IDEALIZING your ex after a break-up? How to take your ex OFF a pedestal!

You have to get underneath the rumination to determine what it is that keeps drawing you back to this idea that your ex or your relationship together was way more incredible than it actually was. I caught a glitch, a witch is coming out. Hello everyone and welcome back to my channel. It's Ash, your truth-bombing fairy godmother for everything love, dating, and relationships. Today's video is one that I wish was around many years ago because if there's one person who has struggled with idolizing an ex or a past relationship, it's me. This topic has been suggested so many times now and it's clear that idolizing an ex or putting an ex on a pedestal is such a common experience for so many of us. So let's go ahead and talk about it and also discuss some ways that you can combat this experience of feeling like your ex or your past relationship was just the best thing ever when it truly wasn't. But first, if you like what you're watching here today or think you could benefit from new love, dating, and relationship videos every single week, then I would love it if you considered subscribing to my channel by tapping that button below. Alright, so firstly I will start out here by just validating you and letting you know that idolizing past relationships or ex-partners is extremely normal and natural. Idolizing parts of our past is a part of human nature. However, the key here is recognizing that idolizing or romanticizing is just that. It's an ideal version of our past that isn't necessarily based in truth or reality. And yet, when we are stuck in that place of idealizing or fantasizing about a person or a relationship, I know how convincing it can feel in the moment. The problem with idolizing an ex is that the stories and images and memories that we replay in our minds feel really real and really intoxicating. Our minds are really good at being selective and playing tricks on us, and our memories are not nearly as reliable as we would like to believe that they are. As a psychology student who's literally learning about this in a forensic psychology unit right now, our memories are extremely flawed. And I'm sure there are a variety of psychological benefits or reasons for why we idealize experiences from our past, including past relationships. Fantasizing about how wonderful and dreamy an ex is gives us a place to mentally escape to. It can also provide us with a distraction from perhaps having to deal with or feel more difficult underlying wounds or emotions. It can protect us from fear of the unknown, given that an ex is the devil we know as opposed to the devil that we don't. So there's familiarity and a level of comfort there. I'm sure professionals have all kinds of theories for why we idealize and romanticize ex-partners. However, one of the biggest reasons that I know I personally was idealizing past relationships was due to unfulfilled needs and desires I had within myself, and was therefore projecting onto someone from my past. I actually made a whole video about this a while back, but essentially one of the main reasons I think we remain stuck on certain exes or put certain exes on a pedestal is because we are projecting everything that we aren't cultivating within ourselves onto that person. So our ex becomes a symbol of all of our unmet needs and desires. For example, I had one particular ex that I remained extremely hung up on for a very long time, and it wasn't because I actually wanted to be with him. I wanted to be like him. He had a lot of really wonderful qualities that I was really drawn to and really attracted to, and importantly, they were qualities that I really admired and wanted to possess myself. And although the quality of our relationship and our actual emotional connection was awful, I felt so good being with him because I felt better about who I was as a person purely due to my association with him. So when we broke up, I lost that sense of identity and I ultimately lost that ego boost as well. I didn't have someone to excite me and stimulate me and inspire me anymore. And I spent several more years not really taking any action when it came to really learning how to ignite that excitement and inspiration within myself. I just kept hoping that another person would come along and fall into my lap and do that work for me. But what I also didn't realize was that by not directing my energy inwards to embody those qualities that I really wanted for myself, I continued to view my ex from a less than, lower than vantage point. And therefore, he stayed on his pedestal. I saw my ex and the way that he was as superior instead of the lovely yet highly flawed, very normal human that he actually was. It didn't matter how many times I reminded myself that the quality of our relationship really wasn't that great or things obviously didn't work out with us for a reason, so long as I continued to put him in this category of everything I want to be but I'm not, I was going to continue to view him from the perspective of thinking that he was better than me. And therefore, seeing him with very rose-colored glasses and remembering him through very rose-colored glasses as well. On the flip side, when we do start directing that energy inwards and start cultivating those things that we really admire in our ex but also want for ourselves, our perspective shifts. When you start truly feeling and believing that you are just as much of a badass as your ex or just as valuable or just as intelligent or generous or creative or talented or confident or whatever it is, you stop putting them on a pedestal. You start seeing them as players on the same field. You recognize that just like you, even with all your amazing admiral qualities, they are only human and are just as flawed as you are. And recognizing that your ex is a human is what I think is really important here. As much as I think listing out your ex's less than desirable qualities or all the reasons that your relationship didn't work out can be a good exercise sometimes, the point isn't to vilify them either. You do not need to vilify an ex in order to move on. Your ex could have been an amazing person, but they are still human and we are all fucked up in our own unique ways. Another suggestion I have, if you can't stop thinking about an ex and how wonderful they were or you can't seem to recall all of the reasons that you're no longer together, is to name this experience for what it is, which is idealization. Naming and labeling your experiences as they're happening is an extremely powerful technique and this is something that has been suggested to me by a variety of professionals over the years. Naming and labeling your experience, whether it's anxiety or rumination or idealization or whatever it is, takes away its power. When I find myself in an anxious loop, I will literally say to myself, Hi Anxiety, I see you and I feel you. I know this is simply anxiety talking right now, I know this isn't the truth, but I feel you, you're okay, and on and on it will go. I will breathe in to that feeling and engage in a sort of dialogue with it. And by doing that, it will eventually lose its power and dissipate. It unhooks its claws. And the exact same thing can be done when you catch yourself romanticizing about an ex or making them out to be some hero. And it can sound or look something like this. Hello Idealization, nice to see you. I know that you are very convincing, but I'm not going to fall for what you're telling me right now. My ex was a wonderful person, we had a lot of fun together, sure, but we are not together anymore for a reason. Name it, label it, and call it out in a really non-judgmental, gentle way. And this can also be done in a journal, in the form of a journaling practice as well. It doesn't have to actually be something that you physically say out loud. What I also want to stress here is the importance of not taking your thoughts and feelings at face value. Just because you're fantasizing about an ex or a past relationship doesn't mean that you're meant to be together or that getting that relationship back serves your greater good or anything like that. But rather, it's the self's attempt at getting your attention for what is likely a very different reason. You have to get underneath the rumination to determine what it is that keeps drawing you back to this idea that your ex or your relationship together was way more incredible than it actually was. And if you're anything like me, you're very likely getting drawn back in and getting pulled back into that idea over and over again due to the self's desire to cultivate certain qualities that your ex possesses and perhaps also shining a light on your current lack of action in relation to actually doing that. A therapist I used to work with called this experience the ego's misguided gift. It keeps you stuck, which is really frustrating and painful in the moment, but it's ultimately guiding you in the direction that you need to go in order for your soul to feel more whole and more fulfilled. And the only way it knows how to do that or how to get your attention is to keep reminding you of the person who possesses the things that it craves and wants to cultivate for itself. So as a recap, understand that idolization is perfectly normal. Recognize that although it's perfectly normal, it isn't based in truth or reality. It's a fantasy and labeling it as a fantasy and calling it out when it's happening can take away its power. Stop taking your thoughts and feelings and your idealization at face value. Instead, get to the root of why it is that the self is perpetuating these stories. And finally, identify what qualities are drawing you to your ex and start actively cultivating them within yourself. In doing so, you will not only feel more whole and fulfilled and energized and inspired within yourself, but you will start seeing your ex as the complex, flawed human that they are. When the place you position yourself begins to shift and evolve, the way you see and perceive your ex will change too. Okay my loves, I hope this video was able to shine some light on the very frustrating yet very common experience of idolizing an ex or a past relationship. I have 1000% been there and I know how convincing it feels in the moment. Our minds are tricky little bastards, but they also bring with them misguided gifts. As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on this and if anything I said in this video resonated with you at all. Thank you all so much for watching and I will see you all next week.