How to get the person you like out of your head. A clean slate: how to get it out of your head

Question for a psychologist:

Good afternoon Please tell me how to get HIM out of my head. The fact is that after an unsuccessful marriage (3.5 years of marriage), I was not married. She raised her daughter herself. Men were in my life rarely and not for long. I didn’t let anyone into my soul or into my house. She worked a lot, raised her daughter, looked after her mother.

I am 53 years old. Over the past more than 10 years, I have not had a man. The daughter has grown up. Married. Has a son. We live separately. Mom died. I changed my job to a calmer and more regulated one. But still alone.

Last August I met a man. More precisely, a classmate, but we haven’t seen each other for 38 years. I was “overwhelmed” from the first meeting. He has no family. We are talking. There is no advances on his part, but we can talk on the phone for hours. We are friends. He knows about my feelings, but he has repeatedly told me that he does not plan any relationships with women in the near future. He explains this by saying that he doesn’t want to waste his energy, because... is engaged in healing. I experienced his energetic abilities myself. My health has become noticeably better. I’m even starting to forget about the presence of intervertebral hernias!

Soon it will be six months since I constantly think about HIM. Even at work, when I need to concentrate (my work is mental), thoughts about HIM.

I was preparing myself to stop our communication. But I'm getting worse. I have never cried so much in my entire life as I did in these less than 6 months. If we don’t communicate for 2-3 days, then I have hysterics at home. I live alone.

All my adult life I dealt with all the problems on my own, and then I broke down. And the knowledge that I cannot cope with the current situation makes me feel even worse. Our city is small and there is nowhere to go. And I don’t want one! All my good friends are married and I don’t want to pour out my problems on them. I once told my daughter about my feelings. It seems to me that she didn’t understand me, and maybe she was even scared. After all, I lived all my life for her.

I lost weight. Now, thanks to exercise, I get my body in order. But even during classes, tears can flow.

Psychologist Margarita Olegovna Alferova answers the question.

Dear Elena, good afternoon!

From your letter it is clearly evident that you are a very strong woman, that you are used to deciding everything yourself and, as I understand it, you have done it very well and are doing so! You are smart!!!

But what is happening now... Elena, excuse me, if I write without sentimentality, then you are an adult, mature, strong, intelligent woman and will be able to understand and accept this. And it seems to me that this is exactly what you need now. By the way, in your case the word ACCEPTANCE is the main one!

Elena, you fulfilled your program to the maximum: raised your daughter, helped your mother, built a career. You gave all of yourself for this, perhaps often forgetting about yourself altogether; you probably suppressed and hid your feelings very deeply. But now you are left alone and left alone with yourself...

To some extent, you have become bored, lonely, you have lost the meaning of life, the goal for which you have been striving all your life. You lack this adrenaline, you lack this motivation and incentive. Previously, you were rushing at full speed, “accelerating your locomotive,” but now you have slowed down. But the energy remained in you, all the feelings and emotions remained, even though you suppressed them all your life. Moreover, they became even stronger from the fact that they were suppressed, they took a certain form, possibly deformed, and you have no experience of living with emotions, managing them (managing, not suppressing), ACCEPTING them.

And now you meet your classmate... Memories of your youth, of the age when you were happy and carefree (perhaps this is not so, but our memory is very selective and we often remember and perceive childhood and youth as happy) flashed in you. Mentally, emotionally, you returned to that time... and it’s natural that you liked it, that you were “hooked” by it, that you had a great need for such emotions (it’s like a sip of water in the desert).

What a blessing that you met a good person!!!, and not a gigolo and an adventurer. I judge by your description of this man. He considers himself a healer, and perhaps he is. He helped you with your health, you are interested in him, you respect him!!! This is wonderful!!! Unfortunately, it is true that healers often believe that they need to conserve their energy, to remain celibate. I don't want to discuss whether it's right or wrong, they believe it. It is a fact! And this must be ACCEPTED!!!

What are your feelings? I want?!!! I want to get what I want, I like it, I’m worthy of it, I deserve it, it’s mine. If I'm wrong, I apologize. No one argues that you deserve that you deserve the best!!! But! Relationships can only develop if there is reciprocity. Love is when you give, give and don’t expect anything in return!

Dear Elena, you are lucky to experience such feelings, you are lucky to feel like a woman again. This is happiness. Why give up on this, why give up on yourself? You feel good together, you feel good communicating together, he doesn’t refuse - let this be your resource, not a burden. You can transform your feeling into friendship. After all, what friendship is is also mutual understanding, mutual support, but without sexual relations. Discover this bright feeling in yourself (the key here is the bright feeling of love), surrender to it, and do not run from it. This can be your huge resource and incentive in life, a guiding thread. You can find out in more detail what HE does, share his interests with HIM, and become his ally. Both of you can benefit from this relationship. The fact that you cry is the release of your emotions, which have been suppressed for a long time. You probably already forgot how to do this. The woman in you awakens again. But it depends only on you whether you will go into depression and this feeling will become a disaster or, on the contrary, you will soar and the feeling will become happiness.

You write “And the realization that I cannot cope with the current situation makes me feel even worse.” You are used to coping with situations, you are used to winning, you are used to having everything your way. Here you need to learn ACCEPTANCE! ACCEPT what is, don’t win, don’t expect everything to be your way, but ACCEPT and live with it.

Read books about love, listen to songs about love, about high, pure, bright love.

Your request was about how to forget. If you still want this.

It’s a pity that there is no pill that you can take and immediately forget forever the man you love. Many people are familiar with the pain and feelings of suffering associated with unrequited love.

What can you advise in this case:

1. ACCEPT the situation as it is. This is the first and most difficult step.

You refuse to believe what happened. the fact that you refuse to ACCEPT reality causes you pain. You argue with reality, claim that everything should be different. BUT! Everything is as it is and you just need to ACCEPT it. Accepting that what you want may not be possible is very difficult and painful. However, sooner or later this will have to be done.

2. Allow feelings to be. Allow yourself to feel what you feel, even to grieve and suffer. You can exaggerate this, but be sure to give a period for hysterics, after which you begin to control yourself. Do not suppress emotions, but control them. And first, allow them to pour out to the fullest. It could even be feelings of resentment, anger, rage, self-pity. Don't push them back inside, don't suppress them, they have to come out. You can do fitness, dancing, cleaning, drawing, etc. Let everything come out with tears, that's normal. Pour out all your pain through your tears so that there is nothing left in you. You can beat the pillow, yell at the toilet, then flush.

3. Of course, it would be great to share your feelings with someone, talk about what you feel. Women often feel better when they discuss everything with their friends. Maybe you can discuss it with someone in chats if you don’t have friends in reality. You can, as a last resort, keep a diary and pour everything out to him. Talk about yourself, about your feelings as much as you need. Speak until you feel empty inside, when you are already tired of it... This may mean that you are ready to let go of the situation.

4. Thank life, this man for everything that happened. For the emotions, for the adrenaline rush, for the cleansing and move on. See what happened as a gift.

If you want to stop communicating, then absolutely no contact with HIM. Delete any connection with a person: on the Internet; by phone; by mail; via Skype and other means of communication. Get through the initial difficult moments. After all, you used to live without him and were still happy. Remove from your life all psychological anchors that evoke memories of HIM: do not go to those places where you were together before; throw away any forgotten items; delete shared photos and videos on your computer, phone and other media. Don't think about what's on his mind, it doesn't matter. Switch all your thoughts, otherwise you will continue to fall into pain. You should not care what you are doing. At the moment, only your well-being is important. Absolute and complete indifference! Don't blame yourself for never being together. Find yourself a hobby, passion, something that would please your soul. Maybe something you once dreamed of, but didn’t dare to do - the time has come for it, allow yourself.

Elena, I believe that everything will be fine for you! I wish you happiness!

P.S. no one knows what will happen tomorrow and how everything will turn out :)

4.8333333333333 Rating 4.83 (6 Votes)

Life again

Women put their souls into any relationship. “Just sex” or “we just met, met, and broke up” does not happen. How can you get rid of thoughts about him from your head, if so many things are connected with him, dear and beloved - both good and bad?

So it turns out that there are many areas of life - work, career, friends, hobbies, relatives - but all the thoughts in my head are only about the one thing, the former loved one. You can’t just “uproot” it - this “baobab” has taken strong roots in the sensitive female soul.

To live again, without him you will have to learn, perhaps painfully and for a long time...

"Hooks" that we cling to

Women are characterized not only by romance, but also by its consequences. Words spoken at “that very” moment, “special days”, which are remembered so painfully and sweetly even years later. The music you listened to together, the places you visited. All these are nothing more than triggers that evoke memories. And before you get rid of thoughts about it from your head, you need to take care of the “spring cleaning”.

After the first stage of grief - the loss and its denial - passes, slowly begin to think about it and remember. Don’t add sweet poison to your memories - just replay in your head everything as it was. Where they went, what they said. And gradually you will begin to notice new subtexts, meanings, colors. You will understand what motivated this person. What really happened while you were enjoying the romance.

Eloquent proof of the successful completion of this stage is a calm, even attitude towards “your melody” to which you danced. You no longer flinch from excruciatingly sweet pain when visiting the places where you spent time.

Taking ourselves back

At the earliest, romantic (“candy-bouquet”) stage of the relationship, until the couple encounters difficulties and contradictions, the chosen one seems ideal to us. And we happily dissolve in this ideal - we lose ourselves. That's why thinking about how to get thoughts of him out of your head becomes so painful.

Just remind yourself that after every intoxicating affair there is a severe hangover.

Return to your previous interests, activities, or find new ones.

Slowly bring yourself back - yourself. Study your tastes, habits, passions. What do you like better - hockey or ballet? Folk songs or foreign pop music? What do you drink in the morning - tea or coffee? And, in the end, which foot do you prefer to get up in the morning?

The “little things” that are our cute little habits have the power to bring us back to a sense of ourselves, a return to the value of our unique and unrepeatable personality.

If we continue the comparison, this stage is similar to the design of your apartment or house. What kind of person he should be, how you prefer to live, what you will do with four walls - depends only on you.

What are they - thoughts “about him”?

After regaining rights to your identity, take care of the final stage of “cleaning up.” To make sure that you are not throwing away something useful or important, you should carefully consider and even, perhaps, sort out the “mental garbage” you throw away.

• Let go of the extra burden - thoughts that perhaps you were unworthy of him. Or that your relationship, for example, could be better. That you weren't patient enough or that he wasn't good enough. That you missed out on all the benefits you would have gotten with it. Throw them away without regret- but first make sure they are useless.
• Consider every single thought. I remembered something (it made me sad, inspired me with romantic nostalgia) - don’t drive away these thoughts. You have become yourself and you have become stronger. Now you can face the truth.

And the truth is this:

Everything in your life together happened “for some reason.” It wasn't all in vain. There was a feeling of happiness, joy, pleasure - thank you. There was grief, it was hard - give thanks too. Let go of the situation. And think about this.

Despite what you remember, you only have a subjective opinion - the opinion of one side. While you were carried away into the heavens by a kiss or lit up by a touch, your loved one may have been thinking about pizza or about going to a bar with friends to watch a football broadcast. Or vice versa - when you were burning with anger, tormented by discontent and believed that “he was doing this on purpose” - this person quite sincerely believed that he cared about you and was careful about your feelings.

You cannot claim that his intentions and thoughts were exactly as you imagine them to be.

And only after a careful and thorough analysis that will finally separate you and “him” can you be truly free. Now you won’t need to re-chew “thoughts about him.” Moreover, it will probably be unpleasant for you.

Welcome back to the real world!

Without suffering, it is impossible to feel the taste of life, learn to appreciate it and enjoy every little thing. Trials strengthen character, give impetus to creative development, and form sensitivity to understanding the experiences of other people, but whenever faced with the loss of a relationship, everyone asks the question, Psychology comes to the rescue, giving advice that allows you to accept the current situation.

Love is coming

Even the most tender and sincere relationships can end because human feelings are fickle and cannot always be explained rationally. When people are in love or blinded by passion, they are uncritical of emerging everyday problems, differences in upbringing, perception of life, and shortcomings of their partner. It is impossible to build something lasting and lasting on feelings alone, which means you need to be prepared for the fact that they will end sooner or later. Various studies "give" passion from three to eight years. It should be replaced by mutual respect, cooperation, and spiritual closeness.

But no one is immune from the fact that one of the partners will not develop new feelings for another person, or he will not begin to feel discomfort in the existing relationship. It’s easier for the one who first fell out of love or the first to decide to break up. And a loved one to someone who was not ready for such a development of events, whose feelings are still alive, because it is impossible to simultaneously fall out of love with the wave of a magic wand. The first and most important step that needs to be taken is to recognize the right of everyone to make their own choice and make their own decisions. It is impossible to keep a person near you by appealing to his promises, past confessions and sense of duty.

And the common expression “fighting for love” has nothing to do with putting pressure on a partner. It is rather a call to express one’s own feelings, so that a person understands that he is loved. But he will decide how important it is for him.

Unpromising relationship

At the very beginning of a relationship, there is always the opportunity to interrupt it if one of the partners does not see the prospects for its development. Vulnerable people, with low self-esteem and fear of loneliness, often get involved in such affairs. Instead of developing - working on appearance, intelligence, professional career - a person rushes towards adventurous developments of events. There will be no question of how to get a person out of your head if you stop in time. Unpromising relationships can be a conscious choice of both: a holiday or office romance, a purely sexual relationship, mutual use of each other (teacher-student, leader-subordinate).

This does not ensure that one of the partners will not become psychologically dependent and will not suffer after a breakup. There are examples when such relationships develop into real feelings, but this is always a risk that a person takes quite consciously. However, there are times when this happens unconsciously, if one of the parties stubbornly ignores the signs of a hopeless relationship that should be addressed:

• Obvious shortcomings or habits that the partner is not ready to put up with in the hope of changing the situation and “re-education”.
• Inequality in social status, age, level of development.
• A person will most likely have to face the problem of how to forget a loved one if parents or other significant people are against a relationship with him.
• Unequal contribution to the development of relationships (emotional, financial, personal).
• Lack of mutual interests (besides sex).

Stages of Suffering

When breaking up, a person must be prepared for the fact that it is impossible to leave the relationship with a joyful smile. He will have to go through everything that is akin to the departure of a loved one from life, because now he really has to live without the previous format of communication. What are these stages?

• State of shock and numbness. Especially when the decision to break up takes you by surprise. It may last several days.
• Denial of reality. Instead of solving the problem of how to get a person out of your head, the partner often tries to sort things out, refusing to believe in what is happening. The stage can last a month or more.
• Accepting the current situation and experiencing the real pain of loss. It may last about six months.
• Relieving suffering, relegating it to the background in the name of other tasks and realities of life.

Basic myths

One of the main misconceptions of people is the statement that time heals. Just as it is impossible to skip over the important stages of grief, it is also impossible not to be sad in the depths of your soul about the loss of a once loved one. This is another reason not to carry out dubious experiments on yourself when you get involved in a relationship without a future. But time teaches everyone to overcome pain and store it in the deep storehouses of the soul, allowing a person to live and realize his needs. Even when close relatives pass away, the acute pain dulls and fades into the background after a period of six months to a year.

The second misconception is that a wedge can only be knocked out with a wedge, which means that it is necessary to rush into a new relationship as quickly as possible. Firstly, it is not fair to the partner, who acts as a kind of pill and does not deserve to be used just because someone is going through mental suffering. And secondly, this is dishonest to oneself: without going through all the stages of grief, without making the necessary conclusions about the reasons for the separation, a person will constantly step on the same rake, again solving the problem of how to get the person out of his head.

The treacherous “if only…”

Relief will come only when the partner manages to accept the current situation and come to terms with the decision of the other party. What prevents this most of all? Paradoxically, hope, faith that it is still possible to change something, correct the situation, replay events, words, actions. If a partner has a soft character, he gives a second chance, then a third, but as a result, both waste time, nerves and destroy their own personality. Often, with this decision, the second party allows the first to “fall in love” and cope with the breakup to the detriment of their own interests and feelings. The first one feels better, but the second one develops aggression and hatred towards the one who simply took advantage of him. After all, it’s always easier to leave yourself than to find yourself abandoned.

How to get a loved one out of your head so as not to sow destruction and hatred around you? Respect your partner’s decision and do not try to find someone to blame for the breakup. Feelings go away not because someone is better, but someone is worse. This happens because the two people in the relationship are uncomfortable. You shouldn’t think about “if only…” and rush into the past. You should focus on what needs to change in the future.

Who is guilty?

The destruction of a relationship is always the responsibility of two. People were unable or unwilling to overcome difficulties and misunderstandings. Resentment is a child’s reaction to failed expectations, but the partner cannot be held responsible for the fact that he did not fully meet other people’s expectations. When falling in love passes and the rose-colored glasses fall off, everyone is free to decide whether they are on the same path with this person or not. The inability to accept him as he is is not love, but human selfishness and personal ambitions. The partner always has a choice: stay or leave. Staying means accepting a person with all his shortcomings.

During a romantic relationship, anyone tries to look better than they really are, so you need to be more attentive to those moments of how a person behaves with other people. If he leaves a previous relationship behaving in an unworthy manner, we can predict what will happen when his feelings for his new passion cool down. To overcome grievances, one should not stir up the past; the main motto should be the slogan “Do not remember.” The first step towards this is refusing to look for someone to blame for the destruction of the relationship.

Favorite activities

Memories overwhelm us when there are pauses in our activities. The best thing is to switch to work, a hobby or further education. The main condition is that the work is loved and requires dedication. The day must be planned so that there is no time left for idle pastime. If you have a vacation coming up that can't be rescheduled, it's best to go on a trip. New impressions excite the brain and evoke positive emotions, which are so necessary when you have to find for yourself the answer to the question of how to get a person out of your head.

Music is very helpful and has a therapeutic effect. You should definitely plan concerts of your favorite bands, make videos for their best songs, and discuss the released new album on the forum. All this is possible if the main condition is met - getting rid of the hope of a phone call, a change of decision or the mood of a loved one. This may happen, but let it be a surprise when life shows how much partners can do without each other. And then the decision will be made by the one who was left behind. In the meantime, you should delete the correspondence and stop looking for answers to today’s questions in past words.

Friends

At the first stage, it may be difficult for a person to simply get out of bed and leave the house. I want to be alone and cry. This is fine. Otherwise, how can you forget the person you love? Psychology describes cases when the process is delayed and people lose control of the situation. At these moments, the help of friends is needed and you should turn to them. They are not only able to listen and support a friend, but also help organize leisure time without leaving unnecessary free time. True friends will not make decisions for a person, giving this or that advice, but will focus on which one suffers first.

There is an opinion that you should get rid of all things that remind you of a once loving person. Sometimes this is quite painful to do, so you can simply put everything in one box or drawer and put it in a distant place. Time heals to the extent that after a certain period, the acute phase of pain passes, and a person is able to make a decision, not based on emotions, whether to wear the once-gifted bracelet or not. This will largely depend on whether the partner has found the strength not only to accept the situation, but also to forgive the other person.

Forgiveness

After a few months, anyone is able to ask themselves the main question: what upsets them most about the breakup. Love is not always the cause of emotions. This could be resentment, disappointment, fear of loneliness, or a desire to achieve what you want at any cost - to get your partner back, for example. At this time, you can already abandon the “Don’t remember” rule, because turning to the past will not bring painful experiences. An honest conversation with yourself is very important in order to be ready to build new relationships and draw the right conclusions from past mistakes. The last step should be to forgive the once loved one, for this you need to try to put yourself in his place.

In psychology, there is a method called the Hellinger permutation method, which helps in building relationships between spouses. One of the principles is an attempt to analyze the actions and feelings of a partner. The method leads to an amazing discovery: even a partner who has fallen out of love, skillfully hiding his true feelings behind a mask of indifference or indifference, experiences discomfort and dissatisfaction with himself in his soul. It was also painful and difficult for him to decide to break up, so the other has no choice but to forgive and forget the person with whom it simply turned out to be wrong in this life. Moreover, forgiveness is needed not so much for the partner as for oneself, in order to achieve the necessary harmony and peace.

Only after going all this way does a person become ready for the happiness waiting for him around the corner.

Eckhart Tolle, one of the most famous enlightened spiritual teachers in the Western world, has repeatedly noted that we create and maintain problems because they give us a sense of identity. Perhaps this explains why we often hold on to our pain far longer than its ability to serve us.

We replay past mistakes over and over again in our heads, allowing feelings of shame and regret to shape our actions in the present moment. We cling to feelings of confusion and worry about the future, as if this fixation somehow gives us strength. We hold stress in our minds and bodies, potentially creating health problems for ourselves, and accept this state of tension as normal.

There will never be a time when life will be simple and at the same time develop the way you want. But there will always be time to practice taking it for granted. Every moment you live is a chance to let go of your problems and start living in peace. Here are a few ways to get started - they apply to all sorts of areas of your life - work, relationships, etc.:

How to get rid of unnecessary things from your head

1. Develop a new skill instead of whining about what you can't do and how you can't do something. Every time you do something do, you are by definition smaller think. This does not mean that you become an idiot - rather, unnecessary mental processes come to naught when you are busy with something, and therefore it is worth taking on board.

2. Change yourperception– see in any failures a chance to correct something in your behavior and, as a result, achieve what you want. Learn to disidentify with your problems and look at them from the outside. In this case, the “pain” will disappear, but you will definitely learn something new.

3. Cry it out. According to Dr. William Frey II, a biochemist at Ramsey Medical Center in Minneapolis, crying out negative emotions releases harmful substances that accumulate in the body due to stress. Cry to your heart's content, gentlemen.

4. Channel your frustration in a constructive way by turning it into immediate positive action.– Make a few calls about new positions or visit a charity and ask about volunteering opportunities. The message is similar to the first point - less snot, more action.

5. Use meditation or yoga to bring yourself back to the present moment.(instead of dwelling on the past or worrying about the future). All your problems exist only in the past or future. Once you narrow your perception to the present moment, you you'll see that all problems seem to dissipate.

6. Make a list of your achievements - even small ones - and add to it daily. This will force you to let go of the negative emotions associated with disappointment from something and instead create space for self-satisfaction.

7. Visualize a box in your head labeled “Expectations.” Every time you start obsessing over how something is there must be or it should have been, imagine how you place the thoughts that arise in this box. At the same time, you will increase your ability to distinguish reality from your ideas about it.

8. Keep yourself physically active. Exercise reduces stress hormones and releases endorphins, chemicals that improve your mental state.

9. Focus all your energy on what you can actually control. instead of obsessing over things that are beyond your control.

10. Express your feelings through creative activities such as blogging or painting. Add this item to your to-do list, and cross it off when you're done. This will be a visual reminder that you have actively made the decision to release these feelings.

Let go of anger and bitterness

11. Feel them fully. If you suppress your negative emotions, they can leak out and spill out on the people who are nearby at that moment - and these will not necessarily be those who provoked the anger. Before you can let go of any emotion, you must fully process it through yourself. It should be noted that this is not so easy to do - your ego will in every possible way interfere with the passage of emotions through, because it clings to these emotions in order to thereby declare itself. But you may realize the role your ego plays in all your problems.

12. Give yourself a break. Refrain from contact with the person who angered you for one day. Ideally, work through the emotions you have. This can defuse the hostility and give you time to plan a rational response.

13. Remind yourself that anger hurts you more than the person who upset you. The very realization that you are primarily influenced by your own emotions, and not by other people, will help to quickly dispel any negative emotions.

14. If possible, express your anger to the person who offended you. Let him/her know how you feel and this will help you let go of your negativity and move on. Keep in mind that you cannot control and are not responsible for how a person reacts to what you say. You can only control how clearly and convincingly you express your thoughts and emotions.

15. Take responsibility. Very often, when you are angry, all your attention is directed towards the bad things that the other person has done. You replay in your head those episodes in which he behaved wrong, and thereby only intensify negative emotions. If you focus on what mental processes are going on in those moments, you will clearly you'll see that you create negative experiences yourself. And since you create them yourself, then the best thing to do in terms of saving energy and effectively resolving the situation is to take responsibility for your emotions and focus not on what someone did wrong to you, but on what you could have done in this or that situations so that similar episodes do not recur.

16. Put yourself in the shoes of the person who offended you. We all make mistakes, and the odds are that you could snap in some situation, just like your boyfriend, your husband, your girlfriend, your friend, and so on. Compassion is one of the best ways to dissolve any negative emotions.

17. Remind yourself that in any situation you have only three options: remove yourself from the situation, change the situation and accept it. Each of these actions, with a competent approach to a specific situation, helps to dissolve negative emotions. And each of them eliminates the retention of your bitterness - the sooner you release it, the better for you and your mental health.

Let go of past relationships

18. Identify what this experience taught you. By understanding what you learned from the experience of a particular relationship, you will decide for yourself why you needed this relationship, and this will allow you to put an end to it.

19. Write down everything you want to express. Even if you don’t do anything further with what you wrote (although I strongly recommend that you work through what you wrote!), you will still gain a deeper understanding of your feelings, and this will help you come to terms with reality as it is.

20. Remember both the good and the bad. The past wasn't perfect, even if it doesn't seem that way to you now. Acknowledging this on a logical level will help reduce your feelings of loss.

21. Drop any romance you associate with love. Of course, you should feel bad and hurt if it seems to you that you have lost your “half”. But if you look at reality, throwing away any ideas about love and “romance,” you will realize that there are no unique people, and there cannot be. Accordingly, if you were able to find such an amazing love, it means that you can find another, and more than one, and understanding this will help you move on.

22. Remember who you were beforerelations– remember the person you were before you met your past love. That person was very cool, and now you have the opportunity to be that person again.

23. Throw the person out of your life at the level of your environment. Remove/delete/archive all photos, messages, letters. There is no reason to keep something in your life that you no longer have, be it something “positive” or “negative”.

24. Post the following statement somewhere visible.“Loving yourself means letting go.”

25. Replace your emotions with facts. If you have the attitude “I won’t have love anymore!” in your head, don’t suppress these thoughts. Instead, turn your attention to other thoughts, like “I felt good alone, and I will feel good in the future,” and notice which thoughts resonate more strongly with you.

Let go of stress

26. Engage in group activities. If you're doing something with other people, being with those people tends to be enjoyable. In addition to this, communicating with people in this context helps to fit your problems into the overall picture of life more organically.

27 . Use Eckhart Tolle's quote: “Worries seem necessary, but serve no useful purpose.” Ask yourself how your stress helps you in your life and how it hinders you, and write down your thoughts on paper. Just looking at the proportion of negative aspects of stress will be enough to, at a minimum, create the intention to get rid of stress.

28. Metaphorically release it. Write down all your stresses for later processing, and then throw the paper into the fire.

29 . Go to the sauna in your free time. Research shows that Then look twenty years into the future, and then thirty years into the future. This will help you realize that many of the things you worry about now don't really matter in the big picture.

31. Organize your desk. Completing a small task can help you increase your sense of control and reduce your stress levels.

32. Take your stress practically.. Make two lists: one with the underlying causes of your stress, and the other with actions to eliminate them. As you complete these tasks, watch how the energy you previously spent on stress is now transferred to other tasks.

33. Have a laugh. Laughter relieves stress, improves your immune system, and even relieves pain. In the short term, you can just watch a funny video on YouTube, but don’t ignore effective techniques that will help you basically eliminate negativity from your life - then laughter will come to you on its own, and much more often.

It's a long list, but there's so much more to say! Can you think of anything else to add to this list? What areas of your life require you to learn to let go?

I am 22 years old. More than a year ago I broke up with my boyfriend, with whom I had lived together for more than two years. I still don’t understand why they separated and on whose initiative this happened. The overall picture looks like this: for a year and a half we lived almost in perfect harmony, but I was the clear leader in the relationship, it was embarrassing from time to time that he was driven, loving, and actually lacking initiative, somewhere this pleased my vanity, but also sometimes made me think, Do I love this person or am I just playing around with being the head of the family; but at some point everything changed dramatically: I myself noticed how I became apathetic, uninteresting, no longer wanted anything or anyone, and by that moment everything was getting ready for the wedding; scandals (exclusively with my claims) were replaced by a complete lack of interest in what was happening, then the desire to break off the relationship, which remained only a desire, and finally - the termination of intimate relationships (and every time I looked for “excuses”, and when this happened, it came to the point of absurdity - it seemed to me that I was almost being raped). I was turning into a “vegetable” - boring, uninteresting, unkempt, but he blossomed, became more confident, he had his own interests, his mother arrived very opportunely (who didn’t like me at all), he became more and more rude, and I kept on " It's a pity." I still can’t believe that I wrote this malicious: “I’ve had enough. Let’s just stop talking. Drop off the keys tomorrow. This is the end.” Why am I doing this?.. Just a conversation with questions and answers was what I needed. So we separated, and a week later he and his parents left for Egypt. They gave him a gift (which they promised us for exactly three New Years in a row - ironic). And after that it started: I suddenly took care of myself, started looking for someone new (by the way, he was my first man), in public I was the embodiment of cheerfulness, and at night and with my parents I simply climbed the walls, I don’t have such a state it never happened: I didn’t eat, smoked a lot, refused to take sedatives, and cried at home for days. And then this destructive thought “I really love him” came. By the way, I tried to get him back a month after that, even offered just sex, hoping that he would feel something for me again (after all, he directly said that he had stopped loving him), and then I gathered my will and all my pride and cut off contacts ( and he didn’t try to restore them). Success at work began, new guys appeared. And now I’ve been dating a guy for six months, but I don’t feel anything for him at all - nothing, emptiness. I constantly remember my ex, I understand that I idealize our relationship. And when he congratulated him on his birthday (this is the second year now - we congratulate each other, we text each other all night and no more contacts throughout the year), I wanted to write after the first message: “I miss you madly.” I endured, I endure... I remember, I think... constantly. And his life is in full swing, he lives in a way that I would never have imagined when we were together. Somewhere I understand my guilt: I pressed, oppressed... most likely, I went too far with my domineering character, and in the end I also let myself down (in many respects); I understand that it’s very sweet for him without me, but I feel bad.. I firmly believe in what I love. But I can't do this anymore. How to forget?