Hello everybody and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s. The podcast where we talk
through some of the big life changes and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology.
Hello everybody, welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners,
old listeners, wherever you are in the world, it is so great to have you here back for another
episode as we of course break down the psychology of our 20s. Now, before we get into it, I have
a really, really cool announcement. We have just launched out first ever line of notebooks,
the perfect companion to the podcast. If you want to take notes while you listen to this
episode, if you want to journal about what you're discovering about yourself, what you're learning,
these notebooks are perfect. They were done in collaboration with an incredible Bristol-based
illustrator called Rosie Pink. If you follow me on Instagram, you will know that I have been a fan
of her work for many, many years. And we finally got the opportunity to collaborate and to create
something that we really truly love. You guys are always asking me for ways that you can support
the podcast. I want to keep this completely free, but if you do feel cool to do so. And if you
are in need of a notebook, which you can never have too many of, please see the link in the episode
description or on our Shopify account. I'm so excited for this. It's like super high quality.
Of course, we weren't going to make something terrible that you're going to spend your good old
fashioned money on. So have a look. See if they poke your interest. They're gorgeous. They are well-made
and they were made with love. So now let's get into the episode. One of the inevitable aspects of
this decade, I think of simply being human, is that there will come a time when we consciously and
deliberately need to separate and move on from somebody that we once loved, whether that is a friend
or an ex. Somebody else in our lives, a family member, for example, I think it is one of those
really sad universal truths of kind of humanity. Not all relationships are meant to last.
Not all of them can kind of withstand the test of time. And in order for us to really truly move on,
sometimes we do need a total break from that person to fully heal and to finally process
what we experienced. Relationships they break, they fall apart, and I think whilst we may have
imagined that this person would have been in our life forever, maybe we always knew it was going
to end this way. The conclusion of a relationship is a really messy and confusing time. And sometimes
the only way forward, the only way to stop getting drawn back in, to stop compulsively checking on
them, to allow yourself closure is to go no contact. No contact, this method of separating ourselves
and cutting off all kind of communication with somebody, post break up, post argument, post
conflict. It's really seen arise in popularity and arise in supporters. And I want to talk about it
today. What exactly is no contact? What are the rules? How does it actually work? Why is it so
effective? Why is it necessary? And how can we actually stay committed to how I guess commitment to
seeing this person fade from our lives and fade from our future? It's a really sad and scary
reality that you know, there might come a time where this person just can't be the person that we
want them to be and we do need to let ourselves and let them move on. So this is kind of your
ultimate guide to no contact, how it works, why it works, and how you can implement it.
Now I will say, some people don't necessarily agree with me when I say that no contact is the
answer. In fact, I think I would have previously disagreed with myself. You know, if you had asked
me two years ago, whether you could stay in touch with an ex or repair a severely broken bond with
a friend, I would have said yes. I would have said that that is the mature thing to do, that it
showed growth. I even did an episode with my ex-boyfriend a few years back. It sounds insane. It's
still up if you want to go and find it, but we essentially discussed how we were still friends,
how we were so mature for maintaining the relationship. Surprise, surprise, we no longer are,
and I think no contact was the way that that inevitably came to an end. Different things obviously
work for different people, but I think with relationships and with exes in particular,
one of the reasons that we stay in touch, that we don't go no contact is because we aren't
actually completely ready to move on, even if we think that we are. This person is kind of always
there. They're always ready to come back into our lives. We are always ready to let them back
in our lives because they remain an option to us, but I think when we allow these people who
we know should not be, you know, that they are not going to create a fulfilling future for us,
that they just aren't right for us, they've caused us pain. When we allow them to stay in our lives,
they take up valuable mental, social, physical space. I think the same goes for friendships that
have turned sour. When we keep giving people second chances, when we hope that they will change,
when we let them overstep boundaries, eventually we do have to make a tough decision,
and hopefully a permanent one to no longer allow them access to us. I don't think that it's an easy
or a light decision to come by. I don't think that personally I'm somebody who could sit here and
say, if you have any kind of conflict or disagreement with somebody, cut them out. They're not good for
you because that is quite unhealthy and unsustainable thing to do, but I think personally the more that
I've matured and grown, the more that I've understood that, especially in the aftermath of a really
intense, serious breakup, one of the only ways to find closure is to see this person exit your life
permanently and for you to be committed to that decision. The more that I've realized that
no contact, when it's possible, when there are no kids or pets involved or you're not working
together, whatever it is, no contact is the best option. A lot of the psychology proves it as well,
and it doesn't just prove that it's maybe just good for you on an emotional level, but it also
proves that it actually lessens the time that it's going to take for you to move on and to be open
to new people entering your lives, whether that is platonically or romantically. So let's talk about it
today. Let's get into it. I love being able to talk about brands that I use on the podcast,
and this is a brand that I've been personally using for over five years. Our sponsor, Nature's Way
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Our first time using something normally forms a lifelong impression, even if psychology says
that impression is not always correct. For example, you may try a new food for the first time,
realize you don't like it and you're convinced for the rest of your life to never try it again.
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and Moroccan organ oil for the new shower creams and cocoa butter, oatmeal, vanilla or water lily
and aloe vera for their body creams, they actually make me enjoy the experience. So a story about this,
the other day I had three of my closest girlfriends and my boyfriend over for dinner and we had this
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we all used the oatmeal and vanilla body cream. Literally at my dining table we applied it and we
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which is a big plus for me and I have to say again the new spents actually smell really,
really good. You can smell them for yourself, try the reformulated net body and shower creams
available at retailers nationwide and online. Last season millions tuned into the betrayal
podcast to hear a shocking story of deception. I'm Andrea Gunning and now we're sharing an
all new story of betrayal. Stacy thought she had the perfect husband, doctor, father, family man,
it was the perfect cover for Justin Rutherford to hide behind.
They led me into the house and I mean it was like a movie, he was sitting at our kitchen table,
the cops were guarding him. Stacy learned how far her husband would go to save himself.
I slept with a loaded gun next to my bed. You know I just say I wish he was dead,
he actually gave details and explained different scenarios on how to kill him. He to me is
scarier than Jeffrey Thomas. Listen to betrayal on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts for wherever
you get your podcasts. Oh, our twenties, the drunk dialing, the forgetting to wash our face at
night and yes neglecting our teeth. Don't do that last one, you only get one set of teeth so you
need to protect them. Pronamel intensive and namal repair penetrates deep into the enamel surface
and locks in vital minerals to repair acid weakened enamel. Pronamel also makes a new mouthwash
which helps to repair acid weakened enamel beyond brushing alone. Pronamel is the number one
dentist recommended friend for acid erosion so by pronamel repair anywhere you buy your toothpaste
or mouthwash visit pronamel.com today. For those of us who are unfamiliar with this method,
no contact is essentially what it sounds like. It involves cutting off all communication with somebody
following some kind of breakdown in the relationship. Normally that is a breakup, something has occurred
that has made you realize that the relationship is beyond repair. It could even be months, years
after the breakup where you've just realized that you are not at the point of recovery that you
need to be because you keep letting this person back in because you are maintaining some kind of
communication with them that is not letting you heal. So no contact is this kind of realization that
we have that there needs to be a final and very much resolute separation from this person. Now when
I say cutting off all contact we are not just talking about avoiding running into them or blocking
their number, their social media, their email. We are also talking about something that is not
often included which is preventing yourself from following up with mutual friends. I think we
often tend to focus on specifically the communication between just us and this one other person and when
we limit that we are going no contact. But the purpose of this method is to essentially allow
somebody else to fade from your life in the most efficient way possible to put up that strong
boundary. And when we keep asking people around us if they've heard anything, if they know what's
going on in that other person's life, whether they're dating anybody, whether they're sad, or they
miss us touching base with our mutual friends about their existence and their wellbeing and their
whereabouts. I think that really defeats the purpose. It can also really undo so much of the effort
that we've already put into detach. We've done all the other things correctly. We don't have any
direct contact with this person, but that indirect contact still counts. It still activates all those
old memories. It still keeps the memory of this person very much active and present in your life.
That doesn't mean that you of course have to remove anybody that has any connection to this person,
otherwise you risk falling into temptation. More so that I think we need to be conscious of the ways
that we are replacing the direct contact that we crave with this without ex, without old friend,
we're replacing that direct contact with secondary contact and it's still fulfilling that main
function and purpose, which is that we feel connected to them in some way. It is such a crucial
element that I think we often forget. Myself included at times. I remember going like no contact
with an ex maybe three years back, but I remained very much attached and I really clung on to
the friendships that I had with his housemates and the friends that we had made together. I eventually
really realized that I was using a lot of our interactions to speak about him rather than
actually focus on the other person and the friendship that we had built independent of my ex.
One thing that I think we know about no contact is that it requires a whole lot of commitment.
It is not for the faint-hearted. Somebody actually said it to me this way the other day. No contact
involves treating this other person as if they've died. That is how intense it can be and the level
of discipline that it can take. You kind of have to imagine that even if you wanted to reach out,
you couldn't. I also think that this way of seeing things, there is absolutely no possibility of
communicating going forward helps us justify our grief as well. It stops us from feeling a lot of
disenfranchised grief that we shouldn't be feeling sad, that we should be over it by now, that this
isn't a big deal. When we treat it like no, this person is forever out of my life, we are allowed
to really feel the pain that I think we should be feeling at the end of any relationship. The level
of discipline and control that that takes and knowing how finite that decision will probably be
is what keeps a lot of us from ever thinking that we could do it. From trying every other possible
solution, trying to be friends before we finally get to that point where we know that there is no
other option. I also think that it's super normal sometimes to go back and forth, to unblock
their number and then block it again, to really fight the urge to reach out and then slip up and
have to reinstitute that wall between you two human relationships, especially ones that are
so deep and passionate and emotional that they would require this amount of drastic action,
they're complicated and they contain a lot of contradictory emotions, anger, one minute,
nostalgia the next, grief, one day, and joy and gratitude tomorrow. So it can be very hard
to stay strong, it can be very hard to be committed to this decision because how you're feeling about
the situation right now might not be how you're feeling about it tomorrow when you miss this person
beyond belief, beyond anything that you have felt. But personally, I do think that this period of
no contact is almost necessary to completely heal and mend. It provides us with the emotional,
mental, social and importantly, the physical space to a actually process our experience with them,
be good and the bad and be come to terms with the reality that this person is no longer going to
be part of our life in the same way and that is what it's going to be going for. That is something
that we cannot change. If we have decided that we cannot be in a relationship with this person,
if they've decided it for us, part of that future, that future path that we are now on is
you know, a path towards never speaking again. And I think no contact gets us comfortable with
that reality a lot quicker. Here's kind of how I like to see it and how I've justified it actually
to myself in the past. The end of a relationship is always going to hurt. The pain of detaching from
someone is going to be intense no matter which way you square it. But that pain can exist for a
longer period of time for a year or more at like 50% intensity or it can exist at 100% intensity
but only for a couple of months. It really depends on whether you are ready to heal or endure
this operation over a longer timeline or whether you are ready to bite the bullet and yes,
experience the intensity of all of that grief, all of that rage, all of that recovery at once
rather than keeping yourself still kind of attached to them just because it makes it feel
easier in the moment. So my other argument for no contact is that it also stops us from
sliding back into the relationship. During that very vulnerable period where we do just genuinely
want somebody and when that somebody is somebody that we are already familiar with and that we
already know and that we know is available it's so much easier to backslide. No contact is basically
you saying no, this is an absolute decision and I think it's a lot harder for you to turn around
and be like no just getting at change my mind because you can't really justify that to your past
version of yourself. You can't justify that to your current version of yourself who knows in
the back of their mind that there was a reason that we decided to be this drastic about our efforts.
So the final reason I think that no contact is powerful is because it lets us provide ourselves
with closure rather than waiting on somebody else to do it for us. It lets us
essentially take matters into our own hands. If this person is still stringing you along,
you know hitting you up every now and again, if you're still waiting for a message or relying on
them when you know that you can't, no contact gives you the power to close that chapter for yourself.
It is such a decisive and strong way of saying I'm done, I'm over this like this is done and I
have made that decision for both of us. I am putting all of the memories, our bond, our love,
that is now in the past and my future is just kind of me myself and I and I'm going to move forward
without you beside me. I think it's also especially powerful for breaking really painful
and toxic cycles of like distancing ourselves for a couple of weeks and then going back because
no contact is quite permanent right it's really saying enough is enough that's it. I'm doing
what is best for me it is a hard boundary rather than like a soft permission slip of like maybe
if you like text me at 2am this could be a thing it's like no you can't even text me this is not
even a remote possibility. So why does this work? So many people including myself obviously are
such huge proponents of this method for really detaching and finally ending things. There has to
be some evidence for it. There has to be more than just anecdotal evidence that this is effective
and efficient. Of course I have to find the science for you guys. I couldn't just give you empty
advice without the psychology. So to understand this we really need to comprehend the psychology and
the biology of attachment and it starts with how we initially fell in love with this person.
So when we begin to get close to someone especially intimately whether that is emotional
physical intimacy even in like intellectual intimacy our brain releases oxytocin. This is known
as a love or the bonding hormone and the function of this hormone is to promote trust to promote
safety, security and it's really crucial. It is like the biological building block for
asserting and creating and constructing relationships. So it's kind of what binds a lot of us
together. The other thing to know about oxytocin is that it is often released in tandem in parallel
to other hormones and neurotransmitters that we associate with pleasure and happiness in love.
I'm talking about dopamine and serotonin of course the two famous ones. There have been some
studies including one published in 2017 that suggest that the chemical reaction produced by this
cocktail of hormones and chemicals and neurotransmitters that is associated with falling in love is
a lot similar to the same chemical process that occurs when we become addicted to a substance.
It's thrilling, it's exhilarating, it consumes our rational brain and it gets us hooked.
Not only is oxytocin just a really nice hormone to experience not only does it make us feel
really good, it is also habit forming because it is such a pleasurable experience. When the release
of oxytocin is paired with some event or stimuli or a person like an ex-boyfriend, an ex-girlfriend,
an ex-partner, we begin to associate this person with all of those amazing feelings that we are
chasing and so when we want a hit of that same great feeling we seek them out they kind of become
like our drug dealer. All of this is what contributes to the intensity of the early stages of a
relationship but also like the comfort and the warmth of love. Now when things start to turn sour
it is not like that love fades overnight. What we start to see is I think a general gradual decline
but also an unstable association between all of those nice feelings and that person but also
a new set of feelings, feelings of sadness, feelings of worry, feelings of longing, despair,
unfulfillment and so we don't really know whether this next interaction we have with them is going
to produce the feelings that we want to be having which is the feelings of love or the feelings
that make us distressed and feeling rejected and uncomfortable. Despite that it might not be
all bad right it's just that there is this that the bad experiences begin to outweigh the positive
ones that's often what leads to a breakup but it doesn't mean that there isn't still like a baseline
of feeling. There is obviously going to be like a maintaining level of positive neurological
and biological reactions going about below the surface even if they are not the majority. There
is still some point of us that remains attached and bonded to this person even if things start to
become shaky because we have that history. So when we break up, when we realize that this person
is not for us or when they break up with us, perhaps out of the blue, perhaps we didn't want it to
occur. On a conscious level we kind of know that things have obviously changed like we were present
for this experience, we are feeling distressed but our neurotransmitters don't know that. Our dopamine
receptors don't know that and so it's not like the tap is suddenly turned off for our brain. It's not
like the moment we've broken up with somebody or the moment a relationship is ended, our brain
goes, all right, let's just shut all that down and get them back to normal. What is happening is
that there is still this urge and this craving and this desire for the kind of positive, happy
chemicals and hormones that this person was previously eliciting but there is no longer a catalyst
for those reactions because this person is no longer in your life. That is part of why
breakups are so painful because the urge to stay connected to this person is still being triggered
by out craving and out desire for all these good experiences and it's also still being triggered
because we have probably formed a whole series of habits and behaviors around seeking love out
from this individual. That's really why in the weeks and the early months after a breakup,
after the end of a relationship, it's especially hard because we are essentially rewiring our brain
to not need them anymore. Here's the catch though. Anytime you reach out, you get that spike again.
When you see the mountain public, you are immediately transported back into how great it felt and so
you are getting just enough to maintain those previous neural pathways that were kind of formed
in like the era of your love story. Those connections are still maintained by those small text messages
that you sometimes get. When you sleep with each other like every now and again, when you still
get that you know Instagram DM from them and you're like your attention is immediately grabbed
and you're immediately feeling like loved and wanted again. All of that, all of those kind of
small moments in which we are yet to completely break off contact with somebody where they are still
in our lives, that is keeping us hooked on them. It is what we call unpredictable reward. We don't
know when we're going to get it but by keeping those communication and contact channels and pathways
open, we still expect that we're going to get something from that person that they could come a time
when they will you know light us up again when we will get their affection, when they will want
to speak to us. And so all of that emotion, all of that connection and attachment, although on a
rational and very self aware level, we know the relationship is over. By continuing to put ourselves
in situations where that person is still in our life, even in a small capacity, we are not letting
our brain recover. And so no contact is really the solution here because it firstly stops
temptation but it also acts as a complete detox. It's very much a cold turkey move. I like this
concept of a detox a lot when explaining this because that is essentially what is happening.
This process of going no contact is a process of removing something from your mind,
from your life, from your body that you no longer want present. It is this purifying,
cleansing process of really detoxing your life of this person and hopefully coming out cleaner,
coming out better, coming out happier. You are physically removing this person from your life,
right? By removing opportunities for them to stay in touch with you and for you to stay in touch
with them. But you are also essentially getting used to the fact that you can feel good and you can
feel happy and you can have intimate loving feelings without them. It also stops the yoyoing,
the back and forth that keeps you hung up. It stops the confusion and it lets the cycle break.
Like I just said, it means that where previously you were seeking out all of those positive feelings
and emotions and reactions from this person, no contact means that you have no other option but
to find these necessities somewhere else. Hopefully in yourself first, but then eventually in other
people, maybe eventually in a better partner. Making space like that, getting clear on the fact
that holding onto this person is not what is best for you. I think really allows you to let peace
into your life and to get control back over that situation and back over the kind of reactions
and emotional reactions in particular that you can't stop yourself from having. You can't stop yourself
from wanting this person. You can't undo the past but you can control how you react to those
circumstances and how much access this person continues to have and how much access you give
yourself to them. So I think at the end of the day, like the main reason why no contact work
is no contact works is because it breaks the neurological cycle of attachment but it also
stops you from being confused. It reads you of the temptation of going back to this person who
you cannot be with for whatever reason and it lets you be kind of undistracted and undeterred.
It doesn't mean that you just continually elongate the detachment and the breakup process
just because it is easier to do it slower but it means that it lasts longer and that eventually
there will come a time where you do have to accept that your relationship is not what it once was
and it is time to move on. So that is essentially my reasoning for why this is such an effective method
but how do we do it successfully? How do we stay strong and committed despite all of the things
in us, all of the mental compulsions to reach out, all of the desires to have this person back
in our lives in some capacity? Well we are going to talk about all of that and more after this short break.
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Our first time using something normally forms a lifelong impression even if psychology says
that impression is not always correct. For example you may try a new food for the first time
realize you don't like it and you're convinced for the rest of your life to never try again.
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probably 18. There was nothing pleasant about that smell but now with scents like orange blossom
and Moroccan organ oil for the new shower creams and cocoa butter, oatmeal, vanilla or water lily
and aloe vera for their body creams they actually make me enjoy the experience. So a story about this
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this bottle we decided we wanted to try it out we wanted to get rid of some hair on our legs
we all use the oatmeal and vanilla body cream literally at my dining table we applied it and we
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try the reformulated net body and shower creams available at retailers nationwide and online
last season millions tuned into the betrayal podcast to hear a shocking story of deception
I'm Andrea Gunning and now we're sharing an all new story of betrayal
Stacy thought she had the perfect husband
doctor father family man it was the perfect cover for Justin Rutherford to hide behind
they led me into the house and I mean it was like a movie he was sitting at our kitchen table
the cops were guarding him Stacy learned how far her husband would go to save himself
I slept with a loaded gun next to my bed you know I just say I wish he was dead he actually gave
details and explained different scenarios on how to kill him he to me is scarier than Jeffrey
Dahmer listen to betrayal on the iHeart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts
oh out 20s the drunk dialing the forgetting to wash our face at night and yes neglecting out teeth
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today so I think I've given you my most compelling argument for why you should go in our contact
especially with an ex and some of the reasons and the science and the psychology that tells us
why it works but I think just saying it doesn't make it easy a few years ago I was seeing this person
pretty casually for like four months but they had a really like significant emotional impact on me
I think just because of the timing and everything that I was going through and they were also just
not somebody that I should have had in my life they were not a kind person and I eventually realized
that it was a pretty terrible situation I needed to cut him off but the number of times I blocked
and deleted his number and then would unblock him or would reply to his messages on Instagram wherever
you would have thought that nothing had changed and it took me I think two to three whole months to
really finally quit that situation and to really go cold turkey so that is just one of the
situations where I've really applied this rule obviously not very well but I do have some advice
that I've learned from my failures I guess not my failures I have some advice that I've learned
from my missteps and from my learning experience so here are five I think of my best tips and
principles for successful no contact firstly try just 21 days of no contact first straight after
a breakup before going all in I think this gives us an adjustment period to really reflect on
what we want going forward and just taking that three weeks to get an immediate distance to really
process our emotions I think it's also important because it gives us space before we do something
impulsive that will work right sometimes you know when we are in that highly emotional and volatile
state sometimes you know we don't always do what is right sometimes we are not able to put in the
boundaries that we know we are going to need later on sometimes it is messy and confusing and
we get back together with them and then we break up with them again giving yourself that three
weeks of distance straight after an incredibly emotionally intense situation lets you get clear
and for practical reasons right like it's only three weeks you guys can come back together and
have a conversation you might have like items or things to give back ground rules to apply but you've
still given yourself like a bit of a head start and you can still see that you know you can live
without them you did that three weeks you can do another three weeks you have breathing room and
you have yeah I guess practice and skill to see that this is important and to see that you can
live on your own and you can live without that connection secondly treat no contact as a challenge
and when you are really struggling as we all do just go for one more hour go for one more minute
even when it's really hard I think that saying goes it's something like you can do you can do
anything for 30 seconds when that temptation to reach out to them is really overpowering just focus
on the 30 seconds in front of you and then the next 30 and then the next 30 before like the craving
and the urge dissipates the other piece of advice I have that's related to this is to download
a sobriety app now I know this sounds so strange but there are apps out there that track your
progress when it comes to quitting alcohol quitting drugs quitting substances we can also use that
for people it keeps you focused on the time you've already put into removing yourself it keeps you
focused on the progress that you are making that you don't want to undo in a moment of weakness
and it really I think makes it feel more like a challenge than a chore eventually as well
speaking from experience it's something that you just don't even check you don't even care
and I think that moment when you're like oh I'm not looking at the minutes that we spent a part
ticking by I'm not looking at the hours we haven't spoken you know floating into the ether I don't
care anymore that is when you know that you've healed I know that right now the possibility of
that reality the possibility of no longer even caring about what that person is doing or who they're
with you know no longer being able to hear from them or touch them right now that reality seems
really devastating but I think with time that sting will lessen that doesn't necessarily mean
that this process will be linear I think for anybody who has you know been to a breakup been through
a friendship breakup or a family of strangement process is not linear each day it's not promised
that it's going to be better than the last I think that's a fact of life is that grief does not
know any timeline but it's own however I want you to remember that it is totally normal
for that to be the case it is totally normal to have a few weeks where you feel amazing and if
you're great and then just a day of just despair and grief and tears even when you've been doing
so well so this brings me to my next tip don't be afraid of memory flare ups and don't let them
undo your progress just because you're still thinking about them after going no contact
doesn't mean you are failing and it definitely doesn't mean it's not working just because you find
yourself fantasizing or daydreaming about the past doesn't mean that you should revisit it I want
you to remember that I think we all know that feeling of having like an eerily weird dream about
an ex and thinking that there is some deeper meaning but there isn't this this is just your brain
processing information and processing important memories so there's a concept that I like to bring
up when people talked to me about this you know I had someone actually message me the other day and
she was like you know it's been eight months since I've gone no contact and I've just randomly
in the last couple weeks I cannot stop reliving things I cannot stop thinking about her so this
is a phenomenon known as mind pops and it's super strange essentially what happens is that you'll
be going about your day you're feeling amazing and then this random memory or image will suddenly
pop into your head for no specific reason almost like a flashback now there was an article written
about this almost ten oh my gosh 12 years ago I was written in 2012 so it was written by scientific
America and the reason that this happens is not because you know it's a sign that somebody else
is thinking about you it's not because your brain knows something that you don't or that it's fate
or destiny it's actually just a part of our brain kind of cleaning out the filing cabinet
it's part of our brain just filtering through our semantic or autobiographical memories as it
needs to do you know our brains are constantly working and going and they're shooting energy and
impulses across millions of neural connections sometimes it's you know these connections sometimes
these electrical impulses are going to accidentally take the wrong road and they're going to
revisit something unexpected that is normal it's also a lot more common around like significant
dates so if it's a birthday or Valentine's Day or a former anniversary it's also all the more
common in what we know as the anniversary effect so our recollection of painful or hard memories
our sense of longing it does typically increase around significant dates and significant moments
I think this is especially the case like around Christmas is one that people talked to me about
or around birthdays where you're like oh last year I was with this person and I felt really
really loved and this year I'm not and it just brings back a lot of the pain I don't want you to
see that as a reason that you are failing I don't want you to think that that means you're losing
progress it is actually a super super super normal part of this journey I really promise you
so my fourth tip is to share with your friends share your commitment to go no contact or to
maintain your no contact with people around you who you trust and who you know care about you
because they will help you stay accountable this is kind of a rule of thumb if you wouldn't tell
your friends about something so if you wouldn't tell them that you've you know chicily replied to
somebody's story or that you you know emailed them or that you had an accidental run-in with them
like if you wouldn't tell them that it's probably not the thing that you should be doing it is
probably the wrong decision so when you do have those urges to reach out because we will have them
text and talk to your friends instead so I had a friend who actually changed my name in her phone
to her ex's name when she wanted to text him and she would like message me all the things that she
would want to say like I'm so upset that you hurt me you've really let me down but I want to give
you another chance she would send that to me and I would like reply as him and be super rational
and I would say what I knew she needed to hear not what she wanted to hear but what if I imagine
what he would say that would convince her that that was a bad decision and it worked it sounds
super bizarre but it worked community I think is also just a valuable antidote to the general
loneliness we may experience when we are so used to talking to our ex it is a compulsion it is a
habit it can feel like a whole has been left in our life who are we going to share our everyday
thoughts with who are we going to you know share our successes and our failures with who's going
to celebrate us who is going to care about that small thing that you know we saw on the bus or
that happened at work your friends will tell them they want to hear from you that is a way of
making your relationship as strong as the one that you shared with this other person
communication and vulnerability and letting them help you finally my final tip for making no
contact work make the fortress in penetrable leave no passage unblocked there is no way for them
to get in because if you leave a secret door open that only you know about you are giving yourself
the option to reach back out you are creating also the false promise that if they wanted to get in touch
with you they could and that is not the commitment that we are looking for that is not being in 100%
Instagram Facebook email text cut them all off and if they do somehow find a way to reach out to
you have something prepared to say so i'm going to quote this article by the coach Matthew Hussie
because i love what he had to say about this in a recent article when somebody reaches back out
i think that is the time that is it is the hardest because it's like they're right there it's like
putting a bowl of candy in front of a kid and saying don't touch it even though that's all they
want to do that is all you want to do right now the thing you most want in the world is to hear from
that person because hearing for them is going to reignite so much that you actually did enjoy and
that you are nostalgic about when it comes to your relationship so it is very much like reopening
an old wound and then i think it just sets it's just like a domino effect once you reply to one
message being like yeah hey how are you instead of just ignoring it or instead of being like hi
actually i'm not looking to have any further communication with you if you don't do that immediately
it snowballs it might just be a few messages it might last an entire day it might be the
rekindling of a relationship that you already know was not meant to be so have something planned
that you are going to say in response to those situations find something a specific affirmation
or a mantra or whatever some kind of motivation that's going to you know keep you focused on why
this is important why you wanted to do this in the first place maybe it is you know i don't want to
have contact with this person because i know that by doing that i will leave space for somebody
better to come into my life maybe it is you know eventually this relationship is going to have to
fade i would rather it starts now than in three months six months a year whatever it is that is
keeping you motivated stay on it stay focused i'm sending you so much love and strength because i
know this is really hard this person probably meant so much to you they probably were somebody
that you really cared about and nobody goes into the start of a relationship with anybody romantic
platonic anything imagining the ending and so when we do find ourselves there it just seems that
any way to cope is something that we have to try and i do think that this is one of the better ways
this is one of the healthier most sustainable ways of finding peace finding closure taking your
life back for yourself so there is not that cloud lingering over your head of what if or what next
or is there a future for us you have closed that door for good for good you're not opening it again
as hard as that might be it will get easier i promise you it will get easier and you will find
somebody better and you will find somebody who you never have to consider this possibility with
so thank you so much for listening to today's episode i really do hope that you enjoyed and i'm
sure that if you've listened this far you're probably really going through it right now so i really
really empathize with you and i sympathize for you it is tough do not let yourself feel any
differently and i'm sending lots of love it's going to be okay make sure that if you
enjoyed this episode or if there's somebody who you know might relate to this send it to them send
them a link it might be able to help them out make sure that you leave a five star review on apple
podcasts Spotify wherever you are listening right now and that you are following along so that you
never miss a new episode and as i mentioned at the start we do have our new series of notebooks
live now on the website make sure you check it out make sure you get your hands on it if you
looking for a place to write your deepest darker secrets i think that might just be it that might
just be where you can do it until next time thank you for listening be kind be gentle with yourself
and we will talk soon
