1.8.2024:
A few weeks ago, my wife and I met our good friend who is very soon heading for her brand-new experience of living and studying in the USA, so we wanted to give her our farewell.
We all met approximately seven years ago at work, and over those years have become very good friends who have always a lot to talk about. Our conversations are usually very deep, and it wasn´t any different during our last meal.
My wife talked about her accident during which she broke her leg and the lessons that she learned from that experience, especially about some people, I talked about my future career plans and our life vision, and our friend talked about her studies in the USA, her plans afterwards etc.
One of the topics, however, that sticks out in our meeting is the ability or skill, and sometimes even the necessity to let certain people go and release them out of our lives for all different sorts of reasons.
For our friend, it was quite recently her friend and former flatmate who could not accept that she has changed, or more likely evolved and found a way how to make her dreams come true.
For my wife Nicole, it was also a former friend who was very likely doing the same but also endangered my wife´s sobriety which she impressively stuck with already 10 years.
And for me? Let´s dive deep into this problem. Shall we?
Holding On To People As A Physical Representation Of Holding On Past
Clock by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
When I was a much, much younger lad I lived with a belief that every person in my life, every friend is as the Czech saying goes above gold and should be treated as such. I would hold on to every relationship strongly and do my best to keep it, no matter if the other side didn´t treat me equally the same way.
As you might imagine, dear reader, such an approach was very exhausting because I felt that almost everyone must like me, and therefore I tried to please everyone.
Nowadays being much older I have addressed my issues and besides other things realised that very often we hold on to someone or something out of fear of a change.
You see, even during our meeting with our friend, we all agreed that much human suffering comes from the need for control and not acceptance.
We all would like to make bigger or smaller changes in our lives but only in our terms. We would like to have the change under control. But control is an illusion. We will never have everything and everyone under control, even though some people throughout history have certainly tried that.
The problem is the unknown.
On the one hand, we want to make changes, but on the other hand, we are scared of the unknown that inevitably comes with every change. The fear very often stops us from leaving the safety of our comfort zone.
Sometimes we are so scared of a change that we physically manifest the fear by holding on to physical objects that we don´t need any more but we store them untouched even though we don´t have any use for them in our lives.
Do you want to tell me that you are nothing like this? Just open your wardrobe and tell me how many clothes have been hanging there untouched for years in the hope that you will one day fit in them again. Or check your attic, your shed, or your garage how much useless junk you have stored there over the years because one day it might come in handy.
These objects become physical representations of our fear of change, of the unknown, and the need for control, so things would stay as they have always been, as we know them.
As you might imagine, we do the same with our relationships, and with people who we have in our lives.
But very often is necessary to let go of these physical objects and people to move on and welcome a new positive change in our lives. Simply, very often we must make a space first for new things and new people to come into our lives.
However, objects are objects and people are people, and we should know to whom, when, and how to let someone go, so we would not hurt ourselves or others.
When Is Time To Let Someone Go
Woman by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
At the beginning of my transformation journey in 2013 based on articles from one of my first therapists and a personal-developing online magazine, I concluded that I should not hold on to every relationship I have and let some people go.
At that time, I went from one extreme to another. From holding on to every relationship to getting rid of each of them when I just a little bit assumed that those people didn´t bring anything positive into my life anymore, or didn´t contribute, or didn´t agree with what I was doing, weren´t in touch often enough etc.
It was the boom of social networks, such as Facebook which made this dramatic departure so much easier. Click, click, and you are no more within my friends.
Please, never go that way if you appreciate your friends and relationships in general. Real life is much more complicated and sophisticated than a few clicks on social media.
I always like to use a quote from one of the famous Czech actors, Vlastimil Brodsky (1920-2002) in which he describes a friendship and which I already used in my previous post, Are You Willing to Dare Greatly?
“A friendship cannot be founded as a political party or a society. It cannot be concluded as a contract or entered like a marriage. A friendship can be only born out of tolerance and tact. It comes into existence based on yet unexplored magnetism and mutual attraction. It is conditioned by mutual respect of different opinions and actions.”
So, once again, I cannot emphasize this enough: never treat your relationships just as a few clicks on social media.
So, when is the time to let someone go?
Let´s start with a basic.
Never let anyone tell you who you should let go out of your life! It is a very personal decision that each of us must make for ourselves.
For example, me and my wife Nicole. However, we talk a lot about this topic in matters of different people that we have in our lives, we express our opinions we never give each other suggestions on what one or another should do in these kinds of situations when there is a sense that a relationship with some people doesn´t play the right place in our lives anymore.
My wife could also very well serve as an example of one of the reasons why you might decide to let certain people leave your life.
As I have already mentioned, my wife Nicole has been in recovery for over 10 years, and I must say it had to be a hell hard journey.
If you stand in front of a dramatic life change such as abounding bad habits or addictions, such as alcohol, smoking, or drugs then a part of that journey might be abounding some people.
The problem with change is that when we decide to make the change and transform our lives to become a better version of ourselves, some people might not like it for different reasons.
When you eventually start to change people who know you start to feel uncomfortable because they feel that they don´t know you anymore. If they are the sort of people who out of fear remain within their comfort zone they might try to pull you back, make you again as you once were, and before you know it you will relapse.
Or those people might act light that out of jealousy. They see that the same change that you made they could do as well. But because they are not strong enough to make that step out of their comfort zone, they better pull you back.
In these situations, letting people go becomes a MUST because the people with whom you spend most of the time will have the strongest impact on your overall life. Sometimes we even must change the environment, so we won´t meet these people anymore.
I know that it might seem dramatic, but you simply cannot overcome your issues, such as smoking, drinking alcohol and drugs if you keep seeing people who like parties where is very likely that you encounter these sorts of substances.
Don´t Mess Negativity With An Act Of Love
Heart by Photo Mix from Pixabay
Another reason why we might decide to let people go out of our lives is when we make a big and dramatic decision, such as a career change, deciding to start a business, leaving a country, leaving a long-lasting partnership etc. Generally speaking, when we want to try to achieve our big dreams and goals.
The first thing we tend to do is excitedly run to our friends and family to share our ideas with them; some of them will usually share their enthusiasm with us and give us their feedback. If you have such people in your life who trust you no matter what you try to achieve then appreciate them and hold on to them strongly because these people are really ABOVE GOLD. For me, it´s my wife Nicole.
But more commonly might happen to you that your friends and your family will try to talk you out of your ideas.
Their reasons might be similar to what I have mentioned in the previous paragraph.
People might be simply scared of what your step out of their comfort zone would bring into their lives. They might be those sorts of people who are happy with their lives as they are living within their comfort zone and now you are coming up with ideas that might change you and they might feel uncomfortable around you.
You might even try to achieve a goal that they have always wanted but never found the courage and now you are showing them that it is possible.
Again, these people will try to talk you out of your ideas, to discourage you.
But should we leave these people behind? Should we let them go out of our lives?
Many years back at the beginning of my career I decided to leave the safety of my parents’ house in my home city in North Bohemia and move to Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic.
My mum was surprisingly cool with the idea but my father wasn´t, also he expressed his disapproval in his specific way of being a massive introvert by cutting all sorts of communication for some time.
Do you think that I changed my mind and never left? Or do you think that I left and never talked to my dad again?
Of course, I love my dad, and so he loves me. So, I left to fulfil my dreams and goals and how the time passed he learned to accept that I changed.
Then a similar scenario repeated approximately a decade later when I decided to leave my country of origin to try a new experience abroad.
This time both of my parents were cool with the idea but some of my friends were totally against it, some argued with me about it, and some of them even stopped communicating with me, until they became comfortable with my change and some of them return into my life, however some of them never did.
In this example, I would like to show you that some people might be negative towards our dreams and goals not because they are altogether negative and don´t wish us to achieve them but because they love us, and they are worried about us. Their attempts to discourage us are nothing else than acts of pure love. And you don´t want to let go of people that love you. Do you?
So, how to deal with these people who love us but feel threatened by our courage to step out of our comfort zone, by our change?
My answer to this question is setting boundaries.
We don´t need to get rid of people who love us just because they don´t believe in our dreams and visions but we can set our boundaries with them by reducing information that we share with them.
I am not talking here about lying but about REDUCING INFORMATION from our personal life that we share with specific people about who we are certain that they might not share our enthusiasm about our dreams and might even try to discourage us.
Be Aware Of Assumptions
Discontent by Victoria from Pixabay
A few years back during the pandemic of COVID 19 my dad suddenly stopped communicating with me for no obvious reason and he remained silent for two long years.
At first, I was confused, sad, and upset and then when all my attempts to contact him failed one after another I became frustrated and even mad with him.
At that time, I had information about what was happening back home only from my mum who always makes things look more optimistic than they usually are, sometimes from my sister, occasionally from my cousins.
I thought about all sorts of reasons why my dad stopped communicating with me but could not figure out anything.
His behaviour affected my personal life so badly that I even had to discuss that issue during multiple therapies.
In the end, when I felt that I tried everything I came to a dramatic decision to cut my father out of my life for good. I felt that no one deserves to be treated that way without any explanation.
Long story short, after two years of total silence I and my wife went to visit my parents and I decided to choose a different approach with my father. Instead of avoiding him which I did during our previous visit, I greeted him like nothing had ever happened between us.
Because of my approach, my father started step by step open up to us, so we found out that the period of the pandemic of COVID 19 was very personally challenging for him not just because of COVID itself but also because of other challenges, such as a decision to take care of his father with dementia instead of his institutionalization in a home for the elderly, a fire of kitchen in my parents´ house caused by my mum etc.
I assume that he had to be extremely overwhelmed by everything that was happening at that time and as an extreme introvert, he chose the only coping strategy he knew: going inward.
Was his strategy a normal one for most people in these kinds of situations? Of course, wasn´t. But does it make him a bad person? Of course, doesn´t. So, was there a reason for me to make such a dramatic step, such as letting my father go out of my life? There wasn´t!
Assumptions are the most dangerous for every relationship that there are! And sadly, we all very easily fall into their traps.
However, my father during the pandemic of COVID didn´t act in the way most people would, it doesn´t make him a bad person which I have to admit. He was still the same loving father as he always was.
But I made my decision based on assumptions about the situation at home which I created from very limited sources and concluded that my father is a very toxic person who deserves to be abandoned by everyone to be punished.
Very often we create a picture of a specific person in our life only based on our assumptions which can be harmful and destructive for the relationship.
The best way how to overcome assumptions is communication. Get people to know better. Talk to them. Ask them. Share with them your opinions. Listen to them. It is the only way how to learn who they are.
Of course, if the person is such a stubborn introvert as my father is then the communication is quite complicated. In that case, I suggest you let things unfold as they will. Get rid of the need to have everything under control. To let someone go out of your life for good should be the very last result!
Negative People Versus Toxic People
War Mask by Vojtěch Kučera from Pixabay
I believe that sorting people into groups of negative people and toxic people is the most common reason when we decide to let someone go.
Personally, for quite a big chunk of my life, I wasn´t very sure who was who. I thought that negative people were simply toxic and that I didn´t need such people in my life.
But let me tell you, dear reader, be careful before you start classifying people in your life in this kind of way and based on that decide to let them go because life is not that simple, just black and white.
The fact that someone is negative doesn´t necessarily mean that is overall a bad person.
In the previous part of this article, I mentioned my experience with my father and how I almost ended up letting him go out of my life for good assuming that he was a toxic person, however in the end I realized that he was just a very troubled old negative introverted man.
It took me quite a while to realise who toxic people are.
It was during one of my courses that focused surprisingly on entrepreneurship.
The mentor of the course describes toxic people as those whose intention is to cause us harm or to gain a benefit from a relationship with us, either financially, physically or otherwise without considering how their actions might damage our lives, health, reputations, finances etc.
I would add that toxic people might become even those whose intentions to cause us harm might be not necessarily cautious and intentional but whose issues that they are not willing to address might put us in danger or cause us harm.
Nine years ago, when I was already gaining my first experience abroad but still felt down and out after breaking up with my girlfriend after eight years of relationship, I met a person whom I assumed might be a good friend.
Because I was so hurt by the experience of my breakup, I was quite vulnerable, I didn´t think very clearly and started to trust this person quite easily and opened up to that person.
It took me a few years to realise that I got with this person into a very abusive and toxic relationship during which this person was using my vulnerability to get closer to me. Closer than would be possible under normal circumstances.
That person was regularly attacking my integrity in the worst possible actions you can imagine doing to other human beings and justified them by buying me expensive presents.
If you ever meet a person like this, there is no denying that is a toxic person and in that kind of situation, dear reader, I encourage you to get rid of the person as fast as you can before they would manage to cause you more damage.
A similar situation is as I described in the first part of the article in the paragraph “When Is Time To Let Someone Go”, when we decide to make such a dramatic change in our life, such as getting rid of drinking alcohol, drug addiction etc.
In these cases, some of our pals might become toxic because they might try to stop us from realising that positive change in our lives.
Again, if those relationships become toxic, get rid of them.
It might be painful at the beginning. They were your pals after all, plus every change is painful but there is no gain without pain.
Think about that like this: by leaving these people behind you might save yourself a lot of financial resources and countless hours of therapy in future because these people can cause you damage that is beyond repair and can affect your life negatively even when these toxic people are long gone.
End of Part 1
In the next Part of The Art of Letting Go, we will learn how toxic relationships with other people might affect our own lives and how to deal with it, how to let go of people who are no more with us, and at the end find out why the process of letting people go should be a natural process rather than enforced.
George