Psychic Callers Anonymous

Today's topic is another important step in breaking the cycle of calling. Also, general notice in advance; I will generally write in the terms of male/female relationships and getting a male ex back. This is not in anyway meant to insult anyone, and I full heartedly embrace everyone no matter your gender or preference. :) 

Today's topic: Removing temptation. 

By now I am sure we've all labeled our psychic calling as a bad habit (or even an addiction). One of the first steps to get past an addiction or bad habit is to remove the temptation.

If you're on a diet, you don't keep buying Little Debbie cakes so that they can stare at you every time you open the pantry, right? No way! You remove that temptation of junk food from your house and you don't buy any the next time you go shopping. 

So why not remove the temptation of calling? Delete your account, and don't turn back. Set your email filter to automatically send all emails from any and all psychic sites to your spam box. Do not go back. 

 

Now of course, everyone's case is different. But what if you find yourself struggling with contacting your ex? Or rather..not contacting them? Don't worry, we've all been there.

It can be tempting, you know their number is sitting there in your phone. You can see their facebook. It's so easy to dial them up or stalk away. The key here is to NOT. Don't go looking for trouble. Don't go digging, looking to see something. You are literally looking to hurt yourself. Does the stalking ever actually feel good? You see them with friends, you get pissed they're out and worry about who all is there. You see they post something happy and you wonder why they aren't laying around sad missing you. Or you start stalking wondering if they're seeing someone new. That's the worst.

There is a chance you might see something with your ex and someone else. Maybe its a rebound, maybe just a friend, maybe a complete stranger and they're playing their own emotional warfare. You just don't know. But, your mind just starts going, your heart starts beating, and then you're on the phone with another 10 advisors, in a panic, trying to find out who this girl is, are they serious, is he coming back, on and on an...you get it. My point is; don't go digging. Don't go stalking. I'm not saying you have to delete and block them. If you truly find it hard to see their posts, just hide their posts for the time being. 

Unless the relationship/breakup was truly horrific, one thing I generally do not advise, is deleting their number or facebook. Why? Well... a number of practical reasons really. 

1. In case of emergency. Once upon a time you could rely on him, and in a pinch you might be able to again. Or, God forbid should something happen to a mutual friend, it will be good to have a way to reach him. 

2. In the event he contacts you. How often do we recognize numbers nowadays? At least if he contacts you don't have to play the awkward line of "new phone, who's this?". You will know who it is. And the choice to respond or not is in your hands. 

3. The chance of rekindling. There's that hope of getting back together. And, there's always a chance it could happen. Deleting their number could hurt you in the end.. quite frankly it looks a bit childish. You deleted someone out of spite. How would you feel if they had deleted you? The "new phone, who's this?" line doesn't work so well we we all know everything is saved to the cloud and easily downloaded again with every new phone.

4. Friendship. Even if you don't get back together, perhaps in time you will want to be friends. It's a lot easier to reach back out after the hurt has healed, when you still have their number. And again, it saves a lot of potential embarrassment of the "who's this?" if they contact first.

Now, if you find yourself struggling with contacting your ex, try changing their name in your phone, at least temporarily. Changing it to DO NOT CONTACT or DONT YOU DARE or JERKBRAIN may be a little kick to put down the phone or text your best friend instead.

It won't be easy at first, but removing the temptation is a good first step. Especially the deleting of your account on any psychic site. It can take anywhere from an hour to a couple of days to hear a response. But when you do it's rather freeing, like a large weight is just gone. 

Hello all! Hopeful heart here. Call me Heart for short :). 

Now then, As previously discussed I want to post a few things here and there to try and help. I want to take things I've learned while earning my psych degree, as well as life lessons, and mix in theories of different ways to look at life (for really lack of a better way to describe it lol) and try and help. 

Don't get me wrong, I am in no way preaching and I am not perfect. Heck, I too got trapped in calling psychics. But I like to think I have beat my addiction, using skills I learned from a different time in my life, as well as this breakup. And now I want to share them. For a while I have thought about making my own private blog (and I still might!), but I thought first I'd like to pass some on to you all to see if it really can help :) 

This may turn into a multi-part series if that is okay with everyone here.

One of the biggest things, and the hardest struggles, is acceptance and just being in the moment. (and honestly, this applies to both a breakup and during a relationship. But more on that later).

Acceptance:

Acceptance is something that can and will be expanded on later. But for now let’s focus on acceptance of what has happened and is happening.

Accept what that moment is. Accept, as much as it sucks, that the breakup happened. That for whatever reason, you cannot be together. Accept that yes you are currently hurting.

Accept that perhaps you even had a hand in this breakup (unless of course you are the initiator of the breakup then yes, you did have a hand in it). I’m not saying to go full-on blaming yourself. Just, be logical and think critically for a moment and take responsibility for your own part in what happened. This is something else that can also be expanded upon in another post. But, accept any part you might have had. Accept what part your ex had. Accept that it ended.

And then let it go.

 

Not let it go like give up or forget. But let it go as in stop obsessing. Think of it like... an itch. Your arm itches, you acknowledge that itch, you scratch, you let it go. You don’t go on ignoring that itch while it drives you insane. But you also don’t go gouging out that itch with a fork until you bleed, right? You scratch, you release that feeling, you go on with your day.

Same thing; you are in pain, you acknowledge you are in pain, maybe you cry or listen to loud music on your commute but you don't let it overtake your whole day. The important thing is finding healthy ways to release. (Again remember we aren’t gouging that itch with a fork right? Same basic principle). SO, in this case let’s say the release was all of the psychic readings. They were the release of feelings and stress. The temporary itch-cream. But what happened when it wore off? It started itching again, so we started scratching again. And next thing you know, you’ve got a big red mess where once was only a tiny tickle.

Acceptance isn’t necessarily being okay with what happened; you’re hurt obviously and understandably so. Acceptance isn’t about being okay with anything your ex did (if they treated you badly, were abusive, with the broken heart they caused, etc). Acceptance is about simply saying “this is my situation. I cannot change what has happened that lead me here but I can choose how I respond and what my next step from here is.”

Another thing to remember is; you cannot control what someone else will do. You cannot control their actions or response. You can only control yourself and how you respond. This is another big part of acceptance. (okay well there’s a few steps but we’ll cover just this for now)

 

Being in the moment:

Be honest with yourselves for a moment; how much in life have you missed since your breakup? How many times have you skipped out on hanging out with friends, or left dinner early? How many hobbies have you let slip to the side? Just to get another reading in? To worry about what you didn’t have? How much time did you spend calling a psychic, wanting to know what was going to happen and when? You kept looking to the future; the “are we going to get back together?”, “will they come back?” instead of focusing on what was going on at that time. And even if you weren’t calling; just the sitting there wondering and hurting. The aching over the not-having.

There’s no shame in that. We’ve all done it. Any break up where you still care about your ex, you will wonder these things. The important thing is to not get stuck there. Hard lesson to learn, I know.

Instead of constantly focusing on the breakup, on what you don't have, instead focus on that moment. Whatever that moment is. I know, it can be hard. Trust me I understand that. But this is going to be an important step in life altogether.

And the same applies for being in a relationship or even building up to a relationship, even in just our friendships and day to day interactions; Instead of focusing on what to do next, what to say next, where you want things to go, just be in the moment and appreciate what is happening in that moment.

 

Quick exercise: “Just be”

So for this quick exercise, it’s going to be a short practice that we will expand on bit by bit. For this time, it comes in two parts, first solo and then not.

Solo: On your own, find a place to sit quietly, be it a park or a beach or a mall. Just sit and be. Feel the sun on your skin. Smell the soft pretzels from the food court. Hear the sound of the waves or the children playing. 

Now, just be. Observe all that is happening around you. Be aware of your body. How are you sitting? Are you scrunched in, arms folded, shoulders slumped? What is your body language saying to those around you? Is your face in a grimace or are you relaxed and neutral?

This isn’t an exercise to be hypercritical or make you judge yourself. It’s to help you open up your mind and be aware. Aware of how you are feeling, the message you are putting out, and how you are receiving the messages others are sending out unconsciously.

Observe the others around you; observe the people walking by. Be aware of your thoughts of all around you. Do you find yourself thinking more negatively? Or positively? 

For example: If you see a mother walking by with a screaming child, is your first thought "oh that woman must be feeling so overwhelmed!" Or is it "Ugh! This woman can't handle her own bratty kid?" 

See the difference? How can you change your reaction? This ties in to the same way we've thought about our ex. They didnt answer a text within the first 5 minutes "Ugh! They're ignoring me on purpose! They must be talking to some other tramp! I hate them!" 

It's all bout re-wiring our brain. How we think. Changing negative thought patterns into positive ones. It is a process, and it will take time. but it is important to practice in all aspects of life.  

Now, in a pair or small group: Go out with a friend or a family member, maybe a small gathering of friends. Now in this setting, be aware again. Not overly aware, but just be aware of your body. Are you closing yourself off with your body language? Or are you open and interested in conversation? And while we are on the topic of conversation; Don’t plan ahead the whole conversation. Listen to understand and respond. Don’t just wait for the first person to stop talking just so you can say your next piece. Don’t sit there wondering where this is going or what’s going to happen next. Go with the flow. You are water, so flow baby flow!

Once you can accept the past, and be in the present, can you start to move forward. But we will save more of that for another day. :) 

<3

-- Edited by hopefulheart on Wednesday 1st of February 2017 10:35:02 PM

I have recently found spinning, and I've gotten more and more into it. And I think one reason it helps is it gets me out of my head into doing something physical. It's hard to think about things other than what your'e doing physically when you're taxing your body and things change quickly. Steady-state cardio it's easy to think, but spin classes like this change SO fast!!

I know someone else said crunches, and I think along the same lines - doing something physical/get out of our heads, is a good plan.

I even had a psychic recommend that instead of calling psychics, I try taking ten minutes to take a walk, make a coffee and enjoy it, anything to pass the 10 minutes at a time. I think it's the same type of idea.

I'm thinking about getting back into therapy. I stopped, because i felt like psychics are more helpful. Isn't that laughable?! And they advertise that, too "I can help you more in 10 minutes than etc etc" and they like to say they are cheaper. Well, not if you have insurance!! And some psychics are much more expensive than therapists!

Anyway. I'm also calling around to see if I can go back on anti-anxiety meds. I think my anxiety really does drive me to call. 

So that's another replacement habit.

I was thinking about making a list of things to be doing to replace my overthinking/obsessing/calling. I was thinking every time I get the urge, I'll do 30 crunches :) at least I'll have some tight abs and more money!!!