When You Surrender Yourself Completely, You Never Return Whole
Your partner breaks up with you and you feel like they’ve taken a piece of you that you’ll never get back. A family member or friend passes away and you feel like nothing will ever be the same because you’ve lost them. When you surrender yourself to someone completely, you never return whole.
If you’ve truly loved someone, you know that when that person isn’t in your life anymore, they take a part of you with them. A little piece of your heart disappears, never to return. It’s a feeling of emptiness that only time can help you fill.
It’s hard to say “goodbye” when you want to say “stay”
We’re emotional beings by nature, and even though it’s really hard to avoid feeling a certain emotion, it is possible to manage the duration and intensity of that emotion by using your emotional intelligence.
“Love is one step, goodbye is another, and both should be firm. Nothing in life lasts forever.”
-Chavela Vargas-
Emotionally intelligent people know what their own strengths and abilities are, and they’ve learned to listen to and understand others with empathy. This is why, even though the sadness is felt over the loss, they have faith in the future and know that with time, they can overcome anything.
When someone you love dies, you can’t do anything but accept the loss. When you break up with someone, even though things have changed, it’s important to accept the situation, be realistic, and look for a way to manage the emotions that start to invade.
Surrender and attachment
In your relationships with partners or with friends and family, there should be a limit to how much you surrender to avoid situations of emotional attachment. In his book Letting Go W ithout Anesthesia, Walter Riso maintains that being in a dependent relationship means you surrender your soul in exchange for a false sense of security and pleasure.
Riso defines attachment as an obsessive bond with an object, idea, or person based on the following four false beliefs: that it is permanent, that it will make you happy, that it will bring you security, and that it will give meaning to your life.
“The root of all suffering is attachment.”
-Walter Riso-
If you experience this type of attachment, you’ll never be prepared for the loss and you won’t accept it when you lose someone, break up with someone, or when things change. The loss will make you feel empty, with no direction.
Attachment corrupts. It makes you unhappy and prevents you from respecting yourself and your values. You fear losing the thing you desire, and you lose your sense of happiness because you invest all your energy and resources into the other person and put your own life and everything you really like to do on the back burner.
The key is learning to let go
Throughout your life, your ability to give and be generous forms a part of who you are as a human being. However, it’s also important that you have the tools to manage these losses with integrity and accept that changes are a part of life.
Saying goodbye to a person, a job, or a relationship is something we all constantly have to face, and it’s important to face these moments courageously and intelligently. This ability is necessary to avoid excessive suffering and being negatively affected by loss.
“Acceptance. It’s not resignation, but nothing makes you waste more energy that resisting and fighting against a situation that you can’t change.”
-Dalai Lama-
Let your pain go. There are still so many people who are embarrassed to cry in public, who repress their feelings and words. But in order to let go, it’s important to let go of the pain. Cry as much as you need to, but without isolating yourself. Talk with your friends, tell them how you feel, and listen to their advice.
Focus on yourself. For once, be a little selfish and spend a good amount of time looking within yourself without feeling a weight on your conscience. What is it that you really like? What do you enjoy doing? Thinking about your needs and what really matters to you, beyond that person or situation that you have to let go of, will give you some security and faith in yourself.
Take care of yourself. Focusing on yourself should also involve rewarding and taking care of yourself. If you feel like taking a vacation, now is the time. You’ll be able to take perspective, disconnect, and see things in a different way. Remember that new situations bring new things with them, and that there is always something to gain: freedom, learning, the ability to overcome obstacles, etc.
