#202 - Attachments are hard to break
When you break up with someone, whether you’re doing the breaking up or someone is breaking up with you, there’s an emotional attachment that has to be broken.
In the past two weeks I’ve shared tips and suggestions for how to handle a breakup. Today I want to go a little deeper and talk about the emotional attachment that has to be severed. This is the component that is the hardest to manage for most people.
I’m not going to get into attachment styles because that’s far too deep for this article. What I will talk about are some things to be aware of that may create emotional triggers. It’s these triggers that tend to suck you back in to the relationship you left.
What are emotional triggers?
We all have them. We just might not recognize them for what they are. I’d guess that most of you have several emotional triggers such as a song, a fragrance, a special place, or any of a number of other things that will bring back a flood of memories.
These are some of the hardest memories to get past especially if they were good memories. The reason they are hard to get past is that we have linked something pleasurable to an activity, a place, a sound, a smell. As long as this link remains intact it’ll continue to flood you with memories.
The easiest way to break these memory patterns is to link the memory to something less pleasurable. There are several techniques that can be implemented here through neuro-linguistic programming or NLP.
For example, if a song comes on that brings back great memories of your ex, take some time to reconnect that song to something negative about your ex. You might reconnect it to an argument or some reason the relationship ended.
Another alternative would be to connect that song to a different pleasurable memory.
This is a very simplistic illustration and takes some study and practice to be effective. However, it can be very effective, when implemented correctly, by helping to break emotional attachments to your past.
Mutual friends may be lost.
There can be collateral damage when a relationship ends. The loss of additional friends, whether it’s intended or not, can make a breakup even more difficult. Not only have you lost someone important in your life, other friends may be lost as well.
Sometimes this is a necessity especially if the relationship was a toxic one such as breaking up with a narcissist. You need to free yourself from the toxic environment you were in, including mutual friends.
You will be lonely.
This is a natural byproduct of ending a relationship. When your regular routine of shared experiences is disrupted, without having something positive to fill in the void, you may feel acutely lonely, even if you’re glad to be free of a toxic relationship.
Your loneliness may linger for a while even as you start new activities and routines. Over time, though, you should start to feel “normal” again. You will more than likely feel loneliness from time to time, but that is normal.
Eventually, the loss will begin to feel more like your history, not your present. Being able to free yourself from a relationship that is holding you back from enjoying life to its fullest, or feeling as good as you can about yourself, is well worth the short-term difficulty. In fact, research suggests that relationships that are unsatisfying or marred with unpleasant interactions are worse for your emotional well-being than an absence of romance or friendships.
Don’t let the sorrow and anger last to long
If the pain of leaving even a bad relationship lasts to long, you may want to seek some counseling. A good counselor or therapist can help you figure out why you aren’t able to move forward with your life.
It isn’t until you free your emotional self from all past relationships that you are truly able to move forward and find your extraordinary relationship.
I hope today’s topic is helpful. For more information like this check out my other blogs and videos right here.
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