It will never work if you do it this way.

Have you ever tried to do No Contact but after a few months or a year, you find yourself back in touch with that person?

Maybe you tried to be friends or even rekindle your old flame. If it’s a friend or family member, you may have tried to forgive and move on. But… as time went on, the same old patterns played out and you decided to institute No Contact yet again.

Do you ever ask yourself why it didn’t work the first time and what you can do to make it stick this time around?

It’s amazing how many people don’t understand how simple No Contact can be. It’s a hard process to get through, but it is simple in its design.

Don’t get me wrong. Simple-> Yes. Easy -> No.

The getting through it is the hard part. How to do it… well, that’s where you’re in luck. It can be easier, shorter, and more manageable if you go into it with a plan.

What’s the plan?

I’m so glad you asked.

There Are Many Ways To Sabotage No Contact

But this is the guaranteed way to ensure that it will never work.

If you do not work on closure and turn the looking glass on yourself you will always remain susceptible to that person.

What I mean is this:

1. Remove their role in your life in any capacity.

2. Make a plan to completely cut all ties to them from both directions. From both you and from them. It needs to be both ways.

If you do not do this then you leave yourself open to either 1. getting sucked back in by them or 2. creating a lasting role they forever play in your life.

Both of these things keep you stuck in place. Both of them prevent you from moving on. Both of them will make No Contact more painful for you and prolong it by having it play out in repeated future versions.

Until you are ready to accept this, No Contact is almost pointless. Why do something part way and set yourself up for failure?

Remove Their Role In Your Life

Many times, the other person has become less of a human being and more of a symbol.

• They were the hope for a future of happiness and love.

• They were the person who would choose you forever and realize your value and worth.

• They were the one who truly needed you and you could be that shining light in their life, helping them heal old wounds and show them the love they never received before you came along.

• They were the person who was unjustly victimized by life, family, or prior lovers and “have a good heart” deep deep down on the inside.

• They were the one who made your world whole and the universe (or God) sent them to you.

• It feels like they were destined for you.

They aren’t a person anymore. They have become an idol. They have become a drug.

This is the part that is seen in hindsight. At the moment, they don’t seem this way. While you’re in it, they simply seem like a partner or lover. It isn’t until the rose-colored glasses have been shed and reality begins to normalize that you can see how they were morphed.

That process takes a while. This is why maintaining No Contact for at least 3 months is imperative. You need to allow your body time to flush the hormones from your system and learn how to live without being flooded by them.

It’s no different than a detox from any drug or addictive activity. If “little hits” continue to happen, you are still getting high off the supply. Not completely cutting them off is no different than being a heroin addict and doing small doses every so often. Supply is supply.

Would you recommend to someone to just do a little bit of heroin? No? Then why let yourself do it?

I’m aware that the thought that a breakup from someone like this is not equivalent to doing hard drugs is one that many people have. It is. It can feel much harder than doing a synthetic drug because the drug you get high on is inside of you already. They come from your brain and body. These drugs are hormones and neurotransmitters. That person may be the one who stimulates the drugs to wash over you like a tsunami, but the drugs are normal ones that you produce every day.

You can’t do without them like you could heroin or cocaine. They are part of your regulatory system and you need them to survive. But… you need them in normal amounts. Not the way they happen when you are stuck in this cycle of going back to someone repeatedly.

It’s all about Homeostasis. Which in simple terms is all about having a stable internal state.

Using a No Contact plan is what helps you get to homeostasis.

What Is Essential?

Here’s the plan. 3 steps!

1. Cut off all avenues of contact from your end.

2. Cut off all avenues of contact from their end.

3. Replace their role with something you choose.

How do you do them?

Step 1. Cutting Off Your End

To do this you must MUST make a list of every way you are attached to them.

Many times, it’s not enough to simply never contact them again. They have fingers that reach into your life in ways that are invisible and ghostly. Their essence. Their memory. Their energy is still around if you don’t take the time to clear it.

This is basically a journaling task. Like journaling it creates a place in time for you to look back on. It works like a time machine every time you go back and read it.

Getting it down on paper is a good way to solidify this activity. It commemorates it and makes it official. There is something to be said about the way a pen or pencil scratches against paper. That sensation travels up your arm through your nervous system. Your eyes tether another sense to it through your optic nerve. (These are direct lines to your brain!) If you want to add another element you can speak it out loud. Read the list aloud to yourself. Your vocal cords will vibrate and send the sound waves throughout your body.

It is in essence the work of manifestation. You put it down into writing. You speak it into the wind like a spell or prayer. You do the work and create the change you want to happen.

This list is a check-off list for you to place a line across as you go through them and cut off each method of communication. Each one of those methods is a chain. As you mark them off, that chain is broken allowing you to move more freely and breathe easier.

Some of the common tethers of communication are:

• Hearing about them from friends/ family/ coworkers/ etc- you have to let people know that you are not welcoming any information about them at all. You don’t want to know the good or the bad. They are a null point in your life.

• Separating all finances- Bills, streaming accounts, leases, joint banking, healthcare. Any and everything money-related, including who is the beneficiary on insurance accounts and wills needs to be resolved.

• Social media- Block, block, block. The point is zero contact, even with your eyes from a distance. This includes any and all avenues that are involved with social media. From analytics to comments. If you can tell that they have been around in any capacity, you need to shut off that point of entry.

• Email- Deleting their contact or blocking them from email accounts is easy enough to do. If they make a new one and contact you that way, block that too. Set up a new email address if you need to to avoid having to see their possible messages if they try to skirt it with new addresses. You can even set up filters in your inbox to go through specific terms or names in the body of the messages. Were there pet names you gave each other? Use that filter!

• Get rid of their stuff- You don’t need their old sweatshirt or that stuffed animal you got on a date to survive. Did they have a favorite coffee mug- Chuck it! Did they buy you a piece of wall art- Sell it! A present for your anniversary- Donate it! Get it out of your atmosphere. Unless you can sever the emotional tie you feel for that piece. If it doesn’t hold a special meaning that makes you miss them, then keep it. If it does, at least take it and store it somewhere else so you don’t have to look at it anymore. (I did this with my ex-husband’s pictures that had our kids in it. I didn’t want to get rid of those, so they went into the attic until they became neutral objects regarding him)

• Remove their pictures- If the focus is on you right now, then have pictures of you to replace them. Or, of your kids, your dogs, images you like… really anything except pictures of that person. Delete their pics from your phone, social media, websites (for bloggers), etc…

• Don’t reach out!- It should be a “Duh” but it’s not. Obviously, if you are sending emails, DMs, or texts then they may respond. No Contact means you cannot contact them either. No saying “hey there”. No leaving the door open. No, I just wanted to let you know… Nothing! The act of hitting SEND is a hit of that supply the same as talking to them is.

Any way you can cut them off to prevent you from reaching out to them or thinking about them -> Do it. This is a kindness you do for yourself.

Also, don’t post a bunch of stuff on your social media that is a passive message meant for them. This activity is still sending them energy and will only make it harder to maintain No Contact. This activity happens a lot at this time. Messages about toxic relationships and cutting people out of your life are not going to help you get them out of your thoughts.

Step 2. Cutting Off Their End

Making sure they can’t contact you is vital. It is much easier to maintain No Contact if you aren’t actively trying to avoid looking at something they have sent.

It’s no different than the concept of eating less junk food. Don’t have it around in the first place and you are more likely to avoid eating it. A bag of chips at the store is less accessible than a bag of chips in your pantry.

Placing roadblocks in the path will make this easier on you in the short and long run.

• Snail mail- It’s harder to control the incoming content through your physical mailbox. If you know who your regular postman is you can always slide them a couple of bucks to not deliver mail from a specific person. (I imagine this can work in a small town where everyone knows each other) OR speak to the postmaster about it. There may be something they can do to help. If not, you can reject mail. Write REJECT on the front of it and place it back into your mailbox and it will be sent back to them. Leave a pen in your mailbox for this function to simplify it. If you have a PO Box, get a different one. They can’t send anything to you if they don’t know it.

• Digital messaging- Like above, they do not need to contact you for any reason. Erase their contact. Block their accounts. Block their family member’s accounts. Block their friend’s accounts. You are no longer their associate. A breakup means you two have broken the bond that tied you together. A clean break is easier to heal from than a messy one. Receiving messages makes things messy. They will gather information on you through third-party sources if they can. Is their best friend’s wife the manager at your salon? Go to a different one. It may seem like extreme measures. It is, but this is for an extreme reason. Your life being altered for a short period of time to be able to spend the remainder of it free from that person is a small sacrifice if you break it down.

• Remove yourself as their emergency contact- This one is more common than you would think. If someone wants to really pull at your heartstrings and conscience, they will put you as their emergency contact on forms. This way they can have the hospital or a school, tax pro, etc… contact you for them. Getting a call from a medical professional about your ex is a tough one to ignore. They deploy tactics like these to force you to interact with them. If this happens you can tell them to remove your name and information from the records. (My ex did this. He had me as his contact with his accountant so when he couldn’t be reached, they would call me instead.) They may also put you as the backup on their email accounts so you get notifications if they are changing passwords or logging into new devices. There are a lot of sneaky tactics out there that people use to ensure they still show up in your life.

• Block their Number- Go ahead and do it. Keep that thing blocked. You don’t need it anymore. Don’t unblock it from time to time to see what comes through. That’s a dangerous game that people play with themselves. And they usually lose.

Step 3. Replace Their Role

This doesn’t mean replacing them with a person. At least not a different person. Many times, the person that needs to fill that role is you.

No Contact is not necessary with someone functional and healthy. If you need to go No contact with them, then odds are, they were toxic. Which means you were a fair amount of toxic with them.

I’m not saying you are a toxic person. What I mean is, toxicity rubs off onto you. You can’t be around someone who is dysfunctional for long unless you join them in it. If you don’t join them, then either they leave or you leave. It takes a while to regulate and get back to a steady equilibrium. It doesn’t happen automatically. To do that you have to figure out why someone toxic was allowed to return to your life in the first place.

Why were they given another chance to prove how toxic they were? Why was No Contact not good enough the first time?

What role did they play or what role did you hope they would play?

• Were they someone who picked you? Pick yourself or find a new partner to pick you. (Dating again can be a fun way to bounce back. You don’t have to get serious unless you want to)

• Were they someone who supported you? Friends and support groups can do that.

• Were they someone who listened to you? Find a coach or therapist.

• Were they a distraction? Start a new hobby.

• Did they need you to take care of them? Volunteer.

What was their role? And what was yours?

We all have a shadow side. There are normal aspects of our personalities that aren’t healthy. It’s all about balance.

Finding those shadows, accepting them, and working on them is what will make this time different than the last one. This is where you grow and become un-hooverable. They won’t be able to suck you back in for another round if you focus on this kind of growth.

The Danger Zone

What I see with some clients is that the other person has taken on an almost mystical or religious quality. They say things like, “The Universe sent them to me.”, “They are my Twin Flame.” or “God chose them for me.”

It’s literally Magical Thinking. This kind of thinking is a hindrance to breaking a trauma bond and will keep you stuck in place, ready to let them back into your life for another round of nonsense.

How are you supposed to break a bond with someone who is designated by something all-powerful to be your person? It’s a recipe for disaster.

Consider this -> Maybe they were sent to you not to be your partner, but to be the person who traumatizes you. The person who teaches you the lesson to not attach to toxic people anymore. How many times will you take them back before you learn that lesson?

I believe that a little bit of magical thinking is good for us. It can lead to creativity and spontaneity.

It’s when it goes too far and you no longer have control over what is good for you that it becomes a problem that leaves you open to being abused or taken advantage of. You can believe that another person was meant for you while still keeping your feet on the ground and holding them accountable for their bad actions. You can also believe they are your soulmate while still leaving them because they are hurting you. These things mean whatever you decide they mean.

And who knows, maybe your soul will crave something/someone different when you’ve healed?

It Becomes Tricky If You Have Shared Kids Or Work Together

You can’t avoid co-parenting and you can’t always quit your job.

You can still do a Modified No-Contact if you are required to communicate with them for legal or work reasons. It becomes a bit harder and may take a little longer but it can still happen.

Set up alternate communication methods-

1. Parenting apps like OurFamilyWizard and AppClose are great for streamlining messages into one place. They also don’t allow messages to be erased so they also act like a monitor. Some people begin to act right when they know another set of eyes is watching them.

2. You can also set up a separate email address just for use with that person. This way they aren’t spamming your inbox on a regular basis and you can schedule when you are going to look at it.

3. For work, you can set up a CC for all communications to HR or a boss so they know to keep the tone and content professional only. If they want to keep things secret, that can’t happen if a work monitor is looking. CC a different coworker like a receptionist if you have to. Almost anyone will do for this to work.

4. You can get a free Google Voice number at any time. Let that be the one that your ex can use to contact you. Don’t set it up through your regular email or add the app to your phone. Keep it on the separate email address you make for them. This way you can still get messages, but on your timeline instead of theirs.

For in-person exchanges- maintain as much physical distance as possible.

You aren’t required to always walk your kids to the door or to speak to your ex in the office. Only be as talkative as necessary. For both, treat them as business transactions.

When it comes to co-parenting make sure to follow your court orders so you don’t find yourself in hot water, but you don’t have to go beyond them.

Keep This In Mind -> It’s Temporary

It’s not forever.

Many of the changes you make are aggressive in the beginning, but after a while, you will forget about them. They go on autopilot and you go on living your life freely.

These steps are to set you up for success. They aren’t meant to be a burden and hard work for the long haul. Eventually, you won’t even need them. Once you have broken that bond, it doesn’t matter how many times the other person comes around. They won’t be able to penetrate your defenses.

During this time apart you will have worked on yourself and hopefully gotten to a position where you aren’t susceptible to their nonsense. That’s the big reason behind No Contact. It gives you the space and time to do that work and to thoroughly drill down and focus on yourself.