Closing the Door on Closure

Hello and welcome to another episode of Hannah Talks About and Reads About Things. So on today's episode, we are gonna talk about closure. What closure means, how to achieve closure, if it's even an achievable thing. And this is an article I wrote called "Closing the Door on Closure," which is published on psychologytoday.com, and it was posted on July 1st, 2019. So, closing the door on closure. Forgiveness and closure go hand in hand. Now, before you listen to this and you're like, "Forgiveness? Like, I'm not gonna forgive whoever it is for whatever they did," know that forgiveness isn't always, uh, the goal here. I think a lot of times, I know in recovery circles and in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, we can talk a lot about how in order to truly work through resentment and have that closure, we need to forgive the other person, and that's not totally true all the time. So I'm just gonna talk— I'm just gonna read about it. All right, so Closing the Door on Closure. This one hits me right in the heart. Even writing this title, I can feel a part of myself tensing up. And I remember writing this, I was at a Starbucks and I was like, you know what, I want to write about closure because I had gone through a breakup earlier in the year and felt like, you know, I need this closure not just on this relationship but on another past relationship. And I was just goal of like, I need to feel like I can just close the chapter, close the book on this chapter, and move forward. And it was so much more ambiguous than that. It was so much more gray than this black and white kind of finality that I had in mind, especially because that relationship ended in a really healthy, loving, mutual way. I was like, okay, now what? You know, I think sometimes when there's a lot of pain and hurt, it can feel very final, and it feels like this is the closure that I need. I'll just keep reading. Over the weekend, I was watching a segment of Oprah's Super Soul Sunday, which was recommended to me, with Brené Brown. I have read, watched, and listened to so many Brené pieces that I genuinely didn't think she was going to say anything that surprised me. And then I heard her say, "In order for forgiveness to happen, something has to die." I remember reading that line in Rising Strong, her book from 2015, but it didn't resonate with me then the way it does now. Maybe it's because at that time I was in the trenches picking up the shattered pieces of my broken heart after I had self-sabotaged and thrown a wrench into my beautiful life. 2015 was not fun for me. I was so privy to pain, even if it was of my own making, that I didn't stop to think about forgiveness, closure, and letting go. I always thought that I would be in control of the closure— making amends, talking it through, or getting back together eventually. That was my favorite kind of closure back in the day. But this past Sunday, that line hit me right in the gut. What has to die? She continued to expand on the notion that we need to go through the stages of grief in order to truly experience forgiveness or closure. That's when I remembered this painfully accurate quote: "Closure happens right after you accept that letting go and moving on is more important than projecting a fantasy of how the relationship could have been." Sylvester McNutt III. I definitely saw that on Instagram, uh, but it really struck a chord with me. I'm gonna read it one more time, a little more slowly. Closure happens right after you accept that letting go and moving on is more important than projecting a fantasy of how the relationship could have been. In order to truly experience closure, we need to truly and internally allow the idea of what could have been to die. Whoa. Okay. This also reminds me of something I heard in early sobriety. You can't be in love with someone's potential. And just in case you've never heard that before, you can't be in love with someone's potential, which means we need to grieve. And this is seldom an easy process, a graceful process. Denial, bargaining, depression, anger, acceptance. Those are the stages of grief. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. I don't know about— I don't know why I just counted them out loud. I don't know about you, but I tend to bounce back and forth through the first 4 stages before finally landing on acceptance. And by the way, acceptance isn't something that we just arrive to and then stay at. It's not like this finite thing, like, oh, I just need to arrive at acceptance and then I'll be good forever. Like, what? No. Sometimes we can practice acceptance for something or feel like we're in a place of acceptance for something, and then maybe something else pops up. Up like, well, what is blocking me from accepting this in this very moment? That is the human experience. So I don't know about you, but I tend to bounce back and forth through the first 4 stages before finally landing on acceptance. So that's denial, bargaining, depression, and anger. Surrendering to the pain, surrendering to the grief, and accepting the reality of the situation as it currently is. Oof. When I stay angry, I inhibit myself from flowing through the stages of grief. I harbor my resentment about the way a relationship should have been or could have been and construct barriers to landing in that sweet but painful spot of acceptance. I think sometimes we view acceptance or even closure as this like peaceful place, and it's not always. I know for me, if I accept something as it truly is instead of continuing to project how I think it should be on it, it's painful. And I'm— and I know now that that pain is grief, is I'm letting go of this idea of how I want you to be or how I want the situation to be. Um, and that's tough in friendships, in intimate relationships, in family relationships. I recently posted like a little quote. I've been like making my own quotes, I don't— whatever. And it said, let go of the expectation that it could have been different. Wait, maybe it didn't say that. Yeah, let go of the expectation that it's going to be different this time. You know, if someone's behavior has been consistent, what evidence do I have to support the claim that they're going to change? Why am still expecting someone to change or for something to be different when I have absolutely no evidence that that is something that is going to happen. Um, it's really interesting, and we can hold on to hope and we can call it hope, but sometimes hope is just these faulty expectations for change despite there being no real basis for that. So sometimes when we continue showing up in the same relationship, be it a friendship, intimate relationship with a partner, or family and we're so resentful because of the other person acting a certain way, at the end of the day, you know, I need to look at why am I still expecting change? Why am I still expecting a different kind of behavior when it's been the same? Stop expecting change when the other person's behavior has been consistent, you know. So that acceptance, like, can I just accept this person as they are completely right now, can come with the grief, the grief of the potential. I know for a fact, I mean, I've been in relationships in the past where a lot of what keeps me in it is the hope for change and growth. And if I ask myself, you know, if I accept this person, my partner, as they are completely in this moment without them changing, would I still be with them? You know, if I knew now that this person's never gonna change— and I'm not saying people don't change because they can— but if I know now that this person's never gonna change and who I have right now is— that's all I'm gonna get, would I still stay in this relationship? And if the answer is no, that's something to look at, you know, that is something to look at because we fall in love with people's potential all the time. And I watch people all around me, just like I've done in the past, stay in relationships with this hope. And when it's not met, we get resentful. And at the end of the day, that comes down to us. Okay. So when I stay angry, I inhibit myself from flowing through the stages of grief. I harbor my resentment about the way a relationship should have been or could have been. And construct barriers to landing in that sweet but painful spot of acceptance. Thus, forgiveness and closure can go hand in hand. I need to forgive myself, the other person, the situation, the reality that I refused to accept for the longest time, the opinions of others, the unsolicited advice, the gossip, the rumors, the way everything turned out. Whoa. And again, this is situational. So if you've experienced any level of, let's say, trauma, physical abuse, sexual abuse, I'm not saying forgive your abuser. I am not saying that at all. But I'm also not saying like just sit back and time will heal all wounds because it won't. And if you've experienced trauma, go see a trauma therapist, please, because time does not heal all wounds. However, let's say the relationship I was in that ended really amicably and lovingly, you know, I was in it for almost 2 and a half years. And instead of kicking myself for why did I stay in it for so long, it was a great relationship. We just both grew apart. And there were some things that we both wanted each other to change that didn't change. And so instead of shaming myself for that, I should have known I need to forgive myself for holding on to an expectation for a long time, or for, you know, whatever it is— the opinions of others, the unsolicited advice, the gossip, the rumors. I need to forgive myself for anything I've done. That's a loaded statement, but I can talk more about that another time. I need to stop telling myself that I'll experience closure after a specific conversation or an agreement, that one day I'll wake up and say to myself, wow, time really does heal all wounds. It doesn't. Time doesn't do anything but pass unless we're willing to do the difficult work of leaning in into the pain and feeling it, dealing with it, and healing from it. I need to grieve the life that I was planning with this person. I need to grieve the naive but hopeful romantic in me who never knew the pain of heartache. I need to grieve the family that I acquired from my significant others along the way, right? I mean, like, when you go through a breakup, it's not just with the person, especially if you've been with them for a long time, it's with their family. Oof. I need to grieve the part of myself that still held on to this delusional notion that I was in control of the way that my life ends up. Now some of you might be like, well, I am in control, and that's fine. But if I tried to control my life, I think I would have made— I think I would have— I don't think I would be where I am today. A lot of my choices have been these gut feelings that I've had that I'm like, oh, I don't want this to be what I'm feeling, but I'm gonna listen to it anyway. And that is hard. I'm not in control of my life. I'm not. I'm in control of how I choose to respond and react, but I'm not in control of other people and forgiving myself for trying to control other people is, is important and helps me from not falling into that same pattern again. I need to forgive myself for that which I did not know at the time. I need to forgive myself for consistently just doing the best I could with what I had. I need to forgive those throughout my life who held parts of my heart and who have chosen not to hold them anymore. I need to forgive the critics, the gossipers, the bystanders. I need to forgive the idea of who and where I wanted to be Oh, I think that's the hardest part, especially when we have this narrative of I'm X amount years old, or I'm, um, or I'm X years old, or I'm X years sober, or whatever it may be, and I wanted to be somewhere else by this point, or I should have had this by now. That whole like, I should be in a different place by now, is really damaging to ourselves, um, because it's instilling this feeling of shame. I'm not good enough. That inadequacy. And it's like, who says you should be anywhere different than where you are in this current moment? Even if you don't like it, what action are you taking to get closer to what those goals are? I need to forgive the real me, and when I close the door on closure, I open the door to myself. A little corny, but I like it. And there's 3 comments, and I think all 3 people totally disagree with everything that I said, and that's okay, because that's what's cool. It's like I can have my opinions on things and people can be like, "No, that doesn't work for me," and that is fine. So I think that very wordy article in a nutshell is: what are you holding on to? What is blocking you from not necessarily letting go, but working through it? And if you're in a relationship or a friendship or have any kind of dynamic where you are resentful or frustrated, You know, what would it look like for you to let go of this expectation of change, especially when it's been consistently not met? And what would you have to grieve to really feel closure? You know, for me, I had to grieve this idea, this life that I had planned out in my head, like I had a plan and I had to grieve that plan. And then I can revel in the life that I do have. But grieving it was hard for sure and not graceful. So yeah, hope you all have a wonderful— what is today even? Thursday? I hope I wasn't too close to this the whole time, but if I was, turn your volume down. Okay, bye!