“Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.”
—Bruce Lee
When you find yourself forced to recover from a breakup or divorce, you are confronted with one core problem you have to solve:
How do I stop thinking about my Ex and move on?
In a nutshell, you do that by taking three (easy) steps:
- You have a rock-bottom insight that you need to change your situation desperately.
- You get the intellectual knowledge of what exactly you need to do.
- You create a daily action habit that supports this insight.
And boom! You're over them!
Easy, right?
… Well, maybe not that easy. Let me walk you through it, step by step.
STEP 1 – The Rock-Bottom Experience
The first step — before you do anything else — is that you have to WANT to stop thinking of them and move on.
That doesn't always come naturally because usually, there’s a huge obstacle:
We still love them.
Depending on where you are in your recovery, you might even subconsciously self-sabotage your disengagement process because you simply don't want to lose them.
Imagine a scale.
On the right side of that scale is your wish to move on. On the left side is losing them for good.
At the very beginning of your journey, the scale tips to the left, as if you've put a thousand pounds on it.
The right side is still empty.
Later, as you progress through the phases of your breakup, the scale will tip in favor to the right side: your motivation to move on.
You must want to move on MORE than you are afraid of losing your Ex.
But many are stuck in this first step, and the scale doesn't tip to the right for a very long time.
How do we make the scale tip faster to the favorable direction?
The fastest way is a rock-bottom experience like the one I had a long time ago.
You painfully have to come to the conclusion that you cannot go on like this anymore.
Maybe you have tried everything to get them back — from stalking to texting a thousand times — and all you’ve accomplished is to embarrass yourself (though don’t beat yourself up about it, it wasn’t for nothing).
And there you are.
You’ve painfully realized that they’re not coming back, and yet you continue to love them so much.
So what do you do?
You start looking for alternatives.
And boom, the scale tips, and your recovery begins.
Okay, let’s take a look at step two.
Step 2 – What to Do, and What to Avoid
Once you see the need to move on and let go — let's say you had that rock-bottom experience — you still lack the tools of this process:
What to do exactly and which mistakes to avoid.
This isn't always obvious, and unfortunately, they don't teach this stuff in school (though they most definitely should).
Also, the advice of friends and family isn't always reliable because they're motivated by their own agenda, and often, they are wrong, plain and simple (and believe me, bad advice is way worse than no advice at all).
But let's say that you've found me, and I've taught you all the magic of breakup survival.
That’s when you have to take the next step.
Step 3 – Execution and the Daily Habits
Now you need to create a daily habit of the things you must do that will get you quickly over your Ex.
Use effective tools to stop thinking of your Ex and obsessing over them.
Unfortunately, just knowing the magic alone doesn't help you at all.
You MUST do the work consistently (let's say, over a 60-day period).
In a nutshell, this is how you stop thinking and move on from your Ex:
Want. Know. Do.
3 steps to stop thinking about your Ex: Want. Know. Do.That's why one of the very first things you'll learn in my DETOX Course is the mindset you'll have to adapt during your healing.
The “Healing Matras,” as I call it.
After that, you'll learn all the tools and how to apply them correctly:
The complete breakup survival magic.
By the way, the quote at the beginning of this article from Bruce Lee is one of my all-time favorites; I advise you to keep it in mind in all the areas of your life.
… Especially when your goal is getting over an Ex.
Your friend and coach,
Eddie Corbano
I’m spending too much time imagining him with his new girlfriend. I’ve even seen her. She looks so much better than me. Turns out he was seeing her long before we broke up. He needed no recovery time. He was over me before it was over. That pains me more than anything. Well… the fact his new lady looks fantastic. He even pointed out how unattractive I am in his break up rant. *pain* Moving on really feels impossible. Especially since I’ve never had a successful relationship. Is there such a thing as a successful relationship? Actually my best friend has an awesome one. I think they are a success. Me, on the other hand, I keep getting into these terrible relationships. I’m starting to realize it’s because I chase but no man has chased me. No man.
Am I ready to speak to my ex? Should I speak to my ex? I want her to know why I initiated no contact, however, I do not want the set-back. I want to move forward and I trust with each day of no contact I am one day closer to closure. Each day I resume contact, I am re-setting the clock as I have been trying no contact for over a month. Today will be 5 days (almost six, since I cut off contact early Sunday morning).
Why the no contact? I still carry with me hurt and anger with regard to her betrayals. It showed a complete lack of respect and concern for my feelings. This is a common theme of hers as she truly has an inability to understand how her actions may affect others, she simply keeps every part of her life compartmentalized and proceeds through life with the idea that one relationship has nothing to do with the other. She herself does not need to subscribe to the idea of monogamy, but she expects her partners to be monogamous. Yes quite hypocritical.
After 3 years of many ons and many offs, I fell deeply in love (at least what I was quick to label love). It really was just an addiction, lured by her many positive traits, particularly her seductiveness, coupled with a neediness (her life is surrounded by conflict and she has a limited ability to be responsible and manage the small aspects of life). I was able to feel like the superhero constantly coming to her rescue and resolving whatever problem she may be experiencing at that moment. She always left me feeling wanting, she knew just when to pull back and when to engage. Feeding my inner need to get us to a better place and have more control and greater sense of security.
Real life relationships are not as they are described in the movies. Another person should never “complete you” . Another person should never “make you a better man” or “woman” . If so, then this is us just being co-dependent and needy. Sure fire ingredients to destroy any relationship. It’s like cooking, the ingredients we use to cook are there to complement each other and as a result make something better and bigger than each of the individual ingredients. If you put too much of any one ingredient in the mix, the dish will not taste good. If your ingredient is spoiled the dish will be ruined. Relationships work the same way. Each person must do their part, and neither person can make up for the other’s shortcomings.
Unlike the movies, we must think with our heads not our hearts. Our “hearts” our flooded with dopamine, norepinephrine and oxytocin, which in turn makes us believe we are in “love” . These are the same chemicals that are released in our body when doing cocaine. It is just our body reacting to the release of these chemicals. Also, the oxytocin can turn on us and enhance the negative feelings, which is why so many of us feel so shitty right now.
Relationships are drugs and to managed by two very centered, responsible people that are self-aware. When we are in “love” we have the ability to make very bad decisions, allowing our need for this relationship drug to trump our rational thinking. The same is true for drug addicts in active addition. This is why breakups are like kicking a drug habit and no-contact is so very important.
No person is going to come to our rescue. In fact, our friends and family probably have zero interest in hearing us whine about this relationship when they were probably warning us to get out all along. We have to suck it up and do the work it will take to move on. It’s not easy, but it gets easier just so long as we are doing the work. That means more than anything else, sticking to no-contact. There is only one thing we have to do perfectly each day and that is maintain no-contact. If we don’t make it to the gym, oh well there is always tomorrow. If we over eat, oh well there is always tomorrow, if we don’t cross off everything on our to-do lists, oh well there is always tomorrow. If we fail in our no-contact endeavor the consequences are far more severe.
I totally agree with you.. I have experienced this too. Thank u for sharing
I came across this website about one month ago or so, at the we were over with I thought. Then, after only a few days, we were in contact again. I broke the no contact. We got back together and it was alright for a little while. Now, we had the worst fight ever. You blocked me and told me this was the last time we would speak. It hurts.
I hurt. I’ve been unsure, I didn’t know if I really had feelings for you or not, but now that you’re gone permanently, it hurts.
So me and my ex broke up almost 4 months ago. He has moved on and blocked me. Problem i have is I constantly call and text him and I still hurt…a lot. I don’t understand why I keep calling and texting. Sometimes he talks to me and will make me feel like there’s something there just to turn around and tell me to leave him alone. I just want to get through this. Help! I want to move on
Hi Meredith, how is everything going for you? I would have suggested that you block his number so you can’t receive any of his texts and phone calls. At work, it would be hard but try to avoid him. Think of what sort of person he really is. Who would text an ex whilst in a relationship? He’s not a very nice person. Tell yourself what you need to so that you can move on and make yourself number 1 priority.
So…..what do you do when you work with your ex & it’s been three years & things are not where they should be?
No Contact done & done & done!
Problem is I get drunk calls (I do not pick up) of I love you, you are who I want to grow old with, then I get the speeches like I’m miserable, I’m going to make this right & my personal favorite….be patient, have faith!
Oh & did I mention he lives with his girlfriend of 3 years. He broke up with me in an email after 7 years & in two minutes he was with who he is with now!
He destroys me when he says those things & I used to think he was keeping me from moving on but I realize I’m allowing him to do this to me. I just want to move on but I can’t seem to.
I don’t know what to do.