Somewhere along the way, we’ve all experience unfortunate events in our lives that are painful and hurts us. They may be something simple, like getting a bad grade, or major ones such as losing loved ones. But, time keeps moving, and life goes on whether we like it or not… We cannot ask time to pause for a second to let you deal with the pain until they’re all resolved, and continue when only you’re ready to move on.
In order to move on, there comes the term “closure” — which a lot of people say that it’s an important stage in moving forward. So, what is closure? According to the Oxford dictionary, closure is a feeling that an emotional or traumatic experience has been resolved. So, in a way, we would be able to move on from a certain unfortunate experience once we felt that the whole situation has ended. This also includes the way the situation made us feel.
The Ugly Truth of Closure
Sure enough, we all want to be liberated from our painful past so that we can go on with our lives to our fullest potential. However, the truth about human beings is that we’re bad at dealing with concepts or situations that aren’t complete. The human mind needs boundaries to be able to deal with concepts, including experiences.
Another thing about human beings is that it’s barely easy for us to feel satisfied with a lot of things in our lives whether we’d like to admit it or not. This is one of the reasons why when something hasn’t ended, we’ll strive to find an ending to it — some ending, any ending. When we don’t like the current ending, we’ll keep pushing it until we settle the matter under our terms. This leads to us wanting to be in control of all the situations and won’t let go of those experiences we don’t find satisfying. In other words, we cling to our version of closure.
We’ll extend a relationship, keep having toxic friendships, stick to our habits… All because we still haven’t found our ending. The problem with this is that when we don’t reach closure, we’ll overwhelm our mind. We’ll struggle, we’ll suffer to try to control what’s uncontrollable just because we don’t want to accept the current ending. What would happen is that issues will go away, just to resurface later on in life, in the worse moment to haunt us if we haven’t fully reached closure.
Finding Closure From Our Past
Closure isn’t something that’s easy to find as it requires us to find a fitting ending which is comforting. It takes a lot of courage to put an end to being stuck with the pain, by letting go of your fear, anger and emotions to find closure. In other words, finding closure means that we have complete acceptance of what has happened and an honouring of the transition away from what’s finished to something new.
While it may not be as easy as it sounds, we can actually find closure with a proper way of dealing with the unfortunate events. With the right strategy, and the knowledge of the essential things that can help us in finding closure from the past.
So, how do we do it?
1. Take full responsibility for yourself
Have conversations with yourself, and ask yourself with questions in regards to why you’re still hung up on the pain. Be as honest as you can be, and all the unresolved feelings will diminish once you’ve cleared the way to a better, more realistic understanding of the situation.
2. Take some time to grief
Prolonged or incomplete grief may contribute to making poor choices later on in the future. The ability to trust, to be honest, and to be your self is essential for a new, healthier relationship or situation to present itself to you. “Unfinished business” must be completed and resolved before you can move on.
3. Gather your strength
Try to focus on the positive things out of the situation, and channel all your thoughts and energy to other things that make you happy so you can make a positive change in your life. Define and affirm what you’re able to do something about now, and surround yourself with a great environment to support you in the process of healing.
4. Make a plan for the immediate future
Determine what’s most important for you moving forward — reorder your priorities, explore different possibilities and opportunities, and most importantly you must take action in order to make things happen.
Ultimately, finding closure simply is a tool that allows us to move on into the future with ease and peace. In addition, to free ourselves from our painful past, some take resort in the power of yoga to heal trauma.
“Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.” ― Dalai Lama