Seeing My Ex Boyfriend With a Dog Made Me Attracted Again
Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby is the founder and clinical director of Growing Self Counseling and Coaching. She's the author of "Exaholics: Breaking Your Addiction to Your Ex Love," and the host of The Love, Happiness & Success Podcast.
HOW TO Stop OBSESSING ABOUT YOUR EX'S NEW RELATIONSHIP: Until now you lot've been treatment your divorce or intermission-upwardly process well. You've gone through the defoliation of whether to stay or get, and all the malaise and hard decisions that come with leaving. Only yous've been coping.
Then you plant out that your Ex is sleeping with someone new.
At present, waves of rage, pain, self-doubt, and resentment are crashing over yous. "Coping" has been overwhelmed by a tempest of emotion. It feels like your claret has been replaced with Arctic seawater: Frozen and stinging at the aforementioned time.
What'south worse? It. Is. All. Yous. Can. Think. Well-nigh.
"Are they on the motorcycle right now? He's probably taking her to that restaurant I ever wanted to get to that he said was too expensive. Are they holding hands right now? I bet they're kissing. Possibly they are having sex activity correct this very second. They probably skipped the motorcycle ride and decided to spend the twenty-four hour period in bed. We used to do that…"
In your mind's eye you lot play out scenes from your life together. Except your role is being played past someone who might exist sexier, more than fun or more than interesting. You see your Ex — the happy, sweet, fun i y'all first brutal in love with — sharing the best parts of themselves (and hiding the rest).
It's worse at night, when there are no distractions. The joy and passion you envision for them is made all the more vicious past the stark contrast to your own silent bed. You lay sleepless, writhing in agony at the injustice. You lot want to end thinking about it but you can't. Yous feel trapped… in your ain caput.
Believe information technology or not, the function of your brain that sees things in your mind's heart cannot differentiate between something that you're thinking most and something that is actually happening. So when you're imagining your Ex and their new sex activity partner making out on the burrow, you react to it emotionally (and physically) similar y'all were seeing it happen right in front of y'all: Your centre starts racing, you experience nauseous, and you lot are filled with hurting and rage.
Existence victimized by these intrusive images is incredibly traumatizing. Ruminating does not bring any value to your healing process. Instead, information technology keeps you from moving forward. Trust me on this one: I've been working every bit a breakup recovery coach for a long time, and even wrote a book all nigh the recovery process — Exaholics: Breaking Your Habit to An Ex Love, if you're interested in learning more.
I know from walking with countless broken hearted people who are suffering the same fashion that y'all are, that time lone does Not heal this. (Nor does forcing yourself to date again, or getting into therapy to "heal your self esteem" or any of those things. If y'all don't take deliberate action to take control over what'south going on in your head and in your middle, you can stay stuck in this place for a actually long time.
In social club to rescue yourself from the impotent madness of this obsession, in addition to moving through some very specific stages of healing, you must learn and practice three new cognitive skills very deliberately, every day, until you lot're in the articulate: Self-Awareness, Mindfulness, and Shifting.
one. Cocky Sensation
Self Sensation is the ability to call up about what you're thinking about, and the fact that you are having an internal feel—not an actual experience. Information technology sounds uncomplicated, but it's very piece of cake to become swept away in our thoughts without even noticing what's happening.
The practice:
As soon as you become aware that you are thinking almost your Ex, say, (out loud, if necessary) "I am thinking about something that is not happening right now."
two. Mindfulness
Recognize that your brilliant thoughts are activating all these scary, painful feelings, simply in reality zero bad is really happening to y'all right now. Y'all are sitting at a table, eating a bowl of cereal. Y'all are breathing. Anchoring yourself to the reality of the present moment past using your senses creates a protective barrier between you and intrusive thoughts.
The exercise:
Look: Detect what your telephone / tablet / laptop looks like right now. Notice the colors, shapes, things you can run across in the room around you.
Hear: What are you lot enlightened of hearing, right at present? Yammering in a java shop. Music through your headphones. The hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen.
Feel: The chair nether your butt. Your feet on the floor. The breath in your nostrils. The aching feeling of heartbreak in your cadre. Emotions are really just physical sensations. That's why they are chosen feelings. Detect how your body feels, in the present moment, without judgment.
3. Thought Shifting
You've broken the obsession, and are in the safe space of reality. The third step to finish intrusive thoughts about your Ex is to intentionally shift your attention to something positive or pleasurable.
For example, you tin shift to thinking about going to lunch with a friend this afternoon, or weekend plans. If shifting mentally is also difficult you can also shift your attention to something that is happening in the present moment: Watching a movie, listening to music, or petting your dog.
Shifting is important because the thoughts we habitually remember about become stronger. When you lot practice shifting, the intrusive thoughts about your Ex will get weaker.
4. Putting It All Together
Yous get stabbed in the brain with the epitome of your Ex having hot sex with the new person.
- Become enlightened that you are having a idea most something that isn't happening right at present.
- Shift your attention to physical reality: The color of the table, the sense of taste of your tea, your heart pounding in your breast.
- Then, very deliberately, think about going skiing with your friend this weekend.
- Echo every bit needed. (And programme on doing this many times a mean solar day, at first.)
Shifting your sensation or distracting yourself does not mean that you are fugitive or stuffing your feelings. "Obsessing" is not the aforementioned thing every bit "Processing." Information technology's mentally picking at a scab that you lot are non assuasive to heal. You lot have to get unstuck from the obsession phase in social club for good for you new growth to occur.
5. Go Existent Help
I volition too add together that, in my experience in working with people going through this (and in my own personal horrible breakup feel) these steps and strategies are piece of cake to talk well-nigh, and much harder to practice. Many, if not most people going through what y'all're going through need back up to move forward and get unstuck from this incredibly painful space.
Pro tip: Well-nigh therapists have not been introduced to the inquiry around the biologically based reasons we go profoundly stuck on Exes and accept a really hard time moving on. As such, many standard-issue therapists volition attempt to "assist" by getting y'all to talk about your family of origin, or challenging life experiences, your unusually low self esteem, etcetera.
These therapists are and then well meaning, but really exercise not sympathise that their try to connect your "stuckness" to some unresolved emotional pain or psychological disorder is not only misguided and unhelpful: It makes information technology worse instead of amend. (When you lot're already feeling depression, the final thing you need is a therapist making you feel like this is happening because yous're inherently disordered or cleaved in some way.)
This is NOT why you're feeling the mode you are. Y'all're feeling this way because you are a human who, just like the rest of u.s., is built to bond. These bonds are vehement and enduring, and are non affected by logic or reason. Do begin releasing your attachment y'all demand to be addressing it from an evidence-based, biologically -informed zipper perspective.
This approach is a "whole enchilada." The cognitive skills I shared with you are just 1 part of a much larger set of skills and experiences that the healing process requires. Information technology's the organisation of healing I made bachelor for y'all in my online Heal Your Broken Eye breakup recovery programme, and the type of breakup recovery coaching that nosotros exercise here at Growing Self. If you are interested in doing meaningful breakup recovery counseling with me or ane of the coaches on our squad, I invite you to schedule a free consultation telephone call to discuss your goals and how nosotros can help you more than frontward.
That said, these techniques are powerful tools and I hope that they are helpful to you. I'd like to hear your thoughts nigh them. If you take other practices that y'all've used successfully, please share your strategies in the comments so that others who may exist hurting can benefit from your wisdom.
— Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby
Source: https://www.growingself.com/free-advice-articles-podcasthow-to-stop-obsessing-about-your-ex-moving-on/
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