Do you have an ex who lives rent-free in your head? If you do, you’re not alone. Many people are haunted by their past partners’ words and actions, even years after they’ve split up. In fact, some are even influenced by former lovers who aren’t even alive anymore!
This usually happens when someone’s presence in your life makes an enormous impact — for good or ill — and you don’t have proper closure once they’ve gone. If you want to reclaim your emotional power over your life while eliminating theirs, try the following approaches:
1. Get rid of any of their belongings that are still in your possession.
Consider this a type of exorcism, if you will.
A lot of people hold onto items for the sake of sentimentality, even when the memories associated with those things are less-than-healthy ones. One perfect example of this would be someone who keeps jewelry that their former partner gave them, even when it only serves to keep unhelpful thoughts of their ex alive.
Holding onto items like these keeps both memories and other people’s influences alive. Think about it this way: any time you wear that necklace or ring, you’ll remember your ex and reinforce the emotions associated with your relationship – whether positive or negative. Sell those things online and buy yourself something completely new instead, something that only has your own positive energy associated with it.
2. If you haven’t already severed contact yet, do so.
Remaining in contact with an ex who still has influence and power over your emotions is like choosing to hold onto a burning coal: you’re only going to keep getting burned until you drop it. Eliminate the people from your life who are no longer healthy for you, especially if they tried to dominate or control you, even if it means blocking them in every way imaginable, or moving to another area. Or country.
If you’re forced to remain in contact because you have shared custody of the children you had together, then reduce communications to the bare minimum. Go “gray rock” with this person: don’t divulge any more personal information than you absolutely have to, don’t show any emotion, and don’t rise to any of their baiting barbs.
3. Make decisions solely for yourself.
After a breakup, many people look back and realize just how much their partner influenced (or even controlled) their life choices: from the clothes they wore to the type of foods they ate. If this has been your experience, take the opportunity to make decisions on your own terms now that you aren’t being led by this person anymore.
For example, I recently read a social media post about a woman who hadn’t tasted her favorite type of pizza in over a decade because her “wasbund” hated it and refused to allow it in the house while they were married. Now that she lives alone, she ordered that favorite and wept with joy at being “permitted” to make her own food choices again for the first time in years.
4. Continual, subtle course corrections.
If you’ve ever gone canoeing, you’ve probably noticed that a big push in one direction will inevitably result in a big rocking motion in the other direction. Similarly, taking a massive step with regard to eliminating your ex’s power over you may result in it yo-yoing back — especially if you act hastily and then feel guilt over your actions.
Approach this like quitting smoking, in that your goal isn’t to quit for life: you’re quitting for just that day. And then the next. You just need to “win” today, and once you’ve achieved that, set the same goal for tomorrow.
Freedom is measured by small steps taken, not grandiose lost journeys.
5. Positive visualizations and meditations.
When a partner had a great deal of emotional power over us for a long time, their voice may arise unbidden at any given moment. You could be cooking, and suddenly you’ll “hear them internally telling you that you’re cutting that vegetable the wrong way. Alternatively, you may feel an emotion welling up and immediately invalidate your own feelings the same way that they used to.
In a situation like this, positive visualizations and meditations can be immensely helpful. First and foremost, recognize that it’s their voice that’s haunting you and not your own, authentic response. Then, try to visualize their words being encapsulated in a bubble or cloud, and picture yourself blowing it away with every exhaled breath. If you struggle to visualize things, keep a bottle of bubble solution with a wand nearby, and do this meditation physically instead.
6. Stop yourself from looking to others for validation to break old habits.
If you were with a partner who exerted a lot of emotional control over you, chances are you learned to look to them for approval and validation whenever you did anything. If you did well, you were rewarded. If not, then you might have been made to feel like you had disappointed or disgusted them in some way.
Over time, you stopped trusting your own instincts and started looking to them for reassurance that you were being “good” and doing the “right thing”. Now that they’re out of your life, you may be using your friends or family members as stand-ins — essentially turning to them for that reassurance since you’re no longer getting it from your ex.
Aim to curb this habit quickly whenever it arises by remembering that you can trust yourself and your own decisions. You don’t need someone else to validate anything about your life anymore.
7. Don’t lose yourself in mental replays.
You may have fought hard and done a lot of work to extricate yourself from your ex’s influence, but you still find yourself ruminating on the past experiences you had with them. Maybe you keep replaying arguments or other scenarios in your head, thinking about what you would have chosen to do differently, or berating yourself for what you feel you should have done at the time.
Whenever this happens, bring yourself back to the present moment and focus on what’s going on here and now. You can do the five-senses meditation if that works for you, or do something small to “shock” yourself back into where you are now.
Some people wear a hair tie around their wrist and snap it to create a physical sensation that disrupts their mental and emotional spiraling, while others may stroke their hands or splash cold water on their faces. Do whatever is needed to prevent yourself from slipping back into a place where your ex still has power over you.
Final thoughts…
It’s awful to have to recover from the effects of being with a person who had emotional control over you, but the good news is that their influence doesn’t have to last forever. You can release the hold they had over you and reclaim your own power again.
Do the things listed here on a regular basis, and don’t feel frustrated if the severance isn’t effective the first time. See this rather like slowly cutting a binding rope on a piece of stone: it needs to be worn down and frayed thinly before it finally snaps, and sets you free.
