Whether you’re trying to decide how best to spend your time, or you’re struggling with a major decision, try this little experiment for size - you may just get the insight you’re looking for.
I devised this thought experiment to help others add a little perspective and hopefully ease the decision-making process when trying to make a major decision like:
should I stay in a relationship?
should I end this relationship?
I’m not happy in this relationship, but I’ve invested a lot of time and money so should I stay?
Typically, those are not easy decisions to make and at worse, some people can put themselves through unnecessary hard times by prolonging a bad relationship instead of breaking up with their partner.
If you’re going through this right now - you’re in a bad relationship and you don’t know whether you should break up with your girlfriend / boyfriend, then this is for you:
Think about what you’re feeling right now: it’s probably not good. Your emotions may be up and down on a daily basis, especially if you’re having constant arguments with your partner. Deep inside, you feel you two should split up, but you hesitate.. you can’t come to - or face - this decision. Something is stopping you - a thought, an idea, a concept, a fear…
Realise that whatever is stopping you is something in the NOW - and it’s probably in your head. So instead, take yourself somewhere else - away from the now - and look at back at the now (from a distance) and see how you feel about things then.
Imagine you have a time travelling machine, and you could use it once, to visit yourself in the future. Imagine now that you step in and you go to the future, and there you see yourself, old and frail, after a life-time of enduring whatever you’re enduring right now.
Here, in this place, you discover that you have 1 hour to live, then it’s lights out. Now realise as you look down on your frail self, how fast all that time went by…
Did you enjoy the ride?
Did you make the best out of your time?
Did you make sure that nobody gave you second-class behaviour, but instead treated you as you treated them?
If not, then guess who’s to blame for this decision? That’s right… in the end, the buck stops with you. Don’t think of blaming other people for how things turned out for you because the truth is that whatever you say, you probably had some control over the outcome (in this context). Let me give you some examples:
my ex is to blame: (s)he took advantage of me (no, you allowed your ex partner to take advantage of you).
my ex wouldn’t split up with me (no, (s)he didn’t want to break up and you decided to stay in the relationship, using your ex as your excuse for staying
etc…
Forget about coming up with other reasons and stay with the image of you in the future, looking at yourself, 1 hour from death. Tell the excuses to the old you… explain to the old you why you had a miserable time…
There’s only one real explanation: you allowed it.
Can you live with this decision in the future? If you can’t, then why are you living with it in the now?
Note that this thought experiment should be used with caution - it’s purpose is to help you create an educated guess about how life my have been, based on current events - if you let them continue as they are. In other words, if you know you should get out of a relationship because it’s bringing you nothing but stress and heartache and yet you find yourself coming up with reasons as to why you shouldn’t breakup - reasons that you know are nothing more than excuses (like the amount of time you’ve invested in the relationship) then you should out yourself through the experiment.
If the outcome of the thought experiment is a life of misery, then you have a choice to make: either change or fix the issue in the now, or get out.
How to stop thinking about an ex - this appears to be one of the most searched for relationship and breakup answers. The irony is that it really has nothing to do with relationships or breakups or being dumped… it has to do only with thought management - how you manage your own internal dialog.
Many recently (and not so recently) dumped singles struggle by on an emotional roller coaster because they seem to be unable to stop thinking about their ex girlfriends and (or) boyfriends.
Moreover, many people go on suffering for a long time - needlessly! - because of a very simple but common mistake: by looking for the answer externally. Most people in this position look at the relationship, at their ex partner, at everything… they analyze every detail of what went on, what was said, what was thought… and they play those movies in their mind, time and again, achieving nothing much other than reliving the bad stuff.
The only place you need to look, is inside. The thoughts are originating from the inside.
Wasn’t that easy? OK, so now you know where the thoughts are coming from (you knew this all along… you just needed a little reminder…). The next thing is: how to deal with this - how to actually stop yourself from constantly thinking about your ex.
Easy.
Here’s a golden nugget: you can only consciously hold on to and focus on ONE thought at any one time. So what’s the deal? To stop thinking about an ex - or about anything else! - simply… stop!
Before you say, “but I can’t…” let’s take a minute out from reality and face a few facts.
nobody is making you think your thoughts
you’re thinking about your ex, because YOU are thinking about your ex - not because somebody else is making you think about her or him
The only key step here is to become aware of your thoughts, and to take responsibility for them. They’re you’re thoughts, after all.
Start monitoring yourself, listening out for those thoughts… and as soon as they enter your conscious, replace them.
That’s it.
Find something that works for you to replace them with. Examples are:
a short affirmation (”I am cool, awesome and great”)
white noise (”blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh”)
an unrelated scene from the past that feels good to you
an unrelated scene from the future that feels good to you
nothing
You really have a lot of choices here. Remember, you’re only replacing ONE single thought. There is sound theory behind this seemingly simplistic technique, which shows that the synaptic response in the brain can be collapsed through repetition in exactly the same way that it was created and maintained… by you.
But for now, just accept that this is the way the mind works.
