Letting go of what’s no longer serving you.

Let’s unravel what letting go a loved one should really be about.

Aabha Khatri
Sep 2, 2018 · 6 min read

If you’ve made it here, you probably are trying to let go of someone. You arrived here, most likely, searching for something — just about anything, that would tell you your journey of letting go can be easier. You really want to escape this process, which is excruciatingly painful and you never wished this upon yourself.

You want to go over it, around it, under it — anything, but through it.

A warm hug. I know exactly how that feels. But, let me not play around with the truth about this one:

The way out is through.

Hang on. Before you roll your eyes at that clichéd one-liner I just used, which probably even prompted you to take an exit, give me a chance at asking you something, taking you a little deeper.

What is this experience, what you are going through, trying to tell you about you?

Yes, I am still talking about letting go; not moving away from the topic.

This question is at the core of what I have found to be the most beautiful part of letting go of someone you have deeply, deeply, deeply (I will let you repeat it as much as you want) loved and adored. Letting go is more than being able to relate with metaphors of seasons and weathers, light and dark.

All that is nice, and maybe even true. But, don’t tell me you are content going through this, when all you can make out of it is “This phase of my life is winter. It’s hard, but spring is on the horizon.”

Open yourself to receive the infinite wisdom this moment is offering you.

If you are willing to explore, keep at it.

What is letting go after all? When do you know for sure that you have let go of someone?

Forgetting this person completely and reaching a point of indifference with their existence?Not thinking about them (all the time)? Not checking your phone first thing in the morning (throughout the day), hoping they’ll leave a message? Sitting on the same corner table in (one of) your favourite coffee shops, ordering the same blueberry smoothie which you both discovered and relished together once upon a time, and managing to take the first sip out of it without any breakdown? Not being tempted to check their social media feed? Not being unhappy, if they posted a photo of them enjoying their life (without you)? Being able to wish them well if they are in love (with someone else)?

Is that it? Honestly, I don’t know.

What I do know is, most often, the most obvious thing you want to do while “letting go” is to avoid. Avoid every feeling and thoughts concerning this person. Remain sane. Basically, stay numb, dodge, dodge, dodge, until one fine day, you’ll find flowers blooming — voila! spring again. As much this approach might have helped you ‘move on’, this approach will deprive you of what could be a ‘transformative learning experience’ for you as an individual.

You see, what feels like truth to me is, letting go is an experience that is much much (much) more about you, yourself, than the person you are trying to let go of.

It is an opportunity to sit yourself infront of you and see. Reflect. Reconnect. Delve deeper. Know. Understand. Gain clarity. Allow powerful insights to show up. Become better. Version 2.0. You get it.

Try to see through how you felt while you were with this person, how you feel right now and how you really wish to feel in the future. No, this isn’t about keeping expectations — it’s understanding who you are. Get to know what makes a relationship fulfilling for you. In fact, what is a relationship for you? What does having a partner, a loved one, mean to you? What are you willing to bring into a relationship? What are your core values? Are you willing to honor every facet of a relationship and commit to all kinds of experience of it, or are you just a hogger of the initial high?

Also, while you are at it, reflect where and how you might have contributed to why the relationship fell apart(Do it!).Have empathy for the person, if they have struggled with something where you couldn’t be there for them, or your presence made it worse for them. Then after, very important, forgive yourself. Be grateful that they helped you bring, what you now know, into your awareness; they served you so powerfully. Feel the good stuff: respect, tenderness, vulnerability, kindness, love, that thinking good about this person is bringing to you. That is the testament of your capacity of love. Connect deeply with this.

Go a little further, reflect who you were in this relationship. Was it the true, honest and the most authentic version of who you are? If not, what did you hold back within you? What part of you and your story you couldn’t trust them with? What held you back? Is that something you want to work on? Why couldn’t you dive deep into this relationship, and completely experience a beautiful companionship? Is there something that needs healing, for you to experience a fulfilling and empowering experience of loving someone? Were you able to have a conversation with your partner about things that really mattered to you? That time when she wanted to talk about something, did you really listen, ‘listen’ (listen) what she was trying to say? Were you clingy, needy and unable to accept your own short-comings? Did you try to understand, why this guy wasn’t able to take it easy? It might have been such a insignificant issue for you, but affected him so much due to the kind of experiences he has been through in his past, which you might not know any of.

Find your scars, know how deep they actually are. Also, find your flaws, accept them, embrace them and change them. Take responsibility. This is your time to heal yourself, work on yourself, not because you will hopefully win a better chance at love in the future or win him/her back over again. Amazing, if that is how it goes for you. But, no, not the reason.

You reflect because it’s never really about what you have been through in life, the experiences galore you have, that truly matters.

What’s important and truly of any real value is who you have become in the journey, in the process.

These questions offer you the awareness of who you have become. It expands you, transports you, from the place where you are in life right now into a greater potential.

It serves you so much better than simply dodging.

Every experience we have in our life is trying to lead us closer to knowing our truth. If we constantly avoid listening to what any of our experiences are trying to teach us, we fall trap of this vicious loop of going through similar experiences over and over again. You break that feedback loop by changing what goes on in that loop; re-wiring them and re-writing them.

Take a break from constantly blaming and trying to fix what’s around you. Treat the real cause. No matter where you go, who you are with, you will always carry what’s within you and who you are. So, first, let go of that about you which isn’t working.

I guess this is what letting go is about. Letting go the part of you, the loved one, who is no longer serving you.

It’s only appropriate for me to quote Hannah Gadsby here, when she said:

You learn from the part of the story you focus on.

So again, back to the question, which I really hope you spend a little time with: What is this experience, what you are going through, trying to tell you about you?

Just hoping your answer isn’t “This phase of my life is winter…”

Aabha Khatri

Written by

“She could never go back and make some details pretty. All she could do was move forward and make the whole beautiful”.

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