Your Peace May Require Going No Contact with Someone You Love

Are you stuck in a relationship that makes you miserable? Maybe that connection is with a romantic partner or a best friend. If you're really unlucky, you may just have that kind of relationship with a family member.

Toxic relationships are hard to navigate. No matter what you do, pain and negativity are usually right around the corner. That's why so many people have to make the choice to walk away from relationships. It's not for nothing that the phrase "no contact" has become one of the most searched Google terms in mental health and relationships.

In order to protect your peace, it can become necessary to leave the toxic behind…including the toxic people who are dragging us down.

The fairy tale doesn't exist for everyone.

We've created a lot of fairy tales when it comes to our human-to-human relationships. It's seen in every type of connection - friendships, intimate relationships, family bonds, you name it. We drown these ties in cliches that convince us we have to swallow them and accept them, no matter how toxic they've become.

That's not a safe place to dwell in when you're dealing with someone who is abusive, manipulative, or otherwise destructive to others. In seeking a life of peace, difficult choices have to be made. Hold on to these relationships and your mental well-being will decline. No contact is often the only choice left to those with such damaging experiences.

Different people go no contact for different reasons. Some of the most common reasons include:

• Abusive family dynamics
• Toxic relationship struggles
• Financial and spiritual abuse
• Chaos or emotional drain
• Divergent life paths

It seems dramatic. How could someone really make the impossible choice to walk away from family? From friends? From the people who have surrounded them their entire lives? How could you do anything else when someone you love is lying to you, harming you, stealing from you, and going out of their way to create chaos?

Emotional pain. That's where all of these paths converge. Some are pushed to the edge by people who take so much that there is nothing left on the inside. Their lives, their bank accounts, and their relationships are drained and destroyed by people who always find a way to gain far more than they give.

In that place, what choice is left? When you're facing someone who prefers to harm you the best thing you can do to protect your peace is to go no contact.

How to protect your peace and go no contact.

In the days of cliche self-help and therapy, we were told that protecting our peace was a matter of forgiving and "letting go". That is nice, but it rarely works when dealing with toxic people who toxic situations. Sometimes, the best thing you can do in those cases is to protect your peace by going no contact. Walking away can be the best defense and limits the power that toxic and narcissistic people have over you.

Start with inner boundaries

Before you draw the line with other people, you must be able to draw the line with yourself. This begins with figuring out where we're getting disrespected and how we desire to be treated. In that place, we start to create standards. We define what we're not willing to put up with and distance ourselves from those things that make us feel unsafe or unsupported.

The "no contact" ball gets rolling within you. Get brutally honest about how your peace is getting disturbed and become resolved to end that kind of disrespect or damage in your life. Commit to getting what you deserve, not because you've done something to get it, but because this treatment and connection is what you need to be safe in your relationship.

Create emotional distance

No contact is an action, even though it's primarily devoid of real action (like speaking to someone who is toxic to you). When you go no contact, you actively sever ties with people who disrespect you and your fundamental needs. This action doesn't happen magically overnight, though. It builds slowly, usually with emotional distance.

Create emotional walls between yourself and those you intend to go no contact with. Go slowly. Start by diminishing communication. Stop talking about things that matter to you. Don't give the toxic person you're going to cut off any emotional insight into your life.

The further you pull yourself away emotionally, the more power you reclaim for yourself. If the toxic people in your life have no emotional power over you, they have minimized control over you. Once you feel more powerful, you are better equipped to walk away in a more concrete manner.

Limit the opportunities

The thing about no contact is that it doesn't work if doors remain open. These days, those doors include not only traditional phone and face-to-face communication but social media communication too. You can proclaim "no contact" and walk away from intentional connection, but the toxic people will keep reaching out and striking your heart if they have the means to reach you.

That's why it's imperative to limit the opportunities that toxic people have to reach out to you in times of no contact. You may have to block them on your favorite social media channels, avoid certain places in public, or even consider a change in social groups.

The specifics of that are going to be determined by your individual needs. If seeing that toxic person sends you into a tailspin, then you need to take a little time avoiding the places in which that person may (uncontrollably) appear. The same applies to verbal communication.

If getting a like, a text, a nasty comment, or a message, is going to send you into a negative emotional place, those opportunities need to be removed from the equation. Limit the access toxic people have to you in every form when taking the path of no contact.

Compartmentalize monkeys

Here's the thing about going no contact with one person: it very often requires changing the way you relate to a lot of other people too. That's because human connections are complex and multilayered. You're not just cutting contact with someone you know, you're cutting contact with someone who other people also know.

You're going to have to contend with flying monkeys along the way. These are people who come into your life, begging you to get back into contact with the toxic person you've cut off. They may have the best of intentions, but their approach is still harmful.

Compartmentalization is often necessary (if not going no-contact with these individuals too). Which means changing the scope of your relationship with that person and what elements of your life (and emotions) they have access to.

It's possible you will have to go from close, intimate friendships to something more superficial and social. You may have to walk away from some more forceful flying monkeys altogether. The goal is the same. You must protect your emotional peace.

Take time to truly grieve

As you ease away from the corrosive people in your life, you will notice a pain permeating your life. There's no escaping it. Cutting off someone you cared for, someone who took up a lot of emotional space in your life is painful. In many ways, it is a death. You need to grieve that death and you need to allow yourself to flow naturally through the process.

No contact is not a hardline cut-off. Human emotions aren't water. You can flip a switch and turn them on and off. You're going to feel sad, angry, resentful, hopeful, and hurt throughout the process of no contact. Questions are going to be asked. You're going to wonder why you couldn't get the love or respect you were owed.

Give yourself the time you need to work through this process. See the intense emotions you feel as important visitors carrying important messages for your future. This grief is a reminder of how far you come and how much someone else implanted their pain in you. Remember both so you don't slide back into old habits.

Focus on quality connections

Going no contact, for the person who has been traumatized by people they trusted, is a chance to start over. It's literally a fresh slate, full of possibility and opportunity in terms of life, career, and relationships. Everything is possible as you set out on this new path of self-determination.

Focus on building quality connections in this space. Instead of seeing holes in your life, blown into the side of your ship by reckless hands, see talent openings. You're ridding your life of the bad so that you have room in it for the good.

New connections can be started on the right foot, with people who have the right intentions. Building on your no contact, you will have a higher awareness of both what you need and what you are capable of. You will know that you no longer have to settle and you can look out for more compassionate and supportive people who see the world in the same light.

What's crucial to remember…

Before anyone goes no contact or takes any action in terms of their relationship with others, there are a few important things to remember. Cutting connections should never be taken lightly. It's an act that should only be undertaken when there's a proven record of abuse, rejection, and denial. Outside of that, look to these other key lessons...

• You can't change others: Whatever healing journey you're on, it's crucial for you to remember that you cannot change others. You are the only person in this world who you have full autonomy over. Children, partners, friends, and family - they are all ultimately in their own hands. They will choose for them and you must choose for yourself. If you desire to change your circumstances, you must focus on changing your environment.
• You get one shot at peace: The life you have in front of you is the only one you have, as far as any of us know. You get one shot at whatever your happy ending looks like, and it won't happen magically. You have to create it by taking action in the name of your needs and desires. Are you willing to sacrifice that for the misery of others? Sometimes it's better to walk away from a poisonous person so we can create the peace we need to thrive.
• You're as worthy as anyone else: Too many people never go no-contact because they don't think they deserve it. They assume they have to settle for whatever hell they're in because they're not as worthy as the people who are making them miserable. This is the wrong way to think. Want to be truly happy? You must prioritize your happiness and peace as much as anyone else.

No contact should always be for you. Never use it as a weapon meant to change someone else's behavior. If you expect your disappearance to earn an oscar winning performance, check your intentions. Are you trying to protect your peace or are you trying to teach someone else less? One will bring you the zen you seek, and the other will bring more drama.

Remember as well that your peace is as valuable as anyone else's. You don't have to be a punching bag for someone else who has suffered in life. Their happiness is their responsibility. Take yours to hand. Never sacrifice yourself on the altar of someone else's joy if that means they get a free pass to make you miserable.

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No contact doesn't have to be forever. The point is to give yourself enough physical and emotional distance to regain your strength. It's about you. It's about making sure that people who harm you or take advantage of you have limited access. You're taking back power, and that's not only right - it's necessary.

If you need to protect your peace by going no contact, do it. No one else can make that decision for you, or tell you it's right or wrong. Take this moment to prioritize yourself. You have always been as important and deserving as everyone else in your life. Act like it and take the journey one day at a time.

E.B. Johnson is a writer, NLPMP, and podcaster who helps women recover after a lifetime of trauma and narcissistic abuse. Using somatic techniques and neurolinguistic frameworks, she teaches survivors how to reclaim their lives through the power of nervous system regulation.