How to get your mind off of a bad breakup
When you’re depressed or just obsessing over someone, your focus becomes very narrow. It can seem like there’s only one solution to your discomfort, i.e. to get back in contact with the person. This might take the form of stalking their social media, or psychoanalyzing why he does what he does, etc. Left unchecked, people can stay in that dark useless place for days or weeks or even years, and maybe find their goals derailed. To get out, we want to actively expand your focus to other things that can fill the emotional needs you’re trying (whether fruitfully or not) to fill via this person. We want to get to a point of detachedly viewing the person in terms of what emotional needs the fantasy of them fills for us.
What does that person promise to add to your life that you’re missing and perceive as hard to get? Where else can you get it? Where did you get it before meeting this person? Reflecting detachedly on these questions can give you ideas for what will be satisfying for you redirect towards.
Example:
For a real life example, let’s take a woman who always felt like an undesirable “weird” wallflower, leaving a toxic relationship with a man who is very popular. It’s plain to see that their relationship is terrible and she doesn’t even like him, but she keeps going back. She rationalizes it to herself that everybody else likes this person, so it must be her fault, “maybe she does love him after all.” She wastes a lot of time obsessing over their most recent fight, whether they should get back together, why he acts like that, blah blah. To get out, we prepare some things she can automatically switch to thinking about when she catches herself starting to obsess. First we reflect on what she gets out of the tie to him. Deep down, she worries she will be lonely and feels unlikeable in comparison to him. She secretly hopes his carefree extroversion might rub off on her; She already feels more socially acceptable because of her association with him. What she really wants is social connection and feeling well-liked and accepted.
We prepare questions she might ask to that end:
Who could I call/text and/or make plans with who I haven’t seen for a while? What are my plans tonight, or this weekend? Where/with whom could I make some? Who else could I bring? What will I wear/how will I style myself? How will I get there? Do I know anyone else who I see as fun and well-liked, like this person? Could I try getting to know them? Where could I enjoy spending my time today, outside my house, doing something fun and engaging?
This is the process of aligning your casual thoughts with your goals. Give your mind something useful to rest on, that moves your life forward while fulfilling the emotional needs you were trying to fill via your ex.
Some initial questions to guide your reflection:
What do I imagine this person would add to my life if we were together?
What positive qualities might this person rub off on me if I were their partner?
What desirable thing(s) do I imagine I would gain/maintain access to via this person?
What things do I believe are “impossible” for me to attain, that this person has?
Where else can I get these things?
Believe it or not, these things are all absolutely accessible in some form without any contact with this person. The critical question is: Where else can I get these things? Just a tiny bit of it or a small step towards it, today. The energy you put into pursuing this person can be redirected into getting these things on your own.
You likely think of this person many times throughout the day. Giving in to that urge can waste hours in a moment of weakness; maybe you drunk text your ex, and the cycle gains strength and eats up more of your time and energy. So we want to prepare in advance to interrupt those spirals early. This means choosing alternatives to your spiraling thoughts—replacement thoughts that you can automatically default to. These alternatives are intended to give you some small reward in the same realm of what you’re getting emotionally from this person. You can keep this list with you when you’re feeling like nothing else matters, to function like a wise advisor calmly asking, “what about this?” Make your own list to “rest your mind on” in place of your ex.
Pitfalls:
1) Do not romanticize or glamorize the relationship. A thought like, “It hurts this bad because I just love him so much!” may sound cute and romantic, but it serves no useful purpose and harms your goals of moving on and living happily. It’s probably not even accurate (though that makes no difference either way), rather actually a distortion that only keeps you in distress. You will almost certainly look back on it with embarrassment one day, sooner than you think.
2) Do not jump directly into another romantic connection. You may have heard “the best way to get over someone is to get under someone.” There is some grain of truth there, in that you will be at least distracted from brooding. But literally seeking out a new partner also distracts you from underlying issues, almost ensuring you will not go through the things you need to to heal.
Instead, seek out as much platonic interaction and community as you can. Call up friends, perhaps parents or children. Start at a new class, church group, or other group that will meet regularly on an ongoing basis, a minimum of five meetings. These are the conditions under which new friendships and interests form.
