LETTING GO: HARD BUT NECESSARY

“Just let it go man”. You hear this all the time when you're holding on so tightly to something that isn’t worth or meant being kept. Most of the time we let go physically but we never let go emotionally. So what does it mean to let go emotionally?

You may have been in what seemed to be a wonderful relationship, either romantic or platonic, or even business related. It felt or seemed so perfect you never saw it coming, but the imagery of perfection is often formulated by the fantasy aspect of the mind and eventually the illusionary perception fades away like a mirage. When things start to fall apart you ignore the signs. Gradually it gets worse, and you start to feel broken, depressed and frustrated. The relationship doesn’t seem to be working and despite your efforts to try to fix what’s already been broken your left emotionally battered and energetically drained. The emotional hurt usually goes unhealed and becomes suppressed because we have normalized burying and hiding our pain the same way we do our true selves. This is because we’ve allowed ourselves to equate vulnerability with weakness and equate false impressions with strength. So even when it ends you can't seem to let it all go. The truth is you can but It feels hard to do so because:

YOU ARE UNCERTAIN ABOUT THE FUTURE: Sometimes you are unsure what will happen to your stability if you let this person go. These thoughts of future uncertainty is a sign you’ve formed a codependent attachment style. These thoughts of future uncertainty are a clear sign you’ve formed a codependent attachment style so you’ve already begun to lose positive aspects of yourself in that damaging process. So you can go back to your old dependent ways of doing things or you can reclaim your independence now. If you have been in situations where you have been rejected, you may fear being rejected once again and doubt that you can find someone of equal stature or better. This is usually accompanied by the fear you’ll never find someone else and this is what you call a fear of being alone, and indicates you lack self love. 

YOU FEEL EMPTY WITHOUT THEM: Feeling empty without them? They always held you together, nothing was impossible with them, letting go of them feels like a wall being taken out of your building and you're ready to just fall apart. This is a clear indication that you’ve just simply grown dependent on them and it’s also a sign that you lack self love. You never need anyone to complete you; you are already whole and you need to begin moving into that space of internal wholeness.

THE CHEMISTRY YOU HAD: When in love, your brain tends to release more chemicals which make you feel happy, and ecstatic. The longer you spend with your partners the more your body gets used to these chemicals, as you begin to grow apart from your partner, your body starts to crave these feelings you once had making it more difficult to be without them. Give those feelings you crave to yourself, and I promise you, your body won’t be able to differentiate the two. Love is love whether it’s given to you by someone else or you're giving it to yourself. The best form of love is ideally self love. 

Despite all of this it’s merit for your emotional, physical, and mental health for you to let go because:

THE PAST IS DONE: No amount of emotions invested in it will change that fact. You need to move on and create space for something new to transpire in your life.

TO PREVENT EMOTIONAL HARM TO YOURSELF: Your mental health is important. Holding on to a toxic relationship will only drain you and make you unhappy which without a doubt will affect other areas of your life.

SO YOU CAN BECOME A BETTER VERSION OF YOURSELF: Letting go will hurt at first, but with time you will be able to learn from your mistakes, so you can make better decisions pertaining to relationships in the future. Wallowing in hurt can pose a distraction, affecting your work and other worthwhile relationships that can lead you down a more fulfilling path.

When you let go it hurts but with time it all fades away. The hurt, the emptiness, the self doubt, the uncertainty, everything ends when you stop holding on, but it all starts with recognizing its time for you to let go and start trusting the process.​