Returning to slightly denser psychological matters.
In last year s article on professionals and laypersons, I already said that one of the main skills of a psychologist is the ability to doubt the “certainty.” For example, when the client is convinced that he does not exist in his life and will no longer have any meaning. This destructive belief, however real it may seem, is just a construction of the mind. Strong, deep doubt cuts the roots of destructive beliefs, freeing up space in the mind for alternative “slides†through which life is perceived.
In today s article, I will reveal this practice a little deeper using the example of falling in love. I will tell you what beliefs she is commonly held on, and in what directions to orient the mind in order to explore her feelings more thoroughly.
I want to note right away that painful yearning for a beloved is usually called the word “love.” I ll tell you a little about the difference between love and being in love. In the meantime, I will inform you in absentia that there is no need to get rid of love – this is a bright, not burdensome feeling inherent in a healthy relationship. Therefore, answering the question “how to stop loving,” I will speak about healing from falling in love – it brings you into a state close to drug withdrawal.
I have never met any specific working methods of such healing anywhere before. Almost all pop advice boils down to suggestions for distraction and switching. Switching attention, to my credit, works. But it is not easy to implement it, because the lover himself wants to be distracted, but he cannot – so obsession with the beloved absorbs that all other opportunities to occupy himself with at least something seem empty.
Everything is further complicated by such a feature of the mind, which prompts us to take the fragile content of our own psyche for a taste of external reality. As long as falling in love is perceived as a problem from the objective world, it becomes impossible to look towards its real subjective reasons. Therefore, they usually do not even admit that it is possible to directly influence their own feelings – they try to put pressure on their beloved, “improve” themselves, or give up – they say, what to do, if such an unfortunate fate – remains silently suffering. Perhaps it will pass by itself over time.
Over time, of course, the space of the mind is filled with additional meanings and falling in love with torment gradually loses its power. But such a switch to normal existence can last for many months. And this will not be a cure for the disease, but only the lulling of its symptoms, which, under certain circumstances, can awaken with renewed vigor – and the languor will continue.
Psychotherapy is initially based on the premise that emotions and feelings can be explored and corrected. That is, from falling in love, you can be treated. Of course, there are no guarantees here – this is not an exact science, but there is always a chance for success. It is quite possible to deliberately stop loving a person when you know how falling in love works. She is based on self-deception, therefore, in order to stop loving, you do not need to instill in yourself any nasty things about your beloved, it is enough to get rid of the lie.
Here I will talk about what I managed to find in the course of my personal practice with clients. But I will speak with confidence, because there are good practical indicators – lovers, who were truly interested in getting rid of their torments, following these recommendations, were healed.
The holy feelings of lovers
A lover for a lover is a special, exceptional person. This irrational conviction prompts the lover to believe that there is some special sacred bond between them, as if they are destined to be together, as if they were two halves.
Therefore, the lover amuses himself with unfounded hope, bordering on the conviction that the beloved actually feels about the same, he just has not yet understood this himself, and is capricious.
It seems to the lover that the joy of their “love” is so obvious, simple and beautiful that it becomes completely incomprehensible to him why the beloved still resists and does not love in return.
During periods when the lover believes that he is still mutually loved, it seems to him that he and his beloved have already united somewhere on the subtle plane, and soon their merger will materialize.
Reveling in the joy of the upcoming rapprochement, the unrequited lover does not realize that this is supposedly a common space with his beloved – he also created a swollen fantasy from scratch, where no one else has access.
Doubts about these “sacred” hallucinations at first seem blasphemous, so it is sometimes difficult for a lover to even imagine that a beloved is sincerely indifferent to him and may not distinguish from other people from his environment.
Never unrequited lovers do not like their own feelings. If falling in love begins with happy, exciting hopes, then it continues, as a rule, with their opposite – unhappy hopelessness. Approximately from this stage, the lover himself begins to doubt his feelings, every now and then thinking how to stop loving a person, in order to finally, having sober up, return to sanity.
In extreme stages, unrequited feelings are accompanied by horror (from the anticipated empty, meaningless future without a lover) and subsequent depression. As a result, life sags on all fronts, self-esteem falls, and complexes and fears that were previously dormant in the depths of the soul are avalanche-like in love.
In the articles I draw a distinction between love and being in love. Love is the calm acceptance of a real person, love – on the contrary, unwillingness to put up with reality and fanatical striving for the desired fictional image.
The premise that the beloved is not a real person, but a mirage from one s own mind, is better to be adopted immediately, at least as a theory. This is the first step that engenders doubt in a rocked illusion.
All modern culture enthusiastically romanticizes falling in love, convincing the public that this is how the main semantic outline of the life of a “normal” person should run. In fact, falling in love is inherently a real illness of the psyche, an obsession that overshadows consciousness with looped contradictory emotions.
Of course, falling in love can motivate you to look into yourself, explore the reasons for your feelings – and in this perspective it becomes a useful, soul-developing experience.
Falling in love is not a natural and obligatory state for a relationship. It is perfectly normal to love and accept a person next to you without zealous mental anguish. It is perfectly normal to enjoy other areas of life, devoting only some of your resources to relationships.
How to stop loving?
When they deal with the problem of unrequited falling in love, I observe approximately the same picture – people toil because of their own unrealistic beliefs on which this haze rests.
I call the first support of falling in love “that one†(in all life); the second – “there will be no happiness without him.” That is, the beloved is perceived as the only – the first and last chance for happiness.
Pay attention to how destructive this bundle of beliefs is – it programs to perceive what is happening as if fate is being decided here and now – either you can get your happiness, or you will remain unhappy until the end of time.
And everything depends on the whim of one person. To lose this most important source of joy and meaning means to remain unhappy forever. The lover is convinced of this.
And even when a lover reciprocates him, the threat of becoming completely unhappy does not go anywhere, but constantly phonet, because in principle there can be no one hundred percent guarantees in a relationship – they tend to end up someday for various reasons. Therefore, each gesture of the beloved is perceived in an exaggerated way by the lover, as an indication of the forecast of upcoming happiness or unhappiness. There is no middle ground with such convictions.
Just in case, I repeat that the exclusivity of the beloved and the irrevocable end to happiness without his reciprocity is not at all the truth of the lover s life, but only his irrational beliefs – false projections. They collapse when you get to doubt them.
Many people know from experience how deceiving feelings are. They fall in love not once, but many times – and invariably the object of love seems to be the only real one, without which one cannot see happiness. It is these false beliefs that must be questioned in order to stop loving and sober up. To do this, it is necessary in all seriousness to give yourself confident answers to the following questions: “Why do I take this and decide that this person is the one? What if it s not my only one, but someone else s? What if this is, in general, a stranger? “
You need to really think hard about this, to feel these options. Then the first strong wedge will be driven into the illusory structure of love, splitting its structure.
Thus, life without a beloved ceases to seem hopeless – the slide is replaced, and the understanding comes that the future is unknown to anyone, and countless possibilities are always hidden in it.
If you really want to believe in great “love”, you can, as an option, seriously admit that the only one with whom you have to live until the end of time is still destined to meet.
Of course, the relationship does not end there. Nuances – the sea, just one article does not fit. You can read other articles on this topic.
© Igor Satorin