What if everything you learned about going no contact after a breakup was wrong?

Just telling yourself to go no contact after a breakup isn't enough. The same brain regions that get activated in people going through withdrawal from drugs and alcohol are activated when we go through a breakup or romantic rejection. You need support.

Researchers Helen Fisher and Lucy Brown published a study in the Journal of Neurophysiology where they performed brain imaging studies of college students who had recently gone through a breakup. When the study participants looked at a photo of their former partner, the same parts of the brain associated with craving in cocaine addiction were activated. This part of the brain region known as the nucelus accumbens and the oribitofrontal and prefrontal cortex are in charge of the brain's dopamine reward system and are connected to craving and addiction.

The researchers hypothesized that the process of going through romantic rejection or a breakup was similar to going through addictive withdrawal. In the aftermath of a breakup, a powerful survival system gets activated--it's not something you can just ignore. This is why telling yourself to go no contact after a breakup isn't enough. 

Telling someone to go no contact after a breakup is pretty much like telling someone in withdrawal to stop drinking, or using. People who succeed in quitting their addictions get support. And yet, short of seeking expensive therapy and counseling (which sometimes doesn't help), we don't offer much real research-backed support for people going through breakups. All the internet articles and videos telling you that you have to "just do it" when it comes to going no contact after a breakup aren't going to help. 

Given that breakup and romantic rejection are so similar to addictive withdrawal, why aren't we approaching our breakups like we approach addiction recovery?

A breakup can be one of the most painful things we go through in life, and yet we have so few tools to help us cope. We're just told to go no contact after our breakup and to distract ourselves by focusing on hobbies and friendships, but for so many of us, this just doesn't work.

If you've told yourself that you're going to go no contact after your breakup, but then struggled to follow through, you're not alone--Self Love Breakup Coach's FREE No Contact After Your Breakup: 7-Day Challenge is is for you. 

And, if you want INSTANT ACCESS to all of the breakup coaching strategies, meditations, worksheets, and tools, consider joining our full Breakup Coaching program today. You'll gain strategies that help people in addiction recovery quit to help you cope with your breakup. Quitting any addiction is an ongoing process. And it can be very difficult to be successful without support.

When you join the breakup coaching program, you also get instant access to our full Intentional Dating course to help you break your dating patterns, stop chasing unavailable people, and wasting months or even years in unsatisfying relationships.

Why Self Love Breakup Coach?

Self Love Breakup Coach is created by Janice Elizabeth.

I have worked for over ten years as a freelance writer for divorce law firms across the nation. Over the years, I have written about some of the most challenging situations that individuals can encounter when they go through a breakup and divorce.

I've written about communication strategies divorcing couples can utilize to keep their divorce amicable. I've written about the importance of low-conflict divorce to the co-parenting relationship.

I've written about domestic violence, restraining orders, child custody, division of assets and debts, and more. Not only do I write about breakups, but I have spent years doing research to back up what I write.

While my personal experience informs my breakup coaching, everything I include in my breakup coaching program is backed by research. I have spent over a decade learning about what happens in the body and brain when we go through a breakup. I have written about domestic violence and divorce, helping law firms connect with clients right in the middle of what for many of them, is the worst breakup of their lives.

I am not a professional therapist, counselor, or medical provider. I am a writer and researcher. I hold an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University, and have worked as a freelance writer and researcher for law firms for over ten years. My breakup coaching is informed by my personal experience as a survivor of domestic violence, as a woman in recovery, and as someone who suffered from CPTSD as a result of childhood trauma. I was raised in a high control group and cult, and have spent years learning how to recover from the aftereffects of coercive control. I spent years going to therapists who weren't able to help me and I spent months after leaving my abusive relationship working with therapists who just didn't get it. I tried many modalities. EMDR. Internal Family Systems Therapy. EFT. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Hypnotherapy. Talk Therapy. And more. Some things worked. Some things didn't. I share here what worked for me, what helped me go no contact with my abusive ex after a breakup, and what helped me break my dating patterns.

What I offer in my online breakup coaching program and my No Contact After Your Breakup: 7-Day Challenge is what actually worked for me. It's not professional therapy or counseling, but rather, simple daily practices and exercises that helped me stick to my commitments and goals; strategies that helped me get clear about what I want and a game plan that helped me in the follow-through, so that I could finally break my pattern of being in toxic relationships and situationships with unavailable people. I offer tools that helped me regulate my nervous system that I learned from meditation practice, and from other sources, including strategies I learned during the time I was training to surf big waves in Hawai'i. These are some of the same tools employed by NAVY SEALS to help them get through high pressure situations. If these tools could work for me in 15-foot waves, and help NAVY SEALS--they can help you when you're getting ready to go out on your next date. They helped me!

How Breakup Coaching Can Help You Move On

Going no contact after a breakup is hard because the effects of a breakup aren't just psychological, they are physiological. 

In the days and weeks after we go through a breakup, dopamine levels in the brain rise sharply and then drop. As dopamine in the brain rises, we might feel bursts of energy, might feel the urge to try to get back together with our ex, or beg for a second chance, or we might use this energy to obsessively scroll on our ex's social media feed.

Eventually, after a breakup, dopamine levels drop.

As dopamine levels drop, we might feel overwhelming feelings of sadness. Or we might go through a period of lethargy, and even depression. We might lose our appetite, feel sluggish and tired, struggle to get out of bed in the morning, and feel the urge to just stay home, watch Netflix, and not do much of anything. 

These experiences after a breakup are normal.

The rumination is normal. 

The feeling like crap--normal.

The wanting to get back together with your ex and end no contact after a breakup even when you know he isn't right for you--normal.

The thinking about the dreams you shared that you'll never get to live--normal.

Feeling anxiety about dating again or about your future--normal.

Researchers have found that a breakup can affect the same brain regions that get activated in addiction. Yet, given that this is true, why aren't we approaching our breakups like we approach addiction recovery? So many of us learn that we should go no contact after a breakup, but if we don't have the tools to actually keep our no contact commitment--the advice to "go no contact after a breakup" is going to be useless. If you've told yourself that you're going to go no contact after your breakup, but then struggled to follow through, you're not alone--and Self Love Breakup Coach's FREE No Contact After Your Breakup: 7-Day Challenge and our self-paced breakup coaching program is for you.

As a person in recovery, I've spent years gaining tools from programs like AA, Refuge Recovery, SMART recovery, and more.

When I recently went through a difficult breakup, I wondered what would happen if I applied the tools I learned in addiction recovery to help me heal from my toxic and abusive ex and go no contact after my breakup. It turns out--the tools worked. I've developed my self-paced breakup coaching program to help other people use these same research-backed tools.

Breakup coaching is a self-paced program where you'll learn strategies to help you calm your nervous system, help you keep your no contact after your breakup commitment (even when things get hard), heal from your breakup, change your limiting beliefs and catastrophic thinking, set new relationship goals, and connect with your authentic self. I also offer exercises to help you get clear about what you want in your next relationship--and provide a dating strategy to make it happen. My dating coaching program was developed based on over a decade of personal experience and deep research.

I'm a professional writer with an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University. I've spent over ten years writing for divorce lawyers about complex issues including domestic violence, child custody, property division, and divorce litigation and negotiation. I bring to bear my years of writing experience doing deep research for divorce lawyers to my self-paced breakup coaching program. 

No contact after a breakup is great advice, but if you don't have the tools to stick to it, there's a chance you'll keep getting hoovered right back in if your ex texts or calls. My self-paced breakup coaching program offers real tools to help you stay no contact, even if you get triggered because you're lonely on a Saturday night, or just had a really bad date, or happened to see one of his posts on social media despite promising yourself you wouldn't look...

If you're struggling to heal after a breakup, you aren't alone. We've all been there. My self-paced breakup coaching program is designed to help you get through your breakup using research-backed tools used in addiction recovery. These powerful strategies can help you calm your nervous system, set meaningful goals, take healing actions, take stock of what happened, change your limiting thoughts and beliefs, get in touch with your core self, delve more deeply into discovering who you are and what you want, and help you break the pattern of toxic relationships in your life, by getting clear about what you want and developing a dating plan that works for you. 

If you've tried to go no contact after your breakup, but found yourself reaching out to your ex despite not wanting to do so, or if you find yourself compulsively answering his calls or texts even after you told yourself you wouldn't do it, my self-paced breakup coaching program might be able to help and you might want to join my FREE No Contact After Your Breakup: 7-Day Challenge.

If you are anxious about dating, and want to break the pattern of dating unavailable people and toxic relationships, our program also includes instant access to our full Intentional Dating Course. 

If you're feeling like crap after your breakup and want to start feeling better sooner--my self-paced breakup coaching program offers tools and strategies that can set you on the right path.

In Self Love Breakup Coach's self-paced breakup coaching program, you'll apply research-backed strategies from addiction recovery to your breakup, to help you get over the withdrawal period following your breakup, and to help you get back on your feet.