Every wonder why do we miss someone? As humans we are programmed to need companionship. It’s not healthy to live in solitude, genetically speaking.
And if you’d like to take it a step deeper there is a science behind this question. It all comes down to emotions, which of course are unpredictable and complex, harder to track.
In a chemical sense, your body is going to release specific hormones and chemicals intrinsically when you are with that special someone and when they are gone, your internal circuitry is changed.
We like to be comfortable and we naturally put up a fight against change.
In a nutshell, “love” hormones are oxytocin, estrogen and testosterone, according to Odyssey Online. Where the neurotransmitters triggered are generally dopamine and seratonin.
Okay – Enough of the technical component of love.
Let’s have a look at why you might miss someone and little later on what you can do about it.
Why Do We Miss Someone?
Did you love that person?
Did you like that person?
Or were you just infatuated with that person?
Fact is, if you are serious about continuing a relationship with that special someone you’re missing, it’s VIP to make clear your intentions.
You might miss someone because…
You’re Insecure
There are some people that always need to have someone by their side and when they don’t, they feel lost and insecure. You may not even love the person you’re missing. You just can’t handle being alone.
You Respect The Qualities
Perhaps you are missing that special someone because you are in love with their traits and personal qualities. You might envy the person they are and miss the fact you aren’t in their life anymore.
They Made You Smile
We naturally gravitate towards positivity and if the person you were with make you smile and feel good about yourself, makes perfect sense to miss them.
The Electric Connection
If you just “fit” with someone and had a crazy strong connection, it makes sense you are going to miss them when they are no longer in your life.
According to psychology Psychology Today, there are a couple different meanings why people miss each other.
Missing is a simple contronym, a word that has two different meanings.
Fact – Missing either means you are connected or disconnected. When you are missing someone you love and like, you are losing or you’re incomplete without them.
Missing also means you are completely independent of people, like you are existing together by missing the meaning or disconnecting from it.
The connecting and disconnecting part is the hardest to decipher.
What people are you going to miss completely or be disconnected from because you aren’t paying attention to their preferences?
Experts report we often give away too much information so we have the option of disconnection because of the details missed. Other times we aren’t giving enough information so you’re totally missing the connection.
Ignore or totally miss what you choose to miss
In a nutshell, this thinking can be described as do what you want and just go for it. If you like this and I like that, it’s not a big deal. If you aren’t really interested, you’ll ignore it and won’t get the connection and missing thing.
Just don’t miss out
It’s important to be there for people. When they re reaching out to you it’s important they know you are there and you’re going to help. If someone wants your attentions, be sure you give it to them without hesitation.
Be true to your heart that intrinsically is programmed to connect. Fight it if you like but what is, just is.
Don’t be afraid to reach out to people because everyone wants to feel wanted and loved. They will open their arms to you and that’s magical.
Bottom line…these two pointers are in fact exact opposite but are both rules of missing someone.
I miss you can mean so much or so little.
Further still, we often disconnect with ideas too, not just people and relationships.
Practical Tip One…
Carefully be discerning
No matter what Do Not trust and believe everything you hear. Trust your gut and intuition and decide what’s important to you and what isn’t.
Be open
Please, please, please don’t close your mind. Try not to judge, look for the positive and open your brain to the impossible. Just do it please!
It’s really quite easy to get out of sync with people, worrying about were to connect and disconnect.
Unions become unstable when one person misses the other WAY more. An imbalance is trouble in any relationship. Tension is created when you are missing someone or some aspect about them.
Stop for a second and ponder how far we’ve come since the days of small isolated close know communities.
Today we have…
*Oodles more people screaming out for attention…please don’t miss out on me!
*So much more pressure to be tolerant and open, understanding and caring.
*A crazy amount of technology that makes connecting and disconnecting easy peasy.
*The obvious problem that we don’t connect anymore, everything is technical and the human factor is gone.
*So many people saying we are over-connecting.
The issue…care about everything or care about what you want.
Shouldn’t you care about what matters to you first?
RED ALERT – It’s up to you to decide what’s important to you and what you are or aren’t missing according to Self.com.
Is it a need or want?
That’s for you to decide.
Proven take action steps you should take when you heart’s hurting for someone.
Nobody likes missing someone that’s special in their life, especially in the beginning when it really hurts.
What To Do When You Miss Someone
Scenario One – When you will never be with this special someone again:
Take Action Step One – Let yourself be upset
It’s VIP you take the time to allow yourself to grieve and do it your way. There’s no right or wrong way to grieve. Just open your mind to it and give yourself the time you need to work through it.
Take Action Step Two – Think positive thoughts
If this person you miss died for instance, force yourself to think of all the happy times you enjoyed together. Expect to be overwhelmed with emotions and it will help to cherish the great you had together. Doesn’t change things but might make it a little easier.
Take Action Step Three – If you’ve been cut out of this person’s life but still live in the same social circle, you’ve got to summon your courage
This is a tough one according to relationship experts at Woman’s Day.
When you still have feelings for someone and the feeling isn’t mutual, it’s hard enough. But when you are going to be seeing this person on a regular basis, like at school or work, that makes it almost unbearable initially.
You are best to be human to them and as natural as possible. Use your manners and don’t let your hurt manifest feelings of revenge or hurting back. That’s just going to prolong your pain and hurt both of you.
If you truly loved this person, you don’t really want that.
You only control you, remember that.
Take Action Step Four – Step outside your comfort zone and find new friends
You need support if you’ve lost someone you love, that’s natural. This isn’t about replacing the person your heart was set on. It’s about moving on and pushing yourself forward positively and openly.
This means you need to surround yourself with positive people that make a difference in your life for all the right reasons.
Scenario Two – Understanding and accepting some distance from the one you want to be with:
Take Action Step One – if you are pursuing something personal, like a job change, you may need to separate temporarily
Any time away from the one you want to be with, is extremely difficult but focusing the positive helps.
Try zoning in on…
*How are you going to keep yourself busy for now?
*What are the expectations with staying in touch?
*What’s the length of separation?
Take Action Step Two – Let’s make a deal
Yes, it’s tough to accept the fact your partner or loved one is choosing something other than you, but you’ve got to find a way to deal with it and accept the facts.
Maybe your boyfriend is choosing his friends over you or perhaps he’d rather go climbing or do volunteer work than spend this time with you.
It’s important that you understand everyone has to make their own choices and it really only strengthens your relationship when you open your mind to this.
This certainly doesn’t mean he’s belittling your needs, it just means both of you need to sit down and talk about what you both want and need. When expectations are set, the rest is easy peasy.
What you need to do here is make sure you figure out how to stay in touch, make sure you find a way to make it happen.
Set up the brain to look forward to the time you’re going to spend together. Just stop feeling like crap because you’re away from this person.
Scenario Three – Keep in touch :
Take Action Step One – Make the effort to stay in touch with this special person
It’s crucial you take action to keep this person in your thoughts and mind no matter what. That means via text, email, phone call or in person.
If this person really means that much to you, then you MUST put in the effort to show that.
Take Action Step Two – Make sure you take the time to visit this person
It really doesn’t matter if this person is on the other side of the world, in prison, or whatever, you need to put the effort into seeing them, according to experts at Men’s Day. If you need to save money to go visit them, just do it.
Sometimes it’s as easy as just making sure you investigate what it takes to meet them.
Bottom line – Just do it.
Take Action Step Three – Make sure the updates are straight up front and center
If unfortunately you can’t keep in touch on a daily basis, you nee to make sure you have a means of communicating regularly.
Does that make sense?
Even if you are just keeping a journal created for this special persona to read, that’s magical.
Make sure you have the means of staying on the same page, whatever works for you is perfect.
Scenario Four – Get distracted and make sure you support yourself:
Take Action Step One – If you are in trouble because the pain of missing someone is intense, the best route is to distract yourself and move forward
For instance, if you are missing someone, you need to take a trip somewhere or make new friends. Dive straight into a new hobby and you’re on the right track.
Think about this for a minute and it WILL make total sense!
Take Action Step Two – Be sure to make yourself busy
What’s important is that you make certain you get your brain off the person you are crazy missing. If you are busy, your mind doesn’t have the time to get silly with missing.
Take Action Step Three – Be respectful of your needs and love yourself
So if the loved one you are missing died, then you need to allow yourself to be sad but don’t focus on that. Set a timeline to deal with your internal sadness, but understand as tough as it sounds you’re going to have to flip the switch and start letting it go.
If you don’t, the negativity will eventually eat you up and longer you stay in this state of perpetual darkness, the harder it is to pull yourself out into the light.
*Mind over matter
Give yourself permission to smile and go out and have fun with friends. This doesn’t mean you aren’t sad or that you don’t miss this person. So don’t feel guilty about it.
You are helping yourself pull out of this sadness phase and that’s exactly what your partner or loved one would want you to do, right?
Take Action Step Four – Consciously pretend your boyfriend or girlfriend or loved one is beside you
You’re not crazy to act like a child and imagine the person you are grieving over and missing, is right beside you. It’s a part of the healing process in moderation.
Talk to them in your brain and if there’s nobody around, you should talk out loud to them.
It’s very helpful to let your feelings out and reflect, and if you can tell this person your feelings and why, that will help open your mind to moving forward positively.
This isn’t about forgetting that person, which is terrifying for some people. It’s about accepting the fact they are gone, living positively in the memories, and moving on stronger.
Seems impossible initially but in time it will happen naturally if you allow it. You’ve got to believe. If for no other reason than the person you are missing would want you to.
Take Action Step Five – Take the bull by the horns and face it
Sometimes you just got to put your foot down and face reality head on. Admit to yourself, they are gone and although you are hurting inside, you will push through this and find your happiness. Feeling sorry for yourself isn’t going to help you or anyone else around you.
Think of all the other people you love? They need you too, don’t they?
Look at it from outside yourself and perhaps even tell yourself, it’s selfish to at least not try to get back into your happy state. Or at least where your mind isn’t consumed with sadness.
Let yourself miss this person but do not let it eat you up. The saddest moments will pass, unless you consciously put the effort into making sure they don’t.
If you are doing that, you need to give your head a shake and start thinking about the people around you and not just about you. Other people are hurting too and they need you to be strong and positive, open and realistic.
Bottom line is, there is no right or wrong way to push through the process of missing a loved one. It really depends on how strong your bond is/was and the circumstances surrounding it. Missing someone hurts and it’s okay to admit and accept this.
Just make sure you have an action plan to deal with “the missing” part, so you can move forward positively.
Loving someone and missing someone are interconnected. You can’t miss someone, unless you love them, that’s if you are truly missing someone.
So it’s important to also understand factors that indicate you should NOT love a person or miss them. Often in our lives emotion and logic intertwine, and when this happens, our judgement gets clouded.
Psychology Today says emotion and logic can’t physiologically mix. Which means they can’t happen at the same time. So if you are emotionally out of control your brain isn’t going to think with smarts. Emotion will take control and that’s rarely a good thing, particularly when it comes to loving someone and missing them.
Life is full of decisions and it’s pretty much impossible to focus too long on any single one.
However, when it comes to big decisions in our lives, we often get stuck and need to learn how to pull ourselves out and move forward. Specifically. when it comes to love and logic, there are set factors you need to be aware of to make sure you aren’t missing someone for the wrong reasons.
Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Be Missing Someone, You Shouldn’t Fall In Love
Factor One – The Lust Card
This one will sneak up on you fast and take hold if you don’t prevent it. Love and lust have numerous similar factors and it’s easy to confuse true love with just lusting over someone. The main difference is love takes time and commitment.
You can’t love someone truly after a one-night stand for instance. If you don’t have the physical and emotional connection with someone, you shouldn’t be missing them.
Factor Two – Love Has No Boundaries Or Deadlines
If you are pressured to be in love because of a deadline, you are headed in the wrong direction. If your boyfriend is moving or the summers over and you are headed in separate directions, this shouldn’t force you through the “falling in love” process.
When you rush into love, it’s bound to fail, and your’e going to be missing someone for all the wrong reasons.
Factor Three – Too Much Distance
I’m not going to tell you long-distance relationships don’t work but I will say the odds are against you. Finding time to create the strong bond of love is often extremely difficult, even when two people are close together.
We live in a high-tech world full of hustle and bustle. Many people are working a couple jobs to make ends meet and they’ve got other commitments outside of building a loving romantic relationships.
Just something to think about before you open that door to missing someone you’re probably never going to end up with.
Factor Four – Please Don’t Ignore Red Flags
Everyone wants to be loved and because of this internal need, we often overlook the red flags waving because we want love so badly.
Pay attention to red flags in a relationship, the things that bother or hurt you because they are only going to manifest in time. And if you’re in too deep, you’re going to always be missing this person for the wrong reasons.
Final Words
There’s no black and white when it comes to why we miss someone and what to do about it. Look at all the factors in your situation and create a plan to deal with it. Allow yourself to deal with loss but set a deadline to pull yourself out of it.
Keep your mind open and focused positive, and in time you are going to accept the missing part, reflect positively on the memories and move forward stronger, but you’ve got to believe.
Lily says
nice and practical
Scott says
Thanks for the article. I’ve lost my soul mate of 26 years because I stopped showing affection due to pain, health problems, OCDs, PTSD flashbacks, and stress over debt. I’m miserable to the point that my body seems to be shutting down on me (passing out, etc.). I’d suggest to others that you show that person you love them while you still have them. Otherwise you can end up lying in a hotel floor crying and throwing up for weeks like I’ve been doing. Keep showing that person you love them every day; ot end up alone like me.