Letting go of someone you love could be the hardest thing we as human beings are sometimes forced to do. This article will help you see what is happening and also guide you through this process so that this experience can be easier for you.
First of, let’s check out all the scenarios that might happen, resulting in us wanting to let go of someone we love:
- We decided to end the relationship because we found someone new
- We decided to end the relationship but we don’t have anyone new
- Our partner has decided to end the relationship with us
- Our partner has died
I really don’t see any other situation that doesn’t end up in these four categories, but feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section below.
Let’s see what happens in each of these cases and then learn how to deal with it in a loving and responsible way.
We decided to end the relationship because we found someone new
“There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.” ~ Frank Herbert
Finding someone new in your life doesn’t necessarily mean you suddenly stopped completely loving your previous partner. It just means that you have found more happiness and joy in a relationship with someone new. And that someone could easily be an old friend or completely new person that just showed up in your life.
Sometimes you realize that the old relationship that you were in has run its course, no matter how many weeks, months or years it lasted.
You both had some lessons that you needed to learn, and it’s over now, usually because you noticed a change in the dynamics of relating to your former partner. You noticed that your relationship has changed in a significant way, and that you have created distance one from another, or you stopped doing the things that you loved to do together, in the beginning of your relationship.
This usually happens when you decide to start doing some inner work on your core issues, challenging your old beliefs or shifting your focus in a new direction.
Surprisingly, but the most common emotion that you could experience here is guilt.
Feeling guilty because you think you somehow let the other person (that you are leaving) down, is a type of survivors guilt. This can be devastating to your current relationship, as you can’t really move on in a full and committed way because you can’t really build something new until you have fully let the old life go.
And leaving someone and letting someone go are two different things. One doesn’t necessarily include the other.
Especially if you are not really clear about what it is that you were missing or stopped receiving in a previous relationship, or you still have strong and unresolved feelings for your last partner.
We decided to end the relationship but we don’t have anyone new
“It is always important to know when something has reached its end. Closing circles, shutting doors, finishing chapters, it doesn’t matter what we call it; what matters is to leave in the past those moments in life that are over.” ~ Paulo Coelho, The Zahir
Realizing that something doesn’t make sense anymore and then taking action to correct it, facing all the pain, hurt and other challenges and issues that come up along the way is the sign of true mastery in life.
Kudos if you were strong and brave enough to decide to end a relationship even if you didn’t have someone new.
This is a sign of a strong trust in yourself and your feelings, faith in the Universe and a high moral and ethical standards.
Because, for most people, even the relationship that doesn’t really work for them, gives a certain type of false safety or security, by satisfying the norms and rules of the society. If we don’t satisfy those norms and rules we might falsely conclude that we are a failure in life.
You can read my article on failure to see what I mean by that.
The most common emotion we can experience in this type of situation is apathy, grief, disappointment and wanting to give up on the relationships altogether.
There can also be a time of self-doubt about the correctness of the decision that we made. But somehow, when we are alone with ourselves, we know we made the right choice.
Our partner has decided to end the relationship with us
“If you love something set it free; if it returns its yours forever, if not it was never meant to be.” ~ Proverb
This situation is the most common source of all romantic struggles and time when we are most likely to turn to others for help (or Internet).
It’s not just the fact that our partner decided to end the relationship, it’s mostly the meaning that we now assign to ourselves, judging us as not being worthy, allowing our fears to run us and flood us with negativity…
Anxiety might creep in. Also anger. We could start believing we failed in life.
We also start worrying if we will ever be able to find out someone to love.
All these feelings try to convince us that we are not good enough, and that our future is dark. We will never meet someone new. We will never find true love. Everyone else is already taken. My last partner was my soulmate.
All those thoughts just bring us way down in apathy and depression. This is usually a situation where we decide to shut down from the world.
Our partner has died
“When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.” – Kahlil Gibran
This could be the most challenging situation to let go of. First we need to realize that we cannot change the past. We cannot change what has happened, even if it happened just a second ago. The only thing we are left with to do, is to allow ourselves to accept.
I experienced what it’s like to have a person close to me die right in front of me. And it was really not that easy to let go of all the hurt and sadness I felt.
Dealing with this type of experience can leave you hating and being angry.
But the good news is, if you start to work on this huge pile of feelings that start showing up, and you continue to go through the discomfort with love, eventually you will manage to let all those feelings go.
And when you succeed in that, you will notice that in the base of all this feelings was and is pure love. And that there is really no such thing as death or dying.
You will get to feel the love towards person that was in your life in the similar way like you did when the person was alive.
You will only be limited by not having the physical manifestation of them in your experience, but if you fully let go, you will gain a sense of acceptance towards death, as it being just another step on our path of life.
And now, 3 steps for letting go of someone you love
Take ownership of your happiness
This is the first and the most important step. You are the one who gets to decide in your own life what it means for you to be happy, with whom and in what way.
There is no other person, entity or energy that can do this for you. You need to consciously choose the direction.
You and you alone know what makes you happy, how it feels to love and be loved, and what you are choosing and willing to experience in any given moment.
You need to be ready to do whatever it takes, no matter how much it hurts or how much it makes you scared, so that you take control and grab the steering wheel of your life boat.
Allow yourself to feel whatever you feel in the moment
All those feelings that are showing up on the surface right now were already inside you, or they would not be showing up now. They did not come from someone or something else outside of you. This situation just triggered them into appearing from your subconscious mind into conscious.
Accept them and allow them to show up because running away, suppressing or expressing will not really deal with them long term. I bet you know that you can’t really escape them because I am sure at one point or another you have tried to do just that.
Escaping doesn’t work. It just adds onto suffering and prolongs the healing process. Wherever we go, there we are.
If we don’t welcome all the feelings as they show up, they will just continue to chase us all over the place. Or we will need to expend so much of energy just to keep them down (suppress them).
So there is actually only one thing left for us to do.
Decide to take full responsibility and release the feelings
Recognize that you are in charge of how you feel. You are not at mercy of your feelings and you have the power and opportunity to say “enough is enough”. I am done. I choose to let all this feelings come up and leave. Use the release technique. Talk with someone who resonates with you, get a Reiki session, or find something else that works for you.
I prefer to release my negative feelings using a specific technique called releasing. To learn more about the creator of releasing and the process itself check out article I wrote called Release technique and Lester Levenson.
Conclusion
I know that right now, while you are facing the intensity of negative feelings it may seem overwhelmingly hard. It can seem to be difficult as you are not having enough energy or strength to let the other person go with an open heart.
But it’s the only way for you to ever find peace or to be able to continue walking on your life path towards love and happiness.
In the center of us all, we are Love, we don’t need anyone or anything to be complete, we just need to find in ourselves what we are so desperately seeking outside.
There is a huge difference between unconditional love and what we normally call “human love“.
Use this situation and the experience that you are going through to learn something new about yourself.
Learn something that will help you in the long run. I suggest you start with the Release technique online course.
If you are in a tight situation financially, check out these Lester Levenson quotes on love to get your energy vibration higher, and then go hunt for a good book from my list of top 10 inspirational books.
Whatever you do, just know, with time it really gets better. But the responsibility for healing rests solely with you.
And you decide when the healing starts.
Much love,
Sinisa
Images courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net