My Closing Cycles

Image by maury.mccown via Flickr

I was at the brink of ending my long relationship when I saw this post from a friend in her Friendster account. I quickly copied it and wrote it in my diary not knowing it was from Paulo Coelho who happens to be a fave inspirational author of mine. 

It is as if life is suddenly shouting at me to finally end my torment in being trapped in a relationship that has no meaning. It gave me the courage to buy a one way ticket back home, board the plane and leave. 

It also made me realize that the small love letters I have treasured are slowly pulling me down. The need to burn them was so intense that I even murmured a prayer while doing it. More of like exorcising my pain through the flames. I was in denial for so long with no one to share my burden. Courage, inspiration, wisdom..that's what this gave me. To finally love myself first above all. 

Read on....

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One always has to know when a stage comes to

an end. If we insist on staying longer than the

necessary time, we lose the happiness and the

meaning of the other stages we have to go

through. Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending

chapters - whatever name we give it, what matters

is to leave in the past the moments of life that have

finished.

Did you lose your job? Had a loving relationship

come to an end? Did you leave your parents’

house? Gone to live abroad? Had a long-lasting

friendship end all of a sudden? You can spend a

long time wondering why this has happened. You

can tell yourself you won’t take another step until

you find out why certain things that were so

important and so solid in your life have turned into

dust, just like that. But such an attitude will be

awfully stressing for everyone involved: your

parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your

children, your sister, everyone will be finishing

chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with

life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a

standstill. None of us can be in the present and

the past at the same time, not even when we try to

understand the things that happen to us. What has

passed will not return: we cannot forever be

children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or

rancor towards our parents,lovers who day and

night relive an affair with someone who has gone

away and has not the least intention of coming

back. Things pass, and the best we can do is to

let them really go away.

That is why it is so important (however painful it

may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of

things away to orphanages, sell or donate the

books you have at home. Everything in this visible

world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of

what is going on in our hearts - and getting rid of

certain memories also means making some room

for other memories to take their place. Let things

go. Release them. Detach yourself from them.

Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so

sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do

not expect anything in return, do not expect your

efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be

discovered, your love to be understood. Stop

turning on your emotional television to watch the

same program over and over again, the one that

shows how much you suffered from a certain loss:

that is only poisoning you, nothing else.

Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting

love relationships that are broken off, work that is

promised but there is no starting date, decisions

that are always put off waiting for the “ideal moment.”

Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to

be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will

never come back. Remember that there was a

time when you could live without that thing or that

person - nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a

need. This may sound so obvious, it may even be

difficult, but it is very important.

Closing cycles. Not because of pride,incapacity or

arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits

your life. Shut the door, change the record, clean

the house, shake off the dust. Stop being who

you were, and change into who you are…