Hey there, it's Clay this is the relationshipinnergame.com.
This is season two, episode four, and I know that these videos are supposed to be a little
bit more casual, a little bit more about my life, but you know, right now it is the holiday
season.
It is December now and I wanted to make sure that we got all of these videos out about
the holidays, about contacting at your ex on the holidays, about no contact on the holidays,
about the holiday expectation effect and all of that.
So this is going to be a third video on all of that.
This one is going to be on the topic of reaching out to an ex on a holiday such as Christmas,
such as, maybe any other holiday that might be coming up.
If you're watching this video at some other points during the year.
As I mentioned last time, most people would not be doing themselves a disservice if they
did not contact their ex on the holidays.
And if you missed that video, you can go ahead and catch it up there.
There'll be a card that shows up there.
You can go ahead and watch that if you missed it.
Again, the reason for that is due to the holiday expectation effect, we have both your mindset
and your ex is mindset that's going to be shifted a little bit differently during this
time of year.
For you specifically, it could easily cause you to drift into something such as damage
control mode, such as a taking actions that maybe you wouldn't take it other times during
the year just because you know that things like begging or pleading don't work.
But because of this time of year, you might think that a Christmas miracle or some sort
of holiday spirit might overcome your ex and they might suddenly be much more receptive
to your action, whatever that might be.
And so if you missed that first video, I'm going to go ahead and link off to that over
there and a card and you can check that one out as well too.
But this is going to be the third video on contacting your ex on a holiday, such as Christmas.
We're going to be talking about why you might not want to contact them.
We're going to talk about why you might want to contact them.
We're going to talk about what not to do.
If you contact them and we're gonna also talk about what to do if you decide to contact
them.
You don't want to contact your ex if you are really operating from this holiday expectation
effect place of being.
If you're operating from this damage control place of being okay, where you're contacting
your ex in a way where it's like, okay, this has to work, this has to be a great interaction
and if it's not a great interaction, if I don't get a hold of them, if they don't respond
to me, then I'm just going to be absolutely devastated emotionally.
It's going to ruin my whole week.
I'm going to have an awful holiday or like that.
If that is your place of being emotionally than I would recommend that you do not contact
them during the holidays.
Okay.
Just because you are going to be in a very fragile emotional state and there is a lot
of downside that could happen there and there is maybe not so much upside.
Okay.
Because you're bringing yourself to the interaction in a way that is not really likely to create
something positive that's going to inspire your ex to want to interact with you in a
deeper way.
So that's why you might not want to contact your ex.
So what might be a circumstance in which you actually would contact your ex on Christmas
or on a holiday?
That would be if, for example, you weren't in that holiday expectation effect, state
of mind.
You weren't in that damage control state of mind and you were emotionally okay with contacting
them and maybe just wishing them like, hey, it's, you know, I, I wanted to wish you a
merry Christmas.
I want to wish you a nice holiday.
And you were emotionally okay with the possibility that they might not respond to you or they
might not respond to you in a positive or welcoming sort of way.
And if you could just be okay with that.
And you just simply want to wish them a nice holiday for the sake of doing it, or for the
sake of you being a good person and you feeling good because you did it yourself, then that's
okay.
You can do it as long as you're detached from outcome, as long as you're not emotionally
needing them to respond a certain way in order for you to be okay.
Emotionally.
That's when you might want to think about actually contacting your ex on something like
Christmas.
With that being said, let's go ahead and say, okay, you've decided you're going to contact
your ex.
What are some things to do?
What are some things not to do?
Let's go ahead and talk about the not to do is first.
First of all, you don't want to express what we call negative vulnerability.
So oftentimes people will have this belief that vulnerability of any sort is bad when
it comes to talking to your ex.
They think that you always want to hide your intentions.
You always wanted to play hard to get.
You always want to seem as if you care the least because you know, we all know whoever
cares, the least controls the relationship or so the fortune cookie says, but that's
not really true.
Vulnerability is absolutely okay if it is positive vulnerability, not negative.
Vulnerability.
We've talked about this before in the past.
Negative vulnerability is vulnerability in which you are not taking responsibility for
your own emotional wellbeing.
If you are essentially using your ex as a means to an end for you to feel good, where
it's essentially like, I want to get back together with you.
I don't care about your current emotional state, your current emotional experience.
I just want us to get back together so that I can feel good.
You see how that works?
You're using your ex as a means to an end for you to feel good.
Now, from your ex's perspective, that doesn't feel like an enjoyable thing.
Okay?
That you're not meeting them where they're at on an emotional level.
They are not feeling connected to you.
They're actually feeling disconnected from you because you are not acknowledging where
they're at on an emotional level and you are more interested in you feeling good then you
are in meeting them where they're at.
So any sort of negative vulnerability such as that is not going to create a great emotional
experience and it's definitely not something that I would recommend.
This of course includes things like begging and pleading a things of that nature.
The which we all know doesn't work.
It is vulnerable, but it is that sort of negative vulnerability.
Okay, another thing to avoid is a grand romantic gesture.
Grand romantic gestures.
Most people know that they don't work, but again, this is the holiday season and oftentimes
people will kind of throw the things that they know out the window and think that, you
know, oh, it's Christmas, so I can go ahead and tell somebody how I really feel.
I can go ahead and write them that love song or write then that poem or whatever it might
be.
And that's, that's probably not a good idea.
So just remember that.
And the last not to do thing I want to share with you is that you don't want to keep the
conversation on a surface level assuming you contact them and you are able to get a hold
of them and the two of you do have a conversation.
You want to try to shift that down to an emotional level to to a point where you're not just
talking about the weather, sports, tv shows work or you know, just other surface level
things and you want to bring it down to that emotional level where you're talking about
how it impacted you, how they were impacted by the event, and how the two of you are sharing
some sort of emotional experience.
Okay, that's really important because that is a key fundamental factor or ingredient
in creating a positive emotional connection is bringing things down to that emotional
level.
So those are the don't do's a for contacting your Ex on on a holiday.
The to do's, reaching at your ex on a holiday would be number one, own your own emotional
experience.
This would be the opposite side of negative vulnerability and that would be positive vulnerability.
So you know, you can absolutely share how you are impacted by things, how your experience
things, what you want, as long as you're owning it and you're not deferring that responsibility
onto somebody else.
Like, oh, I would be happy if you did this or I'd be happy if my coworker did that or
something like that.
But instead you're willing to take ownership of your own world and say, okay, yeah, when
so and so does does that I feel a little bit anxious, feel a little bit scared, I feel
a little bit hurt or something like that.
You're not making the other person wrong, but you're also completely owning your own
experience, right?
Maybe you're uncomfortable, maybe you're not emotionally great, but you're owning it and
you're not making anyone else wrong for that.
That's a very important thing.
Another important thing is to pull things down to that emotional level like we talked
about a moment ago, and when you're there and you're at that emotional level, you'll
probably be having a conversation that feels good.
Okay?
If you're trying to get back together with your ex and you were down at that emotional
level, you're probably at riding the dragon or crisis point or maybe even coming out of
the test drive stage of getting your ex back.
And so at that point it's, you're probably having a good positive interaction that's
bringing the two of you closer together.
So I want you to, if you get to that point, leverage that emotional connection and pull
it into something else.
Say, Hey, it's really nice talking to you right now.
Would you be open to getting together for coffee next week or something like that.
I would probably steer clear of actually getting together on Christmas or on the Holiday, unless
you know, for a fact that your ex doesn't have anything going on.
I just, because that is a day that they probably have booked already, but maybe on, on some
other time of the year, like maybe a couple of days after, a couple days before or something
like that.
When you know that they have some free time.
And again, try to get together in some sort of casual, low stakes sort of environment
that's really important to but that goes a little bit beyond the scope of this video.
Lastly, I also want you to remember to just take an interest in them, just have a curiosity
about them and where they're going through because they're having an entirely different
experience than maybe what you are going through or what you remember about them from before
the breakup.
And so if you continue to interact with them as the same person that they were when you
were together before the breakup, then you're missing the opportunity to connect with who
they have become and where they are at right now.
And if you can continue to stay curious and interested in them moment by moment as the
two of you move forward, that's going to create much more opportunity for emotional connection
and much more opportunity to help the two of you get back together.
So tonight, this is Clay. it's a really cold day out here today.
I'm going to probably close up this video now and get back inside and get some other
things done for work.
Sorry about that.
The video camera ran out of battery so it went off, but that was basically everything
I'm wanting to say about contacting your ex on a holiday.
I'm, I'm back here at my coworking office.
I mean a sort of phone booth, private
kind of sound, insulated room.
You can see they got this stuff here in the wall.
Supposedly works.
I can hear everything that people in the next room were saying verbatim word for word.
So apparently it's not that effective, but that's why I've been out recording in parks
for the past couple of weeks is because this room is not so great for recording, but I
don't know, maybe it's not.
Maybe now that I see it on camera, it doesn't look so bad.
So I don't know.
Maybe you can leave a comment down below just letting me know if you think this looks okay
or if you like it out in nature a little bit better.
But yeah, next week I'll be coming at you from Oregon, my wife and I and our daughter,
or taking a road trip down to Oregon for our niece's birthday party.
And so I'll be checking it out from there.
It's going to be our first trip with the baby.
So that's gonna be an interesting experience.
But anyway, thanks again for watching this video and, if you like to check out some cool
stuff.
There's going to be some things up around the screen right here for you to check out
playlist's videos.
You know, obviously feel free to like and subscribe to this channel.
Um, and with that being said, this has been Clay and I'll go ahead and talk to you next
time from Oregon.