Whether it’s a long term ex you can’t get over, an old friends with benefits, a situationship that lasted far too long, or some guy you met at a party once and who you only hear from every few months at 2:00am—we all have that person who’s just no damn good for us. Yet we all have moments when, for one reason or another, we get that urge to reach out to them even though we know ultimately it won’t lead to anything good.

Sometimes we get a case of the fuck its and don’t care if we blow our lives up. We just want what we want in the moment and we’ll worry about picking up the pieces of our shattered self-worth later. Trust me, I’ve been there so many more times than I like to admit.

It took me years after the relationship with my first boyfriend ended before I stopped calling him when I was drunk. The reason I eventually stopped calling was because I started to build a life for myself that made me feel good and I slowly built up my self-confidence. I started taking college classes, I had new friends that weren’t associated with him, I started working, and I just became far too preoccupied with what I was doing in my own life to think about him. Oh, and some new cute guys may have helped speed the process along a little too.

I’ve been in the same situation with guys who weren’t my ex and the feeling is still the same. Sometimes it’s been a guy who I didn’t even like and who wouldn’t care if I got hit by a bus but who is always available to give me that quick hit of attention or validation that I’m craving.

No matter who the person is or what the relationship is or was, the urge to reach out to them always seems to come out of the same place: a place of lack, loneliness, anxiety, unworthiness, disconnection, hopelessness. To put it simply, the urge always arises when you’re feeling like shit about yourself.

If you think about it, when was the last time you were out drinking a matcha latte in the sunshine, laughing with your favorite people, and feeling joyous as ever and you just suddenly felt like you wanted to text your ex? That typically doesn’t happen.

The urge usually creeps up when things aren’t going very well in life. Maybe you had a shit day at work and you feel super incompetent, you haven’t seen your friends in a little while, you’ve been avoiding doing your evening yoga for the past week, and you had a burger and milkshake for dinner even though you don’t like how it makes your body feel. That’s a perfect recipe for thoughts about that certain someone to start creeping into your brain.

If we have multiple things piling up in our life that aren’t going well we have a tendency to just say fuck it what’s the difference if I sabotage myself in this area of my life too?

I’ve got some years of experience with this situation at this point and I’ve added some tools to my toolbelt along the way that have always helped me get to the other side of those urges. I wanted to create this list just as much for me to refer back to as to share with others.

Here’s a non-exhaustive list of what to do instead of texting that ex.

1. Do a yoga flow. There’s just something about repeating the same movements in a sequence that does wonders for getting out of your head. I guarantee if you surrender to the movements you will not feel the same as when you first unrolled your yoga mat.

2. Journal it out. I’ve been practicing morning pages every day for the past four months and I can’t imagine my life without them at this point. Journaling is absolutely crucial to any kind of healing work and discovering why the feelings you’re having are arising in the first place.

3. Go for a walk. The power of a walk around the block never ceases to amaze me.

4. Dance. Put on some Lizzo, turn the volume all the way up, and go crazy with it.

5. Call a trusted friend. One of the big reasons we feel the urge to text an ex in the first place is we’re feeling disconnected from people that know and love us. Having a good long chat with a loved one who always makes you feel understood has the power to bring you right back down to earth.

6. Scream into a pillow. Because it’s fucking necessary and screaming in public isn’t exactly socially acceptable.

7. Look at pictures of yourself from the past. It’s a strange experience looking at pictures of ourselves, especially from times that feel like a lifetime ago. It gives us the ability to look at ourselves as if from the perspective of an outsider yet knowing all we’ve been through. Somehow it makes us compassionate and protective over ourselves. When we see a picture of ourselves smiling and just being our true selves, whether it was from when we were five or just a year ago, we’re more likely to see ourselves as precious and never want to do anything to hurt that precious person.

8. Pray. When all else fails, pray. If you aren’t comfortable with the concept of God you can pray to your ancestors, to your spirit guides if believe in that, to your favorite inspirational celebrity, to the river by your house, to whatever gods or goddesses you believe in. It doesn’t matter who or what you pray to, as long as it’s with intention, the effect is the same. Prayer is having the courage to surrender to something outside yourself and saying I need help, I can’t do this alone.

9. Plan a trip. Maybe it’s just the travel enthusiast in me but there’s no better feeling than getting that confirmation email after buying plane tickets to a place you’re super excited about. Making travel plans and getting all geeked up about all the food you’ll eat and all the sights you’ll get to take in is a sure fire way to forget what the hell sounded so appealing about talking to that guy in the first place.

10. Breathe. Sometimes taking a deep breath is the only thing we can do to keep us from sabotaging our lives completely. Taking a breath has prevented me from walking off the job and never coming back, from saying hurtful things that I wouldn’t be able to come back from, and from pressing send on that text I know I shouldn’t send. Our breath is one of the only things we always have control over and one of the only things we can always access to ground us and bring us back into our body. Just breathe through it until the feeling passes.

All of us will inevitably have times when the self-sabotaging feelings are just too powerful and we give into our urges, and that’s okay. We always have the power to make different choices the next time, or maybe the time after that. What’s important to remember is that we aren’t doomed to the same behavior forever. Every moment we’re presented with the opportunity to make a choice that can either help us or hinder us. It’s never too late to start making different choices.