As we make our way through life, we are going to become attached to certain people who might walk into our lives. It’s through these attachments wherein we build a sense of connection between ourselves and the world that we live in. As human beings, there is always going to be an innate need to build genuine connections between ourselves and the people around us. The capacity to relate and connect with the people around us is essential in our growth and development as individuals.
Even very early on, when we are born, we develop strong connections with our parents or immediate caretakers. And then, we develop attachments towards the objects that are within our immediate environments such as toys, beds, pets, and other various stimuli. This is the kind of pattern of attachment that we tend to carry with us throughout the entire stretch of our lives.
And in a way, some cases being more extreme than others, we develop a sense of pride and ownership over the connections that we are able to form with the people and objects around us. We become attached to our friends, our families, our jobs, our siblings, our houses, our cars, our works of art, and everything else that we might have some sense of emotional investment in.
However, not all attachments are made to last. In fact, the overwhelming majority of people and things that we can grow attached to over the course of our lives will end up leaving or abandoning us at some point. A lot of these connections are going to get broken off, and sometimes, these broken connections can have a very deep and significant impact on a person’s life. It might feel like having a part of your body ripped away from itself.
It’s normal to mourn the loss and brokenness of these connections. Naturally, when you grow attached to something, it can be very difficult to detach yourself from it. However, ultimately, most people are able to accept this detachment and embrace it. This is the phase of detachment that is often referred to as closure.
But closure isn’t necessarily something that is easy to achieve. This is especially true whenever you become deeply connected and attached to someone. Sometimes, it matters on the level of connection and bond that you establish with someone. And it also depends on the length and tenure of that connection that you might have with a person. A lot of the time, the deeper and the longer the connection that you have with someone, the harder it will be for you to find closure once you have to break that connection off.
You might even get to the point wherein you will just want to abandon all attempts and efforts at reaching closure. But that would definitely be a bad idea. You must always make it a point of finding closure with someone you have gone on separate paths with. If not, you are at risk of having that lack of closure affect your life in some very negative ways:
- It may affect your sense of self-esteem.
- You might feel angry and bitter with everyone you meet.
- It can affect all of your other healthy connections and relationships.
- You will become more solitary.
- You will become more selfish in any future relationships.
- You will develop some strong commitment and trust issues.
These are just some of the many ways in which a lack of closure would be able to negatively affect the way that you go about life. And you always want to make sure that you are able to find closure, not just for the people you part ways with, but for yourself. But it’s easier said than done. That’s why this article is going to try to help you out with the entire process. If you feel like you need some help in finding closure with having to detach from someone, then just refer to the tips listed in this article:
1. Confront your feelings and emotions.
Don’t keep your feelings locked inside. Don’t shovel it all into a hole and bury it. Let your feelings come out into the open and confront them.
2. Give yourself some space.
Your immediate instinct might be to reach out to the person who is causing you pain. But that would be counterproductive to finding closure. You might want to give yourself some space first.
3. Put your feelings and thoughts into writing.
You would be surprised at how incredibly therapeutic it can be to just write about your thoughts and feelings. You don’t have to pressure yourself into making it good, you just have to be honest.
4. Don’t dwell too much on it.
Once you’ve confronted your feelings and emotions, it’s important for you to not dwell on it too much. That would be unhealthy. Distract yourself by pursuing your passions and things that give you joy.
5. Maintain a healthy perspective on the matter.
Yes, it might feel really devastating to have to detach yourself from someone. However, in the grand scheme of things, you are still going to have plenty of other things going on for you.