On letting go
"You must allow yourself to outgrow and depart from certain eras of your life with a gentle sort of ruthlessness."
I saw this quote today, from a book by Katy Maxwell, and it brought up some things I have been thinking about for a while. These thoughts are mostly about letting go of people, and simultaneously letting go of that 'version' of you that you try to cling on to and pretend to be when you interact with these people.
Discussions about letting go of people in your life that may be harmful to you in some way or another are often made to be more serious than they should be. Words like "toxic" and "cutting people out" are thrown around and it makes it seem like only people who are actively abusive towards you, be it emotionally or physically, "deserve" to be cut out of your life, whatever that might mean. This is insinuating that something extreme has to happen in my relationships for me to have the right to "cut them out" and cease being in contact with them. However, my life is not a telenovela. My life is not so dramatic that I experience fallouts and drama in a way that warrants this kind of reaction.
That doesn't mean there isn't harmful behaviour in my relationships. I use the word harmful very lightly, because I mostly mean behaviour that makes me feel unhappy in some way. I can only speak for myself, because I obviously do not know how my behaviour affects other people on this kind of deeper level.
We are often very hesitant to grow distant from other people, because, at one point or another, we thought those relationships were going to last 'forever', or at least a very long time. Perhaps we didn't even consider a point in our lives in which we would not be friends with that person. So, when people's lives change and situations are different from before, that puts a specific strain on relationships. Some relationships survive these things, but some don't. And logically speaking, we shouldn't feel very sad about that, as often it might be good for us to move on to people who now fit our life situations and nurture growth where those in our past might have hindered it. But, as humans, we obviously get attached. Understanding that sometimes you need to let go and move on is only something we can do from a removed perspective, and we are everything but removed from our own relationships. Usually, when a friendship is "dying", we start to think back to when things were so great, getting lost in a spiral of nostalgia in favour of facing the facts. I don't mean to sound harsh, but people who you've had great times with can also hurt you, and staying forever nostalgic about them means giving them endless chances where those chances are not necessarily deserved.
Going back to what kind of behaviour is harmful in a friendship, its easier to look at it through imagining your friend was friends with one of your existing friends. So, say you have friend A who is making friend B feel bad. You care about friend B, and so you would tell them to do something about the situation. If you would want a friend to do something about it when it happened to them, you owe it to yourself to do something about it when it happens to you. Fights and arguments are a different thing than continuing behaviour that makes you feel bad in some way.
I'm the kind of person that likes sharing things that happen to me, sharing how I feel. This blog is a prime example of that. For me, harmful behaviour in my relationships is often when my friends react to things I tell them with jealousy, indignation, or even resort to making fun of me, be it directly or through snide offhand remarks. I greatly enjoy communicating with others about my interests, my ups and my downs, and so people who hinder that process or make it unenjoyable are not people I want to keep an active part of my life.
The thing about it is, cutting people out of your life is easier said than done. There is no magical way to sever contact with someone and for both of you to come away clean, emotionally speaking. Really, doing this would be more like burning a bridge instead of letting go, which insinuates a more gradual and gentle process. Letting go can be small things too. It can be not actively seeking out that person in social media. Often people you are quiet towards are also quiet towards you, which leads to a more 'slow death' where you kind of slide out of each others lives.
The main point is, you do not need to feel guilty about feeling like you might be better off not staying close with specific people. Calmly, slowly, and bravely letting go of people is not cowardly or bitchy, it's looking after yourself. You should not surround yourself with people who make you feel like you can't share the things you want to share, people you can't be yourself around. I don't think its fair towards yourself or others to pretend to be someone you no longer are, and the people who really matter will understand that people change and evolve, and will try to relate to you despite these changes.
This post is not a direct or indirect attack towards anyone specific, merely a collection of thoughts that have been gathering in my mind as I've thought about my relationships with people and things that have hurt me in the past year. Despite the possibly negative air surrounding this post, I want everyone who read my last blog post to know that the last month of my life has been absolutely amazing in a lot of ways I would never have expected. It seemed like the universe really did throw a bunch of good things at me at the time I least deserved or expected them. For this I am infinitely thankful. I'll hopefully be back later with something more positive to write on here, but until then, thank you for reading. Oh, and happy 2017! May you not expect too much of yourself in the form of unrealistic resolutions.
Cheers,
Becks
I saw this quote today, from a book by Katy Maxwell, and it brought up some things I have been thinking about for a while. These thoughts are mostly about letting go of people, and simultaneously letting go of that 'version' of you that you try to cling on to and pretend to be when you interact with these people.
Discussions about letting go of people in your life that may be harmful to you in some way or another are often made to be more serious than they should be. Words like "toxic" and "cutting people out" are thrown around and it makes it seem like only people who are actively abusive towards you, be it emotionally or physically, "deserve" to be cut out of your life, whatever that might mean. This is insinuating that something extreme has to happen in my relationships for me to have the right to "cut them out" and cease being in contact with them. However, my life is not a telenovela. My life is not so dramatic that I experience fallouts and drama in a way that warrants this kind of reaction.
That doesn't mean there isn't harmful behaviour in my relationships. I use the word harmful very lightly, because I mostly mean behaviour that makes me feel unhappy in some way. I can only speak for myself, because I obviously do not know how my behaviour affects other people on this kind of deeper level.
We are often very hesitant to grow distant from other people, because, at one point or another, we thought those relationships were going to last 'forever', or at least a very long time. Perhaps we didn't even consider a point in our lives in which we would not be friends with that person. So, when people's lives change and situations are different from before, that puts a specific strain on relationships. Some relationships survive these things, but some don't. And logically speaking, we shouldn't feel very sad about that, as often it might be good for us to move on to people who now fit our life situations and nurture growth where those in our past might have hindered it. But, as humans, we obviously get attached. Understanding that sometimes you need to let go and move on is only something we can do from a removed perspective, and we are everything but removed from our own relationships. Usually, when a friendship is "dying", we start to think back to when things were so great, getting lost in a spiral of nostalgia in favour of facing the facts. I don't mean to sound harsh, but people who you've had great times with can also hurt you, and staying forever nostalgic about them means giving them endless chances where those chances are not necessarily deserved.
Going back to what kind of behaviour is harmful in a friendship, its easier to look at it through imagining your friend was friends with one of your existing friends. So, say you have friend A who is making friend B feel bad. You care about friend B, and so you would tell them to do something about the situation. If you would want a friend to do something about it when it happened to them, you owe it to yourself to do something about it when it happens to you. Fights and arguments are a different thing than continuing behaviour that makes you feel bad in some way.
I'm the kind of person that likes sharing things that happen to me, sharing how I feel. This blog is a prime example of that. For me, harmful behaviour in my relationships is often when my friends react to things I tell them with jealousy, indignation, or even resort to making fun of me, be it directly or through snide offhand remarks. I greatly enjoy communicating with others about my interests, my ups and my downs, and so people who hinder that process or make it unenjoyable are not people I want to keep an active part of my life.
The thing about it is, cutting people out of your life is easier said than done. There is no magical way to sever contact with someone and for both of you to come away clean, emotionally speaking. Really, doing this would be more like burning a bridge instead of letting go, which insinuates a more gradual and gentle process. Letting go can be small things too. It can be not actively seeking out that person in social media. Often people you are quiet towards are also quiet towards you, which leads to a more 'slow death' where you kind of slide out of each others lives.
The main point is, you do not need to feel guilty about feeling like you might be better off not staying close with specific people. Calmly, slowly, and bravely letting go of people is not cowardly or bitchy, it's looking after yourself. You should not surround yourself with people who make you feel like you can't share the things you want to share, people you can't be yourself around. I don't think its fair towards yourself or others to pretend to be someone you no longer are, and the people who really matter will understand that people change and evolve, and will try to relate to you despite these changes.
This post is not a direct or indirect attack towards anyone specific, merely a collection of thoughts that have been gathering in my mind as I've thought about my relationships with people and things that have hurt me in the past year. Despite the possibly negative air surrounding this post, I want everyone who read my last blog post to know that the last month of my life has been absolutely amazing in a lot of ways I would never have expected. It seemed like the universe really did throw a bunch of good things at me at the time I least deserved or expected them. For this I am infinitely thankful. I'll hopefully be back later with something more positive to write on here, but until then, thank you for reading. Oh, and happy 2017! May you not expect too much of yourself in the form of unrealistic resolutions.
Cheers,
Becks
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