Why Goodbye Can Be The Highest Form of Self-Care

I've been thinking about how breakups have changed their meaning for me as I've progressed along in my healing journey.

A break up used to be THE WORST possible thing I could go through in dating and relationships.

So I avoided it completely.

I stayed in relationships long after it was time to leave.

I kept pumping more life out of the relationship.

I kept beating the horse long after it was dead.

Can you relate?

Why did I do this?

It's because I am deeply devoted in love relationships sometime to a fault that ends up harming myself and others.

Devotion, loyalty and commitment to a purpose in our romantic relationships are such beautiful qualities of human beings.

I think devotion is one of the important foundational elements in a healthy sustainable relationship.

But MY devotion sometimes was hopped on crack and didn't work.

Rooted in my own wounding and anxious attachment style I'd hold on, not leave, tolerate situations I didn't like and sometimes even beg to keep the relationship together when it was clear it was time to say goodbye.

I did this because there was something more terrifying than breaking up...

...going through the experience of feeling my abandonment wound or feeling rejected and not good enough.

This was the deepest level of pain I didn't yet have understanding about and I hadn't yet started to heal.

Since gaining awareness and starting to heal these parts of myself I see breaking up differently.

I don't wish for a breakup but today I know ending a relationship, cutting a toxic tie and saying goodbye can be self-love.

I see how a breakup can be a form of setting limits to restore your mental, physical and emotional well-being.

I see breakups can be a way we demonstrate to ourselves that we deserve respect and to be treated well.

I see breakups as a vehicle to meet and become intimate the deepest parts of myself I may have been avoiding.

Sometimes goodbye is the highest for of self-care.

Love,

Michele

🌿 @womencanheal