“Why is it so hard to move on from my previous relationship despite knowing that we broke up because both of us are not compatible with each other?”

I remember a while ago a friend wanted to talk to me because he was going through a break up and he was struggling.

I asked questions. I told stories. I told him I was sorry that he was hurting.

But, after a few hours of this, something became clear.

He didn’t want to feel better. He didn’t want to get over her. He wanted to wallow and be sad and feel all misunderstood.

Nothing I said was going to change anything for him.

Doing what you’re doing requires an enormous amount of self-awareness. To not be controlled by your feelings, especially love, can be painfully difficult. To be self-aware enough to not let love run your life is probably true self-awareness.

I wasn’t even close to being that self-aware for most of my relationships. Even when things weren’t going well I’d think “but I love her!” and convince myself that loving her was enough.

It’s hard for you because you don’t want to move on but, somewhere in you, maybe somewhere close to the real you, you know that you must move on.

And, when you do move on, you will have officially lost that person forever.

And that’s going to hurt.

Moving on only happens after you let go.

It’s not when you let go in the hope that maybe, someday, you’ll work it out. It’s not when you pretend to let go. It’s not when you convince yourself that you’ve let go.

It’s when you’ve let go of that person completely and irrevocably.

It’s when you know that it’s ok to let go of that person.

I was listening to a podcast the other day with James Altucher and Michael Singer, author of The Untethered Soul and The Surrender Experiment.

He said “we’re all scared, and we’re all trying to be ok.”

You’re scared to move on because you know it’ll hurt.

You know that moving on will make you ok again.

What’s more important?

*****

Previous post: “How do you always have such a positive approach to life?”

Follow me on Snapchat for Six Snap Stories: @matt_hearnden

My Amazon author page: Matt Hearnden