by Natalie Lue
If you want to like and love yourself, start doing things that add to your life and make you feel good. Sex and romantic partners, or the possibility of these two things are not the only things that can make you feel good. If you fill up your life with meaning and plans, this will bolster your confidence and sense of self which makes you happier, which also gives off positive vibes, and will find you in situations where you’re more likely to meet someone who vibrates with a more positive you.
Irrespective of what sex you are, as human beings, we feel more confident about having a relationship with someone who believes they’re an entity who has cultivated a life of their own.
It is daunting to be around someone whose only life is you. It screams
codependency and this is not attractive and will have you taken advantage of by the wrong types of people. This is another reason why NC is so effective. It says ‘Actually, I do have a life beyond you!’
-- Do the things you want to do now. Do not put off enjoying your life until some far off date in La La Land when you hope to have a man. Don’t let men eat up your good years! You don’t get back this time and I know that the day I made my life about me, my health, self-esteem, confidence and life immediately changed for the better.
-- Get out there and grab life. Take up hobbies, try them out, discard them, join clubs, take a class, eat where you want, do a marathon, whatever. Grab life!
-- Make plans for your week instead of hoping someone will come along and make them for you at the last moment.
-- You have to create a social life otherwise… you’ll do nothing or half-heartedly accept invites. Put a calendar on the wall or in your phone so that you can see what you’re doing and fill it up.
-- Read your local paper or check out local sites. My favourite resource to recommend is Meetup.com. It’s transformed the lives of so many readers. Search for meetups in your area by interest or just sign up for something. The great thing is that you get to practise hanging out in groups and getting to know people without an agenda. Also check out eventbrite.com, Time Out (also the mag), and a hell of a lot more. There’s also a plethora of interest-based sites so get on them and out there. Whilst it’s not for everyone, if you like eating out, try one of those dinner dating sites, or look at dating events based around interests. I know that you can go on mystery walks and do outdoor stuff with singles. Yes there may be a few cringey moments, but you’ll be getting out there.
-- Try stuff and go along for the hell of it. You never know, you might like it. If not, leave and try something else next time. The more things you try, the more likely you are to find regular things you like.
-- Keep your head up and be open. Don’t go to the effort of going out and then hide your head or be standoffish. I know it’s harder, particularly for shy people, but challenge yourself to have small conversations starting out. They don’t have to lead to anything; just chat for the hell of it.
-- Accept invitations that you wouldn’t normally accept. I nearly turned down going to a charity event on a Saturday night with my friend and then changed my mind. I figured that I needed to seize the day and have a laugh. That night I spotted someone buying drinks at the bar and playing backgammon at one of the games tables. We’re still going strong and married with two lovely daughters! He hadn’t planned to go either but thought he should just go for a laugh! We actually don’t know if we’ll enjoy something and can often be cautious due to confidence or being close-minded. I’ve had a lot of great nights out, but I’ve also had some dodgy ones, but at least I was out living life!
-- Organise things with your friends. Married, attached or single, have fun with your mates. Dinner parties, hanging in the park, going to the movies, will give you a sense of feeling nurtured plus they’re likely to invite you places too because they’ll realise that you want to be social. Don’t judge your friends on their relationship status – my closest friends are single so it’s not the case that attached people don’t want to hang out.
-- Volunteer, start going back to church, do a course, do a taster course, go to wine tasting, go along to company events, go along to client events, travel, go to the next town up or into the city.
I get it. You want to love and be loved, wake up to someone, have someone to share your life with and basically do what couples do. But if you continue to look for someone to complete you, you’ll put yourself in the position of automatically feeling incomplete. You’ll look at what you don’t have while forgetting what you do have or could have if you valued what you did have. People who don’t value themselves, their own time and their own lives are not happy because they rely on other people to create that value. They decide that until they have someone, they’re not valid, that being single is that annoying time to pass between partners, and don’t realise that life is passing them by while they’re focusing on the wrong things.
I’m glad that I learned to like and love myself before I met my now husband. I love my life with him and our children but I still have my own life and there are things that I do for myself to make myself happy, as opposed to relying solely on him or things that we do together to make me feel happy.
When you do meet someone, you need to be a fairly secure individual so that while you’re obviously going to find your lives blending, you still have your own interests to draw on and have the ability to make yourself happy. This can be you and when it is, you won’t sideline yourself, your own interests and the things that mean something to you to be with somebody, because you’ll be able to have these and the relationship.
YOU MAY FALL OFF THE WAGON BUT JUMP BACK ON IT
It’s possible that you may fall off the wagon. It’s possible that you already have. You won’t be the first and you definitely won’t be the last. Don’t beat yourself up over it but get back on the No Contact saddle. Sometimes we need to fall off the wagon to learn more about our ex and ourselves and cement the decision to cut contact. It’s obviously not ideal but I wouldn’t go losing your mind over it or give up on NC – when somebody knows which buttons to press, they’ll press them. Familiarise yourself with what those buttons are so that they are no longer your Achilles heel and you can recognise when your ex is playing to these supposed ‘weaknesses’. Use the memory of feeling horrible to empower you to ensure you don’t fall in his trap again, but don’t beat yourself up over it – you are human and part of that is sometimes making errors in judgement.
It doesn’t matter what it is that breaks NC, just as long as you get back on the wagon and keep going. It may set you back a little but it is likely to strengthen your resolve. The fact that you’ve broken NC doesn’t mean all of your previous efforts are a waste. They will play their own part in cumulatively contributing to your future success. Believe.
You are human. You love and you want to love, and sometimes, you will seek it out from the wrong people and situations.
All you can do is learn from your experience so if you do fall off the wagon, no matter how big or small the fall is, use what has happened to cement your knowledge and understand what you’re doing. Learn from your efforts so far and recognise where you faltered, listen and support yourself.
-- Don't turn a temporary setback or even a moment in time into a permanent judgment and way of being. That’s catastrophic thinking.
-- Don’t turn it into an episode of mass proportions. You can make this as big or as small as you want this to be and I suggest you opt for the latter.
-- Do make sure you assess what it was that triggered the ‘fall’. Were you bored? Were you being nostalgic? Had you had a confrontation with someone else that left you vulnerable? Had you slid back into denial temporarily and got really hopeful about them? Whatever it was, identify it and have a plan of action for how to deal with next time round.
-- Remember that you now know that the fire still burns. Note what happened, how you feel, what you hope for, the reality of who they are and remind yourself of why things haven’t changed and that it cannot be the relationship
you want. Remember this feeling. Write it down and do not forget what you have felt in the aftermath of the fall.
-- Strengthen the barriers to communication. Block their number, filter their emails, cross the other side of the road, return their stuff and basically do whatever you need to do to shut them out.
-- Don’t feel like they got one over you and have had the last word. The last word is action because the next time they come slinking around expecting you to be there, you won’t be.
-- Use this time to remind yourself of exactly why you’re NC and renew your commitment to yourself. Refer back to the chapter, 40 Signs That NC Is A Necessity.
-- Focus on your own life. Make sure that you’re filling it with things to do, places to be, friends, family, work and other things that you can draw pleasure from. Probably best not to let yourself get too bored at the moment as you’re likely to let your mind wander and give yourself a hard time.
-- Don’t be too hard on yourself. Learn the lesson while loving yourself at the same time and move on. What can I do next time? How can I learn from this? Find the positive lessons, find the growth. The lesson is not that you’re weak or a bad person. Keep thinking that and you’ll be falling off the wagon again, not because you are weak or bad, but because who the hell has the strength to do very much when they’re mentally running themselves down?
-- Accept that it is normal to have urges to be back in the relationship that’s not working for you or to crave the person. It’s not abnormal; it’s a natural part of the process. Acknowledge them but don’t chase them and if anything take a few moments and do an awareness check. What else is happening in my life that is causing me to react in this way? What am I avoiding? What is reminding me of this person or triggering the urge? Then find ways to manage these triggers. It may be stress, it may be seeing the same coloured car. When you realise what is triggering the urge, it loses its power because you see that it’s not some divine intervention telling you to go back to the relationship. Remember that the urge passes – you won’t get to discover this if you knee-jerk into making contact. Ride it out and each time you do, the urge will last for shorter and shorter periods.
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Remember that you’re not striving for ‘perfect NC’. Anything that goes well or doesn’t is feedback that will help you to move through this process and make decisions that treat you with love, care, trust, and respect. Trust yourself and trust the process. Don’t trust the insecurity.
But most importantly no matter how much they beg, no matter how much they plead, never feed your ex after midnight. Just joking! But no matter what, cut the contact. No Contact isn’t about finding out what they will do when they lose your supply of attention and adoration and then panic; it shouldn’t matter what they say or do because you want this person out of your life, regardless. You have so much more to offer to yourself. One day it will dawn on you that you’re no longer NC and that you’re just living your life. Until then, trust the process and you’ll gradually learn to trust yourself. You can do this! You’ve got this! Believe.
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