How to Stop Overthinking After Being Cheated On

Being cheated on in a relationship isn’t a fun place to be. There are so many ways we can react.

What happens when you start to overthink the fact you were cheated on? And what if you can’t figure out how to stop overthinking?

You want to react in a better way, but your thoughts are on a treadmill, and you cannot get off. Life can get overwhelming pretty fast when you cannot pay attention to anything else but the fact that you were cheated on. You need relief from your thoughts, and you need it fast.

Do a guided meditation

Here is a step-by-step meditation to get off the overthinking treadmill:

Change your physiology; that is, the physical state of your body functions like your breath, your heartbeat, etc. The meditation itself can take no more than 5 to 7 minutes, and it can give you back your hours and days.

Step 1: Change your breathing to calm your nervous system quickly.

• Inhale in twice quickly through your nose, and open your mouth a longer exhale.
• Inhale quickly twice through the nose, exhale open mouth.
• Inhale quickly twice, exhale open mouth.
• Inhale twice, exhale.
• Repeat once more.
• You may feel a slight shift already towards relief.
• (Stop at anytime if you start to feel lightheaded, and go to the next step)

Step 2: Ground down.

• Now close your eyes and focus on breathing through your nose for about 3 to 4 breaths (breathe smoothly from here, without the double inhale).
• Notice if your breath is slowing down or not. No need to change your breathing, just notice it.
• To help you control your focus, imagine you have a volume dial in your brain.
• Let your thoughts be noise, and imagine turning that dial down to 50%. Notice how it gets quieter.
• Try lowering it to 25% (pause). Now try to turn it down to 0.
• Practice with your attention dial until it’s quiet enough that you can focus on your breathing for 3-4 breaths in a row.
• (Pause for 15 seconds when recording or reading).
• Once your focus is steady, shift your attention to your tailbone.
• You can put your hands on your tailbone to help with your focus.
• Now, imagine a chord of light from your tailbone going all the way down, down, down to the center of the earth.
• See if you can bring a gentle smile to your face.
• Keep your focus on this movement of light down to the center of the earth for another 3 to 4 breaths.
• If your mind starts to drift, gently bring back your thoughts to your grounding without judgment.(Pause reading for about 15 seconds when recording)

Step 3: Breathe into your heartspace.

• Now, reverse the flow. Bring that light back up into your heart space and breathe with your focus on your heart.
• You can put both your hands on your heart to help bring your focus there.
• Take several breaths there and imagine the air swirling around your heart with every inhale.
• Remember to smile.
• If your mind drifts, gently bring back your thoughts to your heart space.(Pause reading for about 15 seconds if guiding or recording)

Step 4: Focus on something that is easy to love and appreciate.

• While breathing through your heartspace, mouth closed still, focus on something that is easy to love and/or appreciate. It can be a memory, an object, a person, or an activity. Maybe it’s a sunset, or your favorite place in nature, or a pet.
• This part is very important: Keep your focus here for at least a minute.
• Your smile should come more naturally now.
• If your mind drifts, gently bring back your thoughts to your heart space and something that you can easily love and appreciate.
• (Pause reading for about 1 minute if guiding or recording)
• You have opened up your heart now with love and appreciation. Keeping your heart open, proceed to the next step.

Step 5: Bring your attention now behind your third eye.

• Now bring your attention to your third eye. You can put one hand on your forehead if you like. Take a breath.
• Direct your attention to inside your brain, behind your forehead.
• Imagine you are now in your Higher Mind, the wiser part of your brain that can observe your life with clarity.
• Imagine a cord of light connecting your higher mind to your heart.
• Visualize the light flowing easily up and down this cord, connecting the two. Maybe it’s a circular cord that is flowing information between the two.
• Imagine the flow of light allows perfect harmony between your heart and mind.
• Keep breathing slowly as you imagine the connection between your heart and higher mind increasing.(Pause reading for about 15 seconds if guiding or recording)

Step 6: Focus on other loves in your life.

• Now think of 5 other loves in your life.
• They can be other people you like to enjoy spending time with.
• They can be other activities you like to do.
• With a connected heart and mind, you now have more time to explore other loves in your life.
  Smile.
• Take a deep breath and notice how you feel. It could be peacefulness, excitement, or happiness.
• Lean into these better feelings and let them flow through you as you breathe.
• (Pause reading for about 15 seconds in guiding or recording)
• Now slowly wiggle your fingers and toes and open your eyes.

Step 7: Journal about your other loves.

• The first time you do this meditation, journal these other loves in your life.
• With each meditation, feel free to edit or add to this list.

This “meditation” is very powerful

This meditation is going to help you find your center again.

The first part is designed to ground you in the present and help you find clarity about where you are now. The second part teaches you to shift your attention to things that serve you, so you can notice more of them in daily life and move forward from being cheated on.

Do this meditation once a day. When you feel confident that you’ve moved on from overthinking being cheated on, you can continue to do the first part of this meditation up until the part about finding other loves in your life.

If we expect to function and succeed in today’s hectic and complex world, we all have so much to gain from learning the healing powers of meditation and mindfulness.

his practice can not only help you get past your current challenge — it can go way beyond that and help you become a more powerful person.

When we rehash the past in our overthinking, our brain has no bandwidth to be present to the life that is happening around us. Learning to be present in the moment is one of the most powerful tools one can learn in life.

If you find yourself getting wrapped back up in overthinking throughout the day, take a moment to close your eyes and bring your attention right behind your eyes. Feel the cord of light constantly keeping you connected down into the earth, and imagine turning your attention dial down for all the things that aren’t serving you.

Grounding yourself and focusing on your breath, and putting a simple smile on your face as you do so, will bring you into your body and into the present moment. The more you practice this, the more you will see your life improving on so many levels.

You have the opportunity to use this breakup to release the bondage of overthinking anything!

We are never present when we are thinking about the past or the future. Focusing on your breath is your fastest access to coming into this moment. Learning how to connect to the earth, connect to your heart and connect to your Higher Mind can make you Superhuman.

Sometimes we don’t notice changes without a way to reflect back on those changes. Journaling how your life changes so you can look back and see your progress can help you stay motivated to remember to meditate more as a daily practice.

This whole process is going to feel weird at first because you’re teaching your brain to pay attention to new things. If you feel like quitting, that’s your brain resisting change because it wants to conserve energy because building new thought processes requires energy.

Just remember, you are the boss of your brain, and spending energy on grounding down is more productive than wasting energy overthinking your relationship challenges. With practice, every day will get easier as you become accustomed to refocusing your attention and being present.

Pro tip:

Make a recording of these steps on your phone, so you can do your own guided meditation with it, or ask a friend to slowly read and record for you.

You should immediately feel better after this guided meditation, so it is well worth the effort to record it for the best results. Words inside parentheses need not be recorded.

One final note:

If you try this meditation for several days with no relief, you may need a trained coach to help you release your blocked emotional energy.

This is usually because of neuro-emotional patterns stuck in the subconscious mind from childhood, and trained professionals can help you release this energy for good.

Read more effective ways to stop your overthinking by reading the full article by UpJourney here