Unrequited love: 3 keys to overcome it

Romantic love can become a feeling that hijacks the attention, the senses and all the options among which we choose to act. If this is also an unrequited love, the consequences are even more negative ; to these limitations of the own freedom a series of psychological phenomena is added to him that worsen the quality of life in general; the lowering of self-esteem, frustration and anxiety that accompanies them, among others.

However, knowing what to do when unrequited love appears and managing the situation with emotional intelligence will help us to leave the experience not happy, but reinforced. Following strategies that promote resilience, it is possible to learn from these experiences to become emotionally stronger .

Let's see what this process of change through which you get to overcome an unrequited love .

How to overcome unrequited love?

The first step before starting to work on strategies to get out of the vicious circle of thoughts that produce anxiety and sadness is to be clear that in cases of unrequited love there are no culprits .

This is important, since it is extremely simple that, even if we do not realize it, we look for an excuse to express our anger toward a specific goal. The fact of translating that discomfort into an activity that is externalized towards a target can cause tensions to be discharged for a while, but certainly harms others , and just for that fact it is already worthwhile to be careful not to fall into this trap.

Specifically, the person who does not correspond with his love is a habitual victim of this projection of anger and frustration, since beliefs and thoughts appear related to the idea that we have the right to be loved by that particular person and that, for So much, that person is breaking a kind of agreement that never really sealed itself. Of course, this idea is absurd, but in the most emotional situations the most crazy premises may seem completely reasonable .

To prevent these cases, a good idea is to imagine, at the beginning, possible contexts or scenarios in which we blame (fictitiously) this person, in order to reflect on what is most likely to happen. In this way, If the first signs of gratuitous blame appear, we will know how to identify the first and, thus, it will be easier for them not to repeat themselves.

1. Breaking with rumination

A good part of the mission of putting in check those negative feelings produced by unrequited love and rejection is to lower the levels of general anxiety.

In practice, this consists of ending rumination, which is the vicious circle that our thoughts follow when there is something that causes us worry, anguish, stress and / or fear. In this way, we will gain the ability to handle our focus of attention without constantly returning to those ideas or memories that cause us discomfort

To do this, the recommendable thing is to undertake habits that we did not do before and, especially, to disconnect by walking and resting in physical spaces without noise; and the more natural they are, the better.

Actually, the idea is very simple. Staying away from that person makes our brain less exposed to the stimuli that make us think about it. In this way, the activation dynamics of brain neurons It adapts to what it is like to live without spending a lot of time having that person in mind. As a result, in turn, as this body is "adjusting" to this new reality, there are increasingly fewer episodes in which we do not surprise thinking spontaneously in it, until in the end it is part of our past almost totally .

To know in more detail how you can end the rumination that produces unrequited love or any kind of stressful thinking in general, you can access this article.

2. Stay away from that person

Deal with the feeling of discomfort generated by unrequited love and at the same time know how to act in the presence of the person who does not love us as we wanted it can be too complex to be able to face it at the same time , at least during the first stages of overcoming.

Therefore, if you want to overcome unrequited love, the ideal is to stay away from this person (if necessary, explaining it), in order to focus only on what happens to us.

This idea may generate guilt, but it is important to keep in mind that the person who experiences unrequited love is often more hurt than the other , so a time to worry about one's own problems is fully justified.

3. Cognitive restructuring

This part of the management of frustration is typically done in therapy and with the help of a person specialized in the area of ​​psychology and with the appropriate certificates.

The idea is that patient and therapist work together discovering the cognitive schemes by which beliefs are shared, interpretations of memories and abstract ideas that make the experience of unrequited love so painful.

By modifying the arrangement and organization of these cognitive schemes, the discomfort is reduced , especially in regard to the improvement of self-esteem and in the management of expectations. We are used to using, in this way, cognitive schemes in which the other person does not have an important role and is not part of the structure of our own identity.

• You may be interested in this article: "10 tips to choose a good psychologist"

One-Sided Love Relationship (April 2024).