One of the worst things about a breakup is that you're constantly thinking about your ex.
If this is something that you're struggling with after your breakup,
watching this video is going to make a huge difference.
Hello and welcome! My name is Heather, I'm a registered professional counsellor and a certified
life coach and i help people get through difficult breakups that are keeping them stuck from living
their fullest lives. Today I'm going to share with you effective steps that you can take right now to
help you stop or reduce the amount of thoughts you have about your ex. Let's dive in! The first step
is to take them off the pedestal. Your happiness, in your brain right now,
is connected to this person you have to allow time for your brain to disconnect and rewire and you
can help facilitate this disconnection. As I've mentioned in my previous videos, your ex has come
to live in the limbic center of your brain which is your brain's emotional centers and
they are actually wired in to these neural pathways and your brain is used to seeing them
and having them around and having them to talk to every day, but what has also happened
is that your brain has connected this person to the sense or this feeling of happiness. You
have to give yourself the time so your brain can disconnect this wiring and that is why having a no
contact rule after the breakup is crucial. So you don't want to be texting them or searching them
up on Facebook, or looking at their pictures on Instagram because it's still allowing your brain
to trick itself into thinking that you are still in a relationship with this person
and it's harder for you to be able to disconnect from them. So give yourself around 45 or more
days to not have any contact with them and to not look them up on social media. This will hopefully
give yourself enough time to fully disconnect from them. Again, it's going to be different for every
person, but the longer the better. The second thing you'd want to do is rewrite your story.
Are you telling yourself that your ex was the love of your life or that they were your soul mates?
Are you also telling yourself that you're never gonna find anyone else or that you'll never be
in a happy relationship? What are you telling yourself right now that is holding you back
and keeping you stuck? How can you change this story and what is a more empowering narrative that
you can tell yourself? A lot of the times, people don't realize that our thoughts matter. What we
tell ourselves matters and makes a difference in our moods and our own beliefs about our self.
What can you tell yourself? You should be telling yourself that you will find love again.
If you found love once you will find it again. There's a lot of other compatible partners for you
and that you'll find the right person for you when you're ready. Changing the way that you
talk to yourself or changing the story about the relationship can make a huge difference in your
breakup recovery process and it can help prevent you from experiencing complicated grief because
if you're stuck telling yourself that you've lost the love of your life and that you're never going
to find love again, you keep yourself stuck in to this breakup and this relationship. And not
only that, you start to erode your self-worth and your self-esteem because you're placing
that and your happiness on to your ex and that relationship. So think about the narrative and
the story that you're telling yourself about your ex and how can you change that into something that
is more empowering and into something that serves you. The third step is to check your rumination.
Rumination is when you have constant thoughts about your ex and your relationship. Your brain is
basically trying to find all the answers to your breakup and to try to find out what went wrong
or what you did or say that led to the breakup and it can also try to focus on what can't be
fixed. When people can't find a clear answer, they tend to blame themselves and believe in
the negative self beliefs to help explain why this relationship didn't work out. If you do know why
the relationship didn't work out and why you broke up, it's really easy to get stuck on the idea that
you need to get back together with your ex or that you need to start fixating on a plan to fix what
led to the breakup in order to get your ex back, even if your ex doesn't want to get back together.
If this is the case, a lot of the times people get stuck on this, I like to call it
"The Monkey Mind" where it's constantly trying to find answers and solutions, so they focus their
time and mental energy on getting their ex back. Sometimes this can bring comfort to this idea of
getting back together with someone because it can be too scary to think about a future without them.
People tend to be uncomfortable of the unknown and by moving on from this ex and moving forward
it can create a lot of feelings of anxiety in a person and that's why when sometimes people
are vulnerable they turn to these tactics in order to get their ex back. This can be
quite harmful and destructive because when people don't give themselves the opportunity to properly
grieve a relationship, they get stuck on this idea or fantasy that might not come true,
instead of accepting the reality of things and moving forward in their lives. So this
is not to say that getting back together with your ex is impossible or that it's a bad idea.
I mean, I got back together with my ex and now we're married,
but it took a lot of time and work for the both of us. If you're wondering if you should get back
together with your ex, check out my other video that walks you through the important
questions to see if this is even a possibility. Now the next thing that you'll have to do is give
yourself permission to let your ex go and give yourself permission to move on in your life,
this can help stop the rumination and The Monkey Mind that's trying to come up with all
the different ways of trying to get your ex back. Now ultimately I want to say that it's normal to
miss or to think about your ex sometimes. Maybe a movie comes on that you watch together or you pass
by a restaurant that you used to go to often, it's not realistic to never think about your ex again,
but it's that energy behind the thought that you need to be mindful about. So don't squash down
your feelings, but just notice how you're feeling experience it and let it go. You
don't need to investigate or think deeply about these feelings just be curious and let it flow.
You don't have to try to figure out why you're thinking about your ex. I also
have a free guidebook to help you through this difficult time called The Ultimate Breakup Guide
which you can download below in the description. Question of the Day: Which step did you find
the most helpful for you? Comment below! Next week, I'm going to be talking about the secrets
behind being happily single. This video has a lot of practical advice to help you start your
next chapter on your own terms so make sure you subscribe and hit the bell to get notified for
the next video, this is going to be really informative and you don't want to miss it!
If you found this video helpful make sure to subscribe to my channel and like this video!
If you want to learn more about how to heal from your breakup make sure you check out
my previous videos. I look forward to seeing you next week. Until then, be kind and love yourself.