The key points are: The traditional "no contact" approach is not a one-size-fits-all solution, as some people have to continue interacting with their ex-partner. Instead, the speaker recommends the process of "detachment." Detachment involves decreasing your desire for the relationship and ex-partner, practicing detachment as an ongoing process, setting boundaries to protect your heart, and creating a vision for an exciting future. The speaker encourages the listener to make the decision to detach before feeling ready, as this will help move them out of the painful "limbo" state. Helpful techniques include making a list of things you won't miss about your ex, talking to a "text buddy" instead of reaching out to your ex, and visualizing a positive future. By taking control of the detachment process, you can move forward in a healthy way after the breakup, rather than getting stuck in obsession and pain.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Have you gone through a breakup and you're tired of feeling low lonely or lost? I've got a pep talk for you. I'm Sarah Curnoles, your breakup bestie. I'm a certified life coach with years of coaching experience, helping people just like you turn your breakup into the best thing that ever happened to them. Each week, tune in to get a pep talk, to heal your heart. Let go of the past, reclaim your power and get back into your main character energy. Your breakup may have shattered your world as you know it, but together let's build a new better world. Let's go.
(00:44)
Hello, my friend Sarah Curnoles here and today I want to talk about why most people do no contact wrong and why it doesn't work. And what you should be doing instead is detachment. So we're going to talk all about what detachment is, why it matters, and why this process is going to change your life and help you get through your breakup in the best way possible. So I want you to think for yourself, 2025 is already half over. How free do you feel from your ex? And how free do you want to feel by the end of the year?
(01:29)
So this episode was really inspired by my thinking of what do I want to be creating for all of you for the next six months? And my intention is to create as much positive impact in helping you get through your breakup in a powerful way. And the best way I can do that is teaching you how to let go and how to start that process of detachment. And I was really thinking about the myth about no contact and most people just say, time heals all wounds and just go no contact and that'll that'll fix it. You can wait it out. Well, time does help, but your intention behind all of this is what's going to really speed it up. And I think no contact by itself is a total myth because there are so many people that aren't to go no contact. They have to keep interacting with their partner because of children or shared household, or maybe it's somebody you work with or maybe it's somebody that you just hope that you can be friends with and you can transition your relationship.
(02:45)
So no contact is not a one size fits all solution. So that's why I came up with this idea of detaching. Detaching is not about pretending that you never love them or that the relationship didn't matter. I think that's another big myth. Sometimes we see that our ex moves on and we're like, it's like I never mattered to them. We don't know what's going on with them that might their way that they detach from your relationship with them. Now I don't think that's fair necessarily to jump into another relationship and to use that new relationship as your method of detaching. I'm going to be teaching you some methods that feel very clean and have as little impact on others as possible or little negative impact on others as possible. But we can't assign other people's actions, any kind of meaning. We're going to create a process for you that feels very honoring to you and to your relationship. But most importantly, it's honoring to you. We're really about liberating yourself from the pain and the obsession of the ending of that relationship.
(04:08)
And when I talk about detachment, I think one of the biggest principles that I want to make sure I put upfront as something that I want us all to agree on is that you're going to have to decide to detach before you feel ready to do so. So many people tell me I'm not ready to move on. And I can understand that you're holding on, you are holding on to all those good memories and you are really scared of what's coming because it's unknown. But when you decide that you are going to keep holding on and you decide to believe that you're not ready, you just keep waiting, you will be stuck in limbo and in limbo that feels really awful. It's an in-between where you're feeling both the hope of the future and also the hopelessness of the future. You're feeling the pain of the loss over and over and over again and you're never giving yourself any relief. Relief will come from decision. The Latin root of the word decide is de which means to cut. And a decision is exactly that. You are cutting out what you are not choosing and you are deciding to keep that which you are choosing. And so by choosing to detach, you are choosing yourself.
(05:49)
And when somebody chooses that, they no longer want to be in a relationship with you. You have all the information you need in order to decide to choose yourself because they aren't choosing you. A relationship requires two people. You can't choose a relationship to hang on to that relationship if the other person isn't also choosing a relationship. There is no relationship. It's just you. So this is my invitation to you choose to detach, choose to make that decision today. And as soon as you decide, you instantly create a little bit more freedom for yourself. You instantly move out of the pain of limbo, of waiting, of not knowing and you narrow down what your focus is going to be. So your decision is actually the first step of this process.
(06:49)
You're not going to feel ready, but I want you to do it anyway. And something that really helped me and it helps all of my clients is this following mantra. It is wildly unattractive when someone doesn't want to be with me. I can't tell you the number of times I said that to myself at the end of my breakup because I needed to make it really unattractive that my ex didn't want to be with me because in my brain, my brain still wanted to be with him. I still wanted the attachment and I saw it as this barrier of how can I convince him that we should be together? I had to decide to choose myself. And I told myself it is wildly unattractive when someone doesn't want to be with me Before I go too much further, I want to talk a minute about no contact because no contact will be a part of this conversation because no contact is a tool.
(07:55)
It is one tool in an entire toolbox. And what they say about the only tool you have is a hammer. Everything looks like a nail. If you only have one tool, then you only know one way to go about things. No contact is not the tool that you can use for all situations. Just like you can't use a hammer in all situations, it can be a really slow way to detach from a relationship. And I will also say that rejection is really key. Rejection breeds obsession. And so if you were the one that was rejected, if that person broke up with you, you've been rejected and it is really natural to want to obsess over them. And just like if you are using no contact as your only tool that detach from the relationship, there's another form of there of like I am rejecting communication, which means you're going to obsess over all of it even more.
(09:03)
You're going to obsess over not talking to them. So anything that you make forbidden gets more tempting. So we're going to look at all the other factors that lead to detachment and how we can retrain your brain to be on your side for this and to feel safe while doing so, which is really the key. So we've already made the decision to detach. So what happens next? So I'm going to lay out some principles for you and some steps, but all of these steps can happen at the same time. This isn't an ordered process. You don't need to complete one before you move on to the next. So I'm going to give you all of the steps and you get to decide how do you want to put them together, kind of making your own stew of how do I want to put all these elements together?
(09:57)
So we are going to first talk about decreasing your desire for the relationship and your desire for your ex. So we look at this a lot when we're in relationship, right? Desire isn't just magic. You might have attraction and you might feel that kind of spark immediately, but if you were in any kind of long-term relationship, you know that you had to put effort into sustaining desire, you build it and you keep that fire going and you work on that attraction so that you continue to want to be with your partner. So you've already had practiced building desire and that muscle is probably pretty strong, but it's not going to help you. What you want to do is to decrease your desire. So we're going to go in the reverse. We're going to break it down of what it looks like to decrease your desire.
(10:50)
So this is where people will do the list of the things they don't like about their partner, which is actually it can be a really useful tool and I do use that a lot with my clients. So you want to get specific what is it that you are not going to miss about them? What are the things that you're like, I'm so glad I never have to put up with that again. And what I want you to do is I want you to think about if you had a health goal and you decide you're going to lose weight, and one of the things you're going to do to lose weight is you're going to cut out soda. If you just tell yourself, don't drink soda, don't ever drink soda, you're going to really want that soda. But one way to decrease your desire for the soda is to read the ingredient label. Have you ever read the ingredient label of a soda?
(11:46)
It's not appealing. It's those elements of cane sugar and coloring and flavoring and phospho, I can't even say it. I don't even know how to say it. Acid. So there's an acid that goes on your soda and if you look at what those ingredients do, you can make it even less appealing. What does sugar do to my body? What does this acid do? And if you look up that acid, honestly, that acid is what they use to remove rust off of car batteries. You probably don't want that soda all that much anymore. If you know what those elements are and that's not appealing and you know what they're going to do to your body and you have made a decision to commit to a healthful body, it makes your decision that much easier of I don't want these things that are going to do that to my insides. That is not a part of me as a healthful person.
(12:53)
So what I'm going to encourage you to do is do the same thing with your ex. What are the things that no longer serve you as you're moving forward and as you decide you want a new future for yourself? And we're going to talk a little bit about this and I'll connect all the dots at the end, but as you decide what you want more of for your future, how does he or she not fit into your future? How does it actually take you farther from the future that you want? All right, and the other way that we're going to practice detaching is that we are not going to make it forbidden if we say rejection breeds obsession. Making something forbidden makes it so tempting.
(13:55)
We really want that thing that we can't have and I don't know if that's a universal law, but it sure just feel like it feels like a universal truth. So how do you make this person not forbidden but you know that you can't talk to them because it's going to take you down a bad road? I want you to find a couple methods that work for you that feel supportive. So one thing that I encourage my clients to do is to set up a text buddy or two. So in those moments where you really want to text your ex and you really want to talk to them, have somebody already lined up, who knows that you're going to text them in those moments and that they're going to have to respond. That's the agreement that you're going to make with them of like, I'm going to call you or I'm going to text you and I really wish I was texting my ex and I really need you to respond to me. I need you to have that conversation so that I have a feeling of connection with somebody.
(14:49)
So you're going to still allow the urge that you want to reach out, but you're going to reach out to somebody safe and trustworthy, who really cares about your heart and who cares about you. Another couple of methods that you could do is that you could talk to them out loud whether it's into a voice note like you pretend you're on the phone with them or you pretend that you're having a conversation with them out loud, or maybe it's your pet and you talk to them as if you're talking to your ex and you're just going to do it in the safety of your own space without calling the person, without talking to them, you're just going to talk it out and imagine that they're there. Your imagination's a really powerful tool and this actually can help create a lot of relief. You can also do a letter writing.
(15:30)
I used to do this a lot. I would type out an email but never put their name in the sender into the two field and I would never send it. I would just delete it. I would just imagine getting myself all free reign to get everything out into an email and then I would delete it or you can hand write it if that feels even better to you. These are some of the ways that you can still have an outlet without making your communication forbidden, this will decrease your desire so that you stop chasing the closure and you start creating it for yourself all next, we are going to practice detaching, and I'm very intentionally using the word practice. Detachment is a practice, not like a light switch that you turn on of all of a sudden I'm detached. We are going to practice this just like you're going to show up to yoga. And some days that you yoga flow might be a little easier and some days it might be a bit more challenging, but you're going to meet yourself where you're at and you're going to work to your own personal edge of how much can I allow myself to detach while still feeling safe. I want you to think about detachment as withdrawing your emotional investment you used to feel and express and connect in your relationship with your ex. And now that's not available to you.
(16:54)
And so you're going to now practice pausing and redirecting. So when you feel that instinct of I want to attach, I want to reach out, I want to feel express and connect with them, you're going to now practice pause and redirect. And where I want you to redirect is towards yourself. Something that people do so often is they tell me how much they think about their ex and they're really empathizing with them of like, oh, this is because they had such a tough past and this is really just out of their trauma. Or they did this because they got scared of how good it could be or whatever it is. They do a lot of justifying and empathizing of what their ex's experience was. Or I've even had people worry about their ex, and I get it because you're so used to doing that. But now that that relationship is no longer and you are single again, it is important to redirect your focus to yourself. And this is the act of taking your power back. This is choosing to detach rather than just being forced. So sure the breakup maybe not something that you asked for and it's like a forced detachment. It's like you must detach from this immediately, right? It's been forced on you. When you are choosing, I'm choosing to detach. I'm choosing to redirect my focus to myself. That's you taking your power back and saying, this is what I am doing.
(18:34)
And so here are some ways that you're going to practice detaching. I want to give you some really specific ways. If you find yourself thinking about them, I want you to pause and interrupt your thought and say, we're not doing that anymore. We are focusing on me. And you're going to ask yourself, what am I feeling? What does my heart need? What would bring me comfort in this moment? And all that empathy and all that compassion you're used to giving outward. You're going to turn it inward towards yourself. You have so much love to give, you have so much love and so much empathy and compassion, and I bet you've been giving that to your partner.
(19:27)
And it's not that it doesn't have anywhere to go. Now you are just going to redirect it towards yourself. Your job isn't to understand them. Your job is to take care of yourself because like I said at the beginning, you have the information you need. They chose to end the relationship. You don't actually have to understand why. Sometimes we can get so fixated on I need to understand it in order to have closure that we end up staying in limbo. You can choose to see I have enough information, they don't want to be with me. It's really unattractive. If somebody doesn't want to be with me, I can't create a relationship by myself. I need both of us to be invested in this. Both of us need to choose the relationship. And so I need to focus on understanding myself. I need to focus on taking care of myself and redirecting all that energy internally.
(20:31)
So the next thing you're going to do is you're going to set up boundaries to protect your heart. Boundaries aren't walls. This is we're going to think of them as what's okay and what's not okay. And what's not okay is anything that causes hurt right now. And so we are going to look at them as filtering out anything that hurts you. So this is going to create a little bit more self-awareness for yourself, right? You're going to ask yourself some questions, might want to bookmark this and listen to this a couple times. What exactly is making me feel anxious, stressed, or sad?
(21:20)
What's making me feel anxious, stressed, or sad? What thoughts, where actions bring that on. So for example, somebody recently told me that they're ruminating about their ex a lot. One of my clients brought this to me. They just keep ruminating over their ex and all the things that they could have done differently, that maybe could have saved their relationship. The act of ruminating actually causes my client to feel even worse because they're just stuck in this thought loop and it feels endless and it tanks their mood, it tanks their energy. And so we created a boundary around rumination. And whenever they catch themselves ruminating, we created an action plan to interrupt the rumination and to redirect to something more compassionate and loving that helps them towards healing. So the boundary they created was like ruminations not okay. It doesn't help me heal, it doesn't serve me. So therefore I'm going to put a plan in place to interrupt my rumination and choose something else.
(22:34)
No contact is actually a kind of boundary. No contact is saying, when I am in communication with this person, it hurts and therefore I'm not going to have contact with them so that I don't feel the hurt. And if this works for you, awesome. If you can't go no contact for whatever reason, figure out for yourself what kind of communication causes the least amount of hurt. So if we're only going to talk about the kids and we're not going to talk about anything else, and we're going to stick to these topics and we're not going to talk about anything else, we're allowed to talk in this kind of way. We can do voice notes, but we're not going to do text because we get too angry with each other. We misinterpret texts. You need to get very clear of what's okay, what's not okay, because this is about protecting your heart because the most important thing for healing is that your heart has the chance to heal without being injured more than it can tolerate. We don't want to keep that injury going over and over and over again.
(23:49)
And so the final piece of this, and this is really where the rubber hits the road, is you're going to create a future vision that excites you more than your past. Most people have a really hard time letting go of their past because you have such happy memories associated with it. Those are your lived experiences and the future is a complete unknown, and that feels really scary. And that's exactly what your brain does. If something is unknown, it paints a worst case scenario for you and makes the unknown really scary. So it has you over fixate on what felt good at one time. This does not mean that you're weak. You're just a human with a human brain and your brain is going to hold on to those warm, happy, vivid memories because they were real.
(24:40)
So what we want to do, instead of letting your brain fill in the blanks with worst case scenarios, we want to purposefully choose a future vision for your life that feels better than your past. So instead of, what if I never find love again or what if that's the best it'll ever be? Or what if I'm alone forever? I want you to shift into what's the most beautiful version of a life I can imagine? And sometimes it helps to blur it so that it's not so specific. It's not so specific of like, well, my ex will get back together with me and that's my person, right? We're going to blur it and we're just going to say, I have my person in my life and it feels this way when I'm with them. And these are the experiences that we have together and this is how we're building a life. I am getting a little excited just thinking about it because I do this for myself too. I do this with my clients and I do it for myself because it becomes so magnetic. So do you want to paint a picture for yourself as clear as a movie and anything that you can't be clear about? You don't have to be like, who would I cast in that role? You're just going to blur it and you're going to say, my person or a person or my friends. You can generalize anything you need to.
(26:10)
So here are some questions to get you started. What do you want to feel when you wake up on this wonderful, beautiful vision of your life in the future? Who's around you? What are you doing with your time? What is lighting you up? So I want you to think about this like a directed daydream. You're making it vivid. You're making it emotional, you're making it connected to your senses. Let yourself want again and let yourself hope without filter, without worry. This is a safe space. You get to just dream for just a little bit of time.
(27:01)
And remember, you're not just moving on from the past, you're moving towards something better. Michael Beckwith said, once pain pushes you until a vision pulls you. So I'm guessing your pain pushes you to find this podcast and that's why you're here. And I want to help you create a vision that's going to pull you forward. So here's what I want you to take away from this chat today. Your future is a total blank canvas. Your X is just one color. You don't need them anymore. You get to paint with every color you can imagine, and they are all available to you. There is no limit. Your detachment is your choice, and it is a choice that you make. It's not just allowing time to pass and you're going to do it before you feel ready, and that's okay.
(28:03)
You're going to practice reducing desire by seeing things clearly for what they are and expressing yourself without engaging in your ex. And every day you're going to practice refocusing on you, creating strong boundaries and protecting your peace. This is the practice of detachment. It doesn't make the pain vanish in an instant, but it keeps you in the driver's seat of your own life. So I want you to take this as we bring this conversation to a close. If they don't want to be with you, that's not a cliffhanger. It's the conclusion of that chapter and you get to write the next chapter.
(28:52)
And so I would love to hear from you, what support do you need around this? If you want to have a powerful conversation with me about getting more support through this so you don't have to go through this alone, I would love to have that conversation with you. I'm currently doing free 30 minute coffee chats because I really want to connect to you as a listener. I want to hear from you. I want to hear what you're struggling with. I want to learn everything about you. You can ask me any questions. This is a no obligation, no pitch kind of call. This is just a time for us to connect over Zoom. We can have a beverage, you can have your coffee, your tea, your wine, your kombucha, whatever feels yummy to you. And we'll just talk for 30 minutes, and I would love to have that conversation with you and get to know you better. You can book that by going to the link in the show notes here, and I really hope I'll hear from you because I'd love to get to know you better and I'd love to support you. Alright, my friends. Until next time, have a wonderful day and I'll talk to you next time.