From Where I Sit

Jake (no real names or individual stories are used in this blog) had been having a hard time since the break-up. During their 18 months together, Jake had been quite happy and he’d assumed that Ben was too, so Ben’s announcement that he was leaving came as a huge shock. The couple separated and went their separate ways, and while things had been initially amicable, Jake’s ongoing feelings for Ben had been complicating things of late.

After three fairly rocky months for Jake, he was slowly getting to a point where he could stay on top of things for a few days at a time. However every few days something would happen and Jake would fall in a bit of a heap once again. In fact it turned out that there was a pattern to Jake’s mood crashes, each time it was proceeded by a phone call from Ben.

Ben was offering friendship in the form of regular phone contact, however it was still too soon for Jake as he hadn’t fully healed from the break up of the relationship. So the pattern went something like this; Jake would feel progressively better over the course of a few days then his phone would ring and it would be Ben. They would chat about this and that, but Jake was unable to stop secretly hoping that with each call Ben might say he had changed his mind and wanted to reconcile. Then the phone call would end and Jake would sink slowly into a black hole again as he realised once again that it was really over. Jake couldn’t bring himself to tell Ben not to call, initially because he was secretly hoping for reconciliation and then later because he didn’t want to lose Ben’s friendship, however he was paying a high price for the contact.

Jake was eventually able to acknowledge to himself that it was not good for him to speak to Ben, but each time his phone rang and Ben’s name flashed up on the screen, his heart skipped a beat and he answered the call without pausing to think about whether this was a good move. Ben’s calls were the trigger for Jake’s emotional downfall every few days, so Jake needed something to help him stop and think about the situation before he answered the phone.

Bens’ calls were leading to Jake’s downfall but this was also the key to how Jake regained control of the situation and his emotions using a deceptively simple technique. Jake replaced Ben’s name in his phonebook with a message that read “stop, wait, think about it”, so each time his phone rang and it was Ben he would see this reminder alert. This simple tweak was quite powerful for Jake and enabled him to break the habit of answering Ben’s phone calls without thinking about the consequences. When the phone rang and he saw that “Stop, wait, think about it” message, it was enough to help Jake decide then and there if he was up for the call, and whether he wanted to put himself through the pain that went with the call. Using this technique, Jake was able to monitor the situation, avoid calls when he was fragile, take the call if he was up for it, and above all remind himself that this was not a call offering reconciliation.

This simple technique also works well when there is a strained relationship with parents or family members, or indeed any person where phone contact leaves us feeling emotionally battered and bruised.

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