A client reached out recently who could not stop obsessing over an ex-husband. This woman was having trouble moving on because she kept ruminating over the relationship – especially the way that it ended.
I Can’t Stop Obsessing Over My Ex-Husband
There are several things we as women need to discuss and dig into in a situation where we can’t obsessing over an ex, especially in our divorce recovery phase. When we are ‘looping’ our thoughts around something specific, it’s because there’s something there for us to learn, explore, release, do differently, and expand on.
How to Remove Trapped Emotions and Energy Blocks
The first thing I want us to explore when we women are looping around something painful is: Is there a stuck or blocked emotion that needs to be processed, released, or worked through?
The experience of ‘releasing’ an emotion is an important step to moving forward in your life after divorce. It’s just like that feeling when you know that you need to cry it out, and you will instantly feel better.
How Can I Move Forward in My Life?
In life, emotions become stuck inside of us; sometimes, we know it, and sometimes we don’t. This stuckness is blocking us from being able to move forward and overcome our divorce trauma, but how do we process it? How do we get it to move?
These emotions are like a blockage in a pipe. You have to imagine that there is something inside your body stopping positive energy from flowing.
The experience of life after divorce and the emotions from this relationship cannot ‘exit’ your body because of this blockage. There are many reasons for this situation, but sometimes it’s as simple as not resting enough, or your body lacks the nutritional components that it needs to be able to detoxify energy or emotion from your body. Just as your kidneys and liver detoxify your blood and your urine, our body needs to get rid of that negative energy.
The complexity of our mind, body, and spirit is so vast that there is a reason why emotion isn’t leaving you or if you’re looping on what your ex did or didn’t do, and it will come to you.
But how do we women start to process it? You need to create some space.
#1 Listening to Your Body
First things first, you need to make some space and take care of your body’s needs.
Eat well, get some rest, make sure you’re hydrated, and then start breathing.
#2 Breathing Exercise
- Take a deep breath and focus on the experience and emotion you’ve been looping about.
- Think about how it hurt you, how wrong it was, and how fucked up it was.
- Breathe slowly and deeply for long enough that you feel as though something is about to surface (this may take a while, so I need you to be patient).
When you do this for long enough, every cell in your body becomes open and available to release, which is a beautiful thing. Keep breathing, and when you finally notice these feelings rising to the surface, cross your arms over your chest with one hand on each shoulder.
#3 EMDR Butterfly Tapping Exercise
When you are ready in the EMDR butterfly tapping exercise position, you will start what’s known as the ‘Butterfly Tapping Exercise.’
- Tap your shoulders left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right for as long as it feels appropriate, then stop and see what comes up.
- Repeat this over and over until you feel that emotional release.
When we’re looping about something, there usually is a lot in there to deal with. This process will be intense, and it may come with feelings of distress. You will have a lot of upset thoughts. But it’s important to keep in mind that all of this is happening for you, not against you.
Why Does This Happen to Me?
If you do all this work with the idea that this is happening against you, you will feel worse in your life after divorce. You will feel suffering and not relief.
You must reframe your thinking and see it as your job to clear the blockage and allow the good stuff to come to you.
This will encourage positive change.
Everything changes for the better as you step along the path. Victim consciousness is so prevalent in the world, and I reject this narrative because this isn’t about what you ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’ have to go through. You have been asking for things to get better, to grow and change and have a better life.
Your life can get as good as you want it to be. The universe always has your back. Go with it.
Change for the Better
Women were built for magnificence. You are pure magic. Bring that attitude to this looping space and notice how that mindset creates curiosity. When we as women come from a place of faith, trust, and belief that the price of my new life is letting go of the old one and releasing victim consciousness, it will all come together.
Shift Your Mindset
Once you have done the breath work, butterfly tapped, and written in your journal with the goal to stop obsessing over an ex, the next key piece to getting unstuck is to shift your mindset.
Our minds grab for familiar habits, patterns, and ways of thinking, and changing our belief systems really boils down to changing our thoughts.
The majority of what you think is based on false premises and flawed thoughts – meaning they can’t be proven or there is some error built into them.
If you put your thoughts under a logic microscope, they would disintegrate. Acknowledging that a fraction of your thoughts are correct and a fraction of them are incorrect should encourage you to step back and observe them. Sorting through your thoughts is incredibly useful. You have to get really intentional about changing the channel and creating a different mental trend.
How to Be Open to Receive
If you’re struggling with disciplined thoughts, it may be because you’re missing the motivation to achieve this goal. Often women experience these negative feelings, but you have to do the work and open yourself up to allow the positive energy in. When you’re pinched off from love or when you are bitter or resentful, it takes up too much room, and the good stuff can’t get to you.
If you want all of your prayers to be answered, your job is to get happy.
And I would guess that when you’re looping on the thoughts, you’re not feeling happy.
We attract what we are.
When you’re looping on the negative dark thoughts, say to yourself, “I can’t have what I desire if I don’t change this mental habit.” This will give you the motivation to reach for a happier thought. Now, this is tricky in the beginning, but it’s worth it.
I advise women who are struggling with this process to start singing Happy Birthday in the middle of the looping thought. It sounds silly (and you probably can’t help but chuckle to yourself), but it will change your thought pattern and make it easier to become happier in the moment. This trick helps you move on from that negative thought and onto a different one – preferably a thought that makes you feel good.
How to Get Unstuck: A Recap
Let’s recap this process on how to stop obsessing over an ex:
#1 Make Space:
When you’re looping mentally on something, and you’re struggling to move forward, the first thing you have to understand is there is very likely a stuck emotion in there that needs to be processed. You need to make space.
#2 Breathe:
Use your breath and butterfly tap until you feel the emotion and thoughts release. Make sure you do that with a very clear mindset that this is happening for you and not against you.
#3 Disrupt The Negative Thought:
When the thoughts come back in the future, sing Happy Birthday and change the channel of your mind to something more joyful.
If you do these things, your life will dramatically change for the better. You were built for greatness, divinity, personal power, and well-being. You were not built to suffer.
You are here for a reason, and we women are meant to be having this conversation. If you have questions about how to stop obsessing over your ex in your divorce recovery, send them to me.
