What to Do When You Can’t Stop Thinking About Someone
So you’re longing to be with someone — you might be craving their attention, getting lost in fantasies about them or showing other signs of emotional addiction. Constantly thinking about someone who’s unavailable, can cause immense suffering. Traditional advice on getting over someone often leaves your recovery up to chance – as taking up a new hobby like watercolours can help you paint over the pain, instead of actually healing it.
This article is written with the intention of alleviating your suffering in the most effective and painless way possible.
POINT A - Where You Are Right Now
So you’ve been trying to get over this person or this idea on your own, probably for some time. Your heart might be heavy, your mind is restless, and no matter how much you tell yourself to move on, the memories, songs, smells and places pull you back into repetitive thoughts about them. You might be replaying past conversations, wondering what you could have done differently, or feeling like you’ve lost something very significant.
That must be tough, but you’re no longer alone in this! You don’t have to just "wait for time to heal you." You can take control of the healing process, in fact you’re doing it right now.
If you’re done with DIY and would like the shortcut to the clear solution and closure - book a free RTT therapy consultation with me here - and you could be over them by next Thursday :)
Alternatively - enjoy the read!
Why You Can’t Stop Thinking About Someone
The real reason for why you’re still thinking about them obsessively has got to be an unresolved belief involving this person, which your repetitive thoughts are trying to resolve. Very often when we address what our thoughts are trying to tell us, they subside.
See if you can relate to one or more of these scenarios:
You feel a strong emotional bond with this man or woman, feel incomplete without them. It might seem like they are the only person in the world who could make you feel whole, hence thinking about them and imagining them in your life again might be satisfying the need for wholeness and completeness - temporarily.
You might feel a strong desire for that person’s affections, in which case dopamine is released into your brain when you think about them, making you literally addicted to those thoughts.
Inertia - thinking about them might feel familiar and comforting - like a pacifier. The alternative of accepting a life without them might seem too harsh a reality to deal with at the moment, so the longing thoughts soothe that pain.
Pictures, people and places around you might be triggering a memory of them, especially if you still follow them on social media. Those triggers set off a chain of internal events and you might start missing the times you shared with them, reinforcing their presence in your thoughts.
There could be a deep sense of rejection or of feeling not good enough for him or her. In this case the continuous thoughts about them can detrimentally affect our self esteem and intensify the longing to be with them
Lack of closure - perhaps the relationships ended abruptly and you never got to say your peace, so the thoughts about this person transport you to a hypothetical universe in which the relationship is still ongoing. This alleviates the feeling of incompleteness, but again - only temporarily.
Regret - you might feel regret about things you did or said in the heat of the moment or there could be something you understand now that you didn’t understand then. So the thoughts are a barrage of ideas about things you could have done or said differently. Could-have, should- have, would-have scenarios is how your mind prepares itself to deal with the situation differently, should it ever repeat itself
Fear of loneliness can keep us trapped in ‘all or nothing’ thinking, i.e. we might feel that we have to figure out a way to be with this specific person or we’ll be alone forever.
Inability to imagine a life without them can cause the thoughts about this person to keep circling around in a loop, as no alternative way of thinking about the situation has been introduced yet.
It’s important to have compassion and understanding for the part of you who feels stuck on these looping thoughts and desires and carries the weight of this unrealised dream.
It’s also important to empower the Future You - the you who has already overcome this issue and is living life free of such emotional burdens.
See if a dose of Helpful Truths starts to tilt your thinking process away from the longing and towards valuing and prioritising yourself instead.
HELPFUL TRUTHS
Without further ado, here are some new thoughts to replace the broken record in your mind. If you want this new positive ‘record’ to play of its own accord — I suggest journaling on these ideas as often as possible.
“Your value doesn't decrease based on someone else's inability to see your worth.” You are valuable, significant and worthy of love and connection regardless of whether this person you’re attached to appreciates that or not. Their opinion of you is no more important than of someone you used to fancy in 6th form. Your opinion of yourself is the most important opinion - so big yourself up!
You don’t need to change yourself to please this person nor persuade them to be with you. What you do need is to address the belief that you are lacking … (worth, attractiveness, intelligence etc.) if you’re not with them.
In sessions with my clients, I use a process that detaches their self-image from what someone else thinks of them. This is really useful when your perception of yourself is enmeshed with the other person’s views of you to the point that you can no longer tell which is which.
What happened to you does not define you, You are not a helpless victim of circumstance - you absolutely are capable of taking back control.
The pain you’re feeling right now isn’t permanent. This breakup isn’t a reflection of your worth, and it does NOT define your future. Right now, your heart and mind might be trying to hold onto this person, but that wiring can be changed.
The truth is that you’re going to have an amazing life with or without them.
Let this sink in…
You did your best with the information you had then - It was not a mistake to follow your heart and hope that things would work out, and your best is absolutely good enough.
You do not need to fight yourself every time your mind returns to a past memory of this man or woman. Accept the thoughts and allow them to be there, remembering that you are not your thoughts. Sometimes we resist accepting emotions as it might seem that accepting them will make them stronger.
It does the opposite: identifying a thought and simply observing it, creates a distance between us and it. It’s that growing distance that helps us eventually separate ourselves from it completely.
Accept the regret and any other uncomfortable feelings. At their core all emotions, however painful, subside in intensity once wholeheartedly accepted and allowed to be. Accepting your emotions does NOT mean defeat — it simply means that you welcome all parts of yourself, even the ones causing the discomfort. This acceptance is an important step on the road to making us feel whole again.
Being patient with yourself when those thoughts arise can dramatically improve how you feel, as it stops you making yourself feel bad for feeling bad. It can also balance you and allow you to be present - which is a healing state of mind in itself.
POINT B - Where You Want to Be Instead
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