Romantic love can become a feeling that hijacks our attention, our senses, and all the options we choose to act on. If this is also an unrequited love, the consequences are even more negative ; To these limitations of one’s freedom are added a series of psychological phenomena that worsen the quality of life in general; the lowering of self-esteem, the 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 come out of the experience not happy, but strengthened. By following strategies that enhance resilience, it is possible to learn from these experiences to become emotionally stronger
Let’s see what this is process of change through which unrequited love is overcome
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 easy for us, even if we do not realize it, to look for an excuse to express our anger towards a specific objective. The fact of translating this discomfort into an activity that is externalized towards a target can cause tension to be released for a while, but it certainly hurts others and for that fact alone it is worth taking care not to fall into this trap.
Specifically, the person who does not reciprocate his or her love is a common 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 specific person and that, therefore, Therefore, that person is breaking a kind of pact that was never really sealed. Of course, this idea is absurd, but In the most emotional situations the most far-fetched premises can seem totally reasonable
To prevent these cases, a good idea is to imagine, at the beginning, possible contexts or scenarios in which we (fictionally) blame this person, in order to reflect on what is most likely to happen. Thus, If the first signs of gratuitous blaming appear, we will know how to identify them the first time and, thus, it will be easier for them not to be repeated.
1. Breaking rumination
A good part of the mission of putting a stop to those negative feelings produced by unrequited love and rejection is to lower general anxiety levels.
In practice, this consists of ending rumination, which is the vicious cycle that our thoughts follow when there is something that causes us worry, anguish, stress and/or fear. Thus, We will gain the ability to manage our focus of attention without making it constantly return to those ideas or memories that cause us discomfort.
To do this, it is advisable to start habits that we did not do before and, especially, disconnect by walking and resting in physical spaces without noise; and the more natural they are, the better.
In reality, the idea is very simple. Staying away from that person makes our brain less exposed to the stimuli that make us think about them. Thus, the activation dynamics of brain neurons It adapts to what it is like to live without spending a lot of time keeping that person in mind. As a result, in turn, as this organ “adjusts” to this new reality, the episodes in which we do not surprise ourselves by spontaneously thinking about it become increasingly rare, until in the end it is almost completely part of our past..
To know in more detail how you can end the rumination caused by unrequited love or any type of stressful thought in general, you can access this article.
2. Stay away from that person
Deal with the feeling of discomfort that unrequited love generates 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 tackled 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 to them), so that we can focus only on what happens to us.
This idea may generate feelings of guilt, but it is important to keep in mind that the person who experiences unrequited love is usually more hurt than the other so some time to worry about your own problems is fully justified.
This part of managing love 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 to discover the cognitive schemes through which beliefs, interpretations of memories and abstract ideas are distributed that make the experience of unrequited love so painful.
By modifying the arrangement and organization of these cognitive schemes, discomfort is reduced, especially when it comes to improving self-esteem and managing expectations. In this way, we become accustomed to using cognitive schemes in which the other person does not have an important role and is not part of the structure of our own identity.
