How you can get a person out of your head: effective methods and advice from a psychologist

November 3, 2019
Psychology of relationships
Anna Mallaalieva

Many of us have at least once in our lives wondered how we can get a person out of our heads. Even if these thoughts do not make you depressed, you feel normal, you live in prosperity, still intrusive memories can spoil your mood. The quality of life suffers as much as possible from this.

Why is this happening?

Each person experiences different situations: negative or good. But some actions and words can cause you to become fixated on a certain moment. Therefore, thinking about how you can get a person out of your head is normal.

The feeling of falling in love also causes certain situations to constantly pop up in your memory. Often, when we break up with someone, we begin to regularly think about our partner, which prevents us from enjoying life and conducting our usual everyday affairs. The same thing happens when you meet a nice person or even quarrel with your loved one. We begin to think about how best to act, what to say, and so on.

Therefore, we offer you a great way that will help you throw a guy or girl out of your head. If you do everything correctly, the result will not be long in coming.

Find someone else

This is universal advice on how to survive the moment when your beloved man abandoned you. “There are a lot of fish in the sea,” and there are still millions of guys in the world.

One person may break your heart, but there are still hundreds of potential candidates who would be better. Start another chapter and meet new people.

If you are denied love, it does not mean that you are not good enough.

In fact, you may be too good. You will find someone who will appreciate you. This person will love you for who you are.

Understanding the cause

First of all, you need to understand why you continue to think about the person. Perhaps you are bothered by something he recently said, or you may have warm feelings for him. It is important to understand the reasons. This will make it much easier to get the man or woman out of your head.

You've probably noticed that as soon as you understand the reasons for your emotions, they begin to fade away. It becomes easier to think, objectivity appears. Accordingly, this step will help you normalize your condition and return to reality.

Ask yourself the question: “Why do I constantly think about him (her), what contributes to this?” Think about it. This may take several minutes, hours or even days. Don't rush yourself. Try to look at this situation from all sides to understand yourself 100%.

Why do we suffer when relationships end?

The loss of relationships is experienced not only by those who have experienced betrayal and betrayal. If the romantic relationship has been going on for a long time, then this situation will be stressful for both parties.

READ How to get over a breakup with a girl: a step-by-step plan and recommendations from psychologists

Psychology regards a couple as a dynamic balance of two characters. Moreover, over time, one of the partners begins to need the other more than the other begins to need him. In some cases, there is a strong dependence on the opinion and mood of the second person. This leads to a state of severe imbalance in the relationship, and it begins to move towards a break.

Both parties suffer during separation, but for different reasons. Abandoned because he lost his love and the person who was dear to him. And the one who abandoned - due to a sense of responsibility and guilt before the one whom he left.

Who is guilty?

Looking ahead, it should be noted that you will come to the conclusion that you yourself are to blame for your thoughts. They just gave you a compliment, and you already fell in love. You were rude in a minibus, and now you experience this moment every day.

If you are in love and therefore are thinking about how to throw a person out of your head and heart, then analyze the image of your chosen one in your head. Maybe it's far-fetched? Maybe it’s your own fault that you’re still unable to get him out of your thoughts? Think about it. Work on yourself. If you have been dumped and you agree with the reason for the separation, then take care of your shortcomings. And if that person was wrong, then be glad that he left.

Basic myths

One of the main misconceptions of people is the statement that time heals. Just as it is impossible to skip over the important stages of grief, it is also impossible not to be sad in the depths of your soul about the loss of a once loved one. This is another reason not to carry out dubious experiments on yourself when you get involved in a relationship without a future. But time teaches everyone to overcome pain and store it in the deep storehouses of the soul, allowing a person to live and realize his needs. Even when close relatives pass away, the acute pain dulls and fades into the background after a period of six months to a year.

Go deeper into the reason

Once you have been able to determine the reason for the person being “stuck” in your head, you need to work out his image. At this stage, it is important to reduce your own emotional stress. Therefore, using a pen and paper, write down all your thoughts about the person. Then it will be easier to understand how to get a guy or girl out of your head.

If you don’t understand what thoughts you need to write about, we will explain. In principle, you can record anything you want. It is desirable that these are some kind of emotionally supported thoughts. For example, write that you still cannot forget that chance meeting at the station. Factual information about a person based on height or weight should not be written.

It's time to slow down!

Only go on social media to interact with positive people.
Set yourself a time limit for staying online – no more than 10-15 minutes. This time is barely enough for friends’ feeds, so it won’t reach your lover.
Refrain from Facebook and VKontakte completely. If self-control is not enough and you admire his photos every day, then you should stop torturing yourself and temporarily give up social life on the Internet. It's time to go out into the real world!

What to write about?

If you need abstracts to make a list, we suggest relying on the following points:

Emotions. Write down what you feel: angry about a situation or happy about another. You can use any wording. To make it easier, imagine that the paper is your psychologist. You can talk to him about anything. If you cry while writing, that's okay. Be sure to write this down too.
Next, write down why you feel this way. You can make excuses as much as you want. You can write that you feel angry for that quarrel, because the person hurt your pride, and in general in the relationship you were the main one, so your partner had to accept your position. If this is why you are angry, then write it. You can complain. For example, you are sad that you were offended because your partner did not understand and did not want to understand you. Don’t be ashamed of the reasons for your condition, only then will you be able to understand how to get a man or woman out of your head.
Write down how you imagine in your head the person you constantly think about. If you think it's bad, then indicate that. Describe completely how you see it. Add what exactly catches you in it. That's why you still don't forget about him.
It is important to write down what you would like to do. If you want to beat him up, then mark it. You don't have to put this into practice. If you would like to call and cry to someone, indicate this too.

These are the main points to include in your letter. Please note that your text may be chaotic and incoherent. Write from the heart, in a fit of emotion. Then everything written will be as sincere as possible. The paper will survive any of your hysterics or nervous breakdowns. If you remember something, add it to the letter.

Positive emotions

You need to throw everything out of your head, even the positive.

Online advice tells us to focus on the positive—love and gratitude. These are the aspects you have to work through.

Why? What's wrong with gratitude?

Gratitude is needed to cover up all this horror - fear, anxiety, resentment, loneliness, etc. The gratitude that you are trying to impose on yourself now is needed to compensate for your pain, and this gratitude is the same lie as other mental material , so it should be clarified and worked out.

In much the same way that you should not blindly direct your attention to work in order to distract yourself from your suffering, without doing anything to recover, you should also not get stuck in a feeling of gratitude. This promotes comfort but suppresses awareness.

I am grateful to him for the relationship we had
I am grateful to him for giving me such and such
I am grateful to him for helping me become such and such
I am grateful to him for opening this and that for me
I am grateful to life for providing me with the emotions that I had and still have.
I am grateful to life for the lesson that I learned in this situation.

If you like, find articles or books on the Internet about gratitude, and rely on them when describing this aspect.

Love is also a concept around which a lot of things are piled up. In particular, people are afraid to work through love because they confuse love with the mental husk that surrounds it.

True love lies beyond the mind. And all your words about love, and all your feelings expressed in words, are by definition a projection of your mind, and therefore not love. This means there is no need to be afraid that love will work out and “fall off”. True love cannot be crushed by this. But every delusion that masquerades as love, such as anxiety, nervous obsession, sexual desire, fears, ego games, the desire to control and the desire for security, is worked through and clarified. Sometimes not immediately, sometimes with great difficulty (especially, for example, the desire for control), but it is worked through.

To identify mental garbage masquerading as love, just ask yourself why you love him and write down all the reasons point by point.

And if the feelings fall away from your work, then it was not love, but nervous tension. A wanker's mind, to put it scientifically.

Finally, if there is love, then it will only become purer because all the mental delirium around it has cleared up and fallen away. Words cannot describe this love, but it exists. And rightly so, I don’t like to litter love with words.

What's special about it? What happened in that relationship? Why do you want a relationship with him? Why do you want to be with him?

And finally. What dies last?

That's right, hope .

I hope this isn't the end
I hope I might see him again
I hope he changes his mind
I hope that he will be disappointed in his next girlfriend, remember how good he was with me and come back

Write down all your hopes, and all your ideas about your chances that you will succeed in the end will grow together.

Work through your hopes ruthlessly. There is no need to hope. This is the end.

Hope is a mental masturbation like everything else, we’re just used to romanticizing it.

If you want complete awareness, complete purity of perception, complete immersion in the present moment, you will have to give up hope. Hope is a projection for the future, and you cannot console yourself with your projections if you want to be here and now and not fuck your brains out.

Great, we're done breaking down your situation into aspects! There is fatigue, crying eyes and a feeling of dull emptiness inside. That's great, it means you've done a very high quality job, congratulations.

Next, our task is to transform the dull emptiness.

And this requires work.

What to do after writing?

You can write 2 pages, or you can write 10. The work is considered finished when you realize that you have nothing more to write. If you stopped at 2-3 pages and want more, then you still shouldn’t force false emotions out of yourself.

I would like to note that after writing you should re-read your thoughts. Under no circumstances try to redo anything. At such moments, you can take a piece of paper with written emotions and burn it. We do not recommend writing text on a computer and then printing it out. It’s better to write it with a pen and your own hand.

Change of scenery9

Change your social circle, go on a trip, or have the courage to move to another place. Especially if everything around reminds you of him.

If you are an avid conservative, then you simply need such a shake-up. Visit new places, try new foods, read new books and watch new movies.

Speaking of films...

Reality

To make it easier for you to understand how to get a person out of your head, we advise you to return to reality. Take a look at the tasks you have to complete. Understand what emotions are strong enough to overwhelm your thoughts about a person. If you are afraid of public speaking, then think about it. Are you always afraid of this? Or just immediately before leaving the podium? Our pain works the same way. If you stop replaying the quarrel with your chosen one in your head, then there will be fewer problems, and the image of this person will come to you less often.

If you are thinking about how you can get a person out of your head, then the best advice is to bring yourself back to reality. Eventually, take on more projects. The best ones are those that require maximum concentration and have a clear deadline. Remember that you haven’t seen your relatives or friends for a long time. Meet them. There is no need to retell to them what you have already written on paper. It’s better to listen to other people’s problems or talk about neutral topics. It's a great distraction.

How can a married woman forget her ex-lover?

In order to forget her lover, a married woman needs to analyze her relationship with her husband. Feelings will gradually begin to recede when she realizes that she is connected with her husband by something more than affection and passion.
Advice from a psychologist to help you forget your beloved man looks like this:

Try to spend more time with your husband.
Focus your attention on the good personal qualities of your spouse.
Constantly compare your husband and lover. This is especially true for those things in which the latter clearly loses.

In order to forget a married lover, a married woman needs to act in a radical way: try to exclude the possibility of any contact. If she has a relationship with her boss or her husband’s friend, then the nature of communication needs to change. You should communicate with management in a formal manner; with a friend, only in the presence of your husband.

There is no need to admit to cheating. At the same time, the woman must make a promise to herself that she will not meet with her lover again.

Drop negative thoughts

Of course, these steps are unlikely to help you if you doubt their functionality. We advise you to develop your own instructions on how to get your loved one out of your head. Only through trial and error will you be able to arrive at the ideal option, which will help you immediately forget about your chosen one. It's normal to feel anxious for a few days or a week. But if you have been tormented by memories for months, then you need to do something about it.

For impressionable people, breaking up with a loved one is a serious problem. They don't know how to be distracted. In such a state you will not succeed either in school or at work. Especially when you can’t sleep because of the thoughts in your head, and you need to wake up in the morning. In such situations, you can use mild sedatives with a hypnotic effect. But do not use them all the time, but in those cases when, due to tears and constant thoughts, you cannot close your eyes and fall asleep. Remember the famous phrase: “I’ll think about it tomorrow.” This is a quote from a famous movie. Before going to bed, everything should fade into the background. Learn to let go of all thoughts while lying on your bed.

Where to begin?

You need to forget a man in order to enter a new life, to be able to build a new healthy relationship.

Where to begin:

Analyze the reasons for the separation.
It is convenient to do this in writing. Try not to include emotions, but calmly write down all the probable reasons why the breakup occurred.
Assess what stage of grief you are at and live through these stages correctly.
Change attitudes to the situation: people come and go, they have the right to choose.
Assess your emotions towards a specific person; perhaps there is a toxic addiction that needs to be gotten rid of.

You need to form in your head the desire to change your life, to live again, more fully and happily. Setting goals and planning helps. It will not be possible to forget at once; it will take time and your own volitional efforts to form a feeling of indifference towards your ex-man.

About the benefits of communication

After separation, people become withdrawn, communicate with few people, and one day they realize that they have neither friends nor comrades. Give yourself an ultimatum: either you withdraw into yourself and study, sitting in the back desk alone, or start communicating with at least someone. Either you don't talk to colleagues, don't take part in corporate events, or you take a step forward. Even if your social skills have always suffered, you must overcome yourself.

Make friends. Don't forget: you need to smile in a team. Don't show your sadness! Firstly, you definitely won’t make friends this way, and secondly, it won’t be useful even for yourself.

Memories

The next points that will help you are related to memories. Delete all correspondence and photos. It is important! Don't leave something like this. You will only suffer, reviewing them and rereading them, crying into your pillow again and again. And if we talk about how you can get a person out of your head, if you can’t convince yourself not to think about him, then really the best action would be to calmly get rid of all “reminders”.

And the most important point: accept your feelings. As soon as you allow yourself to cry and feel pain, it will become easier for you. After all, you are an ordinary person! Breaking up with a person hurts you, there is nothing wrong with that.

Resist the urge to return to the place where you spent a lot of time with your loved one. Resist the urge to call or text him. Allow yourself to be back in that place with a feeling of nostalgia only when you experience inner peace. Then you won't cry for several days afterwards.

Regarding permissions, you should remember that the wording is important. There is no need to say: “Oh, well, I’m crying again, okay, next time I’ll restrain myself.” Tell yourself: “I give myself permission to cry. I allow myself to feel this pain.”

Whatever happens, the main problem is your own anger. It creates a range of emotions that prevent you from choosing a proportionate, productive response. This is why anger is the main problem. Work on yourself: meditate, play sports, walk.

Farewell. This is not necessary for another person, but for ourselves. We forgive in order to get rid of the suffering caused by constant attachment to the past.

Loneliness

The next piece of advice on how to get through the most difficult period if your loved one has left you is to be alone. Loneliness can be good for your physical and mental health. Give yourself some time to calm down and come to your senses.

When you're trying to forget someone who doesn't need you, sometimes it can feel like you're losing control of everything. This is where alone time comes in handy and can be used to pamper yourself mentally and emotionally.

Sleep or cry as much as you want.

If you decide to take a moment to reflect on yourself, let heartbreak be your motivation for self-improvement. Be great, be the best version of yourself that you always dreamed of and never had time for.

Make a list of all the things you like and don't like about yourself. Work on your weaknesses and show more strengths. They will help you stand out so that other worthy people will notice you.

Hard days

Everything, of course, depends on your character, but usually the first day, and sometimes the first week, are the most critical. On such days, forbid yourself to somehow remind yourself of the person. Hide gifts, remove yourself from social networks so as not to view your account, delete the number on your phone so as not to write. On such days, you will probably just suffer and not even think about how to get the person out of your head. After a week, you will most likely be “let go” and you will no longer react to everything so painfully.

What should you not do?

There are some mistakes you can make when trying to forget your ex. What not to do:

try to get in touch by any means - any conversation is a surge of emotions;
taking revenge in any form will only lead to loss of respect from other people;
regularly look through photographs and pages on social networks - this again and again arouses old feelings, and it will be more difficult to forget the person;
You cannot immediately look for a replacement out of spite for your ex - an attempt to quickly build a new relationship may end in failure, since the past partner has not yet been forgotten and the mistakes made have not been taken into account;
replay what happened in your head, remember your ex-partner, look for those to blame;
Trying to drown out depression with alcohol will only make the situation worse.

Let's sum it up

So now you know how to get someone out of your head? Psychology has a lot of advice on this matter. We summarize the recommendations of experts:

Understand why you are thinking about him.
Go deeper into the emotional reasons.
Write down all your thoughts about the person: how you imagine him and why you experience certain feelings.
In the first days after the situation, allow yourself to be weak. But don’t remind yourself of the person by walking in your favorite places or sitting in your favorite cafe.
Communicate with other people through “I don’t want.” Don’t burden yourself with parties that you don’t want to go to; at least communicating with colleagues or classmates will be enough.
When you can control your mood, do useful things: go to the gym or to a disco. It should be something that lifts your spirits.

Either method will ultimately bring you peace of mind. You will feel lighter. At first you may feel empty, but this is also a normal state. After all, it comes as a result of the pain experienced.

The main thing is to remember that in life there are both black and white stripes. Sooner or later one will be replaced by another. It's normal to wonder how you can get someone out of your head. If you don't think about it, it's much worse. Whatever your condition, you need to be able to force yourself to cope with your emotions and move on with your life.

Stop thinking too much

If a man leaves, you can’t constantly think about it. Excessive self-searching can only leave you feeling horrified and depressed.

If your loved one has left you, you need to focus on any other things in order to forget him as quickly as possible. Find yourself a new hobby, become a volunteer, or do anything else that can occupy your thoughts for a while. The busier you are, the less time you have to think about all this.

Get busy to forget the person who doesn't love you.