The Courage and Grief of Going "No Contact"

Voiceover: [00:00:00] Rise Up Live Joy Your Way from emotional intelligence through cognitive distortions, certified life and wellness. Coach Kamini Wood is on a mission to help people see the magnificence of their own unique human spirit. Through these small bites of self visualization and self-confidence, you can have healthy relationships, success in business and career, and live the life you want to live, Rise Up Live Joy Your Way. Kamini Wood: Hi there and welcome to another episode of Rise Up Live Joy Your Way, whether it's morning, afternoon, or evening. Thank you for taking some time to hang out with me here today. And today I wanna talk about a topic that seems to be brewing or I would say it's more visibly online right now. Um, and because of that visibility, I do think that there's some misunderstanding and it's the concept around going no contact. I mean, honestly, if you spend any time on social media, you've probably seen [00:01:00] the phrase around, uh, go no contact. Cut them off. Protect your piece. And alongside those phrases, you might also be seeing a rise in language around, um, calling it a trend. You know, comments saying that this is going, no contact is more of a trend or it's an overreaction. Or, uh, people are just avoiding dealing with complex situations. It's selfish. People are being too quick to, to just walk away from relationships because they're hard. And I really want to talk about this because it's, I think it's important to hold a more grounded and, uh, a, a different perspective. I wanna really actually have a, just a. Conversation around the fact that going no contact is deeper, I think for most people than just one day waking up and saying, well, that person made me upset, so therefore I'm no longer gonna talk to them. And, and I think, you know, when we see things online, it's easy for things to spread and for, you know, comments to call it a trend.[00:02:00] But really I would say that with the people that I work with who are dealing with situations where they're contemplating going, no contact. Those decisions are rarely impulsive. They're rarely made with just a on a whim, and they're almost never made without processing through grief. So this episode is not about convincing people to go no contact. It's not about trying to convince you that you know it's the right thing to do. It's, it's really trying to have a conversation around the idea that vilifying people. For choosing to go now, contact is maybe not the best way to go. I really wanna have a conversation around context, uh, because when we don't understand. What it means to go no contact. Um, and, and we don't understand that this is actually a process that people go through. It's often a long one. It's often a painful one, and almost always, it's one that comes with years of trying, of, hoping, of [00:03:00] accommodating, potentially fawning, explaining self abandoning. So if you're a leader or you are a parent or a professional or someone quietly. Navigating a painful relational decision in your own life. My hope is that today's episode and conversation might bring a little bit of clarity, um, some compassion, and maybe a little bit of relief from the pressure what, uh, that it, from the pressure you may feel to justify what you need for your own wellbeing. So let's jump in. Um, the myth, right? The myth that no contact is a trend or an overreaction. I do call it a myth because I don't think it's true. I think it's, um, this idea that has started to percolate, um, because the idea that no contact is a social media trend or an impulsive decision or a way to avoid accountability. Um, an unwillingness to do relational work, um, a sign of emotional immaturity. I think that those things are not. Really taking a deeper look at [00:04:00] what could be happening behind the scenes, right? Because oftentimes the people who are going to those, those judgements of it being a trend or, or those types of things. Many times they have not maybe had to consider truly what going no contact would mean. Um, because when we really look at it from a psychological perspective, I think those ideas around what going no contact is really do fall. Um. Under that scrutiny because most people, again, don't sever meaningful relationships lightly. They don't wake up one day and say, okay, well this person is, you know, they've been in my family, or they've been in this long-term relationship, or, you know, with this, um, company for 20 years, and I'm just gonna up and leave and I'm never gonna talk to 'em again. In reality. No contact is usually proceeded by trying. It's usually we're proceeded by having repeated boundary violations, attempts to communicate. That went nowhere. It just becomes this cycle. Um, and you kind of feel like you're on a merry-go-round. There's [00:05:00] cycles of hope and then disappointment. There's self-doubt that starts to creep in. There's guilt, there's internal bargaining that goes on the, um. You know that you find yourself constantly trying to be the bigger person, trying to make it work for the sake of children, of values, of family, of culture for appearance's sake. So by the time somebody reaches the, the decision matrix, if you will, about going no contact, they're generally emotionally exhausted and the myth persists because outsiders see only the final choice of going no contact. They see that only the final decision that happens. They don't see. Maybe the years that proceeded that they don't see the internal debate, they don't see any of the stuff that came before that. And so I, I believe that that lack of context ends up leading us to, to judgment. And so it's important to name the truth, which really gets named, which is no contact, is not the absence of care or love. It is the [00:06:00] result of care or love that truly had nowhere to go or, or it had nowhere left to go in my trauma-informed work. We understand that boundaries are are protective responses. They're not punishments to somebody, and no contact is a boundary that typically emerges when other boundaries have failed. It often. Comes after, um, you know, contact with conditions are not met or, you know, maybe you've tried to reduce contract or maybe you've tried structured communication or maybe there's been mediated attempts. Maybe there's been the ability to have emotional containment. Maybe we've even done personal therapy or we've tried to stay regulated while being connected. And when all of those efforts repeatedly, uh, lead to harm or lead to confusion or emotional destabilization or gaslighting or identity erosion or the. Your nervous system constantly being activated. You reach a threshold, you reach a point where you're like, I, I can't continue to do this for [00:07:00] my own wellbeing. And it's that point that no contact might be instituted. And so it's not about control, it's about preservation, it's about survival. You know, it's, and when I say preservation, I mean the preservation of your own emotional stability, your own mental health and wellbeing, your own physical safety at times, your identity. Sometimes it, it, it happens because we need to maintain our parental capacity, our leadership capacity, our nervous system regulation. And this matters deeply for those of us who are, um, leaders, those of us who are parents, high functioning adults, because often. Uh, we think that we should just tolerate things or we are taught to endure, to push through, right? We manage, we absorb, um, keep going, be reasonable, try to stay composed. But what ends up happening is that by the time. We are in a position of needing to choose no contact. Uh, usually, at least with my clients, what they've shared with me is they feel like they've, they've given too many chances, right? They've been there too long and they've, their [00:08:00] sense of self has really eroded. And one of the most important reframes in my opinion, is that no contact is not just a boundary decision, it's also a grief process because when you have chosen to go no contact with somebody, you know, you. Inevitably go through grieving the person and the relationship that you stepped away from. You know, you end up grieving the relationship that you hoped for with that person. You grieve the version of that person that you believed in, you grieve. Um, Nate sometimes for those of us who have. Who've maybe had to step away from a family member, like for instance, a, a parent, you know, you grieve the family unit that you had wanted, or, um, you know, just the, the, the visions that you had for yourself. That's, there's grief involved in that. Maybe you're even grieving the fact that no repair could be made or that an apology never came, or that, you know, you tried really hard to create a safe space and it never happened. And this is why going no contact [00:09:00] can feel heavier than staying at times. At least in the beginning, right? Because not only do you choose to go no contact, you now then have to process through the grief that comes with leaving that relationship. Um, and leaving forces forces you to go through that grief process. And grief can be very disorienting. Um, when we're going through a grief process, there's not just sadness. There's oftentimes longing. There's oftentimes. Questioning. There's, um, you know, anger. Sometimes there is relief. Um, and sometimes there's a lot of guilt that comes with it. And as you go through the process, you start to get to these moments of peace. Uh, but of course those, those moments of peace can also be followed by waves of pain. And that's part of the whole process. And it's important to remember that all of those can coexist together. But that complexity is often misunderstood. Um, it's sought at as, as weakness or ambivalence, um, or that maybe you really shouldn't have chosen to go no contact. But the truth is you can miss somebody and [00:10:00] still choose distance. You know, you can love somebody and still choose to step away from them if it's not a healthy situation. Um, sometimes those are just the emotional realities that we're, we're dealing with. And I think the idea that we see online that people are just stepping away from their parents when we talk about parental estrangement. Um. It, it, it doesn't mean that those people don't love their parent. I mean, I know this from working with my own clients that, you know, I have a client who tells me routinely, I mean, she loves her mom deeply, and yet it's not healthy to be in a dynamic with her, and she needs to show up as the best parent that she can. And so she needs to do what's healthy for her so that she can continue to parent in a healthy way. So from a nervous system perspective, right? Staying in a harmful relationship, um. It can seem easier in the short term, right? It's that temporary relief. But, you know, um, from the long-term perspective, it, it wreaks havoc, right? Because, so familiarity feels safer than the uncertainty of stepping away. So a lot of people will say, well, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna keep [00:11:00] trying because even though the relationship is harmful. It's kind of a known quantity. You know what to expect, right? You know that the emotional cycles are gonna be there, you know the tension points, you know the aftermath. You know what the repair attempts are gonna be and you know what's gonna happen after. And leaving disrupts all of that. And so what no contact introduces is now you have to step into this, this realm of uncertainty and social consequences. I mean, look at the, the conversation that's happening online. You have the internal questioning. You have identity shifts that come with choosing to go no contact. And then of course the emotional side, as I mentioned, right? The grief that comes with it. So the nervous systems oftentimes will almost panic. With the idea of going through contact because that, while that decision could be healthier in the long run, it's actually, uh, very scary in the short term. And that's why some, sometimes with people, it actually, um, they, it leads them to stay in these harmful, toxic dynamics. Um, not because, um, it's necessarily the healthiest thing for them. And also [00:12:00] it's just important to remember that, you know, when you withdraw from an attachment you've had, I mean, that's. That's really scary and it's also, uh, really hard to step away from somebody that you care so deeply about. Um, and again, that's why I'm saying that this conversation feels very shortsighted when people wanna call it a trend. And um, and it's not to say that we're not seeing some people who might simply just, who do say I am, I'm just never gonna talk to that person again. When we're talking about no contact though, it's really important that we don't just skip over, um, this conversation that includes the real pain that goes behind making that decision. Um, and, and I think that people often will criticize it without, um, really understanding the perspective that the person who has chosen to give no contact maybe has endured. Because I mean, we're human, right? So we're gonna, we're going to respond from our own framework and so. A lot of times when we have a judgment about somebody, we, we are projecting our own ideals, [00:13:00] values, um, maybe our own fears, um, not really understanding what that person has gone through. Maybe there's, you know, a personal, um. You know, your own family system. Maybe there's some personal uncomfortability with boundaries. There's, there's just our own personal perspective is what shape shapes those judgements. But it's, this is such an important conversation that we don't criticize and jump to conclusions about people who are in these toxic dynamics because again, most of them don't come to it without. Really thinking about it. Um, and for those people who have chosen to go no contact, it's important to remember that you're not required to educate everybody about your decision. I think a lot of times when we make those really tough decisions and then we hear judgements, it can be really easy to fall into a place of self-doubt and really, you know, kind of internalize what we're hearing. Um, and it's important to recognize that, you know, if you're in that position of meaning to make that decision. Um. You may not get the response from other people that you'd really like, but at the end of the day, it's about your own [00:14:00] wellbeing. Now, if you'd like to talk about, you know, how to deal with toxic dynamics or how to heal from them, or you know, how, how this relates to different areas of life, whether it be your own family, workplace, friendships, you know, feel free to book a time with me at any time at coachwithkamini.com and until next time, stay well. Voiceover: Thank you for listening to Rise Up Live Joy Your Way. For more information, Book a chat with Kamini at www.chatwithKamini.com, or visit her website at www.kaminiwood.com. You can also find Kamini on Facebook or Instagram username, it's authentic me. Thank you for listening!