Hi everyone. After a late-summer holiday, I started back to my university psychology studies. So I’ve been busy. But I wanted to sit down and write a post.
‘No contact’ – does it work? First of all, ‘no contact’ refers to exactly what it sounds like: not being in contact with a particular person or people. Zero interactions of any kind. In many cases, we may decide, in our own best interest, that we can’t be in touch with toxic people. So we then refrain from contacting them or accepting any form of communications from them. We can let people know this is happening in advance, or we can simply make it happen. It’s our choice how we do it.
There’s no doubt that ‘no contact’ can be very challenging to implement at first, particularly if the person or people in question have been a big part of our lives. So it’s best to be prepared for those feelings. As time passes, though, many of us find that peace begins to settle into our lives as a result of keeping ourselves safe from toxic people, and we will become increasingly protective of that peace.
To answer the original question, yes, ‘no contact’ works. So does ‘low contact’ when it’s done on our terms. But it has to be 100 % adhered to on a continual basis. And once peace has settled in, even thinking about reaching out to the person (or beyond ‘low contact’, if that’s what we’ve chosen) will be a thing of the past. Realizing our value and that we deserve respect and a peaceful existence are strong contributors to maintaining boundaries.
Lastly, it’s best not to allow feelings of guilt to get the best of us after we’ve made this decision. Flying monkeys may take a run at harassing us to reconnect with the toxic individual. The toxic person themselves may try to confront us in order to reestablish the status quo. And as people who have been targets of their abusive behaviours, we may already be programmed to quickly or even automatically believe that we’re doing something wrong and should be ashamed. Drop the programming like a bad habit and recognize that we all make our own choices and it’s okay to not want to be treated disrespectfully and abusively. And we have the right to keep people out of our lives if they aren’t good for us. No matter what we may have been told, we have the right to peace and to protect ourselves from anyone at any time.
Until next time,
Heather ~Natural Clarity Coaching~ naturalclaritycoaching.com na********************@***il.com Natural Clarity Coaching on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter
