How I Met Jack at a Wedding and What it Taught Me About How To Practice Detachment [ep. #283]
Everyone is talking about how to practice detachment right now and most of it is being taught completely wrong: "Stop checking his Instagram. Stop refreshing your Stripe account at 2am. Let it go and it will come."
So let's talk about the real law of detachment. Practicing detachment is not about a morning routine, a journal prompt or a breathing exercise you perform until the universe rewards you. The real detachment lives at a subconscious level, and until you detach from the outcome at that depth, you will keep repelling the very thing you are reaching for.
And nowhere is this more obvious than in your business. I am pulling the curtain back on why your content, your launches and your quiet weeks feel so heavy right now, and what is actually happening underneath when you cannot detach from the outcome.
And to show you exactly what this looks like in real life, I am taking you back to 2022, the wedding where I met Jack (now my fiancé and father of our daughter Ivy), too many Pornstar Martinis, the weird hair, the Eiffel Tower moment, and the EastEnders level drama that followed.
If you have been trying to perform detachment instead of becoming it, this one is going to land.
Topics covered on How to Practice Detachment:
Why the mainstream version of detachment practice is being taught completely wrong
What the real law of detachment looks like at a subconscious level, versus the performative version everyone is selling online
The difference between wanting something from internal certainty and wanting it from "I will only be okay when this arrives"
The full story of how I met Jack at the wedding in 2022 and the subconscious reprogramming that had already happened before I walked in
How to actually detach from the outcome without pretending you do not care about it
Connect with Rebecca Haydon:
Related episodes you may enjoy:
Quote:
"Detachment is not about not wanting something. It has got nothing to do with pretending that you don't care, or the practice that you do in the morning, or the journal prompt, or the breathing exercises. Detachment is a subconscious state." - Rebecca Haydon
Transcription:
Our AI tried its best, but expect a few quirky typos in the transcript. Embrace the imperfections and enjoy the read!
[00:00:00] Every man and his several dogs, women included, is talking about detachment right now. Let it go. Release. Surrender. Stop checking his Instagram. Stop refreshing your Stripe account at 2am. Stop needing it so badly, and it will come. I think most of it is being taught completely wrong.
How To Practice Detachment (It’s Not What Everyone Is Telling You)
Detachment is not about not wanting something. It has nothing to do with pretending that you don't care, or the practice that you do in the morning, or the journal prompt, or the breathing exercises. Detachment is a subconscious state, and today I'm going to tell you exactly what that means, and how to practice detachment properly, through the story of how I met my fiancé Jack, who is also the father of our beautiful little girl Ivy, and full-time business manager of Rebecca Haydon.
[00:01:07] I'm going to tell you through that lens, and then I'm going to show you why the way you're currently showing up, and I'm going to look at content more specifically in this episode, which I haven't done for a while, quite excited, might actually be the thing that's keeping the clients and the sales and the income from arriving.
Welcome back to The Subconscious Expert. I'm excited to share this story with you. I'm Rebecca Haydon. This is going to be a good one.
Meeting My Fiance Jack
[00:01:55] To understand this story properly, I need to take you back. I need to take you back into the archives of 2022, which is not so archival. I don't even know whether that's a word, but I need to take you back.
I had moved to Australia, for those who don't know, in 2019. I moved in with a different guy, and I had a life there, and I had a plan. In fact, I actually had permanent residency, which expired on the 6th of April of this year, 2026. Crazy.
[00:02:19] The whole thing about me going to Australia was that I'd just left the performing arts industry. I'd been teaching dance. I was in an absolute quarter-life crisis. I didn't know what I was going to do. I met this guy. He was like, "Do you want to go to Australia?" I was like, "Feel the fear, do it anyway. Fuck it. Let's go."
So I was probably not in the right mindset when I made that decision, but by God, I'm so grateful that I made it, because the life I have now came through the choices I made then. I started my business out in Australia. But I had been there since 2019, and obviously we all know that 2020 COVID hit. I was basically stuck in Australia.
It wasn't even my goal to live out there. It was his goal to live out there, and I was just following it, being the people pleaser that I was back then. For those who know, I am so close to my mum. I'm so family oriented. It's a great life, but it wasn't aligned with my values. That's another episode for another story, another way that I can combine subconscious work with my stories.
Why I Already Knew The Relationship Was Over Before I Landed In England
[00:03:28] I had been out there for a really long time, and over that time I had started to realise that he wasn't the one for me. I think I knew it from right at the start of us dating. But I'd had a really awful time dating for many years up until then, and he was the only normal guy I'd gone out with for a very long time. If anyone's dated anyone in the performing arts industry, if you know, you know.
He was not in the performing arts industry, didn't really like, well, hated musicals, quite frankly. I was like, "Right, let's go." So I got stuck out in Australia, and my mum swears that if I'd come home before, I probably would have had this epiphany beforehand, but everything works in wonderful ways.
[00:04:39] I came back to England for the first time in July 2022. I left in January 2019, and the first time I came back was in 2022. I came back for a very specific reason. My best friend was getting married. I came back for an 8-week chunk because her hen do was on, which I really wanted to go to. I didn't want to miss out, because I'd missed out on so many things since I'd been out there, so many weddings and everything like that. I didn't want to miss my best friend's hen do.
[00:05:15] I came back for 8 weeks. The hen do was literally the day after I got back, and the wedding was 2 days before I left to go back to Australia. The reason I came back was for my best friend's wedding, and to see everyone. My ex-partner was supposed to come with me, and he didn't. Story for another day.
I think by the time my feet hit the English soil, I already knew. I already knew I didn't want to be with him anymore. It was very apparent. It was very real. I was doing so much subconscious reprogramming on myself out in Australia, and I'd grown so much as a person, that we grew further and further apart in that time. He didn't want to grow with me, and that's okay. Absolutely fine.
I absolutely loved Australia. I still miss it to this day. But the sheer length, the sheer amount of hours it takes on the plane, and me thinking about starting a family out there and getting married without my family around me, was really starting to grate on me.
[00:06:32] Something in me, by the time I had landed, had already decided. If you want the full intel of this story, episode 100 is the most listened to podcast episode. Me and my podcast manager Nicola laugh about this all the time. It's the one where I bared all of what's happened. I feel really different to Becky who recorded that. That was back in 2022. I actually haven't listened back to it myself. I don't know whether I will. But if you want to really feel what I was going through back in 2022, please go listen to that after this.
[00:06:57] Something in me had already decided, had already moved on, had almost already updated, and I really remember that when I came home, those 8 weeks of being home, my business blew up again, even more than it was already blowing up when I was in Australia. It was sensational. It was magic. Every day was magic in my business. I think it was a real identity shift that coming back home had created within me.
A lot had updated subconsciously, but I hadn't made a big announcement. I hadn't had the big conversation with my ex. It was just done in my head, and I know a few of my friends knew this as well.
The Morning I Felt The Least Like Myself In Years
[00:07:46] So we had the hen do. I had a lovely time in England seeing all my friends and catching up, and then we had the wedding, and I was a bridesmaid. It was the first time I'd been a bridesmaid since I was 4 years old, so I was absolutely buzzing.
I need to paint a picture of how I felt the morning of the wedding. For those who know me, and if you've ever been on calls with me, my hair is my thing. I play with it, I zhuzh it, I mess with it. Probably some subconscious work I can do with that, but it's my thing. I want my hair to be big and luscious and curly and beautiful. On that morning, they did my hair the way I asked. Nothing wrong with the people doing my hair, but it looked weird. It was really pretty, but it wasn't how I wore it.
[00:08:32] I immediately felt not great. When my hair's not great, I'm not great. Then they did my makeup, which also, I think I would probably do my own makeup for my own wedding because I don't wear eyeshadow. I literally wear mascara and some foundation. I don't do much. I'm a low-maintenance girl when it comes to these sorts of things, which I know many of you would probably not think.
[00:09:00] My makeup didn't look like me. My hair didn't look like me. I didn't feel comfortable at all. I'm tall, which is the one thing that anyone who meets me in person goes, "Wow, you're tall." I'm 5'7", 5'8". All of the bridesmaids were relatively short, 5'4". I really felt like the Eiffel Tower on that day. I did not feel like myself. I remember actually getting really upset. They changed my hair a couple of times as well. I didn't feel particularly confident or put together, let's say that.
The Moment I Grabbed Jack's Arm For The Bridal Photos
[00:10:05] We got to the wedding, and the wedding started. We had the ceremony. It was amazing, all of that. Then it got to the point where we had to take the photos, the bridal party photos. In comes Jack. Insert Jack.
I knew of Jack. I actually got him mixed up with another Jack that my brother used to hang around with. But he had been in my brother's friendship group for years. We actually went to the same school, ironically. He was in the year below me. I had not seen him for years. I didn't know him at school either. I knew he was my best friend's husband's friend, because we knew Alex when we were at school as well.
[00:10:54] So I knew of him, but I wouldn't say, "Oh, did I go to school with him?" is probably what I would think. He was a groomsman. Crucially to this story, he was very fucking tall, 6' something. I should check. 6'2", 6'3", 6'1", one of them. Anyway, he's very tall.
Because I kind of knew him and I felt comfortable with him, I grabbed him. When we were doing the wedding photos and I was standing there feeling like the Eiffel Tower, I grabbed him, I grabbed his arm, and I literally remember grabbing his arm and saying, "I need you to stand next to me because if I stand next to anyone else, I am looking ridiculous." There is one photo of me and 2 of my best friends, who were the other bridesmaids, and I had to stand on the downhill slope of the hill to make myself not look tall. It was getting ridiculous.
[00:11:58] So I grabbed Jack and said, "We've got to stand together. We've got to have these pictures together." Ironically, when we look back at those [00:12:00] pictures, it looks like we're already going out, and I know there's a whole EastEnders version that I'll probably talk about in this podcast episode.
We stood together, and I remember noticing weird things. We still laugh about this to this day, but he held his wine glass in a really weird way, and he was drinking Sauvignon Blanc, which I thought was a bit strange for a male to be drinking wine back then. I know it's way more a thing now, but I remember being like, "That's such a weird way of holding your wine glass."
[00:12:37] Skip forward to the meal. The pictures had happened. We had a lovely time. I felt really comfortable with Jack. He saved me from looking like the Eiffel Tower. Job's a good 'un. So we're now at the meal. This might be a story that you don't really care about, but I'm going to fucking tell you anyway.
My best friend Hayley turns to me halfway through the meal and goes, "How drunk are you on a scale of 0 to 10?" To be honest, I don't massively like being drunk, or hungover. It's such a waste of a day the next day. So I'm that sort of gal. Also, it takes me a really long time to get drunk. I can have 5, if not 6, spicy margaritas nowadays and still not really feel the effects. I don't know what it is. I think it's control, if we look at it subconsciously. But I don't have to look into everything subconsciously.
[00:13:21] Hayley turned to me and I said, "I'm a 1 out of 10." She said, "You need to get your shit sorted and go and have a drink." I said, "Fine. Okay." By the time we got to the dance floor, there was a significant number of Pornstar Martinis consumed, which is the cocktail I used to drink back then. I now can't even taste it, it's that sweet. I honestly don't know how I liked it. Pornstar Martinis, if you were watching me back in 2020, was a brand signature of mine. That's how much I used to drink it.
[00:14:04] Anyway, I was drunk and we were on the dance floor. Well, I wasn't drunk, I was tipsy, and we were on the dance floor. There were a lot of my brother's friends at this wedding, so I was sending him videos of me and his friends singing. He did not want to receive those videos, I can confirm. At some point, me and Jack were sending a video together, and I remember this feeling, this connection. The ease, almost like I had known him forever, even though I went to the same school as him, I genuinely barely knew him at all.
[00:14:56] Just to say, completely honest, we were both in relationships at this point. There is a photo of us from that night where it almost looks like Jack's nibbling my ear, but I think he was whispering something to me because the dance floor was so loud. The way the picture is captured wasn't great.
We were both in relationships, but it was a weird feeling because everyone at the wedding, even the groom's parents, could see this connection between us, this thing between us. People were coming up and saying, "Ooh, the connection between Beck and Jack, what the hell?" Jack had had his own journey and bad relationship, and me too, and we were in the same position. We both had dogs, we both had commitments. I remember having a conversation with Jack at the wedding, saying, "I'm not happy," and he said, "I'm not happy." It was just a real connection.
[00:16:01] The wedding finished and it was 2 days before I was going back to Australia, and I remember thinking, "I can't leave this alone. What was that? What was that?" I knew. I really knew, like the times where you just fucking know. I knew that Jack was the man I am meant to be with for the rest of my life. I knew it. I really knew it.
I Knew Jack Was The ONE And I Refused To Be Passive About It
[00:16:26] To be clear, the reason I'm telling you this story, because this is where it gets important for what I actually want to teach you, is that I wasn't passive about knowing. I did not sit back and say, "Well, I'm detached. If it's going to happen, it will happen. I'll just wait and see." I was certain that this is the man I was going to marry. This is the man who was going to be in my life for the rest of my life. From that certainty, I was willing to do anything to make it work.
[00:17:18] Trust me, for those of you in the UK, the breakups we went through and us getting together was a literal version of EastEnders. It was the most dramatic, nervous system shaking experience I have ever been through. But I was so certain that I would make it work, that I navigated it. We went through it, and we dealt with it. Probably things I will never share on social media.
There was a lot of hate. There were a lot of attacks on my social media, on my platform, on people watching me and commenting. It was chaos. I did it all from the same place. I did it all from that deep inside knowing that this was right, regardless of how uncomfortable it was to unfold.
[00:18:08] I remember getting on that plane back to Australia sobbing, and I spoke to Jack on the phone as I got on the plane, and 10 days after, me and Jack have been together since then. The rest is history. We're engaged with a baby, living our best life. I mean, if you do want the ins and outs, I can't tell you all the juicy secrets, as much as you'd love to hear them. It was a really powerful time of my life.
The Subconscious Shift Right Before The Wedding
[00:18:34] The reason I want to tell you this story is because what was actually happening to me that night at the wedding, and I think this is the most important thing I can teach you about how to practice detachment, is that I was not trying to be magnetic. I wasn't performing confidence and faking it till I made it, and "I'm the kind of woman who attracts incredible things."
I had weird hair that I took out by the time we even did the photos, and the photographer actually messaged my friend, which I think was quite rude, saying, "If that girl ever gets married, she's going to need a hairdresser there all day," because, you know, weird, right?
[00:19:37] I had weird hair. I felt like the fucking Eiffel Tower. I was sending videos to my brother, who did not want them. But I was just myself, completely unselfconsciously, not trying to be anything, just myself. The reason that matters is that in the months leading up to that wedding, in the year or so leading up to that wedding, something had shifted in me at the subconscious level.
[00:20:07] I had let go, not of wanting love or a relationship or wanting a life that felt right, but I had let go of needing the specific version I had been holding onto to be the one that worked out. The relationship I was in was done in my subconscious before it was done consciously. Australia, the same. The plan, the same.
Because my subconscious was no longer gripping, because it was no longer sending out the frequency of, "I need this to work. I need this to be the thing. I need it to work this way. I need this outcome to confirm that I am good enough, that I'm okay, that it's all going to work for me," I was free and relaxed and open, and I was just fucking living. That is the state I walked into at a wedding and met the love of my life.
What Detachment Really Looks Like
[00:21:03] That is what detachment actually is. Like I said, it's not about not wanting. I wanted Jack. I wanted a relationship that felt nothing like the relationship I was in. I wanted a deeper, more magical, more spark-flying, more on-the-same-page, more wanting-the-same-things relationship. I wanted that, and I didn't have it in the relationship I was in. From the moment I knew, I knew I would do whatever it took to make it work. That wanting never went away.
The law of detachment is about the relationship your subconscious has with the outcome. It is the difference between wanting something from a place of internal certainty, like "I know this is mine, I know this is coming, I know who I am with or without it," versus wanting something from a place of "I will only be okay when this arrives." One of those states is fucking magnetic. The other one repels the very thing you are reaching for.
Why Your Content Is Repelling The Clients You Want
[00:22:15] Honestly, I see this everywhere in business. Everywhere in business, especially content, which is one I wanted to talk about in terms of that gripping and that state you're in. You're writing a post, you're hitting publish, you're checking it, you're checking it again, you're going back on your stories, you're checking it again 45 minutes later. If no one's commented, you start to wonder whether the post is wrong. Is the offer wrong? Am I wrong? Am I not good enough?
[00:23:05] I see it in launches so much. By day 3, the energy has shifted from "I know this is going to sell," to "Oh my God, please buy. Please buy." Your audience feels it. Even if you don't say it, it's in the words you choose, it's in the urgency. It's the energy underneath it, that desperate energy. It repels, and I know many people talk about this.
Your subconscious is giving out the energy of, "I'm not okay yet. I am not enough yet. I need this outcome to confirm my worth, to confirm that I'm good enough, to confirm that I belong." [00:24:00] The people you want to work with, your most expansive, amazing clients, are tuned into a different frequency entirely. I know I keep using that word, I'm sorry, but literally like radio signals. That is what attachment does in business. It comes from that deep subconscious identity problem.
Why You Cannot ‘Behave’ Your Way Into Practicing Detachment
[00:24:27] The women who create content from detachment, from that deep internal knowledge that her work is extraordinary and that the clients are coming and that the quiet week means nothing about her, she creates differently, she sells differently, she shows up differently. She's not saying, "I'm doing detachment right now." Her subconscious has been updated to believe she is safe with or without the outcome.
That's the bit that nobody's teaching. Detachment is almost being sold as this practice, this thing that you do, this way you behave, but you cannot behave your way into a subconscious state, the same way you can't decide to believe something that you don't believe.
[00:25:17] What you can do is go where the attachment is actually living. The specific subconscious belief that says, "I'm only okay when the sales come in," or, "I'm only good enough when the launch sells out," or, "I'm only safe when the income is this amount or consistent," and update it from there. There are practices around how to practice detachment, yes, but it is just who you are.
How To Detach From Outcome Through Subconscious Reprogramming
[00:25:47] The way it was for me at the wedding, just living and being and somehow in that state finding exactly what I was meant to find. I wasn't looking for it, but by God, I'm bloody glad I found him. It's so powerful. It is so powerful.
The moment the identity updates, the moment the subconscious finally agrees, that's when the attachment will change, and you will stop feeling so attached. When you detach from outcome at the subconscious level, it's the most magnetic thing a person can put into the world.
[00:26:25] I hope you've enjoyed this story. A little insight into my world. If you want the full gossip, DM me the word... no. I'm joking. I'm sorry. I can't share these things. But if you are ready to update the subconscious identity underneath the attachment right now, this is the work I'm doing inside my world, especially in my one-to-one.
[00:27:00] If you want to apply to work with me one-to-one, the application form is in the show notes. And Jack, if you are listening to this somewhere, somehow, thank the blessed Lord for the Pornstar Martinis. I'll see you all next week. Love you all.
More about The Subconscious Expert:
Welcome to The Subconscious Expert, the podcast where your subconscious becomes your one-way ticket to the mind-blowing results you desire in your life and business! I’m your host, Rebecca Haydon, The Subconscious Expert who went from being stuck in victim mode to a multi 6 figure business owner. Each week, I will be giving you the subconscious tools and techniques so you can become the woman who is living out her vision with a life and business that she is truly OBSESSED with. I have said it before, and I will say it 100 times again: "Your business can't outgrow your mindset, and if you want to grow your business, it always starts with growing your subconscious." So let's dive into the subconscious breakthrough you so deeply deserve!