Do you know how to stop thinking about your ex? If you miss your ex, you believe you cannot fulfill yourself alone as an independent person. When we miss people, we long for people and believe we need someone else to feel complete.
Going through a breakup or divorce is not easy, and there are many stages that you have to go through. It’s a roller coaster of emotions. For sure, there’s a grieving process that we have to go through. But often, some people will struggle with the thought of their ex coming back. So it’s this hope that some people have of your ex returning your ex-partner realizing what they had.
What does it mean when you can’t stop thinking about your ex?
When you can’t stop thinking about your ex every day or after many months and years, it generally indicates that you still have lingering feelings or unresolved emotions tied to the past relationship. Here are a few possible reasons why you might be experiencing this:
Emotional attachment: It’s common to feel strongly attached to someone you were once deeply connected to. Memories, shared experiences, and the bond you formed can be challenging to let go of, even after a breakup.
Unresolved feelings: If the breakup was sudden or there were unresolved issues or conflicts, it’s natural for your mind to continue processing these feelings. Your thoughts may be an attempt to understand or find closure from the past relationship.
Nostalgia: Reflecting on the past and remembering the positive aspects of the relationship can lead to feelings of nostalgia. Your mind may be idealizing the past, focusing on the good times while overlooking the reasons why the relationship ended.
Fear of loneliness or change: Sometimes, thoughts of an ex can arise from a fear of being alone or the uncertainty of moving on. Your mind seeks comfort or familiarity, even if it means dwelling on the past.
Comparison to current relationships: If you’re in a new relationship, thoughts of your ex might arise if you compare the two. It indicates that you’re still processing your previous relationship and haven’t fully moved on.
Psychological Effects For Ex Relationship
How do I get over my ex? Well, your mind can only hold one conscious thought at any one point. The trick is to listen to yourself to monitor your thoughts each time. You catch yourself thinking of your ex. Replace the thought with something else, eventually the repetition.
You will collapse what’s known as the synaptic response, which you created in the first place. This means that each time you think of your ex from then on. Your brain will automatically switch the thought for you to something else. It is what’s known in NLP as installing a new behavior. This is how you train your mind to do anything sounds interesting.
You’re not completely falling apart emotionally as you did when you first found out about the breakup and as you enter this second stage. You cannot do basic things like go to work, do your daily errands, and all that sort of thing. But a good chunk of real estate is in your brain devoted to analyzing and overthinking the ex.
What would it mean if you could go back in time and say this instead of that? When your ex posts this update on Facebook, what does it mean? What does it mean if your ex unfollows you on social media?
This vast chunk of your brainpower is devoted to analyzing and overthinking this. At this stage, you are over-invested in your ex’s opinion and how your ex’s behavior relates to you. You are thinking about what your ex is doing and how that relates to you.
Okay? You may have been able to piece together the over-investment step from the title of this stage. It is a problem of over-investing. Suppose you’ve been following our articles and work for a while. In that case, the investment strategy is to invest more in your own opinion of yourself than in anyone else’s opinion of you.
20 Psychological Tips To Stop Thinking About Your Ex
I want you to go ahead immediately if you are experiencing an ex. I want you to knock on any dates because right now, there is the healing that needs to take place for a month, that love that you were trying to get from someone else.
I need you to give that to the most crucial person, that connection you’re trying to get from another person. You need to provide that connection to yourself as compliments you’re trying to get from posting on social media. You need to give that to yourself.
I want to help you show up as the best version of yourself in life. I hope that these 20 tips are going to be breaking down to help you out. I will give you practical things that you can do that helped me.
1. Stop Contacting Your Ex
You have to go ‘no contact,’ and by going no contact. What I mean is, let’s go, no contact. So, ‘no contact’ means you don’t use text. You don’t call. You don’t hit each other up randomly and say, ‘Hey! Thinking of you or ‘Hey, wondering how are you doing?’
You do the hard work of going no contact, and you communicate and declare to them if it needs to be or to a friend if you’re no longer in regular contact with them. That’s inappropriate to say, ‘Hey, I’m going ‘no contact,’ and you set a specified period.
I would suggest the minimum time would be thirty days. It might take as many as 60/90 or even 180 days if that’s what you need to get someone out of your system. If you’re not sure, perhaps what you do is you go for a lower amount, and you then use that as an opportunity to check in and say, ‘Am I over them?
If I’m not, I may need no contact for extended periods. The reason you do this is to remove the reminder. If you think about having contact, it is all on you. I’ve even got this here a little cut in my nose.
What you want is for the scab to develop right. You can’t grow it if you’re always picking it out. It needs some time and space to heal. You need time and space to heal, and you don’t recover if you continually remember your ex because they’re hitting you up and maybe hitting you up.
It has nothing to do with the fact that they’re here to return. They may be hitting you up because they miss you. They miss the connection, and if you had anything meaningful in your connection at some level, they probably would miss you in the relationship. But that doesn’t mean that you need to contact them. What you’ve determined is you want to move on in your life.
So, go ‘no contact’ and think about your substitute behaviors. Think about it’s likely at some point, and I may want to reach out to them. What am I going to do instead?
Am I going to reach out to a friend? Am I going to reach out to my coach? Am I going to take myself off to the cinema? Am I going to go and take a drink in a local bar? Have those thoughts! Think about everything! In your moment of weakness, you can still support yourself and do something beneficial for yourself.
2. Unfollow Them From Social Media
Remove their presence from your life, both online and offline. Remove their existence from your life. It might sound a bit drastic, and is often powerful if you’re willing to do it. You want to remove the little reminders that keep you fixated on them.
We used to talk about VCRs back in the day. We had video players, not the mp3s and Netflix. It was a way of helping you achieve your goals. You would put your reminder. You put your Post-it note on your fridge, bathroom mirror, and journal.
- It would keep reminding you about the goal that you want to pursue. It’s the same logic in reverse. It applies here. If you don’t want to keep thinking about your ex, remove the things that remind you of them right now.
That might mean physically you go around your home and space and maybe put some photos away. You remove those tickets you’ve had from the concert you were going to. Maybe there’s a scrapbook of memories you have that you put away. I also want to encourage you to do the same thing online.
Unfollow them on Facebook and Instagram. In the right timing, you’ve healed your heart, and you can be in a friendship or a different orientation to them.
You can always go back to those things. You could even let them know if it were appropriate. Hey! I need some time and space. We’re going no-contact. I will be unfriending you. You don’t have to do it as an act of war. You can do it as an act of kindness to both of you because it is the bottom line of this to get a bit crunchy.
3. Avoid Your Ex
It will stop you in your quiet moment, suddenly being, ‘What’s he/she doing? What’s he/she up to? Let me go and check him/her out’ No! Stop doing that. It’s hurting you. That’s not allowing that scab to form that you want to develop. You need that time and space to heal again.
You might want to think about substitute behaviors. If you’re about to go on his Instagram, you will call a friend instead and say, ‘Hey! I want to go on his Instagram, and I’m calling you instead’ Be mature about noticing.
It might not be comfortable all the time. If it’s late at night, you’re lonely, or whatever your trigger points might be. If you’re going to go to a particular thing that you would have gone to together, you might need to go with someone else, or you might need to not go to that place.
If there was a special place that you hung out in, don’t go there and get nostalgic. Nostalgia keeps you in the past, even if it’s a nice feeling. You want to do what’s going to keep you present to yourself. So, remove your boyfriend/girlfriend’s presence online and offline.
4. Let Your Ex Go From Your Life
You might want to pay attention to it. Is there anything that still needs to be said? Sometimes for you to let someone go, there’s a truth to be declared. You need to say, and it could be to them, or it could be to yourself.
You could want it witnessed, so send it to another trusted person. You’d reveal what it is that you wanted to say. Maybe you thought they were the one and needed to be told for you to see. You are no longer subject to it. You can see it more clearly.
Oh yeah! I thought your ex was the one, and that is to let go of them. But to see it, I need to acknowledge it. It’s your chance to let out the things. It might be a difficult task.
Your hopes, dreams, fantasies, and ideas may have incredibly powerful memories you need to share or have someone witness. It’s saying, don’t shy away from what is problematic about letting them go. Being in contact with it in service of letting it go.
Sometimes there needs to be a declaration. Something needs to be voiced. Maybe you need to go and do a little grief ceremony. Perhaps you need to take some photos and burn them and let them go, not as an act of war, as an act of kindness. You’ll know the real intention, but the real idea is to let your ex go. You’ve got to be honest with yourself. That’s the purpose, and then take some actions that align with that.
5. Do Focus On Your Own Life
We are oriented to a person when we’ve been in a relationship. There’s a mutuality in our lives. There’s another person that you’re considering. You’re thinking about sharing a reality with someone when you’ve been in a real or deep long-term relationship, which is now different. If you want to let your ex go, you might have to renew your attention on your life with vigor.
- What are your dreams? What are your hobbies? What are your passions? What are the ways you want to develop your career? What are the ways you want to invest in yourself? What are the ways that you notice yourself based on that previous relationship?
What works at work do you have to do right? Maybe you need to look at some stuff to do with your past. Perhaps there are some things you need to heal. There are issues you have with control. We need to learn how to surrender.
It could be all sorts of things, but getting clear. ‘Okay, I have some development work to do,’ Not because it didn’t work out with my ex in the relationship. There is some stuff on my side of the fence.
Getting over a relationship and moving on can be a great time to look at what is on my side of the wall. Maybe there’s a repeating pattern you’d be noticing in a relationship. What would it take for you to see with sobriety and compassion? There’s a pattern that you have in you. That’s running, and you want to relax.
6. Make A Support Zone
Get support in Western culture. A lot of us are pretty bad at getting support. Either we value being self-sufficient, don’t want to put people out, or subjectify people, which we imagine. Is that how they would receive a request for help? How would I receive a request for help? At certain times in your life, you will need more support than others. That’s the reality.
If you can be with that, you might want to notice. Yeah, I have a specific support request. I have a friend that I maybe see once every other month, and I want to see them twice a month, or I want to see them every week. I want to be part of a particular support group.
I want to know and let someone know, ‘Hey! There might be the other night when I’m feeling down and lonely. I’d love it if I could give you a quick call, and you don’t even need to do anything. Be with me so that I’m not alone in this world’ Think about the request of support you might want to make, and I want to encourage you to get nuanced here. How is it that you specifically would feel supported?
It is not what your friend thinks would support you. What would have made you feel supported? Is it a physical presence? Does it know you can call someone? I want my friends to help me, take my mind off it, and encourage me to do something I’ve never done before. Let’s go and have fun! Let’s go, have an away weekend! Let’s have a girls’ night! Let’s go travelling, or let’s read a new book together!
Allow you to feel supported and not go through this process independently. The other thing is that you might want to think about getting professional support. If you’re struggling to move on from something, it may be worth investing a few hundred or more dollars in getting help because you are stewing in your juices and disrupting your mental health by fantasizing about something that’s not happening.
7. Find Someone Like You
You’re not the only one in the world that has problems. Find someone that’s got a bigger problem than you. Find someone whose life is going to be cut short. Go and find someone who is grieving the loss of a family member. Notice that it’s not the only problem in the world that you have right now. Try to put it in perspective or go on a few dates. Dating can be the right way to get over it.
There are more fish in the sea. There are guys that you’re going to have a connection with. Even if you don’t want anything serious, there are fun dates to be had. Even if you are vulnerable and on a rebound, have a date. Have a date where you’re like, ‘Yeah! I’m not available for anything, but I’d love to go, have a play buddy or an adventure partner’ Let’s go on a hike. Let’s go to a new restaurant! Let’s bring new energy into your life.
What you want to avoid is that you’re stagnating in your fixated thought patterns. One of the ways to prevent that is to get a connection and reflection from other people. If you’re bad at this, you make your support request. Say, ‘Dear friend, I need to get out.
I’m not making it happen. Could you organize a girl’s night?’ or ‘Could you take me somewhere?’ or ‘Could you arrange a blind date for me? I’m not getting out there and don’t want to do this online dating platform. But I want to go on a date. Could you help me?’ They can say no. It can be a request, not a demand. If you can make that happen, it might allow you to get some perspective and fresh new energy running in your life.
8. Create A Thinking Barrier
If you tend to think about your ex and want to let them go, you can give yourself time to think about your ex. The contract you’re striking with yourself is that you can think about an ex at those times. Other times you’ll do your best not to think about an ex. It’s almost like your psyche knows there’s a little space for you to process.
You might get your journal during those times, and you’re in real-time feeling and processing what’s coming up. It’s some difficulties. Maybe it’s positive memories. It’s the questions you have. Did you do things that you could have done differently? What does this mean for the future? Give that space but delimit it, which means limiting it.
9. Polish Your Mentality
Stop saying that your heart is broken because, objectively, your heart hasn’t changed. Your heart is precisely still the same language that builds our reality. Your heart wasn’t broken. Your expectations were. I’m going to say that it wasn’t broken. Your expectations are broken. The truth is that there was an expectation of you wanting to be with this person, and that expectation was significant, which creates unhappiness.
There is a belief that you can’t control it. You can’t change it because maybe that person broke your trust, or perhaps that person left you. Maybe that person cheated on you. Something happened, and you believe that it will not work out no matter what happens. But once you see that your expectation was broken. Everything becomes a little bit easier, and what is an expectation? An expectation is a thought about how it is supposed to be in life.
10. Observe The People Around You
A core belief that has helped me is an all-you-can-eat buffet of excellent partners willing to love me unconditionally. They are out there, and there isn’t one. There is an all-you-can-eat buffet of people out there. Who is better than that person that you were only once with?
There are billions of people in the world. Do you think that this one person who broke your expectations is the only person out there who will love you? Do you believe that there are billions of people out there that there isn’t someone who will love you better than that person with who you were in a relationship? Billions of people will make you love way more than that person who once made you love.
There are people out there who will make love with you in a more connecting, passionate, excellent way than you ever thought possible. There are people out there who will love those things you don’t love about yourself. It’s tough to see that you felt you needed to be with someone when the mind continuously focuses on that person.
11. Love Yourself Unconditionally
Everything is neutral. You can control this world. Can you handle the weather? No, Can you handle other people? If your boughs want to do something, it will do it. There is one thing in this world we can control, and when you control it, you don’t need to rely on time to heal. That one thing that you can control is the meaning that you give a situation.
Tony Robbins says,
“We’re asking ourselves three different questions at any moment. What am I going to focus on? What does this mean? What am I going to do?
So right now, the mind might be subconsciously focusing on the breakup. So what are you going to focus on during the breakup? The expectation was broken. What does this mean? Does this mean that this is the end? Does this mean that you’re going to be lonely forever?
Does this mean you’ll never find a partner like that? Well, if that’s what you believe, then, of course, the world is going to be distorted. It will be funneled through that belief system; nothing has meaning except for the purpose we give something.
What if this thing you’re going through was meant for you to get some lesson? It will prepare you for that person who will enter your life soon. What if this thing you’re going through is designed to help you love yourself unconditionally?
So you’re not reliant on someone outside of you to give you that love, which doesn’t mean you can’t feel appreciated by another person. So my question to you is, what will you make this mean? Is this the end, or is this the beginning?
12. Do Regular Meditation
It is more of a practical thing to meditate as so many people try to overcomplicate meditation. There are guided meditations online. I’m talking about sitting in silence because we start to feel when we sit in silence and get rid of this mental noise.
From personal experience, I first got on Tinder when I went to a breakup. I was trying to get with different women. I was trying to numb myself by eating lots of food and watching lots of Netflix. However, the healing couldn’t occur. I was always putting my focus outside of myself. But when I meditated when I sat, and it was so uncomfortable, I sat down, and I’ll add all of these emotions to come up to cry.
I cry, but I don’t change what the break-up meant then. I stay in suffering. But if I allow myself to feel anger to come out, I remember getting pillows and screaming at the top of my lungs. I remember crying and letting out all that emotion, and the healing started. It’s letting the feelings out and chaining them, changing the meaning of the loneliness they give you.
Sometimes the music can be a distraction from allowing yourself to feel. Don’t expect how the meditation is supposed to be; you’re going to sit back, watch the show of the mind, and see the reasons for trying to latch onto all those memories with your ex, all those magical moments. We feel so connected and watch it.
13. Stop Putting The Pressure On Your Mind
Another step you need to take to stop thinking about your ex is to let go of the idea that thinking about this person is somehow wrong. Many people believe that once the relationship is over, you should be thought about it like there should be this light switch. You should be done with your feelings and be able to move forward.
But switching a light on and off won’t be as easy if you genuinely love this person and invest time and money into the relationship. These feelings of thinking about the past and your ex are standard parts of the healing process. When you stop putting the pressure the expectations on yourself to move through the process perfectly or with ease, you’ll understand that this is a part of the healing journey. It’s normal.
14. Identify Your Weakness
Identify what triggers you have around you. Sometimes we don’t even realize the triggers, like it can be things in our environment that remind us of the person or a sudden smell, or maybe someone mentioned something when we could identify the triggers. We can start making decisions and take actions that help prevent those triggers from coming into our direction or space.
So you may need to log off social media for some time. You’re not tempted to look at their page, or you’re not getting the memories online that remind you of what used to be. It could be that you’re telling your loved ones you don’t want to discuss it. It could be that you’re clearing your house out of things that remind you of the person. But it’s first vital to identify these triggers and create a plan to tackle them.
15. Identify Your Emotions
Identify your emotions and consider how to tackle or master those emotions healthily. The truth is there’s nothing wrong with anger or sadness. They’re all emotions, and we all have many feelings that we will experience throughout life.
Emotions only become bad when we associate or do something harmful. For example, if you feel sad and miss your ex, but the relationship is toxic or unhealthy, and then you call or engage with this person, that probably is not a healthy way.
- Identify the emotion you’re feeling when you’re thinking about this person. Find a plan to handle it that could be exercise that could be rest and watching a funny show talking to a loved one, a family member, or a friend.
The best thing you can do for yourself is to figure out positive coping strategies that you can use through the healing process because, the truth, it’s going to be a long journey, and it’s going to be an overwhelming journey. But it’s only impossible if you don’t already have a plan or strategies to help you succeed.
16. Be Patient With Yourself
A lot of times, we want to rush the healing process. We want to flow through problematic emotions, but I firmly believe there’s much to learn from our experiences. Our wounds have a lot of wisdom if we open up and learn from them. That hurt you, the things you’re embarrassed about, the difficult things for you. It teaches you a lot about areas that you’re not healed yet.
It can allow you to go in-depth and sit with those emotions. You can take to heal those deep wounds to heal those hurts, and the truth is until you heal them in the right and most effective way, you’re still going to deal with those difficult emotions.
You’ll still deal with questions about where you’re at, what would have been, or what you wished. You could have changed, and then you’re likely still going to think about your ex a lot. It’s all part of the healing process, and we often run from this truth.
We try to cover up with friends, go out, stay busy, or do everything to avoid processing it. What we’re genuinely doing is we are delaying the inevitable. We have to sit still with our thoughts, and that’s what we can learn and grow. So do not rush the process. Understand that it is, in fact, a method for some people. It may happen sooner for some people. It may happen later. We are all unique individuals and heal in our own time.
17. Ask Yourself
If you can relate to why I can’t stop thinking about my ex, it is okay in the mirror. Ask yourself what I am unhappy about. Is it my job? Is it my friends, lifestyle, exercise, alcohol, or whatever? Maybe something is disrupting your peace of mind. Something is preventing you from feeling a hundred per cent on that self-worth meter.
The only way to cure missing your ex is to be honest with you to return to yourself. When you become consumed with this, you can improve yourself and rekindle with loving yourself. You’ll find yourself much less likely to drown in thoughts of your ex. Why? Because you’re going to realize that your life is okay without them and that right now, that sounds scary. It might even say impossible.
18. Stay Busy With Your Work
Ensure that you stay as busy as possible; frankly, the more downtime you have, the more you will miss your ex and the more you will overthink things. Most of the time, the people who miss their ex miss them right before going to bed during their sleep, when they wake up in the morning, or when they have downtime throughout the day.
So an excellent way to stop missing your ex is to ramp up your activity levels. You need to be busier and more active. You always need to have the next things planned in your calendar. I encourage you to have a calendar from when you wake up to when you go to bed every day.
Your calendar needs to be filled with activities and different things that you can do right after the other that way, you haven’t zero downtime, reading a book, watching a show, and hanging out with a friend. I always want you to have something to do, and you need to live with a purpose and passion. Don’t coast through your calendar. Embrace and attack the day.
You think about your ex before you go to bed because you’re probably checking their social media, looking at your pictures, or doing things you should not do. So please cut those things out. Stop checking their social media profiles or activity before bed because it will only increase your despair and make you dream about your ex.
19. Keep Your Self-esteem Strong
Your self-esteem is important because it’s directly related to your confidence. When someone breaks up with you, it can knock your confidence levels and make you feel like you’re not good enough.
That’s not what I want to raise your self-esteem if you say good things to yourself. Every single day is kind to you. This would increase your confidence levels, and why it’s essential to increase your confidence levels because let’s look at the situation here if someone broke up with you.
Let’s take love out of the equation. You love them, but it will hurt when you have high confidence levels. But you’re also going to be like, okay, I see they’ve broken up with me. If they don’t want to be with me, that’s fine.
When you’re confident in yourself, you’re going to be like. I don’t want to be with anybody who wants to be with me. So that is why having high confidence levels is so vital for you. When you increase your self-esteem, you’ll realize I deserve to date people on my level.
20. Write Down Your Past Memories
I want you to get a pen and paper and write down what your life will look like months from now. How are you going to feel? What are you going to be doing? Perhaps you’ll be fluent or almost fluent in a new language.
Maybe you would have learned a new skill. Maybe you would have changed your hairstyle, got a new wardrobe, or even a new phone. Make sure that you work on yourself and reach your target goals. I want you to be open to finding love again because you deserve love.
I don’t want you to give up on love, but I also want you to understand that the most important relationship you ever have is with yourself. That’s all I have to say for now. You must accept that it’s over and turn all your time and attention onto yourself.
Improve yourself, and maybe you’ll get back together in the future. Or maybe once you’ve improved yourself, you won’t even want to be with that person. Because you will be a newer version of yourself, stay open, but you must focus on yourself right now. You need you; no one’s got you as you’ve got yourself.
Conclusion
You don’t want to waste any time or energy on a relationship. That is not good or right for you. You deserve happiness. So know what you want in a relationship, and see what you deserve. Don’t run from the experience of thinking about your ex. Don’t try to force yourself to stop thinking about it because the truth is, the more you force yourself to stop, the more those thoughts will become intrusive work through the strategy.
The relationship that we had was meaningless. All of these things, right? It’s going to rush, and it’s going to fill these things in, and so it’s crucial at this particular stage to turn off your BS machine to shut it down. Because if you continue to let the BS machine run your life, you will continually read and agitate those negative emotions. If you’re not careful, you might end up sliding back into what we discussed yesterday, which was the meltdown stage.
So if you miss your ex and can’t stop thinking about them, you have concrete tips and steps. I hope that this has helped you guys. If you have any comments, please leave them down below. Please leave me with any questions. Don’t forget to share this helpful article with your friends.
Read More:
30 Helpful Ways To Get Over Broken Heart Quickly
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30 Tricks To Breakup With Your Girlfriend
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