5 toxic thoughts that sabotage your efforts to get over your ex

Don't let your thoughts prevent your heart from healing.

Are you working hard on figuring out how to get over someone so you can move on, but finding that getting over a breakup is very difficult?

The pain just won’t go away. I get your heartbreak.

There is nothing worse than a broken heart and getting over someone isn’t easy.

Surprisingly, one of the biggest obstacles to getting over someone is our own toxic thoughts.

The negative tapes that go around and around in our head. These thoughts can stop our broken heart recovery in its tracks.

So, what kind of toxic thoughts can sabotage getting over someone?

1. "I am a total loser."

For many of us, when we are left, we can’t help but take it personally. We believe that our person would never have left us if we weren’t such a loser.


If we had been better looking or smarter or funnier or any other way than we were, then our person would still love us and we wouldn’t be feeling this way.

Breakups happen for many reasons but, usually, it’s not because one person is a loser.

People are complicated and, in the beginning, that complication doesn’t matter. What matters is the chemistry, the connection, the attraction. But, once the relationship settles down, they can become complicated.

So, if you are sitting around telling yourself that you are a loser because your person left you, try to realize that you aren’t a loser, that the reasons for the breakup are complicated and as much about your person as about you.

If you don’t believe me, go ask your friends!

2. "I will never love or be loved again."

One of the biggest reasons I see people stay with people they shouldn’t stay with is because they are worried if they walk away from this person, they will never find someone else to love, that no one will ever love them back.

I am here to tell you that, if you are thinking these thoughts, they are patently untrue. I have never, in all my years of coaching, met someone who hasn’t met someone else after a breakup. (Although I do have one client who has chosen to be single and is happy!)

There is a big wide world out there and there is a lot of love to be had. However, you will never find that love if all of your energy is given to this person who is making you unhappy.

Once you put your energy out into the world, you will invite love in and it will find you.

Over the years, after my divorce, I used to wonder what the love of my life was doing at that moment.

Was he with his kids, skiing, or working? I had no idea who he was but I knew that he was out there, living, and waiting to find me.

3. "If we could just go back to the way we were in the beginning..."

This is a common wish for many heartbroken people: "If we could just go back to the way things were, in the beginning, we would live happily ever after."

I am afraid to say, it’s impossible to go back to the beginning. The beginning of a relationship is a magical time. There is a deeply personal and chemical attraction, the nights spent talking and the days spent having adventures.


The hope that the two of you have a wonderful future together is irresistible.

Unfortunately, the beginning just isn’t sustainable. It's a time when we are being our best selves and our brain chemicals rule.

Once the beginning turns into the middle, things change.

People's real selves begin to emerge. Fissures become evident. Incompatibilities rear their ugly heads. Relationships then get complicated and they can fall apart.

So, don’t waste even a moment of time thinking that if you can just get back to the beginning, you will live happily ever after. The beginning is over and what is happening now is how it will be going forward.

4. "Someone else will get the best part of them."

I can assure you that, unless they do serious work on themselves after a breakup, people don’t just magically get better with their next person.

Rather, at first, they'll bring forth that wonderful person — the one you fell in love with. But, then, after time, just like with what happened with you, the real person emerges and the cycle begins again.

So, don’t convince yourself that if your ex looks happy on social media that he is all fixed. I can promise you that it's just not true.

5. "If I can change, I can get them back."

I have so many clients who believe that if they change, they can get their person to come back to them. And, while sometimes that works, more often than not, it doesn’t.

There are two people in every relationship and if one is willing to do the work and make a change but the other isn’t, it isn’t likely that there is a reconciliation in the future.

There might be a short term coming back together but the reunion won’t stick because your issues will still be there.

The better course of action is to do the work on yourself, get to know yourself again and look for a person with whom your baggage ‘matches’. Don’t try to twist yourself into a pretzel to be the person your ex wants you to be.

Getting over a relationship ending can be one of the hardest things that you will ever do in your life.

And I know that right now, learning how to get over a breakup seems completely impossible but I can promise you that it’s not. I can promise you that, with time and awareness, you will get over it.

Life will go on and you will be happy and in love again.

In the meantime, manage those toxic thoughts and don't let them impede you from getting over someone.

Don’t believe you are a loser or that you will never love again. Don’t look back and try to hold onto who they were. Don’t fantasize about who they are now because you just have no idea and don’t change for them.

Do it for you.

I know that it seems impossible but love is out there waiting for it. Get yourself off the couch and go find it! I did!