is need or whether it’s time to finally move on?
Gina: This is a hill that I am willing to die on. I think that when you’re looking at your relationship and you’re asking yourself the questions about whether it’s time to let go or walk away, there is already a good percentage of you that’s halfway out the door. And this isn’t to say that this is telling you yes. It’s telling you that you’re almost done. You’re halfway there and you’re either looking for someone to tell you, ‘yeah, it’s definitely time to go.’ But only you will know.
To answer the second half of your question, is if both people. are willing and able to address and confront the challenges in the relationship, and both people want to save it, both people want to feel emotionally safe and connected again, then there’s still work that can be done.There’s still something there. There’s hope, there’s determination, there’s will, desire, all of that.
If that’s still there for both people, Then keep going. But if there’s one person, which is usually the case, there’s one person unwilling, unable, incapable, not wanting to, no desire to help bring back that connection, emotional safety, whatever it is that you’re wanting and needing in the relationship, then you already have your answer because you can’t, unfortunately, do it alone.
I’ll hear from clients, friends, family, “Well, they don’t want to go to therapy. They don’t want to get help. They don’t want to.” And then the responsibility is on you, for yourself. It’s always been there. But it’s that step you have to take to say, “I am willing, I do want to do this. There is desire. I’m ready, but you’re not.”
I think at that point there’s a boundary you have to have and make for yourself. Is it going to be one more month? Is it going to be one more year of this? And whatever that time limit is that you have for yourself, what are you going to do so that at the end of that time you are better set up for exiting the relationship?
I work with a lot of women who don’t have the financial resources to leave, and I hate that this is a fact, but it It is, and I know a lot of women can relate to it, so if you know that things are not working out, you need to leave, you want better for your life, and your partner is not willing, able, capable, all those things, then you gotta get your chickens in order, you know, as my mom would say, and get yourself out.
And it’s really sad because in those situations, someone might be that person who leaves, but they were abandoned first. That’s really sad, and it’s really difficult.
To learn more about Gina and her work, follow her at @ginagomez.co or set up a consultation to see if you might be a good fit to work together.
