So if the “emotional mind” is running the show, then what emotions exactly are they?

“Barrier effect”

Anger

Grief

Rejection at a very deep level

Chemical withdrawal

A very specific kind of loneliness

Profound edginess

A “fight or flight” reaction

Jealousy (Optional)

Emptiness

Obviously there is a whole spectrum of things going on, but I believe these really catch the significant ones.

The Barrier Effect

I was surprised to find out that this phenomenon was very well documented among sexologists (I know, “sexologist”…who gets those jobs?), and for once they even found a cool name for it.

The basic idea here is that your girlfriend became far more attractive when she went from being yours to becoming unattainable or out of reach, especially once she made decision to leave.

Go ahead multiply the effect by 10 if there is another man involved.

This is huge. This very thing alone I think fuels many on and off relationships. The spike in love and attraction when this happens is really easy to mistake as a sign of “true love” so it can be really confusing.

So it isn’t just you being indecisive or crazy (though those don’t help), because this is one of those glitches we all have.

What Is That “Empty” Feeling?

Weird isn’t it? I mean really, what is that?

It turns out that very soon after you meet someone you are really into, while you are stewing in the soup of the initial excitement, great sex, and the general feeling of oh-my-god-this-girl-is-awesome, there is all this unconscious stuff going on behind the scenes.

There is a school of thought that proposes that we are all walking around with unconscious needs, most of which were wired up when we were children and were the result of our early relationship with our parents.

sad feelings of breakup

So all those needs get wired up, and then it’s almost as if they get sealed in a black box somewhere because we aren’t really aware of them. But they are there, and they are very influential on whom we are attracted to, and even more so on what we need from the person we do pick.

Picture a desktop screen projector. All the colors, shapes, images are all inside the machine, but when it’s on the light shining through takes all of them and puts them on the screen outside.

Well, we are doing an equivalent of this with our own unconscious needs. That’s partially why when you first meet that girl and you are falling in love with her (men tend to fall in love faster than women by the way), she can do no wrong.

She seems to have everything because you are projecting those things onto her. And get this…You don’t even know you are doing it.

A bit of a tough one to swallow I know.

So if you have all these unconscious needs and they are being met by someone you really like, what happens when that person is no longer in the picture? An unconscious void.

Hello empty feeling.

You’re Not (Entirely) Crazy.

Okay. Now I can hear you saying, “So wait…, how is any of this helpful making the heartbreak go away?”

It does do one thing though. Being aware that these elements are at play can give some clarity to the confusion that you are very likely to be feeling.

You see, in the stories people tell me, often beneath the details of their situation, I would also hear “I’m a little bit freaked out at seeing myself like this.”

In the span of a few minutes I would hear sentences starting with “I just want her back…” to “I know it’s over but…” to “Can you believe she had the nerve to…?” to “I keep thinking about her with other guys…” back to “It just doesn’t make sense that she would do this to me…”

Looking at what we’ve seen so far, it makes sense…that everything would be so confusing.

Each and every single one of the things going on here is powerful just by itself, and being heartbroken is one of those times in life when they all happen at once. So it makes sense that when they do, it feels incredibly powerful.

It is also important because then you will understand why certain things you do and think move you CLOSER to your goal of truly getting over her and why other things move you FURTHER from it.