Last year, you left your great love. Out of spite, after multiple deceptions or because he turned out to have a toxic personality. But while you try to convince yourself that it was the right decision, your feelings are still intact. An excess of love for your ex that you would like to succeed in attenuating. Is it possible? Answer from two experts.
“Turning off” feelings: an ambitious challenge
It goes without saying that completely erasing your loved one from our memory seems a bit complicated. And this, even if he behaved like a cad.
“Love, desire, attachment – these are automatic processes, rooted in the body, the brain, the memory. We do not decide to love, any more than we decide to no longer love. But we can perhaps act on what we do with it”, says Amélie Boukhobza, clinical psychologist.
Indeed, if you cannot switch off your Jules like you would turn off a switch, it is possible to work on this attachment… which has often made you cry and doubt, once night falls.
“Because loving someone toxic is often loving in spite of yourself“, confirms the expert.
We return again and again, even when we know, full well, that it would be better to leave. The work, then, is not to suppress the feeling, but to defuse what fuels it: “the illusions, the hopes, the micro-rewards that the brain has associated with this relationship”, specifies the expert.
Ask yourself the right questions
And to do this, you have to ask yourself the right questions. In this love, was there interest or manipulation? Was it harmful to us? Finally, who was this partner to whom we gave everything?
“If the other was (or still is) ambivalent, jealous, toxic, centered on himself, it is legitimate to ask the question again: what am I doing with him or why was I with him?” advises psychologist Pascal Anger.
However, for some, asking these “good” questions will act like an electric shock: their feelings will be directly impacted. A sort of accelerated awareness, which will help us dissect our past relationship.
At this key moment, we thought she was “perfect”, but under the spotlight, her darkness appears. “All these questions can transform what we once found beautiful… into a form of silent rebellion,” confirms the expert.
Take advantage of this awareness
Little by little, romantic feelings will fade and memories will lose their intensity.
“Progressively, we learn to re-educate our attention. We divert it, we deposit it elsewhere. On other links, other sensations, other parts of ourselves. Those which allow us to experience pleasure, the positive and to reap the benefits”, confides Amélie Boukhobza.
Result ? When confidence and love (for oneself) are reborn, the desire to start living again is felt. The ex remains in a small corner of the head, but his image becomes more confused, less significant. It no longer occupies all our thoughts, no longer invades all space. “Certainly, we don’t “unlove” overnight. But we can, in a way, deprogram love. And through distance, lucidity, reality and experiences, what seemed vital ends up losing its strength.” admits the practitioner.
Once this part of the road has been covered, Pascal Anger recommends learning lessons from it: “Love is not unconditional. On the contrary, conditions must be set, explicit or implicit,” he concludes. During your next romantic adventure, remember that your needs deserve to be respected.
We don’t always choose to love, but we can choose to preserve ourselves. Finding inner peace already means starting to love differently — and above all to love yourself.