What to Do When You Get Dumped: A guide to Unbreaking your Heart with Suzy Hopkins & Hallie Bateman [Epsiode #984]

This Week’s Episode: 

In this heartfelt conversation, Kimberly interviews mother-daughter duo Suzy and Halle Hopkins, co-authors of ‘What to Do When You Get Dumped.’ They discuss the inspiration behind their book, which addresses the emotional turmoil of heartbreak and the journey of healing. Suzy shares her personal experience of being unexpectedly left by her husband after 30 years of marriage, while Halle reflects on her own experiences with heartbreak. The conversation delves into the importance of allowing oneself to grieve, the power of illustrations in storytelling, and the significance of finding faith and understanding in the healing process. In this conversation, Hallie and her mother Suzy discuss the themes of healing, personal growth, and the importance of sharing one’s story. They explore the purpose behind Hallie’s book, which aims to provide encouragement and guidance for those navigating heartbreak. The discussion delves into the universal themes found in personal experiences, the journey of self-love, and the significance of support from unexpected sources. They also touch on generational perspectives on mental health and the importance of authenticity in relationships.

About Suzy Hopkins & Hallie Bateman

Suzy Hopkins is a former newspaper reporter and magazine publisher. She is coauthor of What to Do When I’m Gone with her daughter, writer and illustrator Hallie Bateman. She lives in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Hallie Bateman is a writer and illustrator whose work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, the Awl, and many others. Her books include Directions, What to Do When I’m Gone, and Brave New Work. Other books she has illustrated include Eggasaurus. She lives in Cincinnati, OH.

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Guest Resources 

Book:  What To Do When You Get Dumped: A Guide To Unbreaking Your Heart

Website:  http://halliebateman.com

 

Episode Chapters

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Heartbreak and Healing

03:00 The Genesis of the Book

05:53 Navigating Emotions After Heartbreak

08:57 The Dumpy Bill of Rights

11:57 The Power of Words and Illustrations

15:03 Physical Practices for Healing

18:02 Finding Faith and Understanding

20:59 Reflections on Family Dynamics and Relationships

29:31 The Purpose Behind the Book

31:00 Universal Themes in Personal Stories

33:05 The Journey of Healing and Growth

36:19 Finding Wholeness After Heartbreak

40:31 Self-Love and Personal Values

43:30 Generational Perspectives on Mental Health

46:59 Unexpected Support in Difficult Times

49:32 Navigating Relationships and Emotions

51:19 The Power of Connection and Authenticity

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• How the Power Foods Diet helps with Weight Loss with Dr. Neal Barnard EP. 877
• How Not to Age with New York Times best-selling author Dr. Michael Greger [Episode #873]
• How to eat to reduce anxiety with Harvard nutritional psychiatrist Dr. Uma Naidoo [Episode #867]

 

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Transcript:

Kimberly Snyder (00:00.824)
Hi everyone and welcome back to our Monday interview show. I am so excited for my very special guests today, a mother daughter team who are the co-authors of the recent book, What to Do When You Get Dumped, A Guide to Unbreaking Your Heart. The author is Suzy Hopkins, who’s a former newspaper reporter and magazine publisher. She lives in Cincinnati and the illustrator is her mama.

sorry, other way around. Suzy is the writer and Halle is the illustrator whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and The Owl and many other books. She also lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. I have to say, ladies, first of all, thank you so much for being here. Congratulations. And I don’t think I’ve ever interviewed a mother daughter team before. This is awesome.

Hallie (she/her) (00:31.129)
you

Hallie (she/her) (00:52.837)
amazing. Thanks for having us.

Kimberly Snyder (00:56.448)
So tell us a little bit about this inspiration and coming together as mother and daughter to talk about this subject of being dumped, which is something that pretty much all of us at some point feel that heartbreak, that abandonment, that not feeling wanted is really icky part of life. And to come together as family members, it’s really interesting.

Hallie (she/her) (00:58.808)
But, but…

Hallie (she/her) (01:24.026)
going to say mom? I’m hearing something in my ears that is the vacuum on. There’s someone doing yard work outside. okay I’m sorry I thought I had something in the house. No no. distracting to me and I’m really sorry to interrupt. ahead. Okay. Okay so I thought it was a vacuum in my house and it’s like in my ear so.

Kimberly Snyder (01:41.009)
no, that’s okay. We’ll just edit that part out.

Hallie (she/her) (01:48.91)
That’s your work. That’s just someone leaf blowing. Okay. All right. I’m I will overcome. yeah. So, mom, do you want to start by kind of describing where the idea came from? the, the, the, book is about, it starts from the time, my husband very unexpectedly left.

and we were married for 30 years and he one day, couple days, exactly two days before I was to retire, came in and said, I’ve got something to tell you. And what he wanted to tell me was that he had felt he wanted to pursue a relationship with a woman from 30 years earlier prior to the time we got together.

And so that night he was for all intents and purposes gone and our marriage was done. And this came as a considerable surprise to me. And I it threw me into a very confused and chaotic and lost state for a long time. And basically I was closing my business of 10 years at the same time. And we had planned to

Kimberly Snyder (03:00.906)
Ugh.

Hallie (she/her) (03:02.51)
to go into retirement together. So jump ahead a year. I get counseling, I get medication, I do everything to address this crisis, which is really throws me and then another year goes by and I’m still addressing it, the counseling help, but not quite enough.

and I’m still really grappling with trying to set up a new life. And year three comes and I begin to say, why on earth am I not doing better? I thought I got a lot of life experiences. I’ve had a lot of ups and downs. I thought that my recovery might be more cohesive than what I was experiencing. I was still really flailing. So Hallie and I had already written a book together called What to Do When I’m Gone.

Kimberly Snyder (03:22.507)
Hmm.

Hallie (she/her) (03:50.074)
about the loss of your mother. And it made me somewhat of an accidental author at in my late 50s. And

She got me a tarot reading because she knew I was going through still a lot of grief over this and hadn’t recovered as well as expected. And the tarot reader said, you need to write a memoir as a pathway to healing. But she didn’t know I was a writer or anything about me. So I took that as seriously and began the book, which I’d had an inkling of earlier, but I began to write to record what was working and what

kind of as a note of encouragement to myself. And a lot of things also don’t work when you’re trying to recover, including input from other people sometimes that is not constructive. And so that’s the that’s the genesis of the project. And after it took me about a year to write the first draft, and it was an aid to healing for me, because as a former journalist, I

Kimberly Snyder (04:31.725)
Hmm.

Kimberly Snyder (04:51.914)
yeah.

Hallie (she/her) (04:54.188)
was accustomed to finding my way analytically through things, but in this case, this was also forcing myself to notice what was useful in healing from heartbreak and what was not. And by noticing those things and giving myself permission to feel all the feelings that go with that, it was very helpful in moving forward.

Kimberly Snyder (05:23.554)
Thank you so much, Suzy. And it’s so brave and wonderful to share your story and to pour it into something that can help others heal. You know, when I was reading the book, there was a lot of, you know, X and Y and like if someone, you know, your ex ends up with this other person, which I imagine was informed by this heartbreaking story you shared, which is where your husband didn’t just say, I’m going to go off and travel by myself, but there was this other person in the, in the mix.

Hallie (she/her) (05:52.066)
Right, right.

Kimberly Snyder (05:53.302)
And then can you share a little bit about, you know, you said it was three years. Do you think there was a numbing stage where you weren’t able to feel those feelings? Is that part of the advice you might give people is to let yourself feel more early or were there stages, I imagine, of the anger and the sadness? What was some of the arc of the journey?

Hallie (she/her) (06:12.026)
I had the cocktail of every emotion you could possibly come up with and it was a strong cocktail and it just kept going despite having, I’d had counseling in earlier years for depression due to a lot of childhood trauma. So I had, I thought, well, I took care of that.

You know, you don’t take care you learn how to integrate these these grief and trauma issues into your life and I thought I had been somehow more successful but having a third party You know when my husband told me that this woman was going to be His was his new person apparently that Basically

Kimberly Snyder (06:37.088)
Hmm.

Hallie (she/her) (06:58.35)
disconnected me from my partner of 30 years who I had shared everything with and we were both journalists and I chose that disconnect because I think he wanted to stay in touch but for me the presence of a third party meant that I could no longer speak to my husband privately. would be a triangulated experience that I wanted nothing to do with. that.

Kimberly Snyder (07:03.904)
Ugh.

Hallie (she/her) (07:24.93)
that bringing another party and changed everything for me and sadly, it’s my, you know, I could reconnect with him, but I wanted, you know, I’ve wanted to wait until I didn’t have the hurt that I had. And I just couldn’t, I really haven’t done it still. And I think…

that the lesson for me was giving myself permission to take that time and to say disconnected is feel safer to me as I heal in every way that I chose to heal giving myself permission proved to be the challenge. I had to say I’m now going to take care of myself not anybody else and learning to do that when you’re a person that

Kimberly Snyder (08:01.44)
Hmm.

Kimberly Snyder (08:07.138)
Beautiful.

Hallie (she/her) (08:11.392)
isn’t used to necessarily doing that and that was me. So that was the big lesson and it’s in the book there’s a something in the front called a dumpy bill of rights and I wrote that to tell myself it’s okay to take as long as you want. In fact you need to to grieve in only the way that works for you. Basically irregardless of other people’s chiming in which they really want to do people really like to tell you how to

get better. I really love the dumpy Bill of Rights and it’s I could read it if that’s okay. Yeah. So this is it is actually after the introduction in the very beginning. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You the dumped in order to unbreak your heart hold these inalienable rights.

Kimberly Snyder (08:47.734)
Yes, please Hallie.

Which page is on?

Kimberly Snyder (08:57.718)
I see, I see. Here’s what it looks like.

Hallie (she/her) (09:07.534)
You have the right to express yourself fully and honestly. You have the right to say no to whomever or whatever does not help you move forward. You have the right to grieve and heal in a way that works for you and you alone for as long as it takes.

Kimberly Snyder (09:22.402)
Mm. Mm. Mm.

Hallie (she/her) (09:25.434)
That is something in your house, Mom. I’m sorry. Now we really do have to pause. Now you have to pause for a second. Sorry. I think it is the vacuum. And I think we should close that door, Sorry. I think it must be Mercury in retrograde or something. Okay. And then can close that. Okay. Sorry. Okay. All right. The Roomba is being put on. Okay. So…

Kimberly Snyder (09:30.89)
yeah, no, it’s okay, pause. It’s okay, that’s why we have editing.

Kimberly Snyder (09:40.782)
no, it’s okay. I’ll…

Kimberly Snyder (09:46.71)
It’ll all work out in the wash.

Hallie (she/her) (09:55.032)
Yeah, that is the the dumpy Bill of Rights. It’s on downstairs.

Kimberly Snyder (10:00.664)
Well, I think if there was ever a time to create healthy boundaries, it’s when you’re healing. Because as you said, Suzy, sometimes it’s easy to always give or just to sort of, you know, think of others above ourselves, but it’s such a personal time. I know for myself going through a really hard breakup before my husband, it’s…

Hallie (she/her) (10:08.121)
Mm-hmm.

Kimberly Snyder (10:27.394)
So I loved your book because there’s a lot of sharing, but there’s also this, you know, there’s this acknowledgement that it’s also a very individual process as well. And it’s gonna look different for everybody. And along those lines, I love that you guys paired together for illustrations because when it comes to this subject matter, words are powerful, but so is the drawing, right? And I’m just, and it’s humorous.

Hallie (she/her) (10:38.426)
That’s right.

Kimberly Snyder (10:55.598)
But some of these pictures literally made me cry. Like there’s pictures of, you know, there’s pictures of people crying and we’ve all felt what it’s like to be in the shower, I’ve cried in the shower. So with my breakup, we had a young child who was just over a year old. And when I moved out on my own, I used to hide in the closet and cry. I didn’t think I would be a single mom. Like I didn’t think this was gonna be my life.

Hallie (she/her) (10:57.85)
Aww.

Hallie (she/her) (11:15.926)
Mmm. Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (11:22.348)
So there’s so much, there’s depths of feeling that I think also get layered in with the illustrations. And I’ve read like other books about relationships, but I think it’s rare to have that combination.

Hallie (she/her) (11:35.992)
Yeah, the thing that I love so much about graphic storytelling, being able to combine words and images, which is really my art practice, is that alchemy where like you’re, like when we collaborate, we’re measuring, you know.

What do we need to say in words and often it doesn’t need to be much it it really causes you to simplify and sort of get to the heart of something in the language so that you can allow the images to speak and I think especially when it’s a subject like heartbreak or our first book together was about death and loss.

Kimberly Snyder (12:19.981)
Yeah.

Hallie (she/her) (12:23.468)
A wall of words can feel really inaccessible, especially when you’re in the throes of grief. And I love that, you know, when we are able to fold the two together, it enables someone, I think, even if you are currently struggling, you can read a paragraph and look at a picture and like allow it to wash over you. doesn’t ask as much of you, but it can still send a very powerful.

message and I’m just like in love with this this language of words and images in combination and I think that it allows for such endless possibilities and it’s it’s so incredible to get to work with my mom in this format where you know she comes from decades of experience as a writer and a journalist and is like so practiced there but then I get to to kind of

Kimberly Snyder (13:00.109)
Yes.

Hallie (she/her) (13:19.234)
Yeah, talk to her about, but this is gonna be the art. And then we get to like, yeah, just kind of play together and squabble and figure out what the story is gonna look like on the page. And it’s really unique.

Kimberly Snyder (13:38.08)
Yeah, I agree, especially with the subject matter that you both are writing about, which is, you know, your other book as well. I lost my mom around the time that I went through this breakup. So I relate on both levels. I was a new mom and I became a single mom and I lost my mom and, and getting dumped. And one of the things I think in our, in our culture and our society is it’s very heady. It’s very mental, right? And you can’t think yourself out of heartbreak.

Hallie (she/her) (13:50.265)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (14:07.596)
Right? There’s a lot of the practices you talk about in here, which is, you know, and the images again, like looking at this roller coaster and it’s, there’s this, the feelings and the sensations and what it evokes allows, you know, now there’s so much research about how trauma and that you imagine this felt like a really traumatic situation you went through, Suzy, because it was shocking. It’s stored in the body. So.

It can’t just be this mental way that we heal, but it’s this whole person way, the emotional, the sensations in the body, doing physical practices, allowing the space. It’s nonlinear.

Hallie (she/her) (14:46.878)
Mm-hmm. And I had no practice allowing space. I was all up in my head for, you know, my entire career. And I basically thought I can forge my way by just thinking through anything. And this really took me into the body practices in order to recover in a way that I could feel the ground again emotionally. So.

Kimberly Snyder (15:03.767)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (15:10.272)
And what were some of those practices, that you share about in the book and also just that you love to share personally that helped you get to a more grounded place?

Hallie (she/her) (15:22.426)
I suddenly retired at the same time, but it took me about a year to finish closing my business, I suddenly found myself.

you know, without the mental load of running the business, but suddenly this kind of heart load. And I, I moved out of the family home and I got a place in the country that required a lot of manual labor. And I can’t think of anything that would have been better. So I bought a, wood splitter and a lot of downed trees and I split a lot of wood and I, I walked endless miles. I would say, you know, just endlessly in circles around a out in

Kimberly Snyder (15:49.996)
Wow.

Hallie (she/her) (16:03.65)
country around a big drive area with my dogs and that physicality I just went until I couldn’t go anymore because I

Kimberly Snyder (16:08.451)
beautiful

Kimberly Snyder (16:12.365)
Mmm.

Hallie (she/her) (16:13.556)
I had to quiet the disruption that was happening to me. and exercise was just the very best way. sort of learned to meditate, in the course of this recovery. And I hadn’t done much of that before. And so I did a lot of breathing work I’d never done. And mostly I just, for a long time, use distraction with physical labor and exercise. My mom essentially became a full-time manual laborer.

And as a, from my perspective, I just.

Kimberly Snyder (16:44.75)
That’s so primal. was like splitting the wood. I can imagine you, Suzy, like on the farm too.

Hallie (she/her) (16:53.498)
I had a lot of rage and the wood cutting helped a lot. I had a lot of anger for a long time. so, you know, whatever you’re going through, it’s whatever gets you through, right? To the next, I wanted to go on to a life that was a lot healthier. And this really, in a way, forced me in that direction.

Kimberly Snyder (16:59.438)
Yeah.

Hallie (she/her) (17:19.578)
I wasn’t a yoga practitioner. I was not a particularly peaceful person. I was just a person who was so busy with work and overwhelmed by it all the time. And that was, was, you know, I wasn’t a workaholic. this was really in the end, I had to learn how to be healthier at this, at this stage in life. And in the book,

Kimberly Snyder (17:41.388)
Mmm.

Hallie (she/her) (17:44.602)
that takes different forms. Like you talked about the spread where she’s in the shower and she’s crying and kind of sitting with her feelings. And then I immediately thought of this other spread where it’s just about standing in the sun and letting the warmth embrace you. I think that, yeah, there’s like a through line of being

Kimberly Snyder (18:02.222)
Mmm.

Hallie (she/her) (18:15.034)
being with yourself. Yeah. When you say, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Throughout the book, um, relishing in, you know, there’s like this big spread about cooking, relishing in food and nourishment. And I mean, I guess you could summarize it as saying my learning mindfulness, but it’s, it’s so much more than that. It’s really, uh,

Kimberly Snyder (18:28.076)
Yeah, colors.

Hallie (she/her) (18:36.984)
just coming to a place where there’s nobody there but you to decide the next step to take, you know, to plan your life. It’s not a contingent on anyone else. And it’s sort of a big responsibility. And, and you can go, it is, that’s exactly right. And I think to what you said earlier, the book is purposely

Kimberly Snyder (18:52.138)
exciting and scary in a way.

Hallie (she/her) (19:02.542)
really specifically focused on my mom’s experience and my mom’s story down to, you know, really specific examples. And the idea is not to tell the reader, hey, you should do exactly this because this is what works. The idea is like, hopefully by inviting the reader to see and experience what one person’s journey through heartbreak looks like, that they can

Hopefully, A, feel less alone in this really lonely journey and B, like, see that a path doesn’t look, you know, maybe like, yeah, you just go to, you just do an eat, pray, love and you’re good. Like, it’s not, it’s not like that, you know, that seeing that like, yeah, there’s, it’s this really long, weird, unique thing and watching my mom like trust herself and build.

Kimberly Snyder (19:50.158)
Yeah.

Hallie (she/her) (20:02.112)
new, you know, coping habits or like the hilarious little like things like she smashes the litter box that she and my dad shared like as a as a gesture of getting out her rage. Like there’s these these things that it’s it’s not saying you need to do this. It’s just saying, look what this can look like and what is your path look like? And ideally, like allowing you to see that you can, you know, trust yourself to find your way.

Kimberly Snyder (20:24.897)
Yes.

Hallie (she/her) (20:31.738)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (20:34.606)
Well, I also think it’s very comforting if you’re going through this type of situation to read someone else’s story to not feel alone. Because I remember when I was in those really dark moments, it’s easy to focus on new friends or maybe you go on Instagram and everybody looks so happy and they’re in their little worlds and you’re like, like nobody really is going through this right now or I feel alone.

Hallie (she/her) (20:41.934)
Mm-hmm.

Hallie (she/her) (20:59.788)
Mm-hmm.

Kimberly Snyder (21:02.05)
And so I think it’s incredibly comforting. Again, the words, the story, and also the illustrations. And when I was reading it, I couldn’t help but wonder, Hallie, if you’d been through such a bad breakup or you had been dumped, and also because you were going through this project so closely with your mother, how that might have affected your relationship with your dad. And if, you know,

Hallie (she/her) (21:15.705)
Hmm.

Hallie (she/her) (21:27.469)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (21:29.698)
you sort of felt that betrayal as well, because one of the things about someone being dumped is there’s often children and relatives and friends that are in the process.

Hallie (she/her) (21:36.488)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, well to speak to your first question about heartbreak, I certainly have never experienced heartbreak on this scale. Actually, we ended up kind of talking about this at a book event in New York, but my biggest heartbreak was from a situationship that ended after one month. And it just really, I was really young. It was…

for me, a one month relationship was huge. Cause if that’s the longest thing you’ve ever had, then that has a big footprint on your life. And it was really interesting reflecting on that and going through this, you know, this experience of working with my mom on her story after the loss of a 30 year marriage and thinking my biggest heartbreak was after 30 days and.

Kimberly Snyder (22:11.936)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (22:31.363)
Yeah.

Hallie (she/her) (22:31.532)
And yet it’s not really comparable, but yet I was devastated by that. And I think that, you know, the way that the book is framed is that it counts you down to your heart being unbroken. And it’s counted down on my mom’s timeline, which was, I think around what, four years? Four plus years. So it starts and the countdown says, you know,

Kimberly Snyder (22:58.093)
Hmm.

Hallie (she/her) (23:01.37)
1,582 days and that’s how many days till your heart’s gonna be unbroken. As kind of this reflection of, for my mom, if she’d had this book back then, she could have said, okay, I’ve got to make it through that many days. It won’t go on forever. There will come a time when you shift. And I think that the way that I see it, if I’m thinking about that heartbreak of mine is that, okay, well it would have said,

Kimberly Snyder (23:21.729)
Yeah.

Hallie (she/her) (23:31.652)
two years, like, cause it did take me weirdly two years to get over that. But yeah, there would have, you know, there would have been a countdown. Everyone has their own, their own kind of weird ways that that heartbreak manifests. And then, yeah, I think that to speak to the second question about being in relationship with my dad, it was super painful to have.

my parents split and to have it happen the way it did was devastating for myself and my brothers. It really reshaped our family and kind of reshuffled the deck of our lives. And at the same time, I’m very thankful that my brothers and I really consciously decided we are not taking sides. Like this is not a thing that we are going to, you know, allow to split the family or anything like that.

Kimberly Snyder (24:09.762)
Yeah.

Hallie (she/her) (24:29.378)
Not to say I didn’t feel my own pain and express my own anger or communications with my dad. We certainly had to work through to get to what our relationship would be now that this had happened. I was supporting, my brothers and I were supporting my mom. It just changed everything, but it was never a thought of we’re done with, I love my dad and he’s not a bad person and he’s.

He’s a flawed person and that’s kind of the more, I think the more common thing it’s like, I think there’s probably a lot of people out there listening who have, are a child of divorce or have experienced betrayal. some of the time maybe that person’s sociopath or something, but most of the time it’s just like, yeah, that sucks. It also sucks for them that they can’t,

Kimberly Snyder (25:05.848)
Yeah.

Hallie (she/her) (25:26.702)
figure out how to do this better, how to end something in a loving way. So I think we carried all that. then my dad, because my parents are both journalists, my dad was always really supportive of the book. He wrote a column for many years that would talk about our family. I think he fully understood that.

Kimberly Snyder (25:30.232)
Right.

Hallie (she/her) (25:53.454)
you know, writers write and this is my mom’s story and she should write it. And yeah, has, has, has been, has been very supportive and it is a very strange position. And I definitely understand when people are curious about it, because while, even while we’ve been working on it, I’m like, this is wild to be like really invested in this book with my mom and you know, telling, telling her story and, and trying to be,

Kimberly Snyder (26:17.294)
Yeah.

Hallie (she/her) (26:23.264)
so honest, but I also think that being in relationship with my dad and having the closeness that he and I do was all…

I think that was a benefit in working on this. The pain is certainly expressed in this book, the pain, the loss, the betrayal, but I don’t think it is at all, you know, painted in a way of like, and that’s just a bad person who’s just, we’re just done. It’s just that we were really trying to communicate the nuance of this. And there’s a spread.

Um, that my mom and I worked on together that is about, you know, the, history that two people in a relationship bring and the, the, baggage, the difficult things that undermine their ability to communicate. It’s on page 79. Um, it’s, it’s the two, you know, yeah. And, and that encapsulates, that encapsulates to me the

Kimberly Snyder (27:23.778)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (27:32.684)
yeah, yes, I saw this. Everyone’s perspective.

Hallie (she/her) (27:40.686)
the nuance that we tried to bring to this book. And honestly, for me, like a better understanding of my parents’ marriage. Like I think for me, this project was really important for me to be a part of this experience of learning, thinking about why did this happen? And what do we take away from this?

Kimberly Snyder (28:06.656)
Right.

Well, on page 83, right near that section, I love this part that you guys wrote and illustrated about having faith. And so sometimes, because we’re all on this human journey, and we’re all learning and growing, and you talk about the mystery and things are beyond our control, it is really hard to understand, well, why did this happen? And could I have done things differently? And why was this person like this? And there’s only this very spiritual,

practice, I imagine you deeply had to go through as part of your healing Susie of surrendering to maybe I’ll never really understand and I don’t know everything.

Hallie (she/her) (28:44.762)
Absolutely, yeah. And actually finding faith. I’m not a religious person. I consider myself a spiritual person. I had, at some point I said, I had to find a faith that I would move through this in whatever form that took. For me, spiritual life takes a couple different forms. But…

Kimberly Snyder (28:54.989)
Yes.

Kimberly Snyder (29:04.003)
Yeah.

Hallie (she/her) (29:08.926)
whatever, whoever’s experiencing this, you can turn to higher power, you can look for some strength within yourself that you develop. I mean, it really is a, while it’s a nebulous area, at some point I said, I just need to have faith that I will find a way. And honestly, as we’re talking about the book,

Kimberly Snyder (29:18.818)
Nice.

Kimberly Snyder (29:26.926)
Mm.

Hallie (she/her) (29:31.32)
I would rather not have written the book. It’s not a thrilling thing to put out in the universe, but I’m the part that I am thrilled about that makes it worth doing is I just didn’t find anything in literature that was a real note of encouragement on a level that I could understand at the time I was going through it. So the whole purpose of the book for readers is not to know about the machinations of my life, but about

that it’s a journey for everyone. And we need that encouragement to know that whatever the particulars of your situation, my intent with the book, and I think our intent is that it serves as something to say you too can stumble your way through very ungracefully to finding some future life of meaning and purpose. And that was really why I hate that it’s, I,

Kimberly Snyder (30:04.682)
Yes.

Hallie (she/her) (30:30.358)
It’s not a book about me. That’s how I look at it. It’s a book about one person’s experience and and taking a lot of life experience I’d had from interviewing really thousands of people in my journalism career and a lot of older people and to hear the regrets that they have. Part of what informed my my writing was that I didn’t want to have those regrets of grief left ungreaved and things.

Kimberly Snyder (30:34.84)
No, that comes across.

Kimberly Snyder (30:58.574)
Mmm.

Hallie (she/her) (31:00.822)
at the end of my life because I had interviewed people that didn’t follow a healing journey, didn’t get help they needed. And that’s sad to think that you have to carry the weight of that into old age and instead of working your way through. So anything that can help us find that healing is to me worth sharing. That’s the point of the book.

Kimberly Snyder (31:12.078)
Right.

Hallie (she/her) (31:27.674)
I contradict you a little bit. think it is a book about you and your journey. mean, you, I I know that you’re deeply uncomfortable with that. think it’s more that I wish I’d never had to write the book. my mom is quite a, yeah, I think that my mom is a very private person. Yeah. And I think that part of the gift of us collaborating together is that I can, I remember when we were writing

Kimberly Snyder (31:42.145)
It’s very honest.

Hallie (she/her) (31:55.876)
would often ask my mom to zero in on her own experience into the specifics and really express, know, mom, we’re writing a page about forgiveness right now. Don’t talk about forgiveness, the idea, don’t talk about, you know, vagaries. What is your experience with this right now? And, you know, I think that, mom, the beauty, as painful as this specific book is, the beauty of memoir,

Kimberly Snyder (32:04.598)
Yes.

Hallie (she/her) (32:25.798)
is that there is universal in the specific and it can feel so uncomfortable I think for people who, I mean, I don’t have any issue writing about myself. I think that I love reading other people’s stories. I think that it’s not your first choice, of course, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I think that there simply is the universal in the personal and like that’s what this.

this book is. I agree with you. Yeah, sorry. just I heard you feel like it’s not about me. was like, it’s about you. Well, well.

Kimberly Snyder (32:58.658)
That’s what makes it powerful.

Yeah.

Well, but it’s like, it’s through this story, there’s a universal. I remember when I went through my breakup, my ex said to me, he goes, let’s not tell anybody right away. Right? Cause it was this, and I was like, yeah, that’s like getting used to it. It was almost like this mask of perfectionism, which I’ve had for much of my life, like having perfect grades.

Hallie (she/her) (33:09.592)
Yeah.

Hallie (she/her) (33:25.814)
Wow. Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (33:29.614)
having the perfect body, being skinny to the point where I had bulimia, eating disorders in high school. So I remember him being like, let’s not tell anybody right away. And I was like, yeah, like there was almost this shame in being broken up and it was like this failed relationship. And then I remember when I started as a part of my healing journey, I was starting to be very vocal about it through my expressions, which is this podcast and also through my books. I started to write about it and be like, hey,

Hallie (she/her) (33:40.378)
Mmm.

Hallie (she/her) (33:54.04)
Mm-hmm.

Kimberly Snyder (33:58.808)
This is what I went through. And to your point, Suzy, it was also very liberating to be like, I’m human and I’m here and I’m not perfect, but I’m on a journey of growth and I’m, you know, really committed to growth and involvement. And this is part of my story and things are messy in life. And so I found it liberating and I’m, you know, I’m sure it felt very vulnerable to write this, but there’s a liberation in it. And it’s also this gift.

Hallie (she/her) (34:14.83)
Yes.

Kimberly Snyder (34:26.946)
that you’ve given through this book to comfort others and to allow them to feel more in touch with their healing journey as well.

Hallie (she/her) (34:33.923)
Well, I would guess that when you spoke about it, I’m sure you heard from people who said, thank you. Because people don’t, there’s a lot of stigma around this stuff. yeah, I think it is such a gift to say, I don’t need to be ashamed or whatever you want to share, but by making a book about it or talking about it on your podcast, I think that.

Kimberly Snyder (34:41.952)
my gosh.

Kimberly Snyder (34:56.14)
Yeah.

Hallie (she/her) (35:01.98)
we’ve heard from people that have just astonishing stories who said the greatest joy for me in doing this is that it has been received the way it has is that thank you. My parents, some people are saying their parents, it helped them understand the separate positions of their parents who had gone through this. It helped them. I’ve had.

Kimberly Snyder (35:23.447)
Hmm.

Hallie (she/her) (35:27.774)
notes from people that are in the throes of yesterday. My husband walked out after 20 years, 30 years. So to hear that, I know that’s striking a chord of what I would have liked.

to have had anything to go by when I was going through it. I just felt like I’ve never felt as alone in my life and I’ve never felt as needing some hint of encouragement and direction even by looking at someone else’s story. There’s a lot of advice that’s very general and very, you know, all the things that you might do to heal, but looking at somebody else’s stumbling path to healing and feeling better and building a new life and all

Kimberly Snyder (35:44.834)
Great.

Hallie (she/her) (36:10.748)
together new life. That for me is what I happen to need. So I wanted to write the book that I needed, I think.

Kimberly Snyder (36:19.624)
Right. I think that’s a lot of our books. I know this heart book I just wrote. I was writing it for me and I was learning so much about awakening the heart. And then it was like, great if this also helps everyone. Like I want to share this, but it was really healing me as I wrote it too. I think that’s true for a lot of these very heartfelt books. And what would you say, Suzy and both of you, Halle, about the part of the journey that’s beyond the anger?

Hallie (she/her) (36:46.67)
Hmm.

Kimberly Snyder (36:46.732)
Right? So it’s easy to say, like this person dumped me, there’s this other person, but there’s this other part of getting dumped, which is, is there, you know, what’s wrong with me? Or why did this person go in a different direction? Like, why am I not wanted? Especially if someone may have some abandonment trauma from their past or, you know, that healing back to wholeness to say, Hey, this person was on a different journey and there’s nothing wrong with me. Like that’s a big, there’s a big.

Hallie (she/her) (37:14.359)
Mmm.

Kimberly Snyder (37:16.566)
healing easier said than done. So can you speak about the advice in the book and part of your healing journey around that wholeness, restoration, I’ll call it.

Hallie (she/her) (37:24.57)
Mine has just taken a long time with all the steps that are detailed in the book. And I think I was fortunate to have a lot of time because I suddenly was retired and I could, and when I look on it, I go, I think one thing we don’t allow is

Kimberly Snyder (37:33.229)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (37:39.341)
Yeah.

Hallie (she/her) (37:47.108)
how much time it takes to get in touch with your needs, your desires, the qualities about yourself that you both embrace and appreciate and those that you’d like to change, your behavior or your attitudes. And I feel like now I have just a different take on.

I would be a different person in a relationship in a way. feel like I want to look at any relationship I go into with a sense that I’m going to approach it from a position of love and then deal with the issues that come up, but that love is going to be the first thing that I apply to those relationships and how I look at it versus fear or anxiety or… So that’s just been a long path for me.

Kimberly Snyder (38:26.018)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (38:37.153)
Hmm

Hallie (she/her) (38:40.274)
And the funny thing is if I was still married, my life would be, I basically moved cross country last year to be near Hallie because Hallie has young twins. And so I moved to help her and her husband with the twins because to me, you you need the help. Definitely.

Kimberly Snyder (38:43.32)
beautiful.

Kimberly Snyder (38:57.558)
Kimberly Snyder (39:05.87)
Yes, I can relate.

Hallie (she/her) (39:06.522)
And that’s been a source of tremendous joy for me to be able to help. And in fact, if I was married, that’s something that my husband would not have wanted to do. He loves the twins, they just turned one year. So I’ve been able to be here for the past year and

Kimberly Snyder (39:18.154)
How old are the twins?

Kimberly Snyder (39:22.322)
my gosh.

Hallie (she/her) (39:26.15)
And that’s, you know, that’s a new relationship and a new development that wouldn’t have happened with my old life. So think you need to look and appreciate the things that you can build as a consequence of being in a different position that you maybe didn’t expect.

Kimberly Snyder (39:42.03)
Right. Well, there’s this roomy quote and I’m paraphrasing here, but it’s something about how when the heart cracks, when it breaks, these cracks let in more light, right? More light and love. Would you say that after everything you’ve been through, Suzy, I love that you just use the word love and in the future, like more love, even though your heart’s been broken, it’s been rebuilt with a resilience and an even deeper capacity to love yourself and others and the world.

Hallie (she/her) (40:08.942)
Well, and I think a lot of that is I wasn’t really, I wasn’t caring for myself. That’s what I really know now. I wasn’t caring for myself in the way that I need. I wasn’t really showing myself the love that I needed in the years prior to the split. So, you know, that leads to…

Kimberly Snyder (40:17.336)
Yeah

Hallie (she/her) (40:31.564)
resentment and you know, really wasn’t the life that I felt I should be leading in line with my values, I guess. And now I’m trying to look at everything as what are my values apart from being part of a couple? What do I want to accomplish in the short time I have? And it is short. And so now I’m much more aligned with what I think is important.

Kimberly Snyder (40:51.374)
Mm.

Hallie (she/her) (40:58.742)
And I think that takes time to come to if you’re not there at the time of the split. Yeah, I think that what I’ve seen in you is a growing sense of like love for yourself and patience with yourself. And I think that

you know, we’ve always been very close, but speaking of like the light coming through the cracks, mean, holding this book and talking about it is so surreal and so gratifying because I think it is such a beautiful outcome of such a painful thing. And, you know, I think about all the conversations that…

have taken place since the split between us and my brothers and even with my dad. I think that he and I are a lot closer. There’s a lot more honesty there. And I think like, yeah, us working on this book together is something that, you know, I wouldn’t wish for all that pain, but at the same time, like,

Yeah, we’re sitting in the same room and I don’t know if that would have, I don’t know if that would be the case and just like being able to talk about this and move through it and like see that, know, I experience you as being much more yourself now in a really uncompromised way.

Kimberly Snyder (42:43.501)
Wow.

Hallie (she/her) (42:47.578)
painful way to get there, but like you said earlier, like some people don’t maybe work through that. And then in their 90s, they’re like, shit, maybe I should have talked about this hard stuff or, you I don’t know, but I just feel very thankful that, you know, that we’re where we are now and…

And I think generationally giving people permission. You know, when I’m from I had older parents and I’m in my mid 60s and even when I started getting counseling in my 30s.

My mother-in-law said, that’s a made-up thing, that depression. Boy, if there isn’t something to make you more depressed than somebody telling you you shouldn’t be, I can’t think of it. And I think generationally, I just have a lot of hope that people sharing these experiences, which are some of life’s hard things,

Kimberly Snyder (43:36.078)
gosh.

Kimberly Snyder (43:43.584)
Right. Dismissing.

Hallie (she/her) (43:54.042)
Boy, doesn’t that give everybody else permission to cry in the supermarket and not feel so bad about it? Because that’s what I did. I cried everywhere. And I think that’s good, right? That we normalize getting help in whatever form you need and pursuing help and talking about it so it’s not as stigmatized as it certainly was in my young adulthood.

Kimberly Snyder (44:24.43)
The details that you guys give to, like to your point Hallie, when it’s not general and vague, it really does touch the heart. There was this part of the book, and I forget what page it is, but it was about crying when the movers come. And I remember when I moved out from my ex and the movers were like these young guys and I was trying to be like, I was really sad and also feeling liberated. It was just a lot of feelings. And I remember being like,

Hallie (she/her) (44:38.471)
Mmm.

Hallie (she/her) (44:49.613)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (44:52.398)
Oh, is this a great day? Are you moving out of your parents’ And I was like, no, I’m not moving out of my parents’ house. And I didn’t want to like explain it. And I was like, they’ll never understand. It was just like, no, like you don’t get it. And then no one knows what I’m going through. But it was just that those comments from the movers kind of like poked at me. And it was funny that there was that illustration in the book.

Hallie (she/her) (45:00.474)
Hallie (she/her) (45:06.614)
Yeah… Hmm…

Hallie (she/her) (45:14.903)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (45:17.748)
I was like, wow, I’ve gone through a very like that. There’s these moments that can be very emotional. You know, again, it’s not mental. You don’t know what’s going to bring up the feelings.

Hallie (she/her) (45:19.543)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Hallie (she/her) (45:27.087)
And the funny thing is that that mover on that day when I was leaving our family home and everything was going in in a truck.

And I was looking for a cat outside in that mover. I was on the couch crying that mover As he left said the kindest thing to me that sometimes life He answers something and something good will come later But he just had some inspirational thing and after witnessing me like crying on the couch and and he was so kind and what I learned was from all these years of

you know, trying to be stoic was people will surprise you and who will show you really meaningful support. And that’s something you don’t know until you open yourself up. the mover was one of those, he was the nicest guy. He just said something so warm and caring. And I go, gosh, I wouldn’t have thought that would come from that. Yeah, that’s exactly it. That’s exactly it.

Kimberly Snyder (46:18.327)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (46:29.838)
Isn’t that amazing? These angels that are put in our path. It’s almost like God’s speaking through all these messengers. Paramahansa Yogananda who brought yoga to the West, again, I’m paraphrasing, but he has this saying where like a shadow, like a challenge comes in your life, something dark or something really challenging, it’s the shadow of Divine Mother’s hand coming as she’s coming to caress you. So it’s like the challenge comes and then there’s some kind of gift.

Hallie (she/her) (46:36.755)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Hallie (she/her) (46:55.098)
Hmm.

Kimberly Snyder (46:59.374)
from God, often in these really hidden forms and these really challenging forms, but on the other side is so much more light coming through potentially and resilience. If I could ask one tricky question because you guys are so open and I mean, again, just from me as a reader going through a similar situation and reading this, I applaud you Hallie for being so balanced. I think

Hallie (she/her) (47:07.738)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (47:27.382)
I don’t know, like it would be really hard for me to probably not take my mom’s side in this case. And I wonder because there’s this acceptance of each other’s humanness. There’s your mom and then writing this book with your mom and then it’s accepting your dad’s humanness. And again, there’s this like other person and I don’t know if she’s still there, but do you and your brothers sort of accept this person without malice? Is there room for that?

Hallie (she/her) (47:53.722)
No, no, we hate her. She’s gone now. But no, we never she’s they they are not together anymore. But no, I never felt any. I love my dad. He’s my dad. Of course, I’m going to, you know, try to repair and nurture that relationship and try to, you know, come to come to like a mutually positive place.

Kimberly Snyder (47:56.522)
Okay. Okay. He’s gone.

Kimberly Snyder (48:04.191)
my god.

Hallie (she/her) (48:23.544)
but I never felt a responsibility to her. I think that whatever my coping strategy was like, I always kind of take issue when people really get mad at the other, in this case, other woman or something, because it’s like, well, they had a choice and they did that. But for me as the kid who I’m not gonna write off my dad, I love my dad, I was just like,

Kimberly Snyder (48:46.616)
Yeah.

Hallie (she/her) (48:53.112)
I’ll just hate her. That’s fine. I don’t even know her. I’ll just, she’s the enemy. We hate her. She sucks. And that’s simple as that. So I think that not, you know, I certainly, I certainly, you know, was able to, I think in a healthy way, talk with my dad about my frustrations and my emotions. I, I didn’t hide any of that, but as far as just having like a blind malice, sure. It’s on her. Of course she sucks.

Kimberly Snyder (49:04.501)
Yeah, I want very honest.

Kimberly Snyder (49:21.825)
Yeah.

Hallie (she/her) (49:22.168)
She, you know, he didn’t like act alone. She certainly knew he had a family. So anyway, yeah, I just, I’m fine with openly hating her. Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (49:28.984)
family.

Kimberly Snyder (49:32.93)
Right, right. No, thank you for completing that piece of the puzzle. It’s very human, right? I just couldn’t help but wonder because again, the humanness, think that for me, again, I don’t know, like being in that situation, you don’t know until you’re in it, but I could just, I know it was like a woman, like I don’t know, I think it’s easy to take the mom side.

Hallie (she/her) (49:35.802)
you

No one has asked about that, so that’s kind of funny.

Hallie (she/her) (49:53.1)
Yeah.

Hallie (she/her) (50:00.334)
For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, to be fair, if this woman had been a really that made him so happy and they went on to have a life of idyllic wonder cares for him. So she cared for him deeply and that just wasn’t the case. So unfortunately, yeah, that, that, that, might’ve been.

Kimberly Snyder (50:15.062)
Right, right.

Kimberly Snyder (50:20.226)
Well, all in all ladies, know, brava. The book is so nuanced and powerful in what it evokes. And I just want to show these contrasting images. I respond to color very much. So there’s this very peaceful gold bubble. And I can, I have felt that. think, you know, we have these moments and then there’s this black. If guys can see this, watching this on YouTube, like feeling your pain.

Hallie (she/her) (50:35.213)
Hmm.

Hallie (she/her) (50:46.69)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (50:50.282)
and this reminds me of those moments where I have cried in the closet, you know, and it’s like, you know, life is messy and it’s not meant to just be, you know, like skipping around and fairy tales. And this podcast is called the feel good podcast for me feeling good isn’t just like fake joy, but it’s actually feeling like authentic and present. It feels good to be connected to your life instead of. Yeah.

Hallie (she/her) (50:53.196)
Mm-hmm.

Hallie (she/her) (51:10.498)
Mm-hmm.

It’s more about the quality of the connection.

Kimberly Snyder (51:19.15)
And growth, doesn’t feel good to wear masks and just sort of surface. And so thank you both so much for sharing about the book and your beautiful story, Suzy, which is going to help so many people on their healing journey. Really the story and your illustrations, Hallie, can you share with us? I know the book is newly out, where we can get a copy, where we can learn more about both of your work.

Hallie (she/her) (51:21.753)
Mm-hmm.

Hallie (she/her) (51:34.058)
I hope so. Thank you.

Hallie (she/her) (51:45.251)
Yeah.

We love to point people to bookshop.org or your local bookstore, but it’s really available anywhere books are sold. I always recommend that people get a print copy because if you get it on Kindle, it’s not in color. It’s really built to be, you know, if that’s your only option, I understand, but it’s really built to be held in your hand.

Kimberly Snyder (52:00.886)
Yes, all this book.

Kimberly Snyder (52:11.694)
Korean.

Hallie (she/her) (52:12.218)
I think that that’s the best way to experience it. And you can find my work. I’m on Instagram at Halath Bates and I have a sub stack that you can find there. And I’m also on Blue Sky. So you can follow me all of those places and. I’m barely on Instagram. Actually, my mom has over, my mom actually has over 3000 followers on Instagram. Okay. So you’re going to want to get over there. It’s Hopkins Suzy, think.

Kimberly Snyder (52:34.178)
Wow.

Hallie (she/her) (52:41.518)
you see my dog pictures that’s the dog and cat pictures and some insects and flowers so if you want mom content that’s where you come

Kimberly Snyder (52:49.474)
Well, what I want to see, Suzy, is I want to see you chop in the wood. That’s what I want to see. The primal, like the forest woman is so, like, I just love that imagery so much. That’s so powerful. It’s just the strength, like physically and emotionally. So I absolutely love this book. I love that you’ve created it together. I just love everything about it.

Hallie (she/her) (52:53.41)
Yes, yes.

Hallie (she/her) (53:14.903)
Hmm.

Kimberly Snyder (53:15.862)
Once again, everyone, the book is called What to Do When You Get Dumped, Guide to Unbreaking Your Heart. It is beautiful. It is heartfelt. It is written and illustrated right from the heart. We will link to it directly in the show notes at mysaloon.com, as well as to Halle and Suzy’s work on their websites and their Instagrams. So please check that out as well as other podcasts and articles I think you would enjoy. We’ll be back here Thursday, as always, for our next Q &A show.

Thank you again, ladies, so much for being here with us. So much love, so much gratitude. And thank you everyone for tuning in and we’ll see you back here soon.

Hallie (she/her) (53:45.092)
Thank you so much, Kimberly. thank you. What a pleasure.