How To Stop Caring About Someone: Time to Move On
And sometimes these meaningful relationships come to end. Sometimes people grow apart, and sometimes people fall out of love.
Sometimes you just fall for the wrong person.
It hurts because you’ve already invested so much. But it’s even more difficult when you still care about someone who has hurt or abandoned you. But for the sake of your sanity, you can’t dwell in the pain or live in the past.
No matter how shattered you feel, you have to eventually pick up the pieces and move on with your life. You will have to heal your broken heart.
Here are some ways to stop caring about someone who doesn’t deserve you or to be in your life.
How to Stop Caring About Someone and Move On With Your Life
Don’t Try to be Perfect
Take a deep breath. Exhale.
Speaking from personal experience, I know how hardest thing to do is to fully acknowledge the hurt you’re going through. We plaster on a smile and continue to go on as if nothing ever happened.
But this only works for so long. Eventually, that facade will crumble into a thousand pieces. So from the very beginning, it’s important for you to do three things:
1. Acknowledge the Reality of the Situation- It’s time to acknowledge that the meaningful relationship you had with this person is over. It’s done, and your life will be different moving forward.
Use this time to reevaluate the relationship and be honest with yourself. Was this a healthy relationship? Were there more bad times than good times? Did this person treat you with respect? Were you the only person making an effort in the relationship?
Don’t spend time thinking about the possibility of what could have been. You’re past that now. You have to remember that this is a part of life and that sometimes relationships end. And that’s okay.
It hurts now, but it won’t always. After analyzing the situation, think about what you’ve learned from this relationship. Everything we experience in life teaches us a valuable lesson.
2. Acknowledge How You Really Feel – You have to acknowledge the hurt so you can start the grieving process and work through it. Take a few days to lean into your negative emotions. And whatever you feel, express those emotions (safely please).
It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to stop caring about someone who was an ex-partner or an ex-friend. It all hurts the same. Realizing that all the dreams and plans you two had will never come to fruition feels like a kick in the gut.
But facing your feelings head-on allows you to take control of the situation and is going to be the key to helping you to stop caring and move on with your life.
3. Give Yourself Time to Heal – In your process of figuring out how to stop caring about someone, be sure to allow yourself time to heal. This goes hand-in-hand with your ability to acknowledge your feelings.
As I just mentioned, facing your feelings head-on starts your healing process. If this person was a part of your life for a very long time, it may take a little longer to stop caring about them.
So be realistic about your grieving period.
If you find that your grief has been interrupting your daily life for a while now, it’s okay to seek outside help and speak with a therapist. A therapist can help you through this difficult time by coming up with an action plan as the two of you navigate your thoughts and feelings.
Set Healthy Boundaries for Yourself
When you’re living in hurt, it can be so easy to fall back into some of your old habits like daydreaming about the person you don’t want to care about or even going as far as to reach out to the person. Don’t do it! Set some boundaries for yourself.
Don’t Contact the Person
You have to stop all contact and delete this person from your life – at least for a period of time. Choosing to end contact allows you to be free of the emotional hold they may have on you.
Don’t see them in person. Don’t talk to them. Delete their contact information from your phone.
If you’re trying to stop caring about someone who hurt you and you know that this person will attempt to reach you, then you should change your telephone number. This cuts down on the temptation to allow this person back into your life. Remember that this person is no good for you and you need to protect yourself emotionally.
While ending contact in the physical sense is great, you should take it a step further and delete them from your social media world.
Do a purge of all your social media accounts. Delete, unfollow, and block them everywhere you can.
Don’t Revisit Old Memories
After your relationship ends, you might find yourself spending a lot of time reminiscing about the past. You remember the first time you met. You remember all the fun you had together.
But allowing yourself to drown in these memories will be detrimental in helping you to not care about this person anymore.
Collect pictures, gifts, or anything that reminds you of this person, and tuck them away in a box at the back of your closet.
You’re also going to want to avoid songs, movies, and tv shows that the two of you enjoyed together. You don’t have to avoid these forever. You’ll know you’re on your way to healing when you can listen to a song that the two of you loved without feeling immense heartbreak.
And I know it feels like you’ll never get to that point. But you will. And I’ll be here rooting for you.
Focus on Your Life and Take Care of Yourself
In your efforts to stop caring for someone, you might forget who you are and begin to question your worth. But don’t. You are worthy, and this person wasn’t meant to be in your life forever.
This is the perfect time to focus on bettering yourself and finding hobbies that bring you joy.
Work On a Glow Up
A glow-up is all about self-improvement. It’s a great way to transform yourself mentally, physically, and emotionally.
- For a mental glow-up: check your thought patterns, mindset, strengthen your brain, and learn something new.
- For a physical glow-up: eat right, exercise, get enough sleep, and focus on your health. Try changing up your look with new clothes or a different hairstyle.
- For an emotional glow-up: focus on your spirituality, self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and self-care.
Divert Your Attention
If boredom strikes or you have an abundance of free time, you may find yourself consumed with thoughts of the person you’re trying not to care about. So you’ll need to distract yourself and focus your mind elsewhere. Focus on doing something so interesting that it’s all you can think about.
- Try a new hobby. Join a dance class and move your body. Learn how to do your nails. Start a scrapbook. Do a puzzle.
- Get creative. Pull out some paint, markers, crayons, and create a beautiful piece of art.
- Focus on your social circle. Spend time with your friends. Go on adventures together and create new memories. This is the perfect opportunity to build stronger relationships with your friends. Especially if these relationships have diminished because of your previous relationship.
- Meet new people – one’s with good qualities. But be careful of falling into a rebound relationship.
- Visit different places. Go to a museum or try a new restaurant.
- Binge-watch a tv show. With so many streaming services available, you shouldn’t have any trouble getting sucked into a good show. So grab a blanket, curl up on your sofa, and get into the latest tv show.
Stop Caring and Free Yourself
Moving on from someone who hurt you is hard. But trust me when I say your heart will heal.
It may feel like this person is the only one who understands you or adds value to your life and without them, your whole world will fall apart. But this isn’t true!
You determine your value, and you’re in control of your world. There is a light at the end of this very dark tunnel if you’re willing to focus on yourself and let the past be the past.
Wishing you a life full of happiness and love!
