When you’re No Contact—stepping back from engaging with an ex so you have time to grieve the relationship and put some healthy boundaries in place—you can end up becoming quite stressed about “what if” scenarios.
What if I bump into my ex? Um, what if they call? What if they do this? What if they do that?
These all become a significant source of anxiety, and they also keep you emotionally tied to that person.
Here’s the reality: You could spend months worrying about bumping into your ex without actually bumping into them. That’s just a waste of your time, energy, and emotions.
I learned a lot about No Contact because I did it with an ex who I worked with and had the bonus of his being in my social circle. In fact, for a period during No Contact, we were sitting on the same bank of desks.
At first, I felt exhausted from fending off his attempts at contact and trying to anticipate what might happen next. It soon became clear that his antics and bracing myself for his attempts and drama were taking a toll on me.
When I’d once believed he would sort himself out and finally be with me, his lack of respect for my boundaries would have felt validating, a sure sign he loved me and would step up. But now I just found them tedious, oppressive and anxiety-inducing.
Finding value in all this drama would have been a real distraction from actually getting on with the business of living my life. I realised, for my sake and sanity, that I had to move on and stop basing who I was and my options on what he might or might not do.
With No Contact, what you’re effectively doing is limiting engagement with the person, not trying to control the uncontrollable and Jedi mind trick them into spontaneously combusting into a better person.
We humans imagine many different, often painful scenarios when we have to do things that feel uncomfortable. It might be catastrophic-thinking territory. And the overwhelming majority of the time, what we imagine around conflict, criticism and rejection far exceeds the reality of the experience.
You can’t predict when you’re going to bump into your ex (unless you’re working with them like I was). However, you can plan for success rather than failure, and plan for calm rather than drama.
There is no perfect reaction. It’s very easy in life to go, “I wish I’d said this” or “I wish I’d done that” because hindsight is 20/20 vision. The reaction is the reaction. The response is the response.
But if you genuinely believe you’re likely to bump into your ex, spend some time—a little time, not obsessing about it—actually coming up with a plan and then stick to that.
What do you typically do when you find yourself around someone you feel super-awkward or even intimidated around? Maybe you’re like a deer in the headlights. Perhaps you babble all sorts of inane stuff or, despite your abject discomfort, you force yourself to make polite conversation or act like nothing happened. Afterwards, you wind up kicking yourself as you berate yourself for feeling sucked in or you replay, rehash and dissect every moment.
In situations like this, I highly encourage what I call ‘And… Move…’.
I first came up with this practice in 2011 to help people feel safe and confident—boundaried—in anticipated awkward and stressful situations.
In essence: smile lightly or wave, say hello, and… move on.
Keep walking. Go to the bathroom; go chat to your friend; walk with purpose down the street without looking back. Stay in motion, keep walking. Once you’re out of sight, you can take some deep breaths and have all your reactions.
If you have to stop or it’s one of those situations where it’s awkward—maybe you have mutual friends around and you’ve now entered into a level of conversation:
‘And… Move…’ works even if on the inside it feels like you’re about to keel over and you’re quaking.
Project cool, calm, and confident. Practice the light smile, the hi, the “I’m doing great” a few times in front of the mirror so you get to a calm place—but also so you don’t look like you’re wearing a Halloween mask with a manic smile on your face. Then when you’re in that scenario, you have this ready-made script and plan you can put into place.
Aside from avoiding self-recrimination and being sucked into a dynamic you’re working hard to break away from and heal, you have your own back.
The body doesn’t differentiate between past and present, real and imagined scenarios. If you keep doing dress rehearsals of dramatic scenarios with your ex, not only will you stress yourself out, reinforcing the pattern of your emotional responses, but you will feel powerless and helpless.
By prepping for success instead of failure and not overriding your boundaries, you signal safety to yourself, from and for yourself.
It’s easy to give yourself a hard time when you feel as if you didn’t have the revenge response you imagine you’re supposed to have. One reader ran in the opposite direction when she bumped into her ex. Just took off.
I explained that it wasn’t the terrible thing she believed it to be because her ex had abused her. Her response was just the instinctive reaction—a fight-or-flight reflex kicking in—and it represented evolution. Her fleeing served her well.
Sure, we can give ourselves a hard time for looking scared or panicked. We hate the idea of someone thinking we’re scared of them. And also, pretending someone is amazing instead of shady and abusive keeps us in the dynamic long past its sell-by date. More importantly, our updated response disabuses them of their delusion that they’re not that bad.
If you imagine bumping into your ex, that scenario doesn’t have to be you keeling over, grabbing them around their ankles, and winding up in bed with them. It doesn’t have to be that they overwhelm and intimidate you.
You can imagine bumping into your ex as you do the whole smile, wave, say hello and keep moving. You say, “Yeah, I’m doing brilliantly, thank you,” and that’s it.
Imagine yourself as cool, calm, and confident. Imagine yourself as being assertive.
Remember that sometimes we’re afraid of bumping into our ex because we think they still see us as the person we were when we were involved with them. Or we still see ourselves as being that person.
We don’t recognise how we may have evolved since the breakup. If we do bump into our ex, it gives us a fresh opportunity to respond differently.
Plan for success, not failure. Plan for calm, not drama.
You don’t need to rearrange your entire life to avoid the possibility of seeing your ex (unless they pose a danger). Yes, there might be some strategic choices early on, but living in constant fear doesn’t have to be your default.
If you do see them, handle it with grace and boundaries for yourself. Then continue building your life—without them.
Based on Episode 2 of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions (2015). [Listen here].
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