“Just Let it Go and Move On” Is a Tried and True Way to Deny Who You Truly Are
Releasing something that no longer serves you is a good idea, but letting go without unburdening yourself of your pain is simply bypassing yourself and leads to more pain in the future.
When we have to let someone or something go (i.e., a person through death, a break-up, or because they are a bad influence; a job; or even our favorite stuffed animal), we feel pretty bad. We might feel sad, confused, angry, devalued, disappointed, or any other assortment of “negative” emotions that a thesaurus can contain. Most of us have been taught to be independent and successful people who “hold it together” and never seem weak, illogical, or a “mess” to the outside world. We have inner parts of us who protect us and believe that we will not be worthy or acceptable if we show any kind of neediness or dependence at all. And this is a true shame for all of us, because there are parts inside each and every one of us that are like vulnerable little children who need to feel their truest emotions in order to release them and actually “let go”.
When the protective parts of us (and the external world as well) tell us to just “let it go and move on” in a way that indicates that we are being “too much” when we feel sad about losing someone or something, we are denying our true selves. We are denying the emotional landscape and the GPS that drives our inner knowing, our inner compassion, clarity, creativity, and confidence. We are subjugating our inner connection to ourselves and looking to others to drive our inner lives. And, really, does this make sense? How can anyone else be in charge of our personal inner worlds?
To allow yourself to truly feel deep sadness when a loved one passes away or to admit to yourself that, although your girlfriend was not kind to you, you really did love her and you do miss her still is not only okay, it is normal. It is normal to be sad when sad things happen to us, when we will never see someone we loved again, and when we feel devastation or disappointment about losing something or someone we love. Yet, we spend so much time listening to others who are denying their own inner selves who tell us to “Buck up, camper! Get over it! There are other fish in the sea!” Why get over it so fast? You will eventually get over it. With time and processing your feelings, you will eventually find another fish of your choosing. You will have wonderful memories of your loved one. But why this instant should anyone just be okay? Why on someone else’s timeframe should I suddenly be “over it”? You are allowed to feel how you feel for as long as you need to feel it to get through it. That is no one’s business but yours.
The only way to “get over” something is to FEEL it and often that includes going through the entire grieving process from Shock and Denial to Bargaining to Anger to Depression and, finally, to Acceptance. Jumping right to Acceptance will not stick for long because you are simply avoiding the pain you inevitably do not want to feel since it a). hurts and b). is not really “socially acceptable.” I believe that most people will stay in the Denial and Bargaining stages for a very long time because anger and grief are simply not something other people can tolerate for very long, especially since most of our world is told not to be “weak” and “vulnerable” by “crying over spilled milk” for too long or being a “victim” or having a “pity party.” Do you see how invalidating all of these statements actually are? Do you see how they lack compassion and connection to yourself when you allow these beliefs to be imprinted into your own value system and psyche?
Some of the people who actually do love us simply cannot always tolerate our tears and wallowing. They make us feel shame about feeling sad, angry, afraid, or ashamed about things that we are feeling those ways about. Emotions have no ulterior motive. They are simply energy in motion trying to BE in motion. They are not trying to wreck yours or someone else’s day or life. I will argue that the sooner you allow yourself to go into deep feelings of shame, fear, and sadness as well as to expressing your anger in a healthy way, the sooner you will get THROUGH them. To bypass these emotions continually not only makes you more enraged or depressed or afraid, but it also leads to stress which can turn into all kinds of medical problems down the road.
Pain itself is not the problem we think it to be. Pain is simply what needs to be felt and released. It leads to a sort of re-birth into something grander and more peaceful than before. It leads to a fuller acceptance of something we believed that we could never accept—like death or a break-up. Once we fully accept anything the way it actually is, we feel at peace. We move forward without the baggage. But when we bottle it up and pretend not to care and to “be over it” without feeling first, we are lying to ourselves and the baggage accumulates and gets heavier over time. So, be courageous and birth through your pain next time you feel some of it. You will likely feel a lot lighter.
When we stop invalidating ourselves and find the compassion for what we have been through and start feeling the actual pain we are in, we start living from a higher level of Self. Living from this vantage point allows you to connect with your whole self more deeply and, in turn, show others deeper and truer compassion. When we do not love ourselves first and lead with our own sense of Self, we simply cannot do it for others.
I work with those parts of you (known in Psychology as Inner Family Systems Theory) that have been burdened by your trauma or life experiences and who have been both shunned and protected by other parts of your inner self in order to free those shunned parts of their burdens so that your natural state of joy, peace, centeredness, and self-love come forward, helping you to regain or meet for the first time the very best version of who you truly are.
