How to stop thinking about someone?

# How to stop thinking about someone?

You're almost never thinking about that person. You're thinking about the image, the voice and the songs your mind has tied to them, and those, unlike what happened, you can change.

Why is it that the more you try not to think about it, the more you think about it?

You told yourself: “Enough, I'm not thinking about it today.” Then you open your phone and a photo pops up. You walk past that café, you smell a scent on the street, and you're back there, with the same knot in your stomach.

Many call it weakness. I don't.

Every time you argue with that thought, you give it space. And the brain makes automatic what you repeat: to save energy, it retraces the path it knows best. It's not a matter of willpower. It's a habit of the mind that repeats itself on its own.

Are you thinking about the person or about their image?

The mind builds an internal representation of every experience: images, sounds, sensations. In NLP, the details of these representations are called submodalities: distance, size, light, color, volume.

Try it now. Think of that person and notice where the image is. Is it in front of you or to the side? Is it big or small, in color or faded, close or far away? What do you notice?

Now try moving that image away, as if you were pushing it farther from you. Make it smaller, maybe less bright. And notice what happens to the feeling you have.

Has something changed? Even just a little?

Our brain doesn't tell a vividly imagined reality from one actually lived. That's why the body reacts as if that person were here. According to NLP, it's often more useful to change the way you experience a memory than to try to erase its content.

Why does a song bring you right back to that person?

Imagine coming home after a breakup, with a thousand thoughts in your head. A song starts on the radio. From that day on, the first notes are enough to make you feel sad again.

The song is not to blame: it was just there, at the most intense moment. NLP calls this link an anchor: a stimulus that becomes associated with a strong emotional state and, since then, calls it up automatically.

It's not the person coming back. It's an association that formed in you, without you choosing it. And what has become associated can be recognized.

What do you tell yourself when you think about them?

Often the thought arrives together with a sentence. “I'll never find anyone like that.” “If only I had said that thing.” And the tone in which you say it to yourself matters a lot too.

That voice isn't you. You're the one who listens to it. The moment you notice it, you're already a step outside of it. You can try to bring the sentence back to a real fact: “I'll never find anyone like that” becomes “Today I miss them.”

The words are different, and the state you look at your day from changes. We talk about it in more depth on the page about internal dialogue.

What is that thought trying to protect?

Every emotion is born for a purpose and has a direction. Even a thought that keeps coming back is doing something for you. Maybe it keeps alive what that relationship gave you: warmth, security, feeling seen.

To stop thinking about it doesn't mean erasing what was, or repressing what you feel. The point is not having only one road to find again what you were missing. Try asking yourself:

• What did that person give me that I miss today?
• When else in my life have I already felt it?
• Where can I look for it now, even in a small way?

The resources you're looking for, according to an NLP presupposition, are already inside you. That person switched them on; they didn't create them.

Where does your attention go when the memory comes back?

The mind is like a spotlight: it lights up what you focus on and leaves the rest in shadow. In the book I call this mechanism mental focus, and your state tends to follow it.

Questions decide where the light lands. “Why did it end like this?” keeps your gaze fixed on the same spot. “What do I want for myself, now?” moves it to what you can do.

It doesn't change what happened. It changes the state you look at it from, and with it the choices you see.

What if the thought stays heavy for a long time?

Thinking often about someone after a breakup is a common experience. It's different when the thoughts have lasted for months and weigh on your sleep, your work, your health.

In that case it's useful to turn to a mental health professional. Here you'll find the difference between NLP, coaching and psychotherapy.

A small exercise

1. Next time the thought arrives, pause for a moment. Don't argue with it.

1. Notice what set it off: a song, a place, a photo, a sentence.

1. Observe the image that appears: where it is, how big it is, how close it is, whether it's bright or faded. Then listen to the sentence that goes with it and its tone.

1. If you feel up to it, try changing one detail of the image: move it farther away, make it smaller or lower its brightness. Notice whether the feeling changes. If the memory becomes too intense, stop the exercise.

1. Ask yourself: “What is this thought trying to protect?”

1. Then ask yourself a question that opens things up: “What do I really need, now?”

1. Notice what changes in your breathing and in your body. Has everything stayed the same? Has something shifted?

You don't have to erase a person to go back to choosing where you look.

To go deeper

You've seen that the thought that keeps coming back can have a structure: an image, a voice, an association born in an intense moment. In the the Premium Edition of Strategic NLP – The Invisible Blade you'll find the technique dedicated to disempowering an image or a voice that stays “always there,” the chapter on anchors that starts from the very song tied to a breakup, and a multi-day exercise on internal dialogue.

You can start from what you've begun to notice today.

• How to stop overthinking?
• How to manage internal dialogue?