WTF Do I Do Now?

41. How to Go No Contact

• Mandy | Betrayal, Break Up & Empowerment Life Coach • Episode 41

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 Hi everyone, and welcome back to another episode of What the Fuck Do I Do Now? A safe space where we talk about all things healing and empowerment after their cheating porn use and betrayal trauma to remind you it's not your fault in hearing is absolutely possible. I'm your host Mandy, a certified woman's empowerment life coach, trauma-informed relationship coach, meditation teacher, and trauma-informed breathwork teacher.

 All right. My badass, powerful fucking goddess, woman who listened to this, and if you're like, oh my God, that's not me, girl. Yes it is. I want you to feel hyped. I want you to feel amped. I want to talk to you about going no contact

whether you've tried going no contact and broke it, or whether you're too afraid to go no contact, or whether you're already in no contact but need motivation to get through it, this is for you. So we're gonna talk about why the fuck it's so hard to go no contact. The actual science of what's going on in your brain and why your nervous system is freaking out without them.

And because remember, nervous system regulation is the literal fucking key to healing from it. Betrayal, because it's what controls your thoughts, feelings and emotions, and then we'll also talk about some things to help make the no contact stage a bit easier for you so you can have more compassion and respect for yourself.

Okay. Before we dive in, if you could just rate and subscribe the podcast if you haven't already. That's the only way the algorithm pushes podcasts out to people. And I wanna make sure we can find all the women who are feeling so alone in their betrayal journey so that they know healing is fucking possible and they're not alone.

Also, I'm launching a really excited new membership on June 24th for women who left the relationship, and I'll talk more about that at the end of the podcast. But if you wanna dive in, learn about it now, I have a link in my show and what's what, I'm so fucking amped. And if you sign up for the wait list, you're not agreeing to join at all, but you'll receive all the exclusive perks in the behind the scenes details that I will not be sharing with the public.

Alright. Yay.

Let's dive in. I'm going to be direct. The quicker you go non-contact, the quicker you're going to find peace, heal, and move the fuck on. The sooner you unfollow him, his friends, his family from social media, the sooner you're going to feel more hopeful about the future.

I understand how hard it is to go into contact. This person was your world. They were your forever. It was you and them forever. You and them. You were the dynamic duo. He made you believe in men and that good men exist, and then he fucking shattered your heart in a million pieces. I get it going, no contact.

Fucking sucks. It's shitty. It's hard. You 100% right? It sucks. You lose your best friend. That's the hardest part. You lose the person, who brought out that childlike silliness, goofiness with you, this person who made you feel soft and safe. You lose your inside jokes and when something happens, they were the first person you wanna tell.

And now you can't. It sucks. And it's hard and I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. And you shouldn't have to feel bad for missing him. I get it. I've been there. It's normal to miss him after the relationship ends. It doesn't matter if you were dating for a few months, years, or decades, you're going to miss the fuck outta the best friend.

You're going to miss the future that you thought you were going to have. You're going to miss the relationship that you had. That's normal and it's okay. And if he was hiding a porn addiction, a secret life, an affair, and serial cheating, you're also grieving the fact that the version of that person never existed.

That version of the relationship you thought you were in never existed. It's a death. It's grief, it's mourning, but because it's death, that's why you need to cut off communication as soon as fucking possible. As someone who's talked to literally thousands of women, I can tell you exactly how it's going to go if you keep in touch with him and why.

The sooner you go no contact, the quicker you're going to heal. Think about it this way. It's short-term pain for long-term gain. Keeping him in your life is going to feel good temporarily because you're wanting answers. You're wanting him. Your nervous system wants closure. Your body is craving a sense of safety, but it's going to bring pain, manipulation, lies, controlling, love bombing, and worst of all, you might go back to him and his entire cycle is going to repeat itself again.

So here's what's going to happen When you end the relationship, he is going to be extremely apologetic. He'll tell you how much he loves you, that you're the only woman he wants, how much he fucked up, how much he'll change, how he'll be on his best behavior. He'll tell you all the work he's doing to change.

He'll say, I'm going to therapy. I'm reading books, I'm doing all this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He's going to love bombing. He's going to do whatever the fuck he can to get you back. Because, yeah, of course he realized he fucked up, but he also knew that when he was doing that, he knew that cheating.

He knew that line. He knew that going behind your back was wrong, and he knew that he would lose you, and he still chose to do it. Once you forgive once you forgive him again and again and again, and I see it happen all the time. Once you forgive him, once he knows you'll forgive him again.

He will be on his best behavior for a few weeks or months. Then you're gonna discover another betrayal, and the cycle is going to repeat itself again. If you want someone who has truly changed after betrayal, he's not going to change in a matter in a couple of weeks or months. That's a mask. That's complete bullshit, especially if this has already been a pattern.

It can take years for men to change, and you deserve a man who's already fucking done the work. You shouldn't have to be someone's mother. You shouldn't have to teach someone how to not lie, treat, betray, and manipulate you. You shouldn't have to teach a grown ass man how to be kind, how to have empathy, how to treat you with respect.

That's not love. He is going to manipulate you and say whatever the fuck he can to get you back because he is probably done it before and he knows it works. You've probably threatened to leave or you have left and he was probably able to reel you back in with whatever he was saying.

And look, now you're in the same situation again, and I'm not saying you are weak, you're broken, you're insecure. A big point of this is him just wanting to protect his ego. Like, do you know how fucking embarrassing this is going to be for him? When people find out why you left, he doesn't want his reputation ruined.

He doesn't want people to know he fumbled you and that you left. And you know what I also see happen a lot is women forgive him after they already left him. They go back to him and then he leaves her months down the road so that he can be the one to leave. Instead of you being the one to leave him, he'll reject you before you can reject him.

I see it happen all the time. And again, you are not weak. You are not broken. You are not insecure. I wanna make that crystal fucking clear. I am not shaming you. Leaving is hard. No contact is hard. I get it. As someone who went through no contact, I get how hard it is to fight the urges, to not text him, to fight the urges, to not believe his love bombing, to not believe that he'll change.

You want him to change 'cause you wanted this life with him. And I get how scary it is to think of life without him and him moving on to another woman. And now that I'm two years out and I've helped hundreds of women, I want you to know, even if he does move on, he's just finding another victim. I. He's going to repeat the same cycle 'cause he's not taking the time to deal with his shit.

This isn't something that just gets better in a matter of weeks, months. He's not going to magically change in a few months. That shit takes years and the fact that he's jumping into dating just shows that he's not even taking the time to work on himself. And the goal of your healing now, this is really important, is that you heal so much that you don't want him back.

The goal of your healing is that you finally see him for who he really is and not for who he pretended to be, because they are too different people. It's cognitive dissonance and it's hard, but you can do it.

It is called cognitive dissonance for a reason. The person he showed you that he was is not the person he actually was behind closed doors. So let's dive into the science of why it's hard to go no contact. Because if you're like me, I like to understand like why things feel hard so I can have more compassion and grace for myself.

And then we'll also dive into some things you can do. So first and foremost, you're literally in withdrawal when you're bonded to someone, especially through intense emotional experiences like betrayal or intermittent reinforcement like love bombing gaslighting, then him apologizing, your brain gets hooked on the dopamine highs and the oxytocin hits.

So going no contact cuts off those neurochemical rewards, triggers, withdrawal symptoms, just like coming off of a drug. So your brain is quite literally withdrawing from a person with the dopamine and the oxytocin.

Also. Now your attachment system is activated. So if this person was your primary emotional attachment, which I would assume he was, your nervous system, interpreted them as safety, even though they were hurting, betraying and emotionally and psychologically abusing you. When you cut them off, your system panics.

It feels like abandonment. Even if leaving was the most empowered decision and best decision for your future self, it still feels like abandonment in your nervous system panics.

Thirdly, your nervous system is now scanning for danger. So after betrayal, your amygdala, which is the brain's alarms system, is on high alert. So going no contact will often lead to hyper vigilance, which is like when you're scanning for threats, you'll be replaying your mind what happened? You're scanning for signs that you might reach out.

You're obsessively checking your phone to see if they contacted you or you're doubting your decision and wondering if you should have left or not. It's your brain trying to prevent more pain, even though this really just keeps you stuck in the trauma loop. I've said this before, I'll say it again. Our brains are so fucking smart.

They actually keep us stuck in a lot of this pain. That's why nervous system regulation is so important. Fourth reason you're losing your regulation crutch. So essentially even toxic relationships. Become a form of emotional regulation. You're texting them, you're checking their socials, you're living with them at home, or even just like talking to them, cuddling with them.

It gave your body this temporary relief. So now that you're going no contact, that means you have to find new, healthier ways to regulate your emotions, to give your body this sense of relief, which is hard, and that takes effort and rewiring and time.

The fifth reason is your brain fucking hates uncertainty, and it wants closure. Betrayal leaves so many open loops. There's unanswered questions. You have mixed signals. It's emotional chaos, essentially in your brain. The prefrontal cortex, it wants to solve this. It wants to answer questions, it wants to figure out mixed signals.

It wants to stop promotional chaos. So it's gonna, your prefrontal cortex is gonna try to solve it, but this is really important. Listen, there's no logic in emotionally or psychologically abusive behavior you will never be able to solve. Why they abuse you, why they betrayed you, why they lied, why they manipul manipul, why they asked it.

It's hard. So no contact forces you to sit with that discomfort, and that's really, really, really dysregulating on your nervous system.

The last point, which I kind of mentioned earlier about cognitive dissonance. So you're healing cognitive dissonance. So what that means is part of you knows that they weren't good for you. But another part misses the connection or believes that all those good moments were real. So it's basically creating this push pull mentality between your brain, which creates a mental and emotional chaos.

And so now that you're going no contact, it removes the ability to soothe that confusion with contact or fake reassurance. Basically your brain is fucking withdrawing from a person. And yeah, it's going to be hard. You're right it, and it's going to suck at first, but that is never a reason for why you should go back to them.

So all that being said, let's talk about a few things you can do to help make the no contact stage a bit easier. First and foremost. So as I was saying, how your body is now removing this oxytocin and this dopamine, now you have to create new dopamine sources. So your brain is craving the highs that it used to get from contact, from texting him, from hugging him, from being with him.

So now you need to replace them with things that give you pleasure or a sense of accomplishment. So that can be things like going for a run. Doing a workout class, being in sunlight, doing cold plunges, starting new creative projects, doing breath work, having new experiences going out on a friend date.

Even small things like making your bed in the morning or crossing something off your to-do list. You really need to start to fill your day with natural, healthy dopamine sources instead of trying to crave dopamine from them texting you.

Another thing is we really, really need to focus on creating safety in your body every single fucking day. Like that should be your number one priority is how can I help my body feel safe? And when I feel safe, I mean how can you help your body when you feel overwhelmed, when you're spiraling, when you feel anxious, when you're replaying the betrayal in your mind, when you have the rage you, that is quite literal, your body being like, Hey, I don't feel safe.

Something's wrong. So you have to be the one now to go back into your body and be like, Hey, I'm safe. And so going no contact. It's really, really activating for your nervous system, and your brain want to talk to this person, so now you have to send your body consistent fucking daily signals of safety.

So something you can do is vagus nerve activation, so that can look like humming or putting cold water on your face, or doing deep belly breaths, doing somatic shaking, doing legs up the walls, or yoga nira or other restorative yoga poses, doing long exhales or doing trauma informed guided breath work.

It is basically anything that helps you slow the fuck down, get out of your brain and get back into your body so you can find a sense of safety and slowness. Another thing you could do is set digital boundaries ahead of time. Block their number mute or delete them on social. I highly recommend deleting.

I wouldn't even, there's no point in going muting them like you're going to end up looking at them. Remove shared photo albums. Write a note to your future self. Keep it as your phone background. Keep it as a note pinned on your phone and of reminding you why you did this.

'cause you don't wanna have to make that decision and a moment of weakness if you mute them. I promise you're going to eventually go look at their social media in a moment of weakness, and then it's going to make you feel bad about yourself. You need to set the boundary for your future self. Now, when you're in an empowered, brave, confident state, not when you're missing them or wondering what they're doing with their new life, another thing you can do is write a withdrawal survival letter.

So basically just write a letter from your most empowered, confident self to your triggered self who misses them and is hyper focusing on the good memories without actually remembering all the bad memories and what the relationship really was and how he made you feel. So in this letter, include the truth about who they really were.

How you felt in the relationship and why no contact is the loving choice for yourself and for your future self. Read it every single fucking time you want to read out. I have worked with clients where their letters , to remind them why they're going no contact has literally been like five pages long, front and back, written on a pen and paper and like hell yeah.

And they read it every single time. They wanna reach out to him and take a photo of it on your phone. Save it to an album or save it as favorite. So every time when you're out and about and you wanna text him, you can read that. It's going to keep you anchored in your why, of why you're doing this, and help you remind you what the relationship really was, instead of hyper focusing on all those good moments.

'cause that's not what the relationship was.

All right. Another thing you can do is removing the person, removing him, that's the first step, right? We also have to add in regulation, which I've talked about a bit about nervous system regulation. 'cause

you weren't just craving him. You were craving how he helped you cope, how he made you feel. So now you need new coping tools. So what that can look like is create a list of craving replacements, which could look like calling a friend. Taking a walk, doing a trauma-informed breath work class, screaming into a pillow, dancing, journaling, EFT tapping, sending a voice note to a friend.

Basically, you, we need to have you put in other things in your life that make you feel good, that weren't just him. And also on that note, a really good reminder is just because you're craving this person does not mean he was compatible or that he was your forever. You could honestly go on a few dates with the guy, start having a little bit of emotional attachment, and then your brain and your nervous system will start craving him too.

So missing them does not mean that they were good for you, that they're forever. It just means your body is recalibrating. Craving is just a withdrawal symptom. It's not a sign to go back to him.

Another thing you can do, and this is really important, is you need to build in connection and relationships and community that doesn't confuse you or confuse your nervous system or confuse your brain. So your nervous system still wants to correctly, that basically means like we feel better when we're around people.

We're humans. We are wired for connection and for being around people and community. So you need to spend time with safe people. And if you don't have that, go create safe people, women who get it, whether that be support groups, sending voice memos with friends. You need to know you're not alone in this.

And that's what will help rewire your attachment system the fastest because you have other people to lean on and that does not let me make this so fucking crystal clear. If you're listening, just pause to listen to what I'm about to say. That does not mean going on dating apps and filling your time now with other guys.

Dating apps are going to fuck up your nervous system so quickly. It's going to make you so confused. You are going to be doing with mind games of is he texting me? Why isn't he text me? Is he interested in me? Like when I say regulate around people, I mean safe fucking woman friendships. Family members, support system, people where there is no intimate, romantic connection where it is just friends, family, people that don't confus you, people, you don't have to worry about having mixed signals.

That is what's going to help you while your attachment system the fastest. Okay, so here's a little homework for after this episode. I want you to pick three of those tips and implement them this week.

I highly, highly, highly, highly, highly, highly, highly recommend doing the one where you write a letter to your future self to read anytime you're thinking of reaching out to him, write about how shitty he made you feel. Write about the shitty things he said. Write about all the shitty fights. Write about all the things that gave you the ick.

Write about how emotionally immature, or about all the issues with the relationship, and what about how you not reaching out to him is you taking your fucking power back and demanding your respect, right. Anything you know that will resonate well with you. Give yourself love, encouragement, kindness, compassion, and honestly, that's pretty service level advice, this letter.

But that's where you should start. If you haven't done it yet and you need to read it every single time you wanna reach out to him.

So that is where we're gonna start. Start with that homework assignment. And then on top of all this, I have a really, really, really, really exciting new membership. I'm launching specifically for women who left on June 24th. So we're gonna dive so deep into healing after the relationship. Learning tools to regulate your nervous system, to help your brain and body feel fucking calm again.

How to ease the overthinking, the triggers, the flashbacks, so that you have the mental, emotional, and physical energy to focus on the shit that really matters, like rebuilding your life, your self-confidence and your self love, and creating a life that feels exciting for you instead of being stuck in this life where it feels like this.

Pain is controlling you. And if that sounds like, okay, great, but like how do I actually do that? That's exactly what my new private membership is for. It's going to teach you everything. I am just so fucking sick. I've seen this infidelity industry tell women to give him second, third, fourth chances to be like, oh, work on communication, or set boundaries as if the relationship itself wasn't a fucking boundary for lying, cheating.

The bar is so low and women deserve so much better. And so this is for a global group of women who want more out of life and their relationships. This is for the women who are demanding respect and are going to rise from the ashes like a damn phoenix. This is for the women who are creating a better world for all women by not tolerating disrespect and for standing up for themselves and going and moving forward, and creating this great fucking life.

So I so, so, so, so excited for this. Obviously leaving him is just the first step, and unfortunately, that doesn't make the pain madly go away. I would be lying if I said healing is easy. It's not, it's really hard. You have to learn how to pick yourself up again and again, and again and again. You have to learn the tools to ease the overthinking, the flashbacks, the triggers, the anxiety, the anger, the fear.

You have to learn how to love yourself so deeply so that you never tolerate disrespect again or ever ignore your gut intuition again, or ever give a man the benefit of doubt again, just for you to end up being the one that gets hurt. And you have to learn how to work through these triggers instead of running away from life and letting it control you.

And this is exactly why I created this membership. So you have a safe space to learn the tools to take back your power, but also so you have a group of like-minded women. We are here to support and encourage you and help hold you accountable. So if you're like, hell yeah, I'm in, I have , a link in my show notes where you can go sign up for the wait list.

And if you sign up for the wait list, you'll receive the details on it first, and also get exclusive perks that will not be available to the public. So go ahead and check it out. And that's all I had for today. And before I jump off, I just wanna say, you're fucking powerful. You're amazing, you're smart, you're beautiful, you're intelligent, you're creative, you're resourceful.

You deserve so much, fucking more than this. His betrayal was not your fault, it was not a reflection of you. It's not a reflection of your worth. And it might feel like you're in the fucking depths of hell right now. But I promise you, there are tools that are a resource you can get through this, and that's what I wanna help you do.

Alright, I love you. Bye.