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Challenge #1: How do I get rid of random pesky thoughts about my ex?

Posted on September 28th, 2011

Easier said than done. Chances are if your ex recently broke up with you, it’s quite normal to be still thinking about them. Your brain might be telling you to text or call him/her because you miss them and the security of your relationship.

Sometimes the pain of missing your ex might interfere with your life on many levels.

*Perhaps you can’t concentrate at work?

*Maybe it’s causing havoc with the relationships you have with your friends and family?

*You might be trying to mask the hurt by drinking or getting into drugs?

Experts agree that time will heal your pain but the longer you let it simmer the worse off you will be.

Many people don’t realized how difficult breaking up is until it happens.

There are all sorts of different routes to end a relationship. And yes, some people can breakup and remain good friends. Just understand that’s more like the exception to the rule and not the rule.

Ask yourself if you are truly trying to forget about your ex? If you aren’t on board with this totally, well, it’s just not going to happen.

Beware there are certain instances where you ex will creep back into your head and you need to be ready to accept, understand, and take action to move on.

HOW TO STOP THINKING ABOUT YOUR EX COMPULSIVELY TEXTING YOUR EX

If you are constantly texting your ex and checking for messages, you need to stop. This is a dangerous behavior because it can turn compulsive fast.

You need to resist the temptation and if this means handing your phone and computer over to a friend for a few days, just to get out of the habit, then do it.

It’s going to be hard but you need to do everything in your power to end all communication with your ex. Mind over matter.

YOUR’E A SOCIAL MEDIA STALKER

Social media seems to make the world go round. It’s both a blessing and a curse. This platform allows you to keep in touch with as many people as you like on your own time. It’s a great way to get support and make connections.

However, when it comes to a breakup, it’s just too easy.

It’s too tempting to take a peak at their social media profile to see what they are up to. That’s just not going to help you get them out of your brain.

Take action to get busy so you aren’t thinking about your ex in any capacity. Go for a run, join a softball team, or hang out with some friends. Anything that’s going to keep your mind away from your recent breakup, is all good.

There comes a time after a breakup where you need to stop moping around thinking about your ex, and get back out there.

Nobody knows how long it’s going to take to completely forget about your ex. But you might as well get started because the sooner, the better so you can get on with your life.

HOP IN THE SAC WITH ANOTHER

This is a tough call for many people because the hurt is so fresh. However, experts agree one route to move on faster is to get connected with someone else.

This doesn’t mean you’re jumping into another long-term relationship because you’d be silly if you did. Slow and steady wins the race; and make sure the guy or gal you are sleeping with knows your situation.

There’s no need to start breaking more hearts with miscommunication.

Surround yourself with potentials and set yourself up to pick the cream of the crop. A ginormous step forward in moving on and forgetting about your ex.

CONSTANTLY REPLAY ALL THE BAD TIMES YOU HAD TOGETHER

When you do this, you’re forcing yourself to focus on the negative and this will bury the positives fast. The mind is a powerful thing and if you don’t consciously acknowledge the bad times in your relationship, they will fade away and all you will be left with is more hurt because of the good things you had.

Stop it now please!

Think about how your ex upset you and all the times you argued over the dumbest things.

This will help your mind close your ex off and open the door to a stronger and more loving relationship. One step at a time please.

GO OUT WITH YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY

Chances are if you were in a committed relationship, your friends for sure suffered some neglect. Now’s the perfect time for you to step back in and catch up.

Go out for a few drinks or head to the beach. Whatever you and your friends love to do is where your focus needs to be right now.

With these new opportunities, you will see that your ex really doesn’t deserve one more second of your life.

HIT THE GYM HARD

This is a perfect route for you to blow off a little frustrating steam and feel good about yourself. Now’s the perfect time to work on getting your body smoking hot for the next potential candidate.

Get active and keep your sorry butt off the couch. Slowly but surely your thinking will change and soon you will realize you deserve so much more.

Get sexy because it’s only going to help you move past thinking about your ex.

TAKE THE NO CONTACT RULE VERY SERIOUSLY

The only way you’re going to get your ex totally out of your brain is to cut out all communication. This means blocking their number and emails and unfollowing them on social media. That’s just to start.

Don’t let yourself get sucked back into the destructive circle of trying to track him down again.

An ex is an ex for a reason!

REMIND YOURSELF THIS IS VERY REAL

Don’t try and convince yourself this is just a temporary split and you’re going to get back with your ex shortly, because you’re not!

Shut the door to the past because that’s the only way you can open one toward the future.

This is one instance where you can’t let yourself be hopelessly optimistic. An ending is an ending and you need to draw the line in cement.

CHILL ON YOUR BELONGINGS

One of the worst moves you can make is to use your belongings as a means of seeing your ex again. Please don’t do it!

Leave your stuff and if there are things you really need back, just have your ex box it up and send it to you. Never invite them over and never go pick it up yourself. Unless of course they are at work and the box is sitting on the step.

You can also have one of your friends go pick it up for you. Just stay away please if you want to really stop thinking about your ex.

BURN EVERYTHING THAT REMINDS YOU OF YOUR EX

Well, you might not have to be that drastic but you know where I’m coming from. Get rid of all the pictures of the two of you around your room. Donate the jacket he bought for you to charity.

If he bought you valuable jewelry, you might want to take it to a jeweler and either exchange it for something else or maybe have it created into a new piece.

When you get rid of the items he gave you, then you are one step closer to never thinking about your ex again.

STEP YOUR BUSINESS UP A FEW NOTCHES

To get your mind off your ex, you should do all those things you’ve wanted to do but never did. Go join a baseball team, work a little bit more, and find new hobbies.

You never know unless you try!

There truly are a zillion different things you can do to get over your ex. Make your list and take action with it right now.

DON’T GO FOR THE BOTTLE

This is a pretty popular move when couples break up. They try to drown their sorrows in alcohol. Now if you want to go out one night and drink up, that’s your choice. However, if it becomes a daily or nightly ritual, you’ve got a whole new set of issues on your plate.

DON’T BE AFRAID TO REWARD YOURSELF

Stop and think if you are making the best decisions right now to move on with your life. Stop thinking about the past and envision the future instead. That’s where all your energy should be directed.

If you are making progress and love to shop, reward yourself with a new pair of shoes! This is your opportunity to step outside your comfort zone and shine. Try new things and bask yourself in the glory of having the freedom to make the best choices for you.

UNDERSTAND THE CLOCK DOESN’T STOP TICKING FOR ANYONE

It’s okay to feel sad and mad for a few days after a breakup. But if you mope around for day or weeks, it’s only you that is hurting.

People can’t help you if you don’t want to be helped.

You have to make the choice to move forward with a smile, because you’re friends can only take so much. Make the decision to stop thinking about your ex and it will happen, just give it a little time.

LITERALLY SNAP YOURSELF OUT OF IT

This one is taking the tough love route. Whenever you catch yourself thinking about your ex, just snap the rubber band you’re wearing on your wrist. What this does is help you to consciously de-program your brain from wandering into ex territory.

You need to be in control of your mind and this is one way to actively do it.

FLIP YOUR NEGATIVE TO POSITIVE

If you are emotionally overwhelmed about your ex, this is going to weigh you down royally on your path forward. Be open and positive and treat yourself with love and respect. Do the things in life that make you smile.

When you get angry, let your emotions out in a positive way. Teach yourself to find the positive; and the negative crap about your ex won’t seem so big.

YOU ARE NOT TO BLAME

It really doesn’t matter the circumstances surrounding your breakup. Do not blame yourself. Take a stab at blaming the relationship itself and not you or your ex personally. This will give you the window of opportunity to move on and not feel any guilt at all.

Nobody goes into a relationship looking to break up. It happens and you’ve just got to deal with it and move on. End of story.

TALK ABOUT IT WITH SOMEONE YOU TRUST

When you talk about what you are thinking and feeling with someone you trust, you will feel much better. Often just having a good sounding board works wonders in letting go of your ex and moving forward with a positive outlook.

This trusted person will be understanding and supportive and that’s exactly what you need right now.

If you ever want to move on with someone special, you can’t let the hurt of your past interfere with this. You deserve to smile and this means you are going to have to work through your emotions top to bottom.

A good friends can help you do this.

THE DOG-AND-VOMIT ANALOGY REALLY DOES WORK!

This is totally disgusting but you need to stick with it. This pointer is all about addiction and recover. That said, when you are thinking about sad thoughts in the past constantly, that’s the same thing as a dog going back to his own puke.

“As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.”

When you tap into this visual analogy, you’ve see it’s rock solid concrete and just makes sense.

What you need to do is repeatedly tell yourself you are not a dog and you shouldn’t keep going back to your own vomit.

Just stop obsessing please.

UNDERSTAND THE GRIEVING PROCESS

No doubt it’s important to understand the grieving process and if you want to heal completely, you just can’t skip it. It’s important to learn how to grieve and more importantly give yourself permission to go through the process.

One surefire reason for not being able to get passed your ex is because you have ignored the process. You need to learn to accept and let go.

It’s not just death that you need to learn how to grieve. You also need to learn how to handle the hurt caused by losing someone who was once special in your life. It’s okay to grieve and better yet, it’s something you need to do.

If you don’t know how to grieve, you will always be obsessing in some capacity about your ex. Learn the process and you will get past this – Believe it!

SLIP NOT ONE, BUT TWO NEW ACTIVITIES INTO YOUR LIFE

Take a gander at a few fantastic tips to get your ex out of your brain for good!

*Take a trip to Hawaii.

*Volunteer for the Cancer Society.

*Volunteer in your Church

*Take a cooking class.

*Move to a new place.

*Find new friends.

*Get face to face with old friends.

*Train for a marathon

*Take rock climbing classes

*Take a class and learn a new language

*Sign up for dance classes

Check out Meetup.com for other ideas for activities, classes, and groups near you; and meet up with them.

Honestly, it really doesn’t matter what newness you bring into your life, just do it. When you create strong external focuses ,it’s much easier to get the past out of your brain for good.

Practice makes perfect so never give up on this one please.

TAKE CARE OF YOUR SPIRITUAL AND EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING

Life is a journey and it’s important you don’t focus too much on any one aspect of it. Stop and ask yourself how and why you get obsessed about things; and how to stop it. Do you need a man 24/7? Do you have an addictive personality? Do you feel empty inside if you don’t have a partner?

In order to heal yourself emotionally and spiritually, you need to accept your strengths and weaknesses and learn how to heal yourself.

When someone is obsessing about an ex, it’s often because they aren’t emotionally healthy themselves. Not a bad thing but something that needs to be acknowledged.

Bottom line…Heal yourself first and then you will be able to stop thinking about your ex.

CREATE A ROCK SOLID SCHEDULED TIME TO FEEL ANXIETY AND REGRET

After which you need to cut yourself loose. If you are having trouble not thinking about your ex and the breakup, give yourself permission to do so. What’s important is you have a set timeframe in which to do so.

Maybe you want to schedule 10 minutes in the morning and at night where you can think about your ex.

After this, you need to consciously put your ex out of your mind.

In time, you will find this time you spend reflecting and obsessing totally useless. When you realize this, you will see that it’s time to move on. Full speed ahead to be happy.

EASE UP TRYING TO STOP PONDERING YOUR EX AFTER THE BREAKUP

There’s no question, whatever you try and resist will persist. So if you force yourself to stop thinking about your ex, that will ultimately be the only thing you can think of. Weird but true.

So stop obsessing and just allow yourself to think about your ex. Let the thoughts flow through your mind and don’t try to interfere with them. Accept the thoughts and replace them with take action steps to get past them.

Is this making sense to you?

You need to have self-control and determination to control your thinking but you can do it if you choose to.

Take control of your thoughts so they can’t override your best interests and make you obsessed about your ex. They need to be in the past and the past should stay where it is. You deserve to move forward happily.

FINAL WORDS

It’s definitely not easy to help stop thinking about your ex and move on.

Overcoming obsessive thoughts about your ex isn’t unusual. What you need to understand is you will move on with your life in time and you will find an amazing partner.

When you can’t stop thinking about your ex, you are stuck in a very destructive pattern that turns habitual fast. Stop it before it does.

You need to realize you aren’t helpless and alone; and you most certainly aren’t trapped.

If you are ready to stop thinking about your ex, you need to simply take action to break the habit. This takes a lot of effort up front and you need to be fully committed to your cause. When you learn how to stop obsessing, your life will get back on track fast.

There are oodles of different strategies that do help. When you take both emotional and practical tips and combine them, you increase the chances of forgetting about your ex, once and for all.

Keep trying until you figure out what works for you. Stick with it until you are free and clear and can move confidently on in your life to bigger and better.

You can do it and using these expert tips, tricks, and proven strategies is only going to help you get there safely.

Time for you to take control and go find your true happiness.

If you enjoyed this post, I’d be very grateful if you’d help it spread by emailing it to a friend, or sharing it on Twitter or Facebook.

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