6 Tips For Letting Go Of The Relationship That's Holding You Back From True Love
It isn't easy, but it's better for you in the long run.
getty Letting go of a relationship can seem like something impossible at times. It’s not uncommon that people keep thinking of their first loves for many years after. And I dare to say that most of the people get stuck thinking about the past love longer than they want.
First of all, you need to be crystal clear — on every level of your being — that you actually want to let go.
To motivate you a bit, here are two advantages.
The benefits of letting go of a relationship:
The art of letting go isn’t easy. But it’s highly beneficial.
By freeing up the past, you also release the extra energy you were spending on ex-relationships.
You can imagine that each time you think of something you invest your energy there. Each day you wake up with a certain amount of energy that you can spend. If you spend too much on your past, then you lack the energy to invest in the present moment.
Another benefit (out of many) for letting go of a relationship is that by thinking of it, you unconsciously recreate the similar situation in your current relationship. Or you might not even recognize when someone perfect is standing right in front of you because your mind is living in fairytale land.
6 tips on letting go of a relationship:
1. Ask yourself, why is better for you NOT to let go?
As strange as it may sound, we keep certain situations in our lives because at some level we think them more beneficial. We love the familiar, even if it’s painful.
You need to investigate your real motives for being stuck with your past relationship (or anything else you want to let go).
The reasons for holding onto a relationship can be numerous. Perhaps without realizing, you want to justify your feelings to that person. You still love them, but your mind believes that if you love them, then you must be in a relationship with them.
But since you aren’t with them (anymore), it needs to create something more special from what you experienced together. The solution here would be to accept that you can love someone even if they don’t love you back. There is never anything wrong with love.
2. Process your feelings
The next step is to process all your feelings to them.
Do you still hold some resentment or suppressed anger? Or have they hurt you but you haven’t allowed yourself to feel it fully?
If you can’t let go of something, then you have some unprocessed feelings. Always.
Here is an exercise to help you:
Find some quiet place — it can take about 30 min — and close your eyes. Then connect with the strongest feeling to that person as thoroughly as you possibly can. And then just stay with that feeling. Allow yourself to move through all the layers of that emotion. Until you feel relief and like the energy around it has shifted.
3. Discover the lesson it’s supposed to teach you
From my coaching experience, I know that this is the most significant reason why it’s so difficult to let go of a relationship.
Every person we meet is here to teach us about some aspect of ourselves that we’re not willing to see. In that sense, everyone is the mirror of our innermost self. As well as every hardship is an opportunity for us to grow. Even if it’s a harsh lesson, it’s precisely what we’ve needed. The universe has been trying to catch our attention through this very person.
I’ve seen that once my clients have discovered what the relationship or person was supposed to teach them, they were ready to let go almost in an instant. It’s an incredibly freeing experience to understand what you were meant to learn. The whole situation shifts and you can move on.
From the universe’s perspective, there is no more point for you to being attached to that relationship. The lesson was delivered and understood. You can go to the next level. Each kind of relationship has a different purpose in our life.
4. Accept what happened
It used to drive me crazy when I read that I needed to accept something. It sounds right and easy, but it’s not easy at all.
Now I understand that it’s easier to accept our past when we understand the lessons. So accepting what happened is a natural consequence of the tip #3.
We’re on this planet to grow. And the way to grow is to experience the exact lessons we need.
Everyone has a unique set of lessons because they need to gain different perspectives on life and themselves.
By the way, this is the reason why it doesn’t make sense to compare yourself to someone else.
Our soul (or higher self if you will) wants to catch our attention, so we don’t miss out on any lesson.
Therefore, from the soul’s perspective — which is different than the mind’s point of view but they complete each other — we recreate the similar situations to grasp the lessons finally. Or we can’t let go of someone before we recognize what they came to teach us.
Once the message is delivered, it feels natural and easy to accept our past.
5. Forgive
Yes, this is another very “favorite” tip, I know, but there is a reason why everyone tells you that you need to forgive.
As long as you secretly blame the other person, you give them power over your life. Because the mind of the person who hasn’t forgiven is like an obsessed mind.
By not forgiving, you keep torturing yourself by revisiting the past. So forgiveness is a gift to yourself.
But I don’t agree that forgiveness can be forced. It takes time, and it happens when we’re truly ready. Undoubtedly, it helps to understand the lessons (tip #3) and often this, by itself, is enough.
However, if you want to forgive — even if you actually don’t — then you can pray to a higher power of your belief to help you. I believe in the power of prayers because they’re always answered. Mostly, not in the ways we expect the answer. The universe speaks to us through our life so it might create a situation where we receive the answer. Or the answer can come in the form of another person, article, book, or song.
6. Focus on what you CAN influence
We like to think that we can control others. But it isn’t true. The only one who ends up being controlled is us.
You can’t make someone love you or stay with you. If you think for some period that you can, then it’s just an illusion. Every illusion must burst.
Instead, focus on what you can influence — which is you. Invest in your life and do all the things you’ve been postponing. You’ll see that this will make you forget faster than you think.
You can also focus on your attitude and personal growth which is always the best investment because it multiplies everything else.
Sylvia Salow is an author, public speaker, and a life coach. You can join her FREE Monthly Challenges here. You can watch her TEDx talk on How to Find Your Life Purpose here.