Paul Simon famously sang that there were ”50 ways to leave your lover,” but as most of us know, leaving behind the emotional attachment can be just as challenging as leaving the relationship.

Attachment to former partners can linger for years and years. And there is often more tied up in our holding on than just unresolved feelings for the partner we left behind. If there is still a “charge” associated with the loss, some part of our self has gotten left behind.

One Healthy Grieving client recently used the process to let go of her first love, from whom she had parted more than 15 years prior. She said that she had not been aware that she was still carrying so much pain about this person — which has turned out to be a common theme with clients grieving past relationships.

Working with the Healthy Grieving process, she found feelings of shame, regret and deep sadness. At a deeper level, she also discovered that in the loss of the relationship she also “lost the freedom to express my creativity straight from my heart like I did when I was with him.”

By grieving and letting go, she was able to reclaim the freedom of creative expression that she lost when their relationship ended, reporting that, “An unexpected gift is that now I feel far more free to express myself and my creativity in ways that I was afraid to before.” Since she used the Healthy Grieving process to let go of her past relationship, she says, “I hardly ever think of my first love anymore, and when I do, what is left is a tender appreciation for him and the beautiful, goofy, fun times we had together, but there isn’t any pain.”

Another client worked on letting go of an ex-husband. They had divorced in 2000, and she insisted that she didn’t have any feelings for him, that she was “completely done with him.” But her resistance to looking at the relationship was a good indication that there might be something there that hadn’t let go.

In her own words she describes that, “It was very interesting where the Healthy Grieving process took me in relation to my first husband. I was quite surprised by what came up and by the words that were coming out of my mouth.”

The Healthy Grieving process took her to a place where she had to admit to herself, “I married him because I thought it would be better than being single. I had to own that I entered into this union with someone I didn’t fully want to be with. I thought that I loved him enough. That was the actual statement I made – loved him enough. I had to see and own that I really did that to someone — used him in that way.  I married the guy, not because I fully loved him and fully wanted to be with him. I entered into the marriage to save myself.”

“This is not something I am proud of” she went on to say,” but the Healthy Grieving process helped me go there, gave me permission to look at this, and in going there, in being willing to see this seedy side of myself and own* it, I was able to let it go.”

“It turns out, that this was hanging over me in a way I wasn’t really aware of. I thought I was completely done with him, with the relationship. I’m happily remarried. He’s remarried. I wish him well, etc. – but I had to go through the process to get that part of me back, to own that I did this to someone, tell myself the truth about it, and then be free to let it go. No matter what we are telling ourselves about our past relationships, unless we allow ourselves to go into that place, to explore the darker places, then it’s still with us, we haven’t really moved on.”

This client reports a number of meaningful results from the grieving work she did:

1. “In relation to my ex I can now be open–hearted when I think of him, whereas before I was hiding, hiding a part of myself. I thought that everything was fine — we were friends on Facebook, I was happy for him — but obviously, there was still some unconscious stuff there and I am very grateful to have found it. I have now been able to let go of this person who I had been energetically holding, whether I was aware of it or not.”
2. “The level of intimacy and friendship with my current husband is deeper and clearer. Letting go of what was still tied up with my first marriage freed me to be 100% present with my present husband, who I did marry for the right reasons, who I married for love and because I want to spend my life with him. We’re laughing more, enjoying each other more.”
3. “Once I re-owned that part of me that I had disowned, I could be all there with my husband and in relation to my ex, but most important in myself. I was able to re-integrate a part of myself that I can now be with and accept unconditionally. One of the goals I’ve had in my life is to feel complete; when I’m on my deathbed I want to know I did everything I could to be fully me. Every time I do the Healthy Grieving process and come through the other side, I feel more complete and whole. “

If you have a past relationship you think you’re “done with,” consider giving yourself the gift of looking deeper. You never know what you might be lurking there and what letting go can free you from and open you to.

 

*See next week’s blog on “owning.”

 

We’re all familiar with the adage that in order to change, we have to want to change, but it turns out that in order to truly change, we also have to be willing to acknowledge our changes.

You would think that if we want to change — for example let go of grief or change a behavioral pattern — and it actually does change — we would be open, willing, and aware of our changes, even celebrating them. But oddly, that often turns out not to be the case.

In fact, what we often see with the Healthy Grieving process is that there are significant changes in people’s lives, but they are largely unaware of them until they are asked to put their attention there. And even then, they sometimes have trouble articulating the ways they have changed or what is different in their lives.

Now some of this, surely, is due to the crazy and distracted lives we lead, taking so little time away from work or TV or email or texts or Facebook or other distractions to actually check in with ourselves and/or cultivate self-awareness.

Some of it may also be that it’s hard to believe that something as pervasive as held grief could be gone so quickly and easily in one simple session.

And then there’s the sort of “uh-oh” moment of discomfort as we realize we are changing or have changed and the fear of the unknown that may engender. I am reminded of a woman we took through the Healthy Grieving process who lost her husband at a young age and had basically been grieving him for 20+ years.  She had known herself as a grieving widow most of her adult life.  Who would she be without this as the central fact of her life? Who would she be if she really let this go and moved on? The simple fact is that as much as we might say or believe that we want to change, we are also uncomfortable with change.

But some of it  — maybe most of it —  is due to unconscious self-identity patterns, where we have known ourselves so long as one thing that it actually requires time, effort and self-awareness to acknowledge that we are no longer that.

We have never been taught that in order to really change, we must be willing to acknowledge our changes —consciously acknowledge them — in order to actually experience ourselves in new ways.

It is a very common phenomenon for us to take someone through the Healthy Grieving process and at the end of the session, they will say they feel so much better.  So much lighter.  Relieved.  Breathing differently.  Have let go of a big weight. Things feel so different to them.

When we check in a week or two later, and ask how they’re doing in relation to what they grieved they will say, “I’m good.”  “Fine.”  “So much better.”  But when asked to be more specific or to identify what has changed, they often struggle –even people who we think of as inwardly-focused or self-aware such as counselors, therapists, people who meditate, do yoga, have a spiritual practice.

We often have to ask a series of questions to lead them into awareness, and as they answer the questions, they begin to realize, “Wow, this really is different. I really am different. Something significant has really changed.” But until we draw their attention to what has changed, they don’t actually realize it.

An integral part of the Healthy Grieving process is taking the time to become aware of our changes and define our self as those changes to make us conscious of the new experience of ourselves and integrate our changes into our experience of ourselves.

Without taking time to articulate the ways we’ve changed, we aren’t fully aware of them; and therefore can’t fully own them, embody them, integrate them, or incorporate them into a new experience of our self.

The bottom line? In order for our internal experience of our self to change, we need to slow down and take the time to acknowledge and articulate our changes.