Anna Gonowon Coaching

Wanting to reach out isn't automatically a bad idea. However, the decision to reach out deserves more than, “I miss them and feeling so anxious, so I should say something.”

I often tell my breakup coaching clients that, before taking any action, we need to weigh following through with our urges against whether that action actually takes us any closer to our goals and, from the 30,000 foot view, is this the healthiest, smartest action to take.

"What does communicating accomplish? What problems does it solve?"

Before you contact an ex, get clear about what you want to achieve, what response you are expecting, and how you will handle silence, delay, brevity, warmth, or rejection.

You also need to know whether anything has meaningfully changed since the last conversation. Missing someone can intensify with time, even when the circumstances that ended the relationship remain the same.

Without a doubt, contact gives us data, but that data is useful only when we're prepared to evaluate it over time and without assigning too much meaning to any single response.

Which slide is toughest for you?