How to DETACH From Someone 

[00:00:00] Thais: I'm gonna take you through the topic of how to detach from an ex or from somebody you're currently in a relationship with. It could even be a friendship or family member that you need distance from because they're not a healthy person to have in your life. And I really wanna take you through four things you need to know and understand about this concept.

[00:00:16] Thais: Cause I've actually seen a lot of videos like floating around about this. And I wanna cover like what's actually happening at the subconscious level of mind. So you understand what has to take place. First and foremost, we don't just detach consciously. If we could just detach and if we were actually choosing things from our conscious level of mind, then what you would find our experience would be that you would say, okay, it's time to detach done, and it would be that simple.

[00:00:41] Thais: But what's actually happening is it's truly our subconscious mind and even unconscious mind collectively that really govern our decisions and choices. And so when we say, oh, I'd like to detach, but we have a hard time, it's because your conscious mind intends something, but your subconscious mind has other things going on beneath the surface.

[00:00:59] Thais: It's the same reason that we can't always overcome procrastination or sometimes we don't always stick to our New year's re resolutions. It's because the conscious mind can intend one thing. But the subconscious mind can say, actually, we've got a different set of things that we're going to focus on.

[00:01:12] Thais: So we don't just detach. So what we have to do is we have to leverage the mechanics and the important principles of how the subconscious mind works and what we can do to actually let go of an X or somebody that we really know we need to distance ourselves from. So the very first crucial principle you wanna understand is that properly detaching actually means to your subconscious mind healing the voids that exist.

[00:01:37] Thais: So every time we attach to somebody, What essentially takes place is we start really leaning on this person to get our needs met from them. And we all have a whole bunch of different subconscious needs that are really governing us at all times. And these can be things like we want to feel seen or heard or emotionally connected, or physically connected or reassured or valued, or validated or wanted, or, you know, there there're gonna be so many needs protected, cared for, like supported.

[00:02:07] Thais: There can be so many needs for different people. But essentially
 when somebody comes into our lives, Our subconscious starts, habitually and repeatedly relying on somebody to get those needs, and that person sort of becomes a source of these needs being met. So part of grief when we're having a hard time detaching, part of what we're grieving is not the person's like physical form, right?

[00:02:27] Thais: And we can think of this in like a more intensive way, and please forgive the analogy, but if somebody passes away, right? I just want you to understand this. If somebody dies in, in your family, for example, You don't miss their physical body. If their physical body was around you all the time, even though they had died, it wouldn't necessarily make you feel better, right?

[00:02:48] Thais: Like you would, you know, their physical body could be around. It might even cause you to feel more, you know, uncomfortable or in pain. So it's not the physical form, it's actually the needs that people bring into our lives. It's also the traits they bring into our lives that we miss. And then there's a couple other crucial ways that I'll get to in a moment in terms of how we attach.

[00:03:06] Thais: And so when we detach, we can't just detach, like we can't just like get them out of our lives and not feel grief. Part of health age detachment is learning to heal voids. That's part of why people say things like, time heals all wounds. Time doesn't heal wounds. It's that within time your subconscious mind ends up going to seek, cuz it's a needs meeting machine.

[00:03:28] Thais: It ends up going out and seeking other ways of getting needs met that that original person was meeting. And so over time these voids are being healed and filled up even if you're not consciously aware of it. And so over time, we are healing our voids. So that's principle number one is that we have to get our needs met in new forms.

[00:03:47] Thais: And to that same point, we have principle number two, which is we have to get the traits that they brought into our lives. So if they were humorous and they may you laugh if they were really fun. Right, and, and you always had a great time with them if they were playful, like these characteristics or traits that they brought into your life, so they brought out in you as a result, you have to find ways to still
 express those aspects of yourself, and that's a huge part of healing the voids, right?

[00:04:10] Thais: Detaching means whatever they took out or took away from you by not being there. We have to go fill up. And when we do that, we don't feel like we grieve as much or miss that other person to the same degree. 

[00:04:23] Thais: So those are the first two, but remember I said there's four, so there's two other really big things. The other really big thing that we connect to or attach to that we have to properly detach from. Is these old stories. So we do this thing and it's a subconscious mind's way of trying to like maintain some kind of connection or closeness to somebody when we're not ready to let go.

[00:04:45] Thais: The mind connects to all these stories and unfortunately it really doesn't help you. It's usually things like, if only I had been more like this, then maybe the person would've wanted me or would've stayed. And it's actually the mind subconscious strategy to try to maintain connection to the person, even if that person has like tried to push you away or isn't showing up or isn't healthy for you.

[00:05:09] Thais: The subconscious mind can be difficult to change at times. It likes familiarity. It likes consistency. It, it sees these things as safety, right? So we, it's adverse to change. And so what happens is oftentimes we'll hold onto stories about the person or that connects us to the person as a means of trying to hold onto the person themselves.

[00:05:27] Thais: And so you have to make a list of those stories and you have to actually look for the other side. So what I mean by that is if you have a whole bunch of stories that say, If only I was more interesting, the person would've wanted to be with me. Why is that not the case? And what are the costs of actually staying with this person?

[00:05:46] Thais: What are the costs? Like? Was that person actually making you happy? What are the costs of trying to stay connected to this person? What would your life look like in one month, in six months, in five years if you were still with this person? And what are the benefits of actually setting yourself free? And the more you can write out all those costs and disconnect from these old stories that you have, and the more you can write out the benefits of setting yourself free.

[00:06:08] Thais: This is really gonna move the needle on detaching in a healthy way. And number four, we also have to detach from the fantasy of what could have been so much of the time. When I see, when I've historically seen clients or, or students that I get to see in the school all the time who are struggling with Detaching, one of the biggest themes is that they were more connected to the fantasy of the future with that person than the person themselves.

[00:06:35] Thais: So when really looking at the person, they might say, you know, well, there was a lot of painful things in the relationship. There were a lot of things that weren't healthy for me that weren't working. But when we look at the fantasy, sometimes they attach more to like all the trips they were gonna take, the future they were gonna have what that looked like.

[00:06:53] Thais: And sometimes people get so connected. To the fantasy world. Of the person that then when the person leaves, it's almost like it makes grief more complex because we're not just grieving the person as they were, but we're grieving like this fantasy world of the person too. So really writing out the fantasy and writing out on a page like who that person was in the fantasy.

[00:07:15] Thais: And then on a page next to it or column 'em next to it, what was the person in reality? And reconciling the two can help you get really present. And then when you do the other, the other three steps we talked about earlier, detaching from the needs, the traits and really looking at the cost of staying with somebody like that and the benefits of setting them free and like detaching from those old stories about how you should have done things differently and you're like just arguing with the past, which you can't control when you tell those stories.

[00:07:41] Thais: By really doing that work about fantasy versus reality, it helps you actually reconcile that, wait, I am grieving this person, not this fantasy person. And if I was so attached to the fantasy person, then this person probably wasn't really the best or most right person for me in the first place because my mind was trying to compensate for that by attaching to the fantasy.

[00:08:05] Thais: If you wanna learn a lot more about integrated attachment theory, your subconscious mind, how to heal, how to create change, How to really impact relationships or find right relationships in your life. There's lots of content here all the time, so please consider subscribing.
[00:08:19] Thais: I would love for you to be here. Thank you so, so much.