Friday, September 01, 2006
Dumped!
Been dumped? How to get over it fast.
Just like death and taxes, everyone experiences getting dumped at some time in their lives. As with suffering any loss, the more emotion invested in the relationship when it ends, the more painful the result. The feelings of loss are natural and reflect back to us our attachment to our ex. Now, the common misnomer is that the pain has to stay with us, that the only way to move on is with time, nope not true. I was speaking to a friend of mine the other day and they quoted me their formula for how long it takes to get over being dumped. They told me that it takes a third of the time that you are with the person to get over them. It‘s true that time will normally lessen the degree of hurt, but why wait? The only reason we believe there is no way to break out of those feelings is that no one told us that there was, in fact we are mostly told to “give it time”. Well, if you’re fed up with waiting, then read on as I’ve got some good news!
Okay, well we know that the reason we feel the pain is because we had invested emotional energy in the other person. We probably had plans for the future, shared moments and feelings of intimacy which are now disrupted. We then tend to make things worse by asking the wrong kind of questions, like “why did he/she leave me?”, “What’s wrong with me?” and “What if I never meet anyone else as wonderful as they were?”
As with any question you ask yourself, your brain will give you an answer (which may or may not be true). If you ask a lousy question then expect a lousy answer.
Example:
Q: “Why did he leave me?” (lousy question)
A: “Because you’re fat and ugly!” (lousy answer)
When in a down state we tend to answer on the negative side anyway, add to that the cutting self critical inner voice then don’t expect a good and truthful answer. If a friend or even an enemy spoke to you half as badly as the way most of us speak to ourselves then I reckon they’d find themselves with a slapped face.
So, the upshot of this is that the first thing to do is: Ask better questions.
What would be a better question? Well, make sure they are framed in the positive, e.g. How can I enjoy being single even more? Or What can I do now that I couldn’t do before? Ask a better question and you get a better answer. .
When working with clients who want to get over someone in this way I tend to go through 5 steps with them. I won’t go through all the steps now, although I’ll cover them in other posts
Get into a good state.
The state or mood we are in affects the way we think, so the first thing to do is get into a good state.
2. Start asking better questions
As I mentioned earlier, start asking better questions and getting better answers.
3 Interrupt the mental movies
One thing that causes the most problems is reliving the painful moments over and over again. We play in our minds a mental movie showing all the bad points and highlighting the losses. Ever seen a depressing film? Now, imagine watching it again and again on a loop. No wonder people can feel bad. So, in this step we use techniques to scramble up the mental movie so it loses its power.
4 Recode the mental associations to the other person
Now you have split up there is no need to attach such feelings to the other person. Over time they will fade but like I say, why wait! In this step we change the mental representation that we have of the person and replace them with more neutral feelings or even feelings of gratitude. Once the association is changed the feelings change.
5 Make plans for an even better future.
Finally, we build some wonderful plans for the future and then imagining they have come true, we look back on now and see how the break up was necessary in order to live the life we dreamed.
Just like death and taxes, everyone experiences getting dumped at some time in their lives. As with suffering any loss, the more emotion invested in the relationship when it ends, the more painful the result. The feelings of loss are natural and reflect back to us our attachment to our ex. Now, the common misnomer is that the pain has to stay with us, that the only way to move on is with time, nope not true. I was speaking to a friend of mine the other day and they quoted me their formula for how long it takes to get over being dumped. They told me that it takes a third of the time that you are with the person to get over them. It‘s true that time will normally lessen the degree of hurt, but why wait? The only reason we believe there is no way to break out of those feelings is that no one told us that there was, in fact we are mostly told to “give it time”. Well, if you’re fed up with waiting, then read on as I’ve got some good news!
Okay, well we know that the reason we feel the pain is because we had invested emotional energy in the other person. We probably had plans for the future, shared moments and feelings of intimacy which are now disrupted. We then tend to make things worse by asking the wrong kind of questions, like “why did he/she leave me?”, “What’s wrong with me?” and “What if I never meet anyone else as wonderful as they were?”
As with any question you ask yourself, your brain will give you an answer (which may or may not be true). If you ask a lousy question then expect a lousy answer.
Example:
Q: “Why did he leave me?” (lousy question)
A: “Because you’re fat and ugly!” (lousy answer)
When in a down state we tend to answer on the negative side anyway, add to that the cutting self critical inner voice then don’t expect a good and truthful answer. If a friend or even an enemy spoke to you half as badly as the way most of us speak to ourselves then I reckon they’d find themselves with a slapped face.
So, the upshot of this is that the first thing to do is: Ask better questions.
What would be a better question? Well, make sure they are framed in the positive, e.g. How can I enjoy being single even more? Or What can I do now that I couldn’t do before? Ask a better question and you get a better answer. .
When working with clients who want to get over someone in this way I tend to go through 5 steps with them. I won’t go through all the steps now, although I’ll cover them in other posts
Get into a good state.
The state or mood we are in affects the way we think, so the first thing to do is get into a good state.
2. Start asking better questions
As I mentioned earlier, start asking better questions and getting better answers.
3 Interrupt the mental movies
One thing that causes the most problems is reliving the painful moments over and over again. We play in our minds a mental movie showing all the bad points and highlighting the losses. Ever seen a depressing film? Now, imagine watching it again and again on a loop. No wonder people can feel bad. So, in this step we use techniques to scramble up the mental movie so it loses its power.
4 Recode the mental associations to the other person
Now you have split up there is no need to attach such feelings to the other person. Over time they will fade but like I say, why wait! In this step we change the mental representation that we have of the person and replace them with more neutral feelings or even feelings of gratitude. Once the association is changed the feelings change.
5 Make plans for an even better future.
Finally, we build some wonderful plans for the future and then imagining they have come true, we look back on now and see how the break up was necessary in order to live the life we dreamed.
