Hey, there. It's Clay with modernlove.life. Today, we're talking about how to give your ex space,
so they miss you and come back. Now, this is something that I think a lot of people
are looking for. And we've talked about this before in other videos, but I do want to make
it clear that I don't think that everyone needs to always give their ex space. I know there are
other people out there that will advocate that you always 100% of the time should be using no
contact. Just do it. Just trust the plan, have blind faith in this and everything like that.
I do not follow that line of thought. I do believe that there is a time and place for no contact.
I think that it really should only be used if the two of you,
you and your ex being in contact with one another is causing more of an emotional conflict,
more emotional damage, or more distance to be done, or to be created between the two of you.
Then if you're being in contact and you're actually getting closer together, if you're
in contact and you're getting closer emotionally then something's working and we don't want to fix,
what's not broken. Right? So if you're in contact and it is damaging the emotional connection,
then it makes sense to take a step back and say, "Hey, something I'm doing, isn't working.
Let's put a pause on this so that we don't do any further damage and let me figure out what needs
to happen before I move forward." And then do that. So if you are in that sort of place though,
then it might make sense to actually give your ex some space, or obviously if they say, "Hey,
I need some space right now." Or something like that, but how do you actually do this?
How do you help them and to give them space, so they actually want to miss you and come back?
The first thing that you can do, is to let them know that you're giving them space.
Again, there are a lot of people out there that say, "Hey, this has to be a surprise. You just
need to vanish off the face of the earth, so they're left wondering, and they want to miss
you and then come crawling back over broken shards of glass." Or something like that. But that's kind
of a mind game. I'm not really a big fan of those. If something does arise and you do happen to just
fall off the face of the earth, that's okay, that wasn't your intention. It just happened. But I
wouldn't recommend that you go out of your way to create this strange illusion to evoke an emotional
response from them through manipulation. I'd recommend that you just let them know,
"Hey, I think that it makes sense for me to take a step back from us interacting for a
little while. So, don't take it personally. It's just me working through some stuff. I hope we
can reconnect at some point in the future when I'm in a better place, emotionally." Something
simple like that. You don't have to make a big deal about it, but just something simple like
that. Chances are if the two of you interacting with one another is causing more emotional damage,
they probably also feel the same way. And they're going to be like, "Okay, yeah that makes sense."
So, let them know, that's the first thing. The second thing that you got to do is you really,
really, really need to invest heavy, heavy into your own life. Okay? A lot of people miss this,
a lot of people think that no contact is just about like, "Okay, it's today. Let me just circle
30 days from now in my calendar and just hold my breath and white knuckle it for those 30 days." I
don't recommend this for a few different reasons. Number one, you're basically saying, okay, I'm
just going to put a pause on everything related to me. And then 30 days from now, I'm going to
show up as the exact same person and hope for the best. Now, if obviously, you're doing no contact
because the two of you being in contact with one another was harming the emotional connection,
just waiting 30 days is not necessarily going to help things. Now, time can of course reduce
emotional reactants, which could be causing the two of you to have poor connections,
but emotional reactants can also be addressed by how you bring yourself to the interaction.
So, that is one of the reasons why a lot of people recommend that you just do no contact
all the time. It's because time decreases the volume on emotional reactants and it definitely
can be and is definitely something that we should acknowledge. But if time and time alone is all you
have in your toolbox, then you're putting yourself at a disadvantage. You also want to be working on
how you're bringing yourself to interactions and how you're coming across, basically your
way of being. We've been talking about this a lot with our group coaching program, but we want to
really work on our own way of being, our alignment with the vision that we're creating for ourselves.
It's not just enough to say like, "Okay, who do I text next, who do I text next?
How do I do this? What happens when this happens? We actually have to think about
how we are bringing ourselves, what energy, what vibe are we having as we're bringing ourselves
to an interaction. So, I want you to invest heavy in your own life, whatever that might look like,
your career, get that sorted out. Your fitness, get that sorted out if you need to. Your health,
get that sorted out, whatever else is going on in your life, get that sorted out. If you have
social anxiety issues, start to work through that. You know, we have our advanced relational
skills that we really recommend people work on. We have communication skills. We really recommend
people work on those. By the way, communication skills are in our Effortless Connection Course.
That's over at modernlove.life/ec. Modernlove.life, not.com, but.life/e
as an effortless and c as in connection. But yeah, you want to invest heavy in your own
life because oftentimes if you're not investing heavy in your own life, you're going to fall
prey to point number three here, which is you're going to end up spending too much time reading
tea leaves. That is to say, you're going to be spending too much time investing in analyzing
your ex from a distance. People will do this, even though I recommended them that they don't do it
very heavily. They still do it anyway. And as to say, okay, I'm not talking to my ex
for a certain period of time for whatever reason, but now I am watching them on Facebook. Now I'm
watching them on Instagram. Now I'm noticing that they are following or unfollowing me,
or that they're watching my stories, or that they are following new people online,
or that there's a photo of them with some attractive person of the opposite sex.
Are they in a rebound relationship or maybe that's just their long-lost sister? I don't know, or
there's all sorts of things. I don't want you to do this because it is a sign that you're not
investing enough in yourself and your own life and your own values. Okay? If you're going to
give your ex space, you need to kind of withdraw that attention that you're putting on them
and focus it in on yourself, focusing in on your own life. And again, that's going to involve
you investing heavy in your own self, investing heavy in your own values. And when you do that,
you're going to naturally notice that you're going to pull your attention away from reading
the tea leaves. Reading the tea leaves is not helpful because it does not help you to remove
that part of you that might be seeking validation from your ex, or whatever else you might be going
through in this healing journey. But you want to avoid reading the tea leaves for sure.
The fourth point is in order to give your ex space that they miss you and come back.
You want to hit that like button for the YouTube algorithm, because that will help out my videos.
I don't do that because I'm some sort of narcissist and I say, "Oh,
500 people liked this last video. That means I'm an amazing person. And I have
self-esteem and value now, or like, I don't care." But the YouTube algorithm does care. And
if you hit that like button, you can help me out with this channel and help me reach more people.
That's ultimately what I want to do because like most YouTubers, I probably want to see my channel
grow and I would like to see it grow. So, if you do get value out of these videos and you want to
help other people by spreading the word, hit the thumbs up button, share all that stuff.
Anyway, all joking aside. This does lead us to our final point here, which is how long
do you give your ex space? And again, this isn't about just circling a date on the calendar
at some point in the future and saying, okay, that's it. We want to feel into the moment,
feel into ourselves, feel into our own way of being, moment by moment, by moment. And as we're
doing this, you should be investing heavy in your life. I hope I've made that point strong enough,
but you should be investing heavy into your life. But as you do this, you should start to notice a
different way of being and coming out of you. Maybe you are not feeling as much of a drive to
seek validation from others. Maybe you're noticing that you're connecting more with people.
Maybe you're noticing that you're getting maybe anxiety under control. Maybe you're noticing that
you're taking care of your health better. You're eating clean your exercise and you're
doing whatever it is you need to do for you. Maybe you've noticed that you're starting to
make some advances in your career, or whatever it is that you're growing edge,
or whatever is that you need to do to kind of take your life to that next level.
But you should be noticing that there's something shifting in my way of being. There's something
shifting in how I'm coming across. There's something shifting in how I'm relating to this
idea of being in contact with my ex. Maybe before it was this desperate need to prove something.
And now it's, maybe there's just a genuine sense of curiosity, or whatever it might be, but you
should notice this shift in your way of being. And when you genuinely think that you
can have a powerful and strong and meaningful interaction with your ex
that's when it might be time to actually consider getting back in contact. Because again, remember
we're getting out of contact because something about us being in contact is causing them to
feel a damage in our emotional connection. And so when we get back in contact, it should be because
we have a reasonable expectation and belief that us being in contact is going to actually bring us
closer together. That's to say we have some sort of belief that something has shifted and now we
actually can have positive interactions. Okay? So you should be able to see this either in how
you're coming across to others, in maybe you making progress in your life. You're getting
certain things under control, maybe anxiety issues, or whatever, maybe you going to therapy,
maybe you're working through it in some other way, like meditation or whatever, totally do that.
But as you start to get these things under control, you should notice that you're
kind of bringing yourself to the idea, at least of interacting with your ex,
or you're noticing that you're bringing yourself to interacting with other people or some important
area of your life in a different way. And as you do this, that is then the time to consider
getting back in contact. Not because it's been an arbitrary amount of time,
not because you're worried that your ex is going to get into a rebound relationship,
not because you're kind of panicked that too much time is passing and your window of opportunity is
going to close. But only because you believe that something positive is going to come about this
because something has shifted in some sort of positive way. So, that is how I would recommend
that you give your ex space to come back into your life and to actually have a better, stronger
connection with one another. I hope you found this video helpful, and I'll talk to you next time.