Passionate Heart: After Divorce, Let Go of Past

    One secret to move beyond a divorce or relationship breakup is to be sure to make completions with the past. People tend to carry around with them the words, thoughts and things they wish they could have done or not. This stays with them for many years and from relationship to relationship unti l they choose to let them go. These “could haves” or “could not haves” hang around new relationships like ghosts and keep us separate from the love we are wanting to give and to receive. It is almost impossible to totally share love with a new partner when we hold on to those memories and old “ghosts.”

You’ve likely noticed someone (maybe yourself) whose relationships seem to follow a similar trajectory, especially the way they end. The person might puzzle over what went wrong – again! The potentially new direction in life was not taken and relationship lessons were not learned. In short, the person might have expected a different result but didn’t see it when doing the same things over and over again.

Making completions, the little known secret of this message, is a way for you to take responsibility for your life. In making completions you acknowledge what went right and what went wrong in the process and then you symbolically end the old way of being in relationships through the steps you take. This doesn’t require that you to talk with or even see your former partner and hash out what you might have said or done. Instead, you may choose to journal about the relationship and what it meant to you. It could also take the form of a ritual that you create for yourself in which you let that previous partner go.
 
Completions look different for every person and we urge you to take a look now at any unfinished emotional business that you have carried from your previous relationship. In our research and working with our coaching clients, we’ve found that completions are a necessary element in the process of healing after a divorce or breakup and moving on with your life.   


Susie and Otto Collins are the creators of passionateheart.com or http://www.collinspartners.com. They are relationship coaches and life partners. Their formal training has been with Drs. Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks of the Hendricks Institute and Comprehensive Coaching U and with Dr. Belinda Gore. They can be reached at webmaster@collinspartners.com.