Getting over your ex: What to do

Edwin Selij
December 08, 2019

A relationship breaking up for any reason is always painful for both parties. Depending on whether you broke up the relationship or left it, you may have less or more difficulty processing your heartbreak. Getting over your ex can take a while, and sometimes you just want things to move a little faster. So what can you do? That's what I address in this blog

Getting over your ex

When a relationship ends, it affects how you feel. In some way, you feel like you’ve failed. A relationship gives your life more meaning, and when that relationship ends, it can be very hard to accept—was it all for nothing?

You can spend a long time daydreaming about your ex and what could have been, but that will only make you sad in the end.

It’s important to properly process heartbreak, especially when you’re still young. A broken relationship as a young adult can lead to suicidal thoughts and trigger a first episode of depression[1].

A broken relationship can also cause the following:

This is especially true when you are dumped or your long-term relationship has broken down. Especially in the first few months after the relationship has broken up you may suffer from this, then it gradually decreases[3].

Getting over your ex

There are a number of things you can do to get over your ex. For example, you can turn to friends and family to talk about your emotions and get support. For example, social support makes you feel like you are good enough and accepted just the way you are. In addition, you can get tips from those around you on how to deal with "the breakup" in a healthy way. You can also get financial support from this and simply that you are doing something with other people to pass your time.

If this is not an option for you, you can also do this with a life coach, hypnotherapist or psychologist.

In addition, you can also express your emotions, for example, by creating art. This could be music, dancing, a painting, or a sculpture—whatever helps you release the emotion rather than bottling it up. When you bottle up your emotions, it can cause additional stress in your body, which in turn can make you sick[4].

For example, expressing emotions can be improved with cognitive behavioral therapy. The great thing about this form of therapy is that it can also be performed in combination with hypnosis, which often gets you results faster.

As a third option, you can also write down clearly what happened next that led to the breakup of the relationship. This is a technique that is especially useful when a relationship has ended due to the death of your partner, divorce or when a long-term relationship has broken down.

For example, you write down what happened to the relationship using cause-and-effect words, such as: Therefore, because of, and then.

In addition, insight words are also important to use when writing all this down, such as: Now I understand, realize.

This helps you get over your ex and gives you a greater sense of control over the broken relationship[5].

Beliefs that don't help you let go

So when your relationship is broken, you may suffer from fears. For example, the fear of whether you can handle life on your own. The fear of being attractive to the opposite sex. All kinds of fears can be triggered when you lose your partner.

Those fears often stem from old emotional baggage you carry with you. By releasing that emotional baggage, you can often overcome your fears much more easily.

Hypnosis helps you let go of old emotional baggage through techniques such as regression. Fears stem from your beliefs about how the world works and how you’re supposed to function within it.

Those beliefs don't have to be logical, however, because your beliefs are often formed in your childhood. And as a child, you really don't always know how everything works and what exactly is happening and going on.

With regression, the hypnotist first puts you under hypnosis. Then you are suggested to go back to the first moment that gave you emotional baggage. Because you are in hypnosis, a thought or memory will immediately present itself to you and that is often the moment that caused the conviction.

Then the hypnotist will help you with suggestions to interpret the moment now with your mature knowledge. This can change your beliefs quite quickly, releasing a lot of emotional baggage and making it easier to overcome your fears instead of running from them.

Overcoming fears

In addition, you can also use a more direct approach to overcoming fears. To do this, you start visualizing the fear as a thing. You give your fear a shape. Keep it to 1 fear at a time.

When the fear has taken shape, you can visualize that you are somewhere with your fear. You can also give the fear (how you visualized it) a color or a name. What does your fear feel like? Does your fear have a form, a personality, a particular feeling? Is your fear secretly a bully? If you could touch your fear, how does it feel?

If your fear takes the form of an animal or monster, it is good to realize that they can be tamed.

Now think about how fear feeds on itself. In what situations fear suddenly says "hello."

After all, ultimately you have the power over your fear. When you take a moment to think about your fear, you can better control it.

Now think about your fear again and imagine that your fear is hurt, in pain and needs to be taken care of.

Walk up to your fear and see it. Feel empathy and understanding for your fear. Touch your fear and feel how he is. Put your arms around it and give it a hug. Feel real love for your fear. And show that love with compassion and tenderness. Transform your fear into something beautiful and gentle.

You can also tame your fear. For example, if your fear is a wall, you can walk right through it. If it's an angry monster, you slice it up with a sword. If your fear is an animal, transform your fear into the cutest little animal you can hug.

Do this just until you feel well enough to talk to or overcome your anxiety.

Right off the screen, this is often difficult, so you can go to a hypnotherapist for this.

At the end, you see your fear go away and celebrate the victory of your fear. All is well and right in the world you are in now.

This exercise works well to also change your mindset from the negativity of having to get over your ex to a mindset of love for the world and life.

You are your own alternative

When you suddenly find yourself on your own, it’s important to realize that you can achieve your life goals just fine on your own and that you don’t necessarily need your ex to do so. You are your own alternative to your ex.

Self-love is key to this. You can reinforce this with hypnotic affirmations.

This is something you can practice at home with self-hypnosis. A hypnotherapist will first help you with affirmations so you get suggestions that match the self-love you need.

These may include suggestions such as:

"I am loving and compassionate."

"I care deeply about others."

"I am worthy of receiving love."

"I am a loving partner."

"I am honest and authentic."

These are just examples of suggestions. Depending on your beliefs and insecurities, the hypnotherapist will provide suggestions that apply to your situation.

With that, you also often receive an mp3 with a recording that helps you induce self-hypnosis at home to get the best possible effects and thus get over your ex faster.

Would you like to help yourself or others get over their exes using hypnosis? Then come to a hypnosis workshop. There, you’ll learn how to hypnotize people in just one day. The workshops are held in Wormerveer and/or Zwolle.

Would you like to get started right away with techniques like the ones described above? Then come to a seminar or sign up for the courses offered by the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands. The courses are held in Wormerveer and Zwolle or can be taken online.

[1] https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Getting-over-you%3A-Contributions-of-attachment-for-Fagundes/c70833f67406cec65d8a4ed023025a22331ffe31

[2] https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/handle/10355/14192

[3] https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10355/14192/research.pdf?sequence=2

[4] https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10355/14192/research.pdf?sequence=2

[5] https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10355/14192/research.pdf?sequence=2