Five Reasons You’re Struggling to Move on From Heartbreak

by admin March 02, 2023

Heartbreak sucks.

I’ve always mused that cupid’s arrows are amongst the sharpest around. Rejection hit’s differently.

But what hurts more is wanting to move on yet feeling unable to. You can quickly find yourself in a dark place, ruminating whether you’re broken or not good enough.

The longer you stay stuck, the more pervasive the thoughts become.

“Will I ever move on? Maybe love will never happen for me.”

I’ve been there. So have my clients.

And there is good news. Your pain will be temporary now that you’re reading this post.

That’s because you’re getting the secret ingredient that has been missing until now — the understanding of critical concepts that make moving on so hard today and how to solve them.

In this post, I will share with you five key factors that keep you stuck and how you can rapidly free yourself from your current situation.

These are battle-tested ideas taken from my work with 100s of clients over five years. Give them your focus, and I know things will change.

Ready? Let’s go!

1 — You Don’t Understand The Psychology Keeping You Stuck

Some clients I work with have been stuck for years. In these cases, they’ve genuinely come to believe they’re not good enough or something is fundamentally wrong with them.

I usually find these people know a lot about attachment theory, narcissism, or other terms you might find in the DSM-5 (therapy handbook). They’ve typically also dug into past trauma or explored inner-child work.

While these ideas have merit, they distract from critical psychological (and scientific) processes that affect modern-day relationships.

Dating is different now.

There are more moving parts than ever before. Only 15 years ago, you had little visibility into what your dating interest was doing each day. Nor were you bombarded with endless streams of reels pushing unsolicited dating advice or concepts.

This means we’re now exposed to psychological quirks that wouldn’t have affected us before.

While I can’t go into them all now, here are a few key ideas you need to know about:

Cognitive Dissonance — The psychological tension created by two or more opposing views. When you get mixed signals or contrasting explanations for behaviour (e.g. blaming their attachment style vs them not being a good match), you obsess over a definitive answer. This can lead to rationalising feelings as you try to answer the question — why am I thinking about them so much? You can read more about this here.
Dopamine Loops — Also known as the happy hormone, Dopamine is a chemical that makes us feel great in response to rewards and gives us the energy to seek them out again. We now know Dopamine responds in anticipation of a potential reward. That means if you get mixed signals, you’ll be secreting addictive chemicals that give you the thrill of the chase, perhaps mistaking that for attraction.
Psychological Projection — We all have perceptions of ourselves we have yet to own. The human response is to put it on someone else. When this happens, we feel an incredibly energetic charge towards that person. It’s easy to mistake this for a mystical experience, and if you google the symptoms, you’ll quickly start believing you’ve met your twin flame or soulmate. In reality, most extreme attraction comes from projection. You have some quality in yourself you don’t own, so you find a shot for your projection. In a world where we perceptions of people, not reality, it’s easy to fall for an idea of someone, not the truth. Understanding the five stages of projection is essential if you want to catch this in yourself.

If you’ve been struggling to move on, review these ideas and see how they apply to you. Perhaps you’ve been getting mixed signals or explanations that confuse you. Or maybe you thought this person was the one because you were projecting. Dive into those articles above, and give yourself an honest accounting — it will change your perception of dating forever.

2 — You Haven’t Developed Your Emotional Toolkit

Do you have a reliable method for controlling your emotions?

Moving on becomes a game of chance if you don’t have a toolkit for controlling your emotions. Rather than making continued progress, you’ll find yourself in emotional quicksand whenever something triggers you (a picture, song, Instagram post etc.). This often leads to a downward spiral and eventual incident of elite-level self-sabotage (read: contacting them, drunk texting, turning up at their place).

You’ll likely spend the next week desperately trying to save face or rediscover your dignity.

Developing emotional mastery will solve this and much more in your life. Instead of getting triggered and descending into chaos, you will use your trusted techniques to regain composure and stay calm. In other words, you will become unshakeable.

So what techniques can you use?

I teach my clients Havening, an incredibly powerful psycho-sensory-based technique for stress release and even erasing past triggers.

Unfortunately, that requires a demonstration, so I wrote an article explaining other techniques you can use right now. I recommend the Alphabet game from New-Code NLP.

You can also discover other methods — what’s essential is you recognise when you’re triggered and immediately do something about it.

Get into the habit of noticing and controlling your state. It will change your life.

3 — You’re Staying In Contact (Or Worse, Pretending You Want Friendship)

There are many opinions on whether going no-contact is the right approach for moving on.

I can only speak from my experience with 100s of clients.

I have never seen staying in constant contact work. I have rarely seen staying in contact work in general.

Think about it — if you were going on a diet, would you sit in a room full of lovely-smelling doughnuts? Why would you make it so hard for yourself? Research consistently shows that out-of-sight, out-of-mind is a real thing.

Going no-contact introduces a form of certainty that closes potential Dopamine loops. You can’t anticipate what you’ll say or their messaging when you’ve decided it’s not an option. It frees up cognitive space and signals to yourself an intention to move on.

If you’ve been struggling to move on and are still in contact, I urge you to consider taking this step boldly.

Remember, this isn’t saying you won’t EVER speak to them again. Set a period, and stick with it. Your mental health is more important — show some self-love.

Now, one obvious difficulty comes when you are “friends” or have to see them daily. Many clients say they want to move on but keep the friendship. Unfortunately, I shall call BULLSHIT on this seemingly innocent notion.

Who are you kidding? You don’t want to be friends; you want to be a friend in waiting.

Re-assess what genuine friendship is and whether this relationship looks like that. Most people find they are in a one-sided situationship where one person gives, and the other takes. Be honest with yourself and act accordingly.

4 — You’ve Become Pre-occupied With Higher-Powers (Twin-flame, Tarot, Astrology)

I’ve had countless clients who’ve been sucked in by higher-power concepts such as twin flames, tarot, and astrology. You’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a certain type of person.

I can confirm — it is not.

Rational, intelligent, and successful individuals from all walks of life get pulled into these worlds.

I know because I was one of them. I’ve found myself knee-deep in the forums of Quora reading about twin flames, and I’ve even bought books on astrology.

It’s easy to say only gullible people fall for this stuff. That’s not true. We turn to these forums because we desperately want answers — preferably ones favourable to us. When things get tough, it’s natural to surrender to the universe and hope there is something above looking out for us.

The problem is when it becomes your obsession — when you stop focusing on practical steps, you can take or start to expect magic to change everything for you.

If you’ve been focusing too much on this kind of content, it’s time to reset. I highly recommend you read this article to give you context and a strategy to move forward.

Again, I don’t know what’s true or not. I’ve seen some strange stuff with synchronicity. I do know that none of us will find out for sure until we pass on. So don’t put all your eggs in this basket at the cost of living in the now.

5 — You’re Always Talking About Them

Do you find yourself constantly talking about this person?

Whether it’s friends, colleagues, or even a therapist, you can’t help but link every conversation back to this one person and what happened.

I like to remind my clients of something fundamental — you create your world through language.

You need words to make sense of everything around you. If you didn’t have language, you couldn’t differentiate a pen from the table it is resting on.

So consider this — whenever you talk about this person, you bring them into your present reality.

You give them influence and importance without them being physically present.

Ultimately, you spend your valuable attention on this situation instead of constructing a new world without them. How does that help to move on?

Pay attention to the stories you are telling every day. Are you creating new narratives that excite you or constantly dragging the past into the present?

Perhaps it’s time to stop boring everyone about this and find something new to focus on.

Bonus — You’re Trying To Do Everything On Your Own

Are you trying to do everything alone?

It can be difficult to judge ourselves impartially, so getting an outside opinion (not friends or family) can be extremely valuable. Having someone ask you the right questions and challenge your assumptions dramatically speed up the process and help you discover things about yourself you simply couldn’t.

The question to ask yourself is — how long have I been trying to move on?

For some, heartbreak is something that just needs time. They can bunker down for a few months and absorb the pain.

For others, the experience is indicative of a longer-term pattern. This might not be the first time, and they might be falling into old habits or consistently attracting the same relationships with new faces.

The typical avenue people explore to deal with this is therapy. Another option is coaching. Both paths allow you to explore your life independently.

If what you’re doing hasn’t been working, you have nothing to lose from trying something new. Asking for help is not a weakness — all the top athletes and executives have coaches because it helps. Why are you any less deserving in the arena of life?

What Now?

There are many potential reasons why someone might be struggling to move on. I’ve shared the most significant contributors with you based on my experience coaching 100s of clients through heartbreak and transformation.

Here’s how you can start putting this into practice:

Go through all the points above

Note what’s relevant to you (perhaps you need to understand the psychology first)
Pick ONE as your focus and attack it with purpose!
If you’re struggling — reach out for help and speed up this process.

Heartbreak is the greatest catalyst for immense personal growth. Start viewing your experience as an opportunity to change your life.

And if you want some guidance, don’t hesitate to contact me or check out my science and psychology-based course for this exact topic.

Make it happen.

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Fed up with repeating patterns in dating? Or perhaps you’re ready to attract the love you deserve.

I’ve helped 100s of clients crush overthinking, heal the pain of rejection and become their most attractive selves.

If that sounds interesting, why not book a FREE Breakthrough Call — let’s see how we can make it happen.

You can also pick up a copy of my FREE eBOOK, “Three Essential Keys To Move On From Heartbreak”, here.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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