Do you choose the emotionally healthy, stable and wise person who is really capable of sustaining a loving relationship? Move on using this free ebook which shows you how to use a psychological forgiveness process.
There are times in life when we need to let go and move on from a situation. It might be a relationship, a job, or a living situation. Yet, it is not always easy to tell when to give that relationship, or that situation, another chance; or just get out of there. It is also not always easy to tell whether our letting go and our moving on also has to do with needing to let go, or move on from, some unhelpful habits of thinking and unwise attitudes that are causing us to get into troublesome situations.
Put Up With the Drama or Move on?
Are the benefits worth the drama? Some situations, and some relationships, start of well, but then descend into increasing amounts of drama. If the drama only seems to be increasing, but there no increase in benefits, then it may be time to look at moving on. If a relationship starts off with a lot of drama, that may be a sign that it is only going to get worse, especially if we are depending on the other person to change in some way for things to improve. Expecting someone else to change, especially if they have not expressed any willingness to do so, is usually a losing game.
If we don’t learn from difficult or painful experiences, we have not really moved on, and are setting ourselves up to repeat them.
But, we also need to ask ourselves, “Who is the person creating most of the drama?” If it’s us, in the form of starting arguments and fights, and especially if we have been through this all before, then maybe we need to make some changes in our attitude and beliefs. In any event, it will help us in future to look at the choices we made, that caused us to get into that situation, so that we can avoid similar situations in future. If we don’t learn from difficult or painful experiences, we have not really moved on, and are setting ourselves up to repeat them.
Try to Change Them or Let Go of the Relationship?
What we may need to let go of could be something in ourselves.
Sometimes we create drama, in the form of arguments and fights, in order to get someone to change their behaviour. Usually this is to get them to do more of the things that we want them to do, or to do less of the things we don’t want them to do. If there is too much of that going on can it be a sign of needing to learn to be more tolerant and less pushy; or it can be a sign of deep level of incompatibility. If two people have very different values in life (i.e. one is a quiet person; the other is a party person) then it would be better to accept each other’s differences rather than one trying to change the other. If that makes the relationship unworkable then we can try to let them go without bitterness or rancour.
Letting Go of a Win/Lose Attitude
Two people who are fighting to try to change each other just make each other miserable. Both may need to let go of what they feel that they are entitled to from another person, or let go of the relationship.
Sometimes we need to learn how to compromise rather than just trying to win. If we are operating from a win/lose mentality, rather than a win/win mentality, we will tend to turn everything into a fight. We will think everyone else is the problem, but really we are at least part of the problem. The ability to find a compromise, where both sides can benefit, is an art that everyone needs to learn – if they want to have a pleasant life. If we are unwilling or unable to learn the art of compromise then we will be likely to burn ourselves out in constant battles. Two people who are fighting to try to change each other just make each other miserable. Both may be equally right and both may be equally wrong. Each blames the other, but what gives anyone the right to try and force another person to change? Both may need to let go of what they feel that they are entitled to from another person, or (if they can’t learn to negotiate) let go of the relationship. If you don’t like them the way they are then try to negotiate a compromise and if that does not work it’s probably better to move on than to live in a fractious relationship.
What may seem to us as a defence of ourselves is often seen by the other as an attack on them.
It is good at times to think how we ourselves are adding to and feeding the dramas in our life. Are we blaming and shaming someone and they are reacting that by attacking us in return? What may seem to us as a defence of ourselves is often seen by the other as an attack on them. When this is so, then they will feel justified in attacking us back.
Letting Go By Learning to be a Better Person
People are often showing us the very things we need to learn intentionally or not. If we are too meek, we can find ourselves living or working with a dominant type where we need to learn to assert ourselves more. If we are too dominant, we can either find ourselves confronted with another dominant type; or getting exhausted by having to “boss” everyone into doing what we want, exactly the way we want. Either way, we face the issue of needing to become a more balanced person who can assert themselves; or step back, as necessary.
if we have not specifically negotiated for something from another person then we need to be careful in assuming that we are entitled to it.
This does not mean that we can’t move on from a painful relationship; but it does mean that it behoves us to look at what we can learn from the situation even if we do decide to move on. If the same or similar issues keeps coming up in our life then it is highly likely that we have something to learn from it. It is not a matter of blaming and shaming ourselves, or others, it is a matter of learning and growing as a person. Yet we need to bear in mind that, if we have not specifically negotiated for something from another person then we need to be careful in assuming that we are entitled to it.
Letting Go and Moving On: One of Life’s Lessons.
Life is not just about what we want: Life seems to be designed so that we learn and change and grow.
There are so many times in life that we need to let go and move on that it may well be that it is one of the core lessons in life. Life is not just about what we want, there is a lot more going on. Life seems to be designed so that we learn and change and grow.
We may be out there “looking for love”; but life itself may be looking for us to grow up first. Life may be encouraging us to grow into an emotionally healthy, stable and wise person. What other than an emotionally healthy, stable and wise person is really capable of sustaining a loving relationship? Does that describe you? Does that describe the type of person you go after? If one or neither of those are not true is it any surprise that you don’t get the results you hoped for? I’m a fairly old person now and I still deal with issues around being immature in some ways. From what I see around me, we all need to learn the art of letting go of our immaturity and not let clever, but very immature, influencers convince us that our immaturity is anything other than what it is.
If we are change excitement then that we are unlikely to end up in a genuinely loving and stable relationship.
If we are not yet emotionally healthy, stable and wise, we are likely to be making unwise choices. We might be chasing “excitement” (or the possibility of a relationship with someone which will impress our friends); rather than looking for a genuinely loving and stable relationship. If so, even if we get what we want, the results are unlikely to please us long term when the excitement wears off. We are the other person will eventually get bored and move on. If we are hooked on “drama and excitement”; then “genuine and stable” may sound boring to us; till we learn, usually from bitter experience, how tediously boring “drama and excitement” eventually becomes. Sure it can be fun for a while to get on the emotional equivalent of a roller coaster, but it eventually gets sickening.
We may need to move on from letting the unwise parts have too much say in the types of people we choose as potential partners. If we keep finding ourselves in unfulfilling relationships it could be that we need to look at how we chose our those potential partners. Usually we are too busy looking for someone who is “hot” rather than noticing whether we are being “wise”, but all our choices have consequences. If we don’t like the consequences, we are getting, we may need to move on to making better choices.
Let Go with a Soft Close
Sometimes all we can really do for someone is try our best to let them down gently, but honestly.
Sometimes in order to get out of a relationship we can try to do a Soft Close and simply stop responding, or only respond minimally, to the other person and hope that they will “take the hint”. However, this can simply trigger them to become even more intensely involved, if they get worried that they are about to be dumped. After all, nobody likes to be dumped even by someone they are not all that interested in. Sometimes a better way to do a Soft Close is to simply, and briefly, explain that as much as we like the person, we don’t feel that they are the one for us and that we wish them well.
There are times when we need to risk hurting another person’s feelings in order to be true to our own feelings. There may have been times when we did indeed really hurt someone’s feelings and feel very bad about it, but did not know what else to do as the situation was just not working for us. They were perhaps much more attracted to us than we were to them. Sometimes all we can really do for someone is try our best to let them down gently, but honestly.
Also, there may have been times when we were more attracted to someone than they were to us, and we came out of it with a bad feeling and wondering if we have been used, or feeling that we are “not good enough” or whatever. Yet, even when someone else rejected us, or were not much interested in us, we give find a way to a Soft Close, by treating ourselves gently and not beating ourselves up about it.
Get Over Them, Move On From Her, Move on From Him.
Focussing too much on our “sad loss” holds us back and makes harder to get over the other person.
When we are in a relationship with someone, and find ourselves needing to move on from that, we usually need to go through a process in order to “get over” that person. Part of that process is also to get over the habits we have got into; such as thinking about them all the time, or having the pleasure we experience in many of our life situations associated with that person. Going to our favourite place where we used to go for walks together with them, or our favourite cafe, and so on, can all trigger sad memories. However, it does not have to be that way. We can train our mind to change change how we think of such situations. Rather than just focussing on what we feel we have lost; we can focus more on being glad for what was good about what we had. We can also begin to think of what other good situations we would like to experience so that we build a eagerness for the future. Focussing too much on “sad loss” holds us back and makes harder to get over the other person. It is better to cultivate a feeling of “being eager for what is next”, though it may be necessary to be gentle with ourselves for a while to give ourselves time to adjust fully.
Let go Inwardly and Outwardly
To truly let go and truly move on we need to do so inwardly as well as outwardly.
Even when we seem to have moved on from a situation this does not mean that we have truly let go of it. We may have lingering regrets, feeling of remorse. We might have left things unsaid that we wish we had said; or things which we wish that we had not said. In those types of situations, we might seem to have moved on outwardly, but inwardly we have not really moved on. We are still partly stuck in that situation emotionally. To truly let go and truly move on we need to do so inwardly as well as outwardly. If our thoughts and feeling keep taking back to that situation then we have not really moved on.
You may need a process which will help you to truly leave a situation behind us so that you will be free of it inwardly as well as outwardly.
To free ourselves, to let go, inwardly we need to use an inner process, one that helps us change how we think and feel about the situation. If we feel stuck, we may need to “power up” and do a bit of forgiveness work, so that we can become inwardly free. Some people are wary of the word “forgiveness” as it might “sound a bit religious” or the like. But, forgiveness is just an inner process, a psychological process, as much as anything. There is a lot of scientific evidence showing that forgiveness is very effective for helping to let go of the past. Scientific research is based on practical methods that show measurable results; and the research does not usually investigate forgiveness as a just a religious thing and we don’t need to either – unless that is your personal preference.
But, how to forgive on order to let go and move on? How do we do that? In order to forgive, whether wanting to forgive ourselves or forgive someone else, we need a method. One method, that is very simple and effective is, The Four Steps to Forgiveness.
Try The Four Steps to Forgiveness by downloading the free ebook via the links on this page (no need to enter you email address, it’s an immediate download). Or check out some of my videos:
How to Forgive: https://youtu.be/IEWNkJnKD6o
How to forgive yourself: https://youtu.be/5_hGOkRwaYE
Tough Forgiveness https://youtu.be/THYuQu3TLlQ