Letting go of someone you once loved feels impossible—until you understand that what you’re experiencing isn’t just heartbreak. It’s withdrawal. It’s detox. It’s your spirit cleansing itself from an addiction you didn’t even realize you had.
In his transformative message “How to Detach So Fast It Actually Scares the Living Mess Out of You,” inspirational speaker Jonathan Brisco delivers raw, tactical wisdom that cuts through the noise of typical relationship advice. Drawing from both psychological principles and spiritual truth, Brisco offers a roadmap for anyone trapped in the exhausting cycle of trying to let go but constantly falling back.
This isn’t about pretending you don’t care. As Brisco powerfully states, “You can’t fake detachment. It’s not about pretending you don’t care. It’s reaching a place where you actually don’t care.” And getting to that place requires more than motivation—it requires a strategic dismantling of the patterns keeping you chained.
What You’re Doing Wrong: The Poison You Keep Drinking
Before we dive into solutions, we need to address the behaviors that sabotage detachment. Understanding what keeps you stuck is half the battle.
The Social Media Trap
Every time you refresh their Instagram page, check who liked their photos, or analyze their stories for hidden meanings, you’re reopening your own wound. Brisco warns, “Every time you do that, you’re bleeding your own wound open again.”
Social media creates an illusion of connection while delivering nothing but pain. You’re not staying informed—you’re staying attached. The digital breadcrumbs you follow don’t lead anywhere except deeper into obsession.
The Selective Memory Syndrome
Your brain is lying to you. It’s replaying highlight reels while conveniently editing out the painful scenes. You remember the laughs, the trips, the “I love yous,” but you’re forgetting the nights you cried, the lies they told, and the countless times they didn’t show up.
As Brisco explains, “You’re remembering the fantasy. And fantasies will chain you longer than reality ever could.” This selective amnesia is why you keep questioning your decision to leave, even when you know it was the right one.
The Begging Trap
Every text asking “Can we talk?” every attempt to explain your worth, every plea for them to see what they’re losing—these don’t bring closure. They kill self-respect. “Every time you plead for their love, you’re really telling yourself that you aren’t enough,” Brisco reminds us. And that’s a lie that becomes more deeply rooted with each attempt.
The Band-Aid Solution
Temporary distractions—random hookups, alcohol, substances, endless scrolling—might numb the pain temporarily, but they don’t heal the wound. Brisco is direct: “Detachment can’t be built on distractions. It has to be built on discipline.” When the music stops and you’re alone at 3 AM staring at the ceiling, that wound is still there, untreated and festering.
The Seven Steps to Real Detachment
Now that we’ve identified the traps, let’s explore Brisco’s proven framework for genuine detachment—the kind that happens so completely it actually shocks you.
Step 1: Cut the Access Completely
Detachment begins with disconnection. This isn’t optional or negotiable. Block their social media accounts. Delete their number. Mute the playlists that remind you of them. Remove every digital doorway that your heart can wander through at 2 AM.
People often resist this step, asking “But what if they reach out? What if they come back?” Brisco’s answer is profound: “If it’s really love, if it’s really God’s plan, it will find its way back regardless if you block them or not. But while you’re healing, you need silence. You don’t need signals.”
Think of it this way: you can’t get sober if you keep liquor in your cabinet. You can’t heal from someone you’re still in contact with. The option to reach out must be eliminated, not just resisted.
Step 2: Face the Withdrawals Without Running
Here’s the truth nobody tells you: detachment feels like detox. You’re going to shake. You’re going to feel restless. Your chest will feel empty. These aren’t signs that you’re making a mistake—they’re signs that you’re healing.
“That’s your body and your spirit cleansing themselves of something that had been an addiction,” Brisco explains. Don’t mislabel these feelings as “I still love them so much.” You’re detoxing from their energy, from the routine, from the neurochemical patterns your brain became dependent on.
The withdrawal phase gets uglier before it gets better, but here’s the empowering truth: you survived the pain of being with them. You can absolutely survive the pain of being without them. Withdrawals don’t mean weakness—they mean you’re healing.
Step 3: Replace the Habit, Don’t Just Remove It
Detachment isn’t just removing a person—it’s dismantling all the routines attached to them. If you just leave empty spaces, your mind will crave to fill them, and nine times out of ten, it’ll pull you right back.
Instead, build new rhythms:
- Replace morning texts with gratitude journaling
- Swap falling asleep on the phone with listening to sermons or audiobooks
- Substitute calling them when stressed with hitting the gym or calling a friend who truly pours into you
“You can’t detach by leaving an empty space. You detach by building new rhythms that feel so good you don’t even miss the old ones anymore,” Brisco teaches. This is how you create lasting change—not through willpower alone, but through strategic replacement.
Step 4: Flood Your Environment With New Energy
Healing happens faster when you starve memories of oxygen. Stop going to the coffee shop where you used to meet. Change the furniture arrangement in your bedroom. Try new foods, explore new neighborhoods, pick up hobbies you’ve never attempted.
This isn’t about running away—it’s about creating a life so different that your heart has room to follow. When your world starts to feel different, your emotional reality shifts along with it. Remove their fingerprints from your daily experience, and watch how quickly your attachment weakens.
Step 5: Keep the Receipts—Write Down Why You Left
Emotions are convincing liars. They’ll make you miss people who broke you. They’ll convince you that you need the very poison that was killing you. That’s why documentation is crucial.
Write down what they did. Record how you felt. List the disrespect, the lies, the nights you cried. Keep a detailed account of the reasons you had to walk away. When your mind starts playing tricks—when you start romanticizing the good moments—pull out that list and read it.
This is how you fight selective memory. “Don’t let your mind trick you into romanticizing your own destruction,” Brisco warns. The receipts keep you honest when your emotions try to rewrite history.
Step 6: Level Up in Silence
Nothing detaches you faster than growth. When you redirect the energy you once spent obsessing over them into building yourself—your body, your mind, your spirit, your career—something remarkable happens.
You rise into a version of yourself that doesn’t recognize the person who once settled for breadcrumbs. “When that glow up hits, when your peace gets louder than the pain, you won’t even want them anymore,” Brisco promises.
And here’s the twist: they’ll notice. They’ll feel the shift. They’ll try to come back right when you’re leveling up. But by then, you’ll be so far gone that you’ll wonder why you ever wanted them in the first place.
Step 7: Talk to Yourself Differently
Words create your reality. The narratives you repeat to yourself become the cage you live in or the wings you fly with.
Stop saying:
- “I can’t live without them”
- “They complete me”
- “I need closure”
Start declaring:
- “I was whole before them and I’m whole after them”
- “I don’t need them to see my worth. I see it myself”
- “Closure is my choice, not their gift”
“The way you talk to yourself becomes the fuel that either drags you back or propels you forward,” Brisco teaches. Choose your words carefully, because they’re programming your future.
The Scary Truth About Detachment
Here’s what nobody tells you: detachment is terrifying. Not because you’re losing them, but because you’re finding you.
It’s scary when you realize you can breathe without their approval. It’s frightening when you wake up one morning and don’t feel the urge to check your phone for their name. It’s unnerving when you see them and instead of your heart racing, you feel nothing but peace.
“Realizing the love you thought would destroy you to lose was never really love. It was just attachment,” Brisco reveals. Once you cut it free, the freedom will shock you. For so long, you believed you couldn’t survive without them. Now you’re smiling, glowing, healing, leveling up—and you’ll scare yourself with how much you don’t care anymore.
The Biblical Foundation: Isaiah 43:18
Brisco grounds his teaching in Scripture, specifically Isaiah 43:18: “Forget the former things. Do not dwell in the past. See, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs up. Do you not perceive it?”
This isn’t just motivational language—it’s divine instruction. God is literally telling you to let go. Stop replanting what’s behind you because He’s already setting up something brand new in front of you. What’s ahead is infinitely greater than whatever you left behind.
The spiritual dimension of detachment matters because it connects your healing to something larger than willpower. You’re not just recovering from a breakup—you’re aligning with divine timing and purpose.
Detachment Beyond Romantic Relationships
While Brisco’s message focuses primarily on romantic relationships, the principles apply universally. You can detach from:
- Toxic friendships that drain your energy
- Jobs that undervalue your contribution
- Habits that sabotage your potential
- Family dynamics that keep you trapped in old patterns
- Past versions of yourself that no longer serve you
The framework remains the same: cut access, face withdrawals, replace habits, flood your environment, keep receipts, level up, and speak differently to yourself.
The Acceleration Factor
“It’s actually easier than you think,” Brisco assures us, but with one crucial caveat: you must be willing to put forth the effort. Detachment isn’t passive. It’s not something that happens to you over time—it’s something you actively create through consistent, disciplined choices.
The acceleration happens when you implement all seven steps simultaneously rather than trying them piecemeal. Each step reinforces the others, creating momentum that carries you forward faster than you imagined possible.
Your Detachment Season Starts Now
This is your invitation to detachment season—not as a cold, unfeeling state, but as a conscious choice to release what’s keeping you from becoming your best self. As Brisco concludes, “Detach from all the things that are keeping you from becoming your best, greatest person ever.”
The person you’re becoming requires the full version of you—not the fragmented pieces you’ve been giving away to someone who couldn’t appreciate them. Your healing, your growth, your future—they’re all waiting on the other side of this detachment.
Will it be easy? No. Will it be worth it? Absolutely. Will you scare yourself with how quickly you transform once you commit? According to Jonathan Brisco’s experience and the thousands who’ve applied these principles—yes, you will.
The question isn’t whether you can detach. The question is whether you’re ready to meet the version of yourself that emerges when you finally let go.