Letting go

Letting go, moving on, saying goodbye, rarely are these easy to do. Yet, life seems to require that of us, whether we want to or not. The co-workers we're fond of get new jobs, our favorite neighbors relocate, our siblings get married, and our children go away to college. Then there's the unwanted divorce, the unexpected death, and the estrangements with which we have to deal. And, deal we do; sometimes better than other times.

Grieving clients ask me all the time, "How do I let go?" The Book of Ecclesiastes makes the point that there is a season for all things, and that would seem to include relationships, which have to come to an end. Buddhism teaches a philosophy of non-attachment to material things, and that, too, would seem to include people. Yet, Attachment Theory tells us that we are hard-wired for connection to others, which is why it hurts so damned much when we have to let go.

The divorced client can't move on, stuck in an old mindset that says that she's still married. The grieving client can't stop yearning for the deceased loved one. The jilted fiance can't return the engagement ring to the store where he bought it. The drug addict continues to mask the pain of the death of his best friend when they were 9 with a plethora of street drugs. The overweight woman eats to fill a hole that can't be filled with food. The successful survivor of a very destructive dysfunctional family continues to allow the family to pull him back into their underachieving world. If all of them could just let go, by themselves, I'd be in search of a new career.

Well-meaning friends and family are always telling other people (aka my clients) to "let go and move on." And then I'm asked, "What is letting go?" and I have to say that I don't know what it means. I'm not sure that we ever really let go; maybe we just don't hold on as tightly, or as self-destructively. Maybe we just find a place for the lost person ---or we grieve the unmet need, and then, one day, it just seems that we let go.

Let go sounds like an action verb, an activity that we do with zeal and self-discipline. It sounds like something over which we have control. The Cognitive-Behavioral folks would say that's exactly right--we make up our mind, change our behavior, and voila, we let go. Hmmm. I've yet to see it happen quite that way. It's usually a very painful process to accept the goodbye, especially when we didn't want the goodbye in the first place.

And, that's where therapy comes in. Trying to let go (whatever that means), all by yourself, can be an exercise in futility; certainly an exercise in circular thinking. Ever notice that when you're talking to yourself about a highly emotionally charged issue you seem to return to the same starting place, no matter how long you go at it? We call that circular thinking or a closed network. Therapy changes the number of people involved in the thinking, it adds a new thought, an insight, and a helpful hint. Therapy becomes the action verb that is needed when trying to let go.

A broken heart requires mending. How will you begin the process of mending it?

Journal topics re moving on:
I have outgrown...
I miss...
I don't miss...
I am not quite ready for...
I look forward to...