The end of a relationship causes many big feelings; many folks experience shame, guilt, anger, sadness, and sometimes relief. A big part of these emotions comes from losing what you believed your future would look like.
Perhaps you or someone you know is going through a tough breakup and dealing with the difficult process of moving on. Falling out of love is usually a natural, although painful, process. Most people can and do fall out of love without help. Time heals, they meet other people, and their lives go on.
Simultaneously, the sudden loss of love can be almost overwhelming for some of us; our thoughts produce an obsession with the relationship that is now over, and we face intense, enduring, immobilizing pain.
Being in love and having someone break up with you can lead to depression, obsessive thoughts, sexual dysfunction, inability to work, difficulty making friends, and self-destructiveness.
This blog is to help you stop the pain so you can escape from a nonproductive dream world of unreturned love. So you can love again and be loved.
Let’s Dive In!
Falling in love is an intense emotional and intuitive experience. A lot of it is magic and chemistry. Because falling in love is emotionally learned, it has to be emotionally unlearned if you are going to fall out of love.
Common Post-Breakup Advice You’ve Likely Encountered
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“Just get over it already.” – This oversimplifies the healing process.
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“Find someone new immediately.” – Rushing into a new relationship without processing emotions from the previous one will lead to unhealthy rebound situations.
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“You should have seen it coming.” – Friends and family may blame you for not anticipating the end of the relationship.
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“You should stay friends.” – Staying friends immediately after a breakup will hinder your healing process.
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“Distract yourself and stay busy all the time.” – Constant distraction will prevent necessary reflection and processing of emotions.
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“Delete all memories and never talk about it.” – For some, acknowledging and talking about the breakup is part of the healing process. Pretending it didn’t happen will hinder emotional recovery.
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“Revenge is the best medicine.” – Seeking revenge can lead to more negativity and legal consequences.
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“Your ex was terrible; you’re better off without them.” – Oversimplifying and demonizing your ex does not consider the complexity of the relationship and hinders personal growth.
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“Just forgive and forget.” – Forgiveness is a personal process and might take time.
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“Jump back into the dating scene to boost your self-esteem.” – Relying on external validation does not address underlying self-esteem issues.
It’s not that the above things are bad advice. The issue is these things do not stop the pain or the thoughts that are there; they are temporary fixes. We need to deal with the pain in a direct, systematic way.
Why can’t I get over my ex?
What you feel about someone is mainly in response to that person—complex responses to the things they’ve done and said, to the way they look and feel, to the things you have done and said. These are learned responses.
You didn’t feel this way about them before you knew what they looked like or did various things together. Over time, those responses become deeply in-grained among the patterns of your mind.
Constantly thinking about that person constantly repeating fixed images of them reinforces those images and makes them stronger and more persistent. The love you feel for that person is learned on many levels.
The love you feel for that person is something you have learned to feel for that person—is tremendously important. Because if you learned to love, you can unlearn that love.
Suppose you can learn to unlearn; what freedom! You won’t have to spend years struggling with the memories of an old love affair and the what-ifs or what could’ve been. You won’t have to rely on illuminating the whys and wherefores of your life with insight.
If love is learned and if you can unlearn to love someone because you want to stop the pain, you won’t have to rely on wishful thinking, the “bad” advice of friends or outsiders, or the random chance of inspiration or insight, or the slow passage of time. You can do it yourself—now with thought stopping!
Why telling yourself to stop thinking about your ex doesn’t work
Chances are you’ve already told yourself that you must stop thinking about the person you love. You may even have told yourself that hundreds of times. You have probably found that that doesn’t work. The mind seems almost too contrary to do what it’s told as if it had a mind of its own.
Before we move on, let me show why this doesn’t work. If I told you not to think of your ex for the next sixty seconds, chances are you’ll probably find multiple memories of them invading your thoughts. This doesn’t work because you have so many unforgettable memories.
So many conversations left unfinished. There are so many private, tender things. These thoughts are specific, repetitive, and often very, very forceful. But they can be stopped through a systematic behavioral program.
You can train a thought to stay away. You can starve a thought. Allowing a thought to come back repeatedly is to feed it, reinforce it, make it grow stronger, and, in some cases, more painful.
Thought patterns about someone you love can become so strong that making up your mind to stop thinking about them often isn’t enough. You need to actively and systematically inhibit those thoughts and new thoughts to put in place of them.
How do I let go of my ex?
1. Make a list.
Make a list of the best, most positive scenes and pleasures you can think of that do not involve that person. The point is that everything you have learned, including your emotional responses to that person, has a neurological center. On a very basic level, many neurons in your nervous system have a double link. One link excites an action or emotion.
Another link inhibits other actions or emotions. In physical terms, for example, the neurons that order your thigh to tighten also, at the same time, inhibit the muscles at the back of your leg from tightening.
It has been proven that this double link of action/inhibition also exists emotionally.
Love inhibits hate. Laughter is inhibited by sadness, anger, or anxiety. Laughter, in turn, can inhibit sadness, anger, and anxiety. While the neurological mechanics of our emotions are just now revealing themselves to neurologists, the phenomenon was noted as far back as 1673 by the philosopher Spinoza, who said in Ethics, “An emotion can only be controlled or destroyed by another emotion contrary to it, and with more power for controlling emotion.
Therefore, list scenes, places, events, and feelings that are wholly pleasurable to you, but do not involve the person you need to stop thinking about. Your list is entirely your own. No one else ever needs to see it.
It doesn’t have to be a funny list, a sexy one, a serious one, or even a long list. It doesn’t have to be anything, only positive and pleasurable things to you. You can be as outrageous or plain as you like; nobody’s watching.
(Go Ahead, Take Some Time, And Write The List)
2. Learn How To Leverage Your List
Now that you have your list, purposely bring on a thought of the person you want to fall out of love with. The first microsecond the thought enters your mind (don’t allow the thought to develop into anything more), immediately yell “STOP” as loudly as possible.
Then, in the next instant, bring on one of the best thoughts from your list. Whenever you happen spontaneously to think of that person, stop that thought by yelling “STOP** so that the thought cannot form in your mind.
Then, instantly replace that thought with a thought from your list. That, in a nutshell, is thought-stopping—actively inhibiting the thoughts you want to go away. The goal is to reduce the time you spend thinking about that person.
3. Practice is essential
Thought-stopping gives you control so that you’re not at the mercy of random thoughts and feelings. It does take time to do thought-stopping. But those thoughts of the person you love take your time, too. They’re worse than robbers; they’re muggers who leave you bruised and hurt, and since you’re so used to wallowing in them, it takes time and effort to weaken them.
3 Steps To Stop Thinking About Your Ex
Try these 3 steps ten to fifteen times a day and watch how fast the thoughts about your ex dissipate.
Step 1. Bring on (on purpose) a thought or image of your lover.
Step 2. The split second it begins to enter your mind, wipe it out by shouting, pounding, stamping your feet, digging a fingernail into your palm, snapping a rubber band that is wrapped around your wrist, and so on.
Step 3. Replace it with a positive, pleasurable image from your list. This image should not be associated with your ex in any fashion. (If the thought of your lover returns, drive it out again and replace it. This may require several repetitions.)
Conclusion
The difference in strength between thoughts of your former lover and thoughts from your list is a matter of conditioning, practice, and time. This exercise might be hard at first. You may feel foolish, self-conscious, uncertain, hesitant, too tired, or any of the other dubious things that people feel when they first shout “STOP.” It’s entirely possible the thoughts won’t go away the first time you try. You have to be persistent and try again. In time, you will find yourself moving on from your ex!
