The breakup that broke me open is the reason I can help you through yours.
Natalia Juarez, The Breakup Coach. Attachment-based breakup coach and founder of the Lovistics Institute.
How I went from the heartbreak of a broken engagement at the age of 30 to discovering the secret to drama-free love and helping hundreds of men and women from all around the world make better sense of love (and finding real love myself).
Are you wondering if I have the ability, knowledge and street cred to help you?
Perhaps you’re wondering if you’ll ever get over this person or this heartbreak.
Or maybe you’re looking for ways to get back together with your ex (or questioning if it’s just time to move on).
Or maybe you’re simply asking yourself why you keep choosing the wrong people.
I have been asked each of these more times than I can count, and I have asked every one of them myself.
Either way, you’re here because you suspect there’s got to be a better way through this.
So whether you've tried muscling through your romantic issues in the hopes that, if you just give it enough time, things will sort themselves out (only to find that they haven’t) or you’ve tried talking to your friends and family, but you feel you need the objective perspective of a professional.
You’re in the right place.
Need help healing your heart? Learn more about The BetterBreakups Method & my Breakup Coaching services
Want to reconcile with your ex? Learn more about my Conscious Recoupling services
Frustrated with the modern dating world? Learn more about my Dating Strategy services
Hi, I’m Natalia
Breakup Coach & Attachment Theory Specialist
I founded Lovistics in 2013 and have since worked one on one with more than 500 people through the full arc of a relationship ending: the agonizing decision of whether to stay or go, the recovery after heartbreak, the careful work of getting back together, and the return to dating with intention.
My method is built on attachment theory and Internal Family Systems (IFS). I’m a former teacher, an ICF-certified coach, and the founder of the Lovistics Institute, where I am turning more than a decade of one-on-one work into education more people can reach.
The Back Story
Naturally, I'm often asked, 'how did you end up doing this?' Although I've had several long-term relationships, two major heartbreaks brought me here.
2000: Losing My Dignity
I met my first real love when I was 18 (let's call him Boyfriend #1). The connection was powerful, and we believed we were soulmates. For the first year, things between us couldn't have been more perfect. Then, in the summer of 2000, I came across a photograph that revealed he had cheated on me with his ex-girlfriend. I was devastated, and I had no way to make sense of a betrayal like that. Put simply, it brought out the worst in me.
We stayed together, but this betrayal unraveled me. I became consumed by what had happened: hurt, angry, and jealous in a way I had never known. And still we always found our way back to each other, because the pull between us was so strong.
In 2004 we moved to Taiwan together, hoping a fresh start would help us move past the mistakes we had made with one another. But then, days into us arriving in Taipei, I came across a letter from an engaged “friend” of his that made it clear they had a full on affair in the months before.
To say I was (once again) devastated would be an understatement. I felt completely broken.
What followed was years of an on-again, off-again relationship. Without real support, and without enough distance from each other, we could never stay apart long enough to actually let go.
Looking back, the worst part of that seven-year relationship was not the betrayals. It was that I lost my dignity.
Today, I can better understand why I stayed with Boyfriend #1 for years longer than I should have. I believed he was my one true love, my soulmate, and I was terrified that if I walked away I might never love anyone that much again and would regret it for the rest of my life.
It's a familiar story, isn't it?
What I could not see then, and understand clearly now, is that I was living out an anxious attachment pattern. The ache to hold on to a connection at almost any cost, and the mistaking of that ache for proof of love. That is exactly the pattern my breakup recovery work is built to interrupt, so that no one has to spend years learning what I learned the hard way.
2010: The Better Breakup
In the summer of 2008, less than 24 hours after I finally cut the cord with Boyfriend #1, I walked into a café and a few tables over sat the man who would shortly after become my fiancé (let's call him Boyfriend #2). It felt like love at first sight.
If I had had a list (and most of us do), he was everything I ever thought I wanted. He was also, of all things, a therapist. The connection was instant and within six months we were engaged.
It didn’t take long for our passionate relationship to become a fiery one as our values began to collide. And somewhere in the collision I started disappearing. I gave up my extroverted nature, my social circle, my love of Tango, one small concession at a time. Inevitably our relationship began to feel oppressive as control and possessiveness took over.
Without realizing it, I had completely lost myself in the relationship. I was unrecognizable to myself, and yet I felt trapped, unable to even entertain the thought of leaving until luckily, the relationship reached a breaking point.
"Life changes in an instant,” Joan Didion wrote. Mine changed on an ordinary weeknight in November 2010, when he said something I knew I could not accept. I felt a wave of clarity and strength come over me, and I knew I had to leave. That same night I packed up one suitcase and left. It all happened so fast.
I was six months from turning 30, and that was the second heartbreak. It devastated me, and I had chosen it, which is its own kind of grief. On paper it was the bigger loss. I was older, there was a ring, there was a whole life I had expected to be living at 30. But truthfully, the first heartbreak had cut deeper, and I had done it so badly that I made myself a promise going into this one. This time, I would keep my dignity, I would not let it drag, and I would not make the same mistakes twice.
That promise is where the better breakup began, and years later it became my signature BetterBreakups Method.
88 Dates, a $10,000 Coach, and The Scientific Theory that Ultimately Changed Everything
After my engagement ended just as I was turning 30, I did the only thing I knew to do - I got a therapist, bought every relationship book I could find. I committed to myself that I was going to turn my love life around, and vowed to myself that I would not repeat the heartache and the drama of my 20s in my 30s.
Over the next five years I went on 88 first dates (I had a spreadsheet and everything), read more than a hundred relationship books, worked with three different therapists, had astrological and tarot readings, and even paid a life coach $10,000 for a year of coaching.
I was a woman on a mission.
Not everyone saw it that way. I was called a serial dater, a boyfriend hopper, and god knows what else, and from the comfort of their own relationships people kept asking me the same question: why can't you just be happy alone?
Discovering the Secret to Drama-Free Love
In 2015, in a session with my third therapist, I felt we were having the same conversation we had every week. So I asked her, I know you're not supposed to tell me what to do, but I give you my permission to give me your opinion. She put her pen down, looked at me, and after a thoughtful moment said, "Natalia, you might want to take a look at attachment theory."
I walked out of her office, straight to my favourite bookstore on the way home, searched "attachment," found Attached by Dr. Amir Levine and Rachel Heller, and I binged it in a weekend.
And just like that, once I started learning more about this 'secret', my whole love life started to make sense. My decisions, my reactions, my attractions. Why I had been drawn to the wrong partners for me, and why I had never felt "attracted" to the ones who could genuinely meet my needs for reassurance. I discovered that there was nothing wrong with me, I was simply anxiously attached.
From there, things started falling into place.
That was the secret I had spent years searching for, and it had been hiding in plain sight. Not that one book, but the path it set me on. I have worked with attachment ever since.
So, how am I doing now?
In the summer of 2017, after hearing my story, Scott Simon from NPR asked me in such a heartfelt way,"So, how are you doing now?"
The question surprised me, and it made me smile. Given what I do, people are naturally curious about how things turned out for me after so many romantic hardships.
One year after I discovered attachment theory, at the age of 34, I finally got my act together and committed to the easiest, most fulfilling relationship of my life.
When I first met my now husband, I thought he was very handsome, I didn’t think he was my type. But he was persistent, and over time my heart opened to him. It was a slow unfolding of about a year and a half that my anxious twenties would never have had the patience for.
I can honestly say that the relationship I have now is a product of all the work I have done on myself. It felt like all the dates, all the heartbreak, all of the work and researching - everything - had prepared me to finally accept the love I'd always wanted, needed, and deserved.
We were married in February 2024, we’re living happily in Toronto, Canada with our dog, Dexter.
The Origins of Lovistics
"This Toronto-based visionary has re-imagined healing and the path to overcoming heartbreak. A delicate hand with a firm grip on how to move forward and break from both the patterns and the past; helping those trying to get over a breakup, thinking about one, or even avoiding an unnecessary one."
Love has been my greatest teacher. The second heartbreak humbled me into looking at myself as the common denominator in my relationships, and that is where the real work started. Not because everything was my fault, but because I was the only variable I could control. I'm grateful to have grown through my experiences to have become a better person and partner.
The lessons I learned about my relationship patterns forced me to look at myself as the common denominator in my relationships and guided me to discover theories about human attachment that have changed my life.
I founded Lovistics in 2013 to help people make sense of their love lives with real tools rather than clichés in order to have healthier, truly loving relationships.
Education & Professional Credentials
Education
Bachelor of Arts Honours, Gender Studies — Queen's University, Canada
Bachelor of Education — Trent University, Canada
7 Coaching Certifications
Certified Coach, practicing since 2014 to present
Certified Integrated Attachment Theory Coach, Personal Development School, 2026
Internal Family Systems (IFS) Training, 2026
Certified Gottman Leader, The Gottman Institute, 2025
Certified Grief Recovery Method Coach, 2021
Certified Holistic Health Coach, 2015
Certified Dating Coach, 2013
Additional Training
Certified Yoga Teacher, Yoga Therapy Toronto, 2011
View my profile on Psychology Today
If any part of my story resonated with you, feel free to book a consultation with me to see if working together would be a good fit.
Whether you’re healing from a breakup or divorce, rebuilding a relationship, or navigating modern dating, I can help.
I work with clients across the US, Canada, and worldwide. All coaching sessions are held online via Zoom or by phone.
