i'm dr orion taraban and this is psych hacks better living through psychology and the topic of today's short talk is killing the hope killing the hope is an emotional survival strategy and one that is most applicable in the wake of a breakup so let's say that an important relationship has ended and while you understand intellectually that it's over emotionally you still retain the hope that somehow in the future you will be reconciled with your ex and there will be a chance for the two of you to get back together it's not rational but you feel
it nonetheless you know that this is the case because you catch yourself ruminating about the ex you can't let them go and you can't move on to somebody else the space in your heart is occupied by the memory of that person and even though that memory causes you nothing but pain you hold on to it and that's because there's a sense that if you were to surrender the pain then there would be nothing left to bind you to the lost loved one you harbor the hope because you believe the pain is preferable to nothingness and
you believe that if you don't hold on to the pain which is the hope of reconciliation and that your ex has already surrendered that pain then once you relinquish that pain then the relationship will be completely and irrevocably lost and that's a lie that's actually not true and i'll explain why in a moment however right now the important thing is to understand that your hope is corroding your heart it's killing you from the inside now it's not for me or for anybody else to tell you when it's time to kill the hope because hope is
a very precious and intimate thing and yet in order to survive in order to continue to emotionally live sometimes it's necessary to kill the hope and once you decide to do that there's no turning back it's a ruthless procedure but one that could save your life to kill the hope you have to eliminate any interior contact with the internalized object of your ex there's a lot of talk on youtube about no contact but not communicating with another person is only the most superficial understanding of what no contact means true no contact means not coming into
emotional contact with the internal object with which is the memory the image the fantasy of the other person every time that internal object is activated you vigorously block and replace it with something else and you do that over and over and over and over and over again sometimes hundreds of times a day and you thereby weaken the power of that hope internal no contact is like applying a tourniquet it cuts off the blood flow to that part of you so that it withers away and dies not a very pleasant operation but one that in certain
cases might be essential to survival now the reason why letting go of the hope doesn't actually make your situation objectively hopeless is this let's say that after six months after 12 months after two years whatever your ex for whatever reason were to come back into your life and if this person were to find you in exactly the same state that he or she left you in six months 12 months two years ago then whatever motivated them to leave you in the first place would likely still be present they're gonna think wow i dodged a bullet
i was right to leave this person they haven't changed at all exes often do come back however a lot of times they're just spying on you from afar to help them feel better about ending the relationship and if they ever actively re-enter your life it will not be because they sense that you are still holding on to a candle of hope for their return it will be because they like who you have become in the interim so killing the hope doesn't objectively decrease your chances of an eventual reconciliation however paradoxically by killing the hope you
resign yourself to moving on with your life without any expectation that you'll ever see that person again as long as you live it's ruthless but effective let me know what you think please like comment and subscribe for the algorithm and please see the about tab for more information on donations and consultations thanks for listening
