The Silent Treatment Is Abuse. Use This 2-Minute Meditation For Healing.
The silent treatment makes you feel crazy, desperate, and powerless.
The 2-minute Mindshift Meditation technique in this article stops the spiral before you beg, apologize, or break down.
We have all been there. Our mind is racing through every conversation, every text, trying to figure out what we did wrong. And we’d do anything to make them talk to us again...
Stop. Right now. Before you lose yourself completely.
They want you to feel this way. The silence is designed to make you freak out, to make you desperate, to make you chase their attention. And it works because your nervous system doesn’t know it’s manipulation! This response is part of our primitive brain function trying to protect us, and it messes up our conscious thought by putting us into high alert mode.
When you are in a situation with someone who is giving you passive-aggressive commentary or actions, the silent treatment, or other “non-aggressive” forms of abuse, it is very confusing. Your inner wounds and past traumas are triggered, and on top of that, you are quite possibly in a trauma bond with this person.
When this happens, the primitive part of our brain is now mostly in control; fight, flight, or freeze. This is survival. The conscious part wants to speak up and get them to stop, but we can't quite do it. This is reinforced as it usually leads to worse treatment, yelling, or even physical abuse; pushing us further into survival mode.
Do the most rational thing possible: Take control of yourself because you can!
You aren’t the character, you are the one at the controls of the game.
Time to level up and start winning!
Let’s calm down so we can think clearly and avoid the trap! Break free from their games with this quick Mindshift hack.
Break Free with Mindshift Meditation
(2-minute technique)
When you feel the anxiety and panic from their withdrawal, do this:
Step One: The Physical Part (Controlled Breathing)
Hand on heart. Other hand on belly.
Blow out all of the air in your lungs.
Inhale deep and slow into your lower belly, feel it expand.
Exhale very slowly and evenly, feeling the air as it escapes.
This controlled breathing is a hack that tells the primitive part of our brain to calm down. The hand on belly and heart connect your conscious self to your body. It is a direct path to reverse engineer the message: “Ah, we are breathing slow, we must not be in danger.”
Once you have this breath established, it is time to calm the rest of your nervous system through a Mindshift!
Step Two: The Mental Component (Observer Effect)
Now for the mental component. Imagine you are outside of yourself. Like the you that is playing the game of life through the body you operate as an avatar, or take whatever analogy you relate to, and feel the observer effect.
You are now an observer of this physical body, and you are calming this body down using the breathing technique.
The breathing and physical touch is talking to the primitive brain areas, now we talk to the conscious brain. Say this to yourself as many times as you need to while maintaining that slow, steady breath:
“This is manipulation. I am not imagining what I’m seeing, and I did not cause this. I am observing someone else’s behavior. I am calm and safe, and I get to choose how I respond. I will not be reactive — I am resetting and establishing my own grounding connection.”
Step Three: Form Your Shield
Imagine a glowing bubble forming around you like a shield, and roots extending from your feet down into the Earth. The emotions you are feeling from the other person are now outside of your bubble. If any remain, push them out with your breath and say “I send back what isn’t mine.”
(Advanced Step) If possible, imagine transforming that crappy emotion you are picking up from them into love as you radiate it out of your bubble. (We always try to cleanse and purify energy, returning it higher than what it was, making the immediate environment and the world a better place).
The Mindshift is: “I see this, I name it, I choose my response.”
By consciously naming what’s happening, you reclaim your self and take control over how your body is responding and how you feel. You’re no longer caught in the reactive loop where their manipulation controls your emotional state.
You’re the observer, the one at the controls, and you’re choosing to shift gears.
This might sound too simple, silly, or even stupid. But please try it before you disqualify it. This really works!
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