Want to know how to forget about someone? How to stop thinking about that one person who won’t let you go?
I won’t lie, it might be tougher than it seems (as you probably already know) but it’s not entirely impossible.
There are some effective ways to keep your mind from going to the same place again and again.
The process of letting go can be very painful and tiring but eventually, the things you start applying in your everyday routines can improve your overall life.
We’re talking about learning psychologically approved ways to help you get through a heartbreak.
Taking better care of your body to ease your mind, getting inspired and preoccupied by things that spark your passion.
Here’s some advice on how to move on and forget about that someone:
1. Embrace distractions
Some people would argue that this is not the best way to deal with the issue.
However, embracing distractions can ease our way into complete healing.
It’s not necessarily a healthy way but it’s undeniably effective.
Bingeing your favorite Netflix shows, browsing through social media, starting a new hobby you never cared about before or just mindlessly partying at every given opportunity.
Even just watching funny content for a while can take a load off your mind.
Don’t be hard on yourself when it comes to looking back on the quality of the time you have spent on distracting yourself.
You already know that stuff like that won’t make you magically forget something but they will hijack your thoughts, at least for a decent amount of time.
2. Learn how to be live in the moment
Easier said than done! When we find ourself in a moment of great pain, not knowing why something happened to us, our mind starts asking the questions we can’t answer. It becomes overwhelming.
That’s why being present in the moment helps.
It’s not some mystical knowledge or overused guru phrase; in fact, it’s an evidence-based lifestyle recommended by psychologists.
Living in the moment is being aware and mindful of what is happening at this very moment.
Without distractions or thinking about the past or worrying about the future.
Centered on the here and now with our focus on the present moment.
By shifting our attention to the present moment, we’re letting go of the uncertainty that makes us anxious.
3. Remove physical reminders
This one is a no-brainer. Removing things that the person you want to forget once gave you is a must.
Look around yourself. If you see their things around you, throw them away or donate them.
You don’t need to be reminded of them every single time you lay your eyes on something that’s a part of your environment.
Every time you see their gift or a photo, they’ll trigger bad feelings and there’s no need for that.
Other than that, the whole process of collecting and giving away the stuff is like a signal to your brain to let go.
It’s not surprising when we think about the many symbolic ceremonies that do the same thing.
4. Make changes in your environment
After throwing their stuff away, think about changing up your living space. Why? Because it makes you feel better.
It brings about a feeling of freshness and a new start.
Your room is the place where you spend most of your day. Spaces in which you spend a lot of time have an effect on your life.
Spaces in which you spent a lot of time with another person can subconsciously or consciously remind you of them.
We’re not separated from our surroundings. Some people even believe that spaces hold energy.
Nevertheless, having your living space fresh, clean and just how you like will brighten up your mood every time you enter the room.
5. Be in touch with the happenings in the world and around you
Getting more involved with the things around you can help you with distracting yourself from the problem.
Try to pay attention and learn about the things that are happening in the world.
It puts your thinking into perspective, where you see things other than yourself. You see the world’s suffering and it humbles you.
Start doing something for your community. It doesn’t even have to be anything big.
Start with your family members you haven’t seen for a long time.
Through volunteering, people often deepen their lifeviews and rearrange their priorities in life.
âIt’s a way of helping yourself and others. It’s easier to just close off and stop caring about everything but that’s no way to go.
We can use our compassion to heal ourself.
6. Change your appearance
It’s a good idea to change your appearance if you want to. If you haven’t given it a thought yet, now’s the time.
Why? By changing our appearance, we individuate ourself from our previous self; it gives us a sense of something new.
Try a new haircut. Try wearing some new clothes. Change your perfume as smells can be very strong triggers.
7. Don’t try to understand everything
Don’t think you can know what’s on someone else’s mind. What he/she said that made you feel awful shouldn’t bother you anymore.
We can’t understand everything.
Something goes downhill and you don’t know why.
Maybe you’re thinking how understanding the reasons behind their decisions would make things right. Not likely.
It’s just our mind trying to come up with logical explanations when there’s none.
It’s better to leave the past in the past and try our best to move on.
8. Examine the psychology behind your feelings
When we’re thinking of how to forget about someone, we’re usually searching for practical solutions.
But behind every persistent issue, there’s a deeper reason.
When we experience love and emotional bond with someone, we actually chemically bond to them.
A strong emotional bond sparks the so-called love hormone oxytocin. So basically, we’re hooked on feeling good.
Our brain is wired to search and repeat pleasurable experiences and that’s why we have a hard time forgetting someone who once made us happy or with whom we shared a strong emotional connection.
9. Change your lifestyle
Changing your lifestyle can greatly improve your mental health.
By improving your mental health, you’re giving yourself a chance to grow from your past experiences and turn them into a lesson.
A new lifestyle can spark an interest in things we never noticed before and many times those things, inspired by a healthy lifestyle, can be very good for us.
10. Trust that you can forget it
You can get over it! You need to believe in that. It’s possible. People have already done it, so can you.
There’s truth in the saying times heals all wounds. Be patient and work hard. At some point, you will move on.
Don’t lose hope. Your will to solve the problem will eventually overcome the pain you’re dealing with.
Work on yourself and do the best you can.
11. Accept what happened
Getting over something comes after letting go.
Let it go sound easy when there’s no attachment but the inability to forget someone is clearly an attachment problem.
You’re attached to the memory of them. After some time, that memory starts being morphed into something your brain wants to see as truth.
That’s one of the ways our mind keeps us from experiencing returning pain.
To truly heal, you need to accept the truth. You need to accept what happened in order to move on.
Try focusing on positive aspects because acceptance is ultimately the development of a more positive and less negative attitude toward something.
Every situation has its good sides and its bad sides, despite how illogical it seems now.
12. Take away the pedestal from that person
Sometimes we can’t forget about someone because we spent almost every waking second of our life looking at them as if they were a god.
It’s irrational but it happens to many.
Obviously, that makes forgetting even harder. Idealizing someone can make us even more shattered after parting.
Once our mind is used on constantly translating someone’s behavior into something worth praise, it’s hard to stop it from doing that again.
Praising others beyond measure can at times point out our own lack of self-worth.
We need self-worth to balance ourself and have the strength to move on.
13. Stop yourself from daydreaming
When we part ways with someone we cared for it’s difficult to stop imagining what could’ve happened if things had played out differently.
We find ourself thinking about impossible scenarios that agonize us even more.
We can purposely stop ourself from thinking by starting doing something else and physical work is especially good for distracting our imagination.
14. Travel more
Traveling is extremely beneficial and helpful for many reasons. It improves your mental health.
When you’re traveling, you’re willingly going out of your comfort zone and that’s the secret to growth.
Other than that, traveling disconnects you from your daily life and routines.
It gives you a chance to forget about things that surround you on normal days.
Leaving your routine for a certain amount of time can help you notice the things you wouldn’t notice before.
15. Go out
When we feel under the weather, it is not likely we’re going to want to spend time cruising bars and clubs.
There’s something about seeing happy people that make you even sadder.
However, think about your best friends who love and understand you, who always make you comfortable and happy.
Think about going out with them! Long-time friends almost always know ways to cheer us up.
Go out and try to have fun. If it doesn’t work, at least you tried.
16. Don’t dwell on the past
Reminiscing about the past does more harm than good. Dwelling on the past means you’re resisting the change.
You’re stopping yourself from moving on. You can’t change the past; you can only change your present.
You will begin to understand why something didn’t work in your favor in due time.
Until then, be present in the moment and decide what you want your life to be.
You are the main character in your life; everybody else is a supporting character.
They are in your life to help you understand yourself and help your growth and that involves pain and uncertainty.
17. Work on yourself
Working on yourself means investing in personal development. It means becoming dedicated to accessing your skills and qualities to reach your life goals.
It means restoring a healthy balance within yourself and improving your self-esteem.
That’s important when it comes to our effort to forget someone.
The fact that we are stuck with one scenario and similar emotions further points out some underlying issues.
When our underlying issues are brought to light, it’s easier to manage our emotions and let go of the past.
18. Block and delete them
Removing their social media profiles and blocking them is a good way to seriously start the process of moving on.
Unfriend them, delete their number so they can’t reach you on Viber, WhatsApp or any other similar app.
This is an important step because it requires a lot of strength and courage.
If you’re dedicated to forgetting them, you need to do it as soon as possible.
19. Avoid things that remind you of them
When we’re in a romantic relationship, we tend to develop a system of symbols that remind us of our partner; it’s like a private language.
Your favorite activity, a meal, a place, a bench, a song, a movie and whatnot.
Avoid those things! Don’t purposefully engage in them.
If you know that you’re about to pass by the place you used to spend a lot of time with the person you’re trying to forget, try taking another route.
Skip the song. Start new habits—your own habits.
20. Try meeting new people
Meeting new friends can help you a lot! Meeting new friends is like starting a new adventure.
Usually, new people in our life makes us leave our comfort zone. We’re more likely to do things that we usually don’t do.
Also, they don’t know our ex or our past, which is a very important thing.
You don’t have to bring that up and instead, you can be the new you in some sort of way, which makes life easier and less stressful.
21. Don’t talk to them
As I said before, deleting them from your social media is a must. But what if we bump into them in real life?
If they are a person who disrespected you and hurt you, you have the right to not talk to them.
When you’re reminded of their voice, face, smell or all the other things, it’s hard not to think about them again, especially if they get to say something that will bug you forever.
22. Write about how you feel
One method of self-care is writing about your feelings.
Writing is a way to get in touch with yourself and observing your feelings can eventually clear up a lot of things in your mind.
It’s especially beneficial to write with your hand because that’s how you apparently use more of your brain.
Aside from that, it gives you a sense of control and accomplishment.
You can study your development over a certain amount of time and actually see if you have changed and how.
23. Set goals for yourself
The best revenge you can have on someone is the best version of yourself.
That means utilizing your skills and assets to reach your goals so you need to know what your goals are.
Why? Setting goals takes us forward in life and they give us focus. Without focus and effort, talent and skill are close to useless.
Goals keep you distracted (which in your case is very important) and help you overcome procrastination.
Don’t undermine the power of motivation.
Creating motivation within ourself helps us deal with many obstacles through life and having a clear vision is knowing the next step.
24. Get closure
Sometimes we’re left without any explanation why or with an insufficient explanation.
For some people, that’s something they can’t overcome over time.
Getting closure is important because it means getting answers about our past endings and learning about the behavior of ourself and others.
Try to interpret things the best you can and eventually ask for an answer.
However, if the other person is set to maintain no communication, then you’ll have to let it go.
Ultimately, the absence of an answer is some kind of answer too.
25. Keep the faith that life will be good again
For life to be good, you need to first make yourself feel good again and that means using all of this we have already mentioned on the topic of self-development.
Believe it’s possible. Visualize the life you want and start taking action that will lead you closer to that life.
Maybe that means meeting someone else who will represent everything you want in life or maybe it’s just being at total peace with yourself and your surroundings.
Life changes from day to day. Nothing is rigged against you and we don’t know what’s in store for us.
26. Know that it takes time
Forgetting takes time. People are not machines, you can’t just turn something off.
Nevertheless, it’s absolutely possible to move on and you need to know that whenever you feel like you’ll never move on.
Don’t just jump into a new relationship while leaving your problems unresolved.
Take time to heal. Take time to understand yourself better.
When asking how to forget about someone, ask yourself what made you so attached to them in the first place and start from there.
Healing a broken heart takes time. Separating ourself from a loved one (or a close friend) is extremely tough, especially if you have no closure.
Forgetting someone is like reprogramming your mind and since we’re just human, that’s not an easy task. But with time, things will progressively become easier to deal with.
Life will go on and things will change. You will get occupied with new things and your mind will stop going back to the old memories.
Try to see the things that happened to you as a sign to take a new route or a new approach to life.
There are many examples of how pain and misfortune can be turned into something incredible.
The key is to not lose hope and keep yourself occupied.
Learn about your attachment styles and how they match with other types of attachment.
Life is not perfect and it will never be. And that’s a good thing! It means that we can stop pursuing perfection because it doesn’t exist.
Life is ultimately out of our control but we are still in control of our thoughts and actions.
That’s why we can choose to do what’s in our power to make things better for ourself and others.
Another thing we can’t control is someone’s love for us. We can’t make other people love us.
If love is controlled it can’t be called love. That’s why it’s important to be honest with yourself and aware of your own feelings.
When you are aware of yourself, it’s easier to find a person with the same genuine approach to life.
It’s not a bad thing to start being more careful about who you let into your life.
You shouldn’t be distrustful of other people because of one person but it’s okay to analyze someone’s behavior based on their words and actions.
Decide to put yourself first and live life on your own terms while welcoming change.
We are given one life to live, so why not live it fully? Remind yourself to leave the past in the past and that new opportunities await.
Give yourself time to grieve but give yourself a chance to live too.
Take joy in your newly found freedom and channel your energy into building something new.
Don’t be afraid of being single. Fall in love with yourself and give yourself credit.
Challenge yourself to discard your negative thoughts and replace them with new ones.
“You will find that it is necessary to let things go; simply for the reason that they are heavy.
So let them go, let go of them. I tie no weights to my ankles.” ― C. JoyBell C.
