In life, it’s inevitable that at some point most people will experience a break-up or the parting of an intimate friendship with someone they, at one time, loved dearly. In each case, there usually is a grieving process that can include any of the following: tears, anger, isolation, denial, confusion, bargaining, depression, and eventually (and hopefully) acceptance. I put the word “hopefully” in parentheses because often people don’t make it to this stage because of one difficult task that is necessary to get there. One of the most critical stages of coming to COMPLETE acceptance for a break-up or the loss of an intimate friendship is to remove all the “things” that could possibly be holding on to that person’s energy.
One of the biggest reasons why people don’t remove these “things” out of their lives from those moments with past loved ones, is solely for the fact that each can evoke an emotional response that is often favorable and can feel like the same love that was once shared between them. But what many people don’t realize is that it also prevents them from moving on in life because essentially what they are doing is holding on to that person by holding on to those “things”.
“Things” contain energy. Everything contains energy in this world. Some energy is dense and some is light. But everything can be broken down into energy. Just because you might not understand this principle so easily and not see it so well, holding onto something so simple as a ticket stub from a game that you attended with a former loved one years ago, can still hold onto their energy and keep you from moving forward in your journey in life.
I’ve gone through several long term relationships in my own life as of so far. At a certain stage in each of those relationships, I felt tremendous love for those partners. And during those times, I collected a vast amount of my own “things” that contained the loving energy from the moments that were so precious between the two of us. “Things” such as jewelry I was given from them, ticket stubs from events we attended together, special greeting cards written by them from various occasions, tons of pictures from the times we spent together, cute stuffed animals they would give me as gifts, and trinkets we would pick out together on trips, were just a few of what was collected and treasured by me. The same held true of me storing away those “things” for many close friendships I’ve had throughout my entire life that for whatever reasons have since ended. Piles and piles of these “things” did nothing more for me than collect dust and hold onto a small amount of energy tying me to those people even though they hadn’t been part of my life for a long time and probably never would be again.
I have been doing everything in my life lately to move forward spiritually. To move forward spiritually means to let go of the past. It means to let go of those “things” that didn’t work out so well. It means to part ways with those people that I once loved on every level. It means letting go of them once and for all by getting rid of all those “things”. And I have been doing just that.
Just the other day, I happened to look in a drawer and found an old jewelry box that I hadn’t looked through in awhile. I found four old tarnished silver rings, three of which were from my seven year relationship with my last partner that ended terribly. The other had a loving inscription from a person who once loved me very deeply. I also found in there a silver necklace given to me from a friend I spent several years obsessing over. Each of them triggered emotions and thoughts that on some level still connected me to them. With the amount of work I’ve done today on myself to removing the energy of my unwanted past, I immediately took those “things” and threw them away in a garbage can in a plaza nearby my house.
In that same jewelry box, I did find one “thing” that took a lot more of my deliberation to part ways with it. What I found was a set of dog tags from the man who I had been sexually intimate with and toxically close to for almost two years because he was also a married man to another woman. At the height of that toxic relationship, he had given his war time dog tags away, one to me, and one to his son. They were something I wore all the time and kept them constantly close to myself. The amount of emotions that came up in even holding them in my hands was immense when I found them the other day in that jewelry box, even though it had been many years since I had been connected to that man. But because of how precious something like that was, I actually took and put them in an envelope, said a prayer of release, and went that night to his job where I gave the envelope to a person in the parking lot who knew him and was able to put it in my former friend’s work folder. And when I walked away, I felt so greatly relieved.
Over the course of the past year, I have done many actions like this to removing all of those “things” that still held people’s energy I no longer wanted to be connected to. It’s working as I am feeling lighter and lighter every time I do it. I’ve removed many old pictures both digital and in print, hats and other various clothing, many trinkets, and even an old couch in my storage unit I was holding onto for someone that I was also toxically close to but had parted way with over a year and a half ago.
The bottom line here is this. If you are still holding onto various “things” in your life that can bring back any emotion of someone you’ve parted ways with, I encourage you to take a moment, breathe, and ask God to help you to remove those “things” out of your life as soon as possible. Each of those “things” contain energy that still ties you to those people and can keep you stuck by holding onto them. If you truly want to move forward in your life and reach that COMPLETE acceptance stage that let’s those people fully go, then this is a necessary step and one you will feel much lighter in life after doing so.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson